Meat

We term meat the organic matter of which animals are made, with particular reference to muscle tissue, soft tissue, and some edible internal organs (e.g., brains and liver). In industrial jargon, the term is generally used to signify foods deriving from the butchering of reared animals (bovines, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits), with the exception of poultry.

The earliest evidence for farm animal domestication comes from Asia and is dated between 6000 and 5000 b.c.e. Up to the beginning of the 19th century, domestic animals had been chiefly reared with traditional extensive methods; therefore, numbers and production were conditioned by the availability of grass and winter feedstocks. Beginning from the second half of the 19th century, however, animal breeding systems have become increasingly more intensive—animals have been kept inside, in extremely artificial environments, and breeders have begun to feed them with high-calorie feedstocks.

The progressive expansion of intensive breeding has led to the growth of a meat-processing industry. Between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, great abattoirs were built where, thanks to refrigerated railcars, animals were brought to distant places (frequently they arrived covered with excrement), so much so that as a result of urban residents' protests and of the complaints of people sensitive to the treatment of animals, governments had to resort to suitable legislation aimed at improving the entire process of meat processing.

[Page 305]In the 1960s, the Iowa Beef Packers (IBP) introduced a fundamental innovation in the processing of meat: boxed beef. Because by then refrigerators with freezers existed in most houses, IBP thought it more advantageous to make available to consumers a number of selected cuts of meat. Pushed by supermarkets and by a great demand from consumers, beginning from the early 1980s, the boxed beef market has expanded rapidly in such a way that the system adopted by the IBP has been extended to all other types of meat.

At present, the global meat processing industry butchers around 56 billion animals: of these 39 percent are pigs, 24 percent bovines, and 7 percent sheep and others; the remaining 30 percent is represented by poultry.

World production of meat has grown from 44 million tons in 1950 to 280 million tons in 2008. Mean production per person has increased from 17.2 kilos in 1950 to around 42 kilos in 2008; in developing countries, an average consumer eats around 30 kilos of meat per year, whereas in industrialized countries, the average consumer eats about 80 kilos of meat.

Worldwide production of meat grew from 44 million tons in 1950 to 280 million tons in 2008. The global meat processing industry butchers around 56 billion animals per year, including pigs, cattle, poultry, sheep, goats, and others

Source: Brian Prechtel/Agricultural Research Service/USDA

The continuous growth of meat consumption and, consequently, the number of animals reared for slaughter, has caused several environmental problems. The two main problems are represented by the considerable quantities of water needed during the various phases of rearing (the production of one kilo of beef reared with cereals requires around 16,000 liters of water) and by the complexity of the disposal of butchered animal waste.

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