Commentary: Thirty years later

To listen to the endless chorus of critics, the entire business of raising livestock and producing animal protein foods—at least as it’s done by contemporary producers and processors—is about as horrible an enterprise as humanity has ever conceived.

Consider the following indictment:

• Eating meat or dairy is a principal cause of the nation’s major health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and of course the big one (no pun intended) obesity. Just stop eating beef, pork chicken, eggs and poultry and all that magically goes away—if you buy into the veganism argument.
• Raising cattle, pigs, dairy cows and poultry is the No. 1 cause of climate change, a global catastrophe that will destroy the planet, unless we all stop eating meat.
• Animal abuse that undermines Western society’s entire moral structure has increased exponentially with the increase in meat consumption, and that would all vanish tomorrow if we would simply embrace a diet of plant-based foods.
• Meat-eating is wasting massive amounts of precious resources of land, water and energy that could easily feed the world, if only we switched to veggie burgers and tofu as our center-of-the-plate alternatives.
• And the business of meatpacking and poultry processing is a scourge on the working class, who labor under intolerable conditions that argue for completely abolishing the entire industry.

That’s what the eco-activists, the animal rights crowd and the born-again veggie believers are trying to sell to increasingly confused consumers about an increasingly complex set of interlocking issues related to resource management, environmental protection, human nutrition and the global economy. Their sound bites are strong, their rationale is straightforward and their solutions are so elegantly simple that all too many people come to the following conclusion.

But let’s journey backwards to ancient times—say, 1981. That’s when I started reporting on and writing about the myriad challenges and successes of the food industry. How does the performance, and progress, of the various sectors that comprise said industry compare, then versus now? Let’s review.

› Nutrition. The change in both production practices and processing technologies has been nothing short of remarkable in terms of reducing the fat content in both fresh and processed meats. For decades, Americans have been told that saturated fat and cholesterol were twin demons that needed to be corralled, which breeders, packers and further processors have done. Remember the emergence of low-fat and fat-free deli meat categories? The overnight creation of nutritional labeling? The struggles to ensure quarter-inch trim on beef carcasses? The wholesale rush to lower-fat chicken, which is now on a par with all of the red meats? Any way you slice it, meat and poultry is far healthier now than ever before.

1. Ag markets mixed again Tuesday
2. Behold, the power of Greek yogurt’s whey
3. Milk and dairy product prices remain stable
4. Ag markets generally mixed around midsession on Tuesday
5. How China may keep Calif. dairies in business
6. Why commodity feeding?

1. Will Smith dethroned in latest Peterson Farm Bros. parody
2. Uncertainty hangs over milk futures market
3. Chobani pushes back against UK Greek yogurt ban
4. Cattle crush Calif. dairy worker
5. WASDE: Corn price outlook lowered
6. How China may keep Calif. dairies in business

1. Commentary: Clueless consumers
2. Commentary: Why should we care about the farm bill?