Americans eat a lot of meat.
We eat it for all meals for the day,
Because it's the Fourth of July,
because we're at a baseball game, and because, hey, it's on sale.
We consume more of it then the rest of the world,
and all that consumption has a big impact. If everyone ate meat like Americans,
it would be a disaster. so what is it about us
So what is it about us, that's turned America into a nation of carnivores?
It could be our wealth –
but there are other countries that are wealthier.
It could be our farm subsidies –
but lots of other countries have those too. I was curious –
so I phoned a meat historian.
"My name is Maureen Ogle, and I'm a historian."
For seven years she researched meat and in the end, she wrote a book about it.
This book.
So, why are we such meat fanatics?
"One thing that's important to know about the people who settled North America,
is that they all left a place that food was often scarce
in a way that's nearly impossible for us to imagine now."
In Europe land was in short supply and cities were growing rapidly.
Only royalty ate meat regularly, because they were the only ones who had
access to grazing land.
In America, by contrast, the land was there for the taking
– from the Native Americans.
Colonists didn't know how far west the West went.
And with their legal structure, almost anyone could own livestock.
"It was so easy for livestock to reproduce – within just a generation or two,
colonists became accustomed to the notion that
meat was always available
and always on the table."
There are cases where indentured servants complained or away because
they weren't getting fed enough meat –
and in general, the colonial legal system agreed –
everyone deserved meat.
"But I think that sense of entitlement became a defining characteristic of what it meant to be an American."
Right from the beginning we wanted meat, because it felt like America was teeming in this
endless bounty of wildlife, land, and, uh –
pigs.
After Americans had settled down and got comfortable,
farmers packed up been headed to the city –
but urban Americans kept their appetite for meat.
"That's important because
city people don't produce their own food. Approximately 1810, about 7 percent
of Americans lived in an urban place.
By the time the Civil War broke out,
almost a quarter of them did."
Initially, people just ate less meat.
It made sense – fewer farms meant less.
But, urban Americans demanded more and cheaper meat
and our modern industrial system obliged. By the late 1800s
America had built up an extraordinarily large, lucrative, and efficient system
for raising livestock
turning them into meat,
and distributing that meat to stores across the U.S.
Meat traveled distances in hours –distances that once took weeks.
Transportation and other technologies, like refrigeration,
made meat cheaper and cities more attractive.
And cheap meat is what Americans wanted.
So what's the deal with Americans and meat?
It's the idea that we're entitled to it – the sense that land and resources are
plentiful and inexhaustible –
and even if the US is consumption has decreased
ever so slightly were still far more carnivorous than most.
Most countries love meat – but we Americans have had such a full history with it,
because it was – from the very beginning – cheap and available.
and we've worked hard to keep it that way.
"Meat is a whole lot like gasoline,
the only time Americans really get upset about meat is if it suddenly seams unafforable
and as soon as the prices go back down – well then no one's got any complaint."
When Americans met meat,
it was love at first sight. Now we have to figure out
how to live happily ever after.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community