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Why is meat so important in Western history and culture? A genealogical critique of biophysical and political-economic explanations

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Abstract

How did meat emerge to become such an important feature in Western society? In both popular and academic literatures, biophysical and political-economic factors are often cited as the reason for meat’s preeminent status. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive investigation of these claims by reviewing the available evidence on the political-economic and biophysical features of meat over the long arc of Western history. We specifically focus on nine critical epochs: the Paleolithic (200,000 YA—10,000 YA), early to late Neolithic (10,000 YA—2500 BCE), antiquity (2500 BCE—550 CE), ancient Israel and early Christian societies (1550 BCE—379 CE), medieval Europe (476 CE—1400 CE), early modern Europe (1400–1800), colonial America (1607–1776), the American frontier (1776–1890), and the modern industrial era (1890—present). We find that except under conditions of environmental scarcity, the meaning and value of meat cannot be attributed to intrinsic biophysical value or to the political-economic actors who materially benefit from it. Rather, meat’s status reflects the myriad cultural contexts in which it is socially constructed in people’s everyday lives, particularly with respect to religious, gender, communal, racial, national, and class identity. By deconstructing the normalized/naturalized materialist assumptions circling around meat consumption, this paper clears a space for a more nuanced appreciation of the role that culture has played in the legitimation of meat, and by extension, the possibility of change.

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Notes

  1. The analysis herein of the modern period and onward is focused upon the context of the US because it has one of the highest consumption rates (second only to China) and here meat has taken on particularly important social meanings. This focus is not intended to detract from the significance of the dramatic increases in meat consumption of late in developing countries (see Fitzgerald 2015). These developing meat cultures warrant examination, but such an examination is beyond the scope of this specific paper.

  2. Perhaps the strongest argument to be made on behalf of an essential biophysical link between human nature and meat consumption can be found in Zink and Lieberman’s (2016) recent finding that increased consumption of stone-sliced raw meats contributed to subsequent expansions in the brain size of early hominid species. Wrangham (2016) has argued that this evidence is inconclusive at best, as it would have been difficult for homo erectus to have developed a smaller mouth, stomach, and set of molars without access to cooked food. The process of cooking allowed for much further energy to be channeled toward brain development (Wrangham 2009), and human cognition was also enhanced through the practices of collaboration and sharing (Preece 2009). When taken as a whole, the implications of the debate over early hominid diets with respect to the cultural significance of meat among homo sapiens is questionable. Early hominid’s entirely raw diet of stone-sliced meat, scavenged bone marrow, soft organs, and pounded tubers, as hypothesized by Zink and Lieberman (2016), may well have been virtually unrecognizable as “food” to the fire-cooking homo sapiens cultures that emerged hundreds of thousands of years later.

  3. Necessity was the most common response of university students and contractors (36 and 42% of the samples respectively). The naturalness rationalization was also quite popular (17 and 23% respectively), as was niceness (18 and 16% respectively). The normality of meat consumption was less commonly cited (12 and 10% respectively) (Piazza et al. 2015).

  4. This is likely a conservative estimate of agreement with the naturalness argument, as the question refers to eating ‘lots of meat,’ and there are likely many people who may think that meat consumption is natural and necessary, but that large quantities are not. They additionally found that there is a statistically significant gendered difference: 8% of women agreed with the statement, compared to 20% of men.

  5. An earlier study identified necessity as a central theme. The authors explain, “Meat is not just one of many available food ingredients; it is the one food item that makes a meal. This cluster firmly establishes meat as a necessity: A meal is not complete without meat” (Heinz and Lee 1998, p. 91).

  6. Fossil records of early humans provide ample evidence of meat eating, but there is no definitive proof of the extent of plant eating and macronutrient intake among prehistoric people. Archaeological sites are few, limited, and incomplete, which results in biased sampling. Nonetheless, there is sizable evidence that many early human cultures likely depended more heavily upon gathering than hunting.

  7. Short life expectancies during this period also make it difficult to know what health conditions may have affected Paleolithic people later in the life course.

  8. The domestication of plants and animals was a nonlinear, dynamic, opportunistic, and often times happenstance process. Where domestication did occur, the process involved plants and animals that were already being used by sedentary communities (Verhoeven 2004). Goats and sheep were domesticated first (11,000 years ago), then pigs (10,500 years ago), and then cattle (10,000 years ago), all in the Fertile Crescent region. It should be noted that there is some speculation that the horse may have been domesticated as early as the Upper Paleolithic (Kalof 2007; Mithen 1999).

  9. http://www.downtownny.com/sites/default/files/Lower%20Manhattan%20Retail%20Guide.pdf.

  10. At Ain Ghazal, a village that was populated between 8000 and 6000 B.C.E. in southern Jordan, grazing goats exposed the landscape to erosion, thus eliminating habitat for wild animals while also damaging local vegetation (Redman 1999).

  11. Agriculture created a division of labor which allowed for the emergence of different occupations, the development of more sophisticated technologies, bureaucracy, a more advanced military, and a setting where women could be sedentary and thus give birth to more children (Diamond 2002). It also reduced the space required to sustain each individual by several orders of magnitude, possibly by an order of 500–1, and this helped to at least temporarily address population pressures (Verhoeven 2004).

  12. During times of war, however, soldiers demanded bread more than meat, as bread was seen as hard and compact, like the soldier’s body (DuPont 1999). This serves as powerful evidence that there is no intrinsic connection between meat and the discourses of strength and masculinity. These connections are socially constructed (discussed in detail shortly).

  13. Given its geographic location, the area was a major intersection for commerce between different regional civilizations, including Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Egyptians and Assyrians also exploited the local residents and took the area’s abundant livestock as prizes of conquest (Borowski 1998). As part of the Fertile Crescent, much of the land was prized for its agricultural potential, and the area was cultivated to produce olives, grapes, wheat, barley, lentils, and pastureland for sheep and goats (Miller 1986).

  14. Naveh and Carmel (2004) agree that grazing likely contributed to landscape desiccation and erosion, but they nonetheless argue that these impacts varied widely across locales and rarely led to permanent damage. Overall, both Redman (1999) and Naveh and Carmel (2004) ultimately agree that while terms like “overgrazing” and “degradation” are controversial, there can be little disagreement that grazing resulted in major changes to local landscapes.

  15. Meat was also used for other symbolic purposes in Ancient Israel. The terminology for fattened sheep “was used metaphorically to describe the rich,” and fattened rams “were also considered a delicacy” (Borowski 1998, p. 48). According to scripture, the bull was regarded as “the symbol of power and fertility” (p. 78).

  16. Christianity also challenged the ideology of animal sacrifice on the grounds of religion and animal cruelty, with the ironic result being that “the deconsecration of meat turned it into an everyday food” (Montanari 1999, p. 77).

  17. Pigs, sheep, and goats played a crucial role, and agricultural labor was heavily dependent upon oxen (Cortonesi 1999; Montanari 1999). At first, populations were low enough for there to be relatively abundant food (including meat) and land for peasants and nobility alike, but this state of affairs would prove to be temporary (Salisbury 2011).

  18. The Catholic Church finally crushed the Cathar movement entirely in the fifteenth century (Preece 2009).

  19. Moreover, this proportion only increased late in the nineteenth century due to steady imports from North America and Australia (Dauvergne 2008; Franklin 1999).

  20. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0574198/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jack Kloppenburg, Daniel Kleinman, Doug Maynard, Craig Thompson, Bryan McDonald, and Jason Turowetz for their helpful comments and feedback. Any errors or omissions are the authors’ alone.

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Chiles, R.M., Fitzgerald, A.J. Why is meat so important in Western history and culture? A genealogical critique of biophysical and political-economic explanations. Agric Hum Values 35, 1–17 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-017-9787-7

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