The Meat You Eat: How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America's Food Supply

From Publishers Weekly
There are probably few surprises in this exposé of American agribusiness; if you haven't read horror stories about megafarms and slaughterhouses in Fast Food Nation, you've undoubtedly heard animal rights activists talking about the deplorable conditions in which cattle, poultry and hogs are processed "from semen to cellophane." To these tales Midkiff adds an overwhelming flood of animal feces (usually referred to in much more pointed terms), from frightened cattle that soil themselves in the slaughterhouse and don't get fully cleaned to liquefied manure that seeps into the land of neighboring small farms. Using formulaic left-wing parlance, Midkiff points out how giant food corporations wield political influence to save themselves from reform—ensuring, for example, that despite their size they will continue to be classified as farmers exempt from EPA regulation. He also advocates buying from local farms that practice "sustainable agriculture" as a means of resisting corporate meat without going vegetarian. (A useful appendix offers contact information for farmer's market associations across the country.) The book doesn't quite follow through on the claim to depict "the decline of the American diet"; although it certainly reveals the contamination risks in our meat and eggs, not much is said about the direct health consequences for consumers. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Jim Hightower, author of Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush
"Don't just gag -- act!"


Review
"The factory meat industry has polluted thousands of miles of America's rivers, killed billions of fish, pushed tens of thousands of family farmers off their land, sickened and killed thousands of U.S. citizens, and treated millions of farm animals with unspeakable and unnecessary cruelty. But, as Ken Midkiff shows in this wonderful book, the meat barons' most frightening threat is to American democracy. "


Book Description
"We have given up to the agribusiness corporations a crucial part of our responsibility as human beings and we must now think of ways to take it back."
- Wendell Berry, from the Foreword

In this eye-opening book, Sierra Club Director Ken Midkiff exposes the dangers posed by corporate control of agriculture (agribusiness)--to our health, and to the health of the nation's economy, security, and the environment.

The Meat You Eat explores the current practices of the corporations taking over the raising and slaughtering of farm animals (and farmed fish, such as salmon). These companies use a model that has transformed livestock farming from quality-driven family-owned operations into big businesses concerned with volume, efficiency, uniformity, and profits above all. Midkiff reveals the true cost of agribusiness on all levels-environmental, financial, moral, legal, and medical-balancing startling truths with practical solutions.

Rather than advocate a vegan or vegetarian diet, Midkiff argues that using and supporting local farmers will improve the quality of life for us all, as well as for the animals whose meat we eat. Complete with resource sections about where to find local farmers and lists of agribusiness culprits, the book encourages us to take an active interest in what we put on our plates and in our mouths, and use the power of our pocketbooks to make it clear that our health, our environment, and our communities are of vital importance.

With a foreword by Wendell Berry, hailed by The New York Times Books Review as the "great moral essayist of our day," The Meat You Eat is an informative and ringing call to arms.



About the Author
Ken Midkiff is the Sierra Club Clean Water Campaign Director. He has appeared on National Public Radio's Living on Earth and All Things Considered. A leading expert on the subject of agribusiness and sustainable agriculture, he lives in Columbia, Missouri.



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There are probably few surprises in this expos of American agribusiness; if you haven't read horror stories about megafarms and slaughterhouses in Fast Food Nation, you've undoubtedly heard animal rights activists talking about the deplorable conditions in which cattle, poultry and hogs are processed "from semen to cellophane." To these tales Midkiff adds an overwhelming flood of animal feces (usually referred to in much more pointed terms), from frightened cattle that soil themselves in the slaughterhouse and don't get fully cleaned to liquefied manure that seeps into the land of neighboring small farms. Using formulaic left-wing parlance, Midkiff points out how giant food corporations wield political influence to save themselves from reform-ensuring, for example, that despite their size they will continue to be classified as farmers exempt from EPA regulation. He also advocates buying from local farms that practice "sustainable agriculture" as a means of resisting corporate meat without going vegetarian. (A useful appendix offers contact information for farmer's market associations across the country.) The book doesn't quite follow through on the claim to depict "the decline of the American diet"; although it certainly reveals the contamination risks in our meat and eggs, not much is said about the direct health consequences for consumers. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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