Meat

How The Meat Industry Is Climate-Washing Its Polluting Business Model

August 2, 2021 Caroline Christen, DeSmog Blog. Educate! Big Ag, climate crisis, greenwashing, Meat

In February last year, the head of a leading global meat industry body gave a “pep talk” to his colleagues at an Australian agriculture conference. “It’s a recurring theme that somehow the livestock sector and eating meat is detrimental to the environment, that it is a serious negative in terms of the climate change discussions,” Hsin Huang, Secretary General of the International Meat Secretariat (IMS), told his audience. But the sector, he insisted, could be the “heroes in this discussion” if it wanted to. “We cannot continue business as we have done in the past,” he went on. “If we are not proactive in helping to convince the public and policymakers in particular, who have an impact on our activities – if we are not successful in convincing them of the benefits that we bring to the table, then we will be relegated to has-beens.”

Solidarity Across Species

September 24, 2020 Astra Taylor and Sunaura Taylor, Dissent Magazine. Organize! Development, Meat, Rewilding, wildlife

We are animals. While human beings often repress this basic fact, the novel coronavirus has revealed our connection to and dependence on the well-being of other creatures. In various ways, our disregard for other species led to and worsened this pandemic. To mount an adequate response—and to prevent future disasters—we need to start taking animals into consideration. Like countless fearsome diseases, including Ebola and AIDS, COVID-19 is zoonotic in origin, meaning it jumped from one species to another (likely from bats to humans).

Smithfield Sued For Misleading Consumers With False Claims Of Superior Safety

May 27, 2020 By Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association. Resist! Agribusiness, Factory Farms, Food Safety, Meat

The Organic Consumers Association announced that it has sued Smithfield Foods for falsely advertising Smithfield pork products as the “safest” U.S. pork products. In the complaint, OCA alleges that on numerous occasions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture testing of Smithfield pork has detected pathogens that are “commonly associated with human illness” and resistant to antibiotics. This makes the products far less than the “safest possible” in the U.S., according to OCA. The suit also alleges that many disease strains detected in Smithfield products have been found to be resistant to antibiotics that are designated by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration as “highly important” or even “critically important” for human health. OCA also alleges that Smithfield employs production practices that result in less safe conditions and products, including crowded conditions, the use of potentially carcinogenic drugs and rapid slaughter methods.

COVID-19 Reaches US Slaughterhouses

April 12, 2020 Martha Rosenberg, Counterpunch. Educate! COVID-19, Factory Farming, health, Meat

Meat giant JBS USA Holdings closed its Souderton, Pennsylvania slaughter operation. Tyson Foods closed its Columbus Junction, Iowa pork slaughterhouse. Pennsylvania-based Empire Kosher Poultry temporarily closed its doors and Sanderson Farms asked employees at its Moultrie, GA slaughter operation to stay home. COVID-19 has hit U.S. slaughterhouses big time. In addition to management-ruled closures, employees have also walked out because of the growing number of COVID-19 infected employees and the risks on site. In the midst of human deaths and hunts for ventilators, media are not focusing on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic but they should. The tiger that tested positive for COVID-19 at the Bronx Zoo is a grim reminder that civet cats hosting a bat virus caused the original SARS virus and outbreak according to the Journal of Virology and COVID-19 is actually named SARS-CoV-2.

America’s Biggest Beef Eaters Responsible For Large Chunk Of Climate Emissions

March 22, 2018 Georgina Gustin, Insideclimatenews.org Educate! Climate Change, emission, Food, Meat

The biggest eaters of burgers, steaks and ribs contribute the largest hunk of diet-related greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to a new study that examined individual eating habits across the country. New research from the University of Michigan and Tulane University finds that 20 percent of American eaters accounted for nearly half of total diet-related emissions, and that their diets were heavy on beef. If those people consumed fewer calories and shifted to a more moderate diet with less beef, that could achieve almost 10 percent of the emissions reductions needed for the U.S. to meet its targets under the Paris climate agreement, the researchers found. The study, published Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters, adds to a growing pile of evidence linking beef with high greenhouse gas emissions, but it is the first to look at what people ate...

48 Million Sickened Every Year By Cheap, Dirty Meat

February 24, 2018 Katherine Paul, Organicconsumers.org Educate! Food, health, Meat

If you live in the U.S., you’re far more likely to get hit with salmonella or some other foodborne illness, than if you live in the U.K. You can thank the factory farm industry for that. An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Guardian found “shockingly high” levels of foodborne illness in the U.S. The Guardian reports that “annually, around 14.7 percent (48 million people) of the U.S. population is estimated to suffer from an illness, compared to around 1.5 percent (1 million) in the UK. In the U.S., 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year of foodborne diseases. Driving these grim statistics is the multi-billion-dollar industrial factory farm industry that not only makes us sick, but pollutes our water and air, exploits workers, is causing an antibiotic resistance crisis and is unconscionably inhumane.

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