"Eat Less Meat" - Dangerous words in our society

As Michael Pollan states in his book, In Defense of Food, "you are not allowed officially to tell people to eat less of [a type of food] or the industry in question will have you for lunch." As this article in The Atlantic describes, one man's solution to this language barrier in regard to eating meat is to have more PB&J's for lunch (more detail below). The solution by government officials and nutrition professionals, on the other hand, is nutritionism - e.g. instead of saying "reduce meat intake," the USDA and FDA recommend that Americans "keep fat intake to less than 30 percent of total calories."

In her book, What to Eat, Marion Nestle also writes about the food industry's astoundingly manipulative influence on government and consumers alike: "[Meat industries are] infamous for promoting meat not only as good for health but as essential." Indeed, they have led Americans to equate protein with meat, which "distracts attention from the high-fat and saturated-fat content of meat, and from other issues of health and safety that result from production and handling methods." The meat industry also has "a long history of employing lobbyists whose job is to minimize health risks and make sure that no government agency ever says, 'Eat less meat.'"

Their job is to also make sure no high-profile individual discourages eating meat. Case in point: Oprah declaring on a 1996 episode of her show, upon learning about mad cow disease from guest Howard Lyman (food safety expert and self-proclaimed "cattle rancher that won't eat meat"), that it had "stopped her cold from eating another hamburger." Her comment caused meat sales to suffer immediately after the show's airing; as a result, Texas cattlemen filed a lawsuit against Oprah. The case was eventually dismissed in 2002, but it nevertheless reveals how sensitive the meat industry is to the threat of "food slander." Furthermore, according to Howard Lyman's website: "Thirteen states, including Texas, have passed laws designed to silence and intimidate those who expose unsafe and unhealthy factory farm and slaughterhouse practices. These so-called 'food disparagement' laws make it a crime to criticize food and how it is produced." I can't think of any other laws that more readily invite being broken.

Another example of an individual taking the heat for encouraging Americans to eat less meat is Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm's recent declaration of March 20, 2010 as "Michigan Meatout Day." The same article in The Atlantic mentioned above briefly describes the immediate outrage this decision caused (e.g. Michigan United Conservation Clubs urged members to celebrate the governor's meatout measure by hosting a huge barbecue on the capitol grounds), while also lending support to the argument that the American public (at the very least, residents of Michigan) react just as strongly to the "eat less ___" message as the food industry does. Which is why Bernard Brown's PB&J Campaign likely, for better or worse, succeeds where Governor Granholm's fails: "by telling people what they can do rather than what they can't."

The more Americans know about the meat industry, however, the less easy it will be for that industry to prevent the "eat less" message. In the words of Michael Pollan in his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, "were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do. Tail docking and sow crates and beak clipping would disappear overnight, and the days of slaughtering four hundred head of cattle an hour would promptly come to an end—for who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We’d probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve."

Eating less meat is the only way we can reduce the demand that the meat industry claims as justification for its practices, and it is the only way we can (ideally) rid our food system of factory farming. Speaking the words, "eat less meat" may be a dangerous act in our society, but actually following them poses no risk at all, and instead has an entirely positive impact, on a variety of levels.