A provocative argument that eating meat is not what made humans human and that the future is not necessarily carnivorous.Humans are eating more meat than ever. Despite ubiquitous Sweetgreen franchises and the example set by celebrity vegans, demand for meat is projected to grow at twice the rate of demand for plant-based foods over the next thirty years. Between 1960 and 2010, per capita meat consumption in the developing world more than doubled; in China, meat consumption grew ninefold. It has even been claimed that meat made us human―that our disproportionately large human brains evolved because our early human ancestors ate meat. In The Meat Question, Josh Berson argues that not only did meat not make us human, but the contemporary increase in demand for meat is driven as much by economic insecurity as by affluence. Considering the full sweep of meat's history, Berson concludes provocatively that the future is not necessarily carnivorous.Berson, an anthropologist and historian, argues that we have the relationship between biology and capitalism backward. We may associate meat-eating with wealth, but in fact, meat-eating is a sign of poverty; cheap meat―hunger killing, easy to prepare, eaten on the go―enables a capitalism defined by inequality. To answer the meat question, says Berson, we need to think about meat-eating in a way that goes beyond Paleo diets and PETA protests to address the deeply entwined economic and political lives of humans and animals past, present, and future.
...More
Book
Wilson J. Warren;
(2018)
Meat Makes People Powerful: A Global History of the Modern Era
(/isis/citation/CBB191901096/)
Article
Kate O’Riordan;
Aristea Fotopoulou;
Neil Stephens;
(2016)
The First Bite: Imaginaries, Promotional Publics and the Laboratory Grown Burger
(/isis/citation/CBB047335526/)
Article
Scholliers, Peter;
(2014)
Constructing New Expertise: Private and Public Initiatives for Safe Food (Brussels in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century)
(/isis/citation/CBB001422170/)
Article
Graf Rüdiger;
(2015)
Wahrheit im Dschungel von Literatur, Wissenschaft und Politik. Upton Sinclairs „The Jungle“ und die Reform der Lebensmittelkontrolle in den USA der „Progressive Era“
(/isis/citation/CBB720897603/)
Article
Bezerra, José Arimatea Barros;
(2012)
Educação alimentar e a constituição de trabalhadores fortes, robustos e produtivos: análise da produção científica em nutrição no Brasil, 1934--1941
(/isis/citation/CBB001420576/)
Article
Brinkmann, Sören;
(2014)
Leite e modernidade: ideologia e políticas de alimentação na era Vargas
(/isis/citation/CBB001420714/)
Thesis
Steere-Williams, Jacob;
(2011)
The Perfect Food and the Filth Disease: Milk, Typhoid Fever, and the Science of State Medicine in Victorian Britain, 1850--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001567315/)
Book
Veronica Aniceti;
(2022)
Animals and their roles in the medieval society of Sicily from Byzantines to Arabs and from Arabs to Norman/Aragoneses (7th-14th c. AD)
(/isis/citation/CBB472021795/)
Book
J. L. Anderson;
(2019)
Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America
(/isis/citation/CBB423278889/)
Article
Erik Jönsson;
(October 2016)
Benevolent technotopias and hitherto unimaginable meats: Tracing the promises of in vitro meat
(/isis/citation/CBB251007166/)
Book
Eugenia Tognotti;
(2020)
Vaccinare i bambini tra obbligo e persuasione: Tre secoli di controversie. Il caso dell'Italia
(/isis/citation/CBB142911314/)
Book
Lisa T. Sarasohn;
(2021)
Getting Under Our Skin: The Cultural and Social History of Vermin
(/isis/citation/CBB825215949/)
Book
Benjamin R. Cohen;
(2019)
Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food
(/isis/citation/CBB174903984/)
Article
Roslyng, Mette Marie;
(2011)
Challenging the Hegemonic Food Discourse: The British Media Debate on Risk and Salmonella in Eggs
(/isis/citation/CBB001034637/)
Article
Carstairs, Catherine;
(2014)
“Our Sickness Record Is a National Disgrace”: Adelle Davis, Nutritional Determinism, and the Anxious 1970s
(/isis/citation/CBB001420766/)
Book
Danilo Gasparini;
(2022)
Cerealia. La civiltà dei cereali nei secoli: storia e storie
(/isis/citation/CBB512731896/)
Article
Rebecca J. H. Woods;
(2020)
The Shape of Meat: Preserving Animal Flesh in Victorian Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB234289669/)
Book
Campkin, Ben;
Cox, Rosie;
(2007)
Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination
(/isis/citation/CBB001031281/)
Article
Gunnarssona, Andreas;
Elama, Mark;
(2012)
Food Fight! The Swedish Low-Carb/High Fat (LCHF) Movement and the Turning of Science Popularisation against the Scientists
(/isis/citation/CBB001211883/)
Book
Lisa Haushofer;
(2022)
Wonder Foods: The Science and Commerce of Nutrition
(/isis/citation/CBB755765560/)
Be the first to comment!