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Meatonomics Uncut: The Missing Paragraphs on Factory Farm Life

Prior to the publication of Meatonomics, the publisher deemed the three paragraphs below “overly sentimental” and insisted on deleting them. Reprinted with appropriate sentimentality. The most heartbreaking feature of today’s hellish, industrial meat production systems is that none of the billions of animals who spend their entire lives as prisoners will ever experience the slightest affection…

Hooked on Meat: How Cultural Beliefs and Attitudes Drive Meat Consumption

Guest Blog by Marta Zaraska[1] If there is one thing that is the most responsible for keeping us hooked on meat, it’s our culture. Not our genes, not our taste buds, not even the powerful meat industry with its annual sales in US higher than the GDP of Hungary or Ukraine — although, admittedly, all these factors are important, too. There are plenty of beliefs that, taken together, perpetuate the…

A New Way to Account for Taste: Tax Meat to Fight Climate Change

By Marya Torrez[1] A lot of weird ideas have been proposed to reverse climate change, including wrapping Greenland in a blanket, launching a huge sun shade into orbit, and forming clouds from salt. But here’s one down-to-earth idea that policymakers should take up: tax meat to reduce consumption, thereby lowering emissions associated with production. Of course, it will be challenging to get this…

Each Time McDonald’s Sells a Big Mac, We’re Out $7

David Simon:

Reposting an early favorite. We get asked a lot about the hidden costs of a typical Big Mac, and this piece spells it out in detail.

Originally posted on MEATONOMIC$:

The average retail price of a Big Mac in the United States is $4.56, but that’s just a fraction of the actual cost. When we add in all the hidden, externalized expenses of meat production, the full burden on society is…

The meat and dairy industries bombard Americans daily with aggressive, often-misleading messaging to convince people to consume more animal foods – a tactic discussed at length in Meatonomics.Now, in a refreshing counterpunch, advocacy group Animal Protection & Rescue League (APRL) has launched two “GO VEGAN” billboards next to a busy freeway in Los Angeles. It’s not cheap to design, create and…

Uncle Sam Demands: Eat More Meat!

In his 1932 novel Brave New World,Aldous Huxley imagined a future where people exist solely to support the economy and are conditioned from birth to buy things. Government bureaucrats manipulate the sheep-like citizens with drugs and slogans to make them consume as much as possible. In Huxley’s vision, 26th-century consumers learn that “ending is better than mending” and “the more stitches, the…

Bright Aisles, Dark Alleys

David Simon:

Buddha taught compassion for all sentient beings. So I was a little disappointed a few years ago when, after I checked out the services at a local Buddhist church, members gathered to eat cheese and other non-vegan food. When I asked one of them about Buddha’s teachings, he agreed, then said, “but we believe in cutting ourselves a little slack .”

Nevertheless, there are plenty of…

By Robert C. Jones[1]

When he famously asked “Can they [animals] suffer?” two and half centuries ago, Jeremy Bentham proposed the notion that the capacity to feel pain is enough to entitle animals to moral consideration. Today, research continues to emerge showing that animals previously thought to have no capacity to feel pain can, in fact, suffer. In this blog post, adapted from a longer…

Massaging the Message: How Meat and Dairy Producers Keep Consumers Happy

Communications from industrial animal farmers and their trade groups often lack an important element that consumers expect and the law requires: fair play. In some cases, the industry’s words are technically accurate but still unfair or misleading. In others, they’re just plain wrong. And when people rely on incorrect or deceptive information about food, the results can be downright dangerous to…

An Exclusive Interview With “Cowspiracy” Filmmakers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn

As Californians struggle through a four-year drought, lake and reservoir levels are at historic lows and many of us are looking for ways to lower our water use. Want to save 660 gallons of water? You could quit showering for two months – if you can ignore the heartfelt pleas of friends and family begging you to resume. Alternatively, and amazingly, you could save the same amount of water by…