Author(s): Katy Keiffer

Other Science

What's the Matter with Meat? draws back the curtain that obscures the true costs of indus-trialized meat production. The book exposes how the industry is expanding worldwide ata rapid pace, with just a few large companies monopolizing the majority of the market. This global survey of factory-produced meat examines the practices of the industry in five major production centres: the usa, Europe, Brazil, Australia and Asia. The system generates enormous corporate profits while providing very low prices to consumers, but has an outsized and often negative impact on surrounding communities. Katy Keiffer focuses on issues such as labour, genetics, animal welfare and environmental degradation, as well as probing less-reported topics such as 'land grabs', where predator companies acquire property in foreign nations for meat production, frequently at the expense of local agriculture. The current industry model is simply not feasible for the future, as our planet will soon run out of the resources required to raise animals on such a scale. A salutary, hard-hitting critique of the meat-producing industry and its harmful effects, this book exhorts consumers to resist the lure of cheap meat and encourages governments to foster alternative methods, and the industry itself to amend its practices. This book is not about telling people to stop eating meat. Rather, by exposing current industry practices we can all be aware of the perils of supporting the system; instead of urging people to avoid meat, it proposes that we demand and pay for better meat.