Flaws in the meat production system
A couple of years ago I came across the Brazilian documentary ‘A carne e fraca’ (‘the flesh is weak’). It presents the problems associated with the meat production system. How can we satisfy the alimentary needs of the world’s population with a sustainable model? It is extremely difficult. The only solution is more education to achieve less consumption. I highly recommend you to check it out. It is a bit long, but I ensure you it’s worth seeing. Here is the first of six parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY0LybDEEGA . You can find the rest of it in YouTube.
Inline with that issue, there is another documentary about sushi production and how it relates to the scarcity of tuna in the seas because of the undiscriminated fishing techniques. I have only been able to find the Spanish version of it (http://www.documaniatv.com/social/documentos-tv-sushi-global-video_d7f984e1a.html). Let me know if you find the English version and I’ll modify this entry.
Recently on my trip to the East coast I went to the Reading Terminal market in Philly. The amount of food in that market was something I wouldn’t have even thought about. Co-incidentally I spoke to one of the meat shop owners and asked him about the meat and how quickly does it go off the shelf since the quantity seemed to be a lot. To this he told me the exact same thing as you, that the reason why they have so many different varieties of meat on display is because customers don’t want to buy in a store with an empty display case. The more “full” it appears the more convincing it is for the customer that store stocks fresh meat. I then went on to ask him what does he do with the meat at the end of the day, since he said he only stocks them up for 2 days and buys fresh meat again but only after sending the old meat for what he called – recycling! I cringed when I thought about the number of animals which are killed to supply meat just so that consumers “feel good” about what they eat and then their meat is recycled. Sounds pretty gross but it is a painful reality. The shopkeepers here are the ones who are doing “well” and doing good(for the customers). Thanks for sharing this with us.
Comment by Namitta — February 7, 2011 @ 3:07 am