Pork : A Central Role Diet And Culture Of The Chinese The World 's Largest Consumers Of Pork

Food is closely related to people's lives and it is considered the most important element in Chinese culture. Chinese food is famous all over the world too. American Chinese cuisine differs significantly from the traditional Chinese cuisine and even though the variation in taste can be so it is still attractive to many people. When it comes to food, Chinese people always care about the color, taste, smell and shape of Chinese dishes. In 1784, a group of passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and they were also the first group of people to eat Chinese food; it was the

However, some believe, that a shift in the way we produce food may have some unintended consequences. They contend that poverty in nations such as Africa and Asia, is caused by the low productivity of the unindustrialized farm labor. The U.S. Agriculture Department projects, without reform, there will be over a thirty percent increase in the numbers of the ‘food insecure’ people in those nations over the next decade (Paarlberg 179).

Western diet and culture are responsible for the increase of global meat consumption, over the last few decades. This is why the global trend of moving “towards concentrated animal feeding operations is expected

Every year, an average American will consume approximately one hundred-twenty six pounds of meat. This meat can be traced back to factory farms where the animals are kept to be tortured to turn into a product for the appetite of humans. The terrible treatment these animals are forced to endure is the outcome of the greed and want for a faster production of their product. The industry of factory farming works to maximize the output of the meat while maintaining low costs,but will sadly always comes at the animals’ expense.

The last forty-five years has seen a significant increase in world animal protein production. Since 1967 global production of poultry meat has increased by around 700%, eggs by 350%, pig meat by 290%, sheep and goat meat by 200%, beef and buffalo meat by 180% and milk by 180%. Livestock are increasingly important to the food security of millions of people. (Leyonhjelm 3)

In Raj Patel’s novel Stuffed and Starved, Patel goes through every aspect of the food production process by taking the experiences of all the people involved in food production from around the world. Patel concludes by eventually blaming both big corporations and governments for their critical role in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and in so doing causing the key food-related problems of today such as starvation and obesity. In this book of facts and serious crime, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a general but available analysis of global food struggles that has a goal of enlightening and motivating the general Western public that there is something critically wrong with our food system.

Brought up in the southern of China, I often heard about that people from there “eat anything with four limbs except tables, anything that flies except aero planes, and anything that swims except ships”. Nevertheless, I eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains but less meat to make careful choices for environmental protection. Similarly, Kathy Freston argues that animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming. In her Huffington Post selection “Vegetarian Is the New Prius,” Freston lists how many emissions of greenhouse gases people make when they eat meat and illustrates the consumption of tree in animal agriculture. She effectively convinces her audiences that the livestock results in the most serious environmental problems and encourages people to lead a greener diet to protect our environment. However, ardent craving, poor health, and perpetual hassle and cost prevent all Americans from being vegetarian.

We do not take in consideration on where our meat comes from and how they treat the animals. People do not know how the process is from slaughtering a cow to the meat that you buy in your neighborhood market. In the book Foodopoly, Wenonah Hauter argues that there is a misrepresentation on what truly happens in the meatpacking industry, hog industry, the impact on small farmers, and how the working conditions are for the meat packing industry workers.

According to Hurst, “Finally, consumers benefit from cheap food. If you think they don’t, just remember the headlines after food prices began increasing in 2007 and 2008, including the study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations announcing that 50 million additional people are now hungry because of increasing food prices. Only “industrial farming” can possibly meet the demands of an increasing population and increased demand for food as a result of growing incomes.... In recent years, the cost of producing pork dropped as farmers increased feed efficiency (the amount of feed needed to produce a pound of pork) by 20 percent. Free-range chickens and pigs will increase the price of food, using more energy and water to produce the extra grain required for the same amount of meat, and some people will go hungry.

For centuries, man has relied on animals for clothing, food, and transportation. However, the recent increase in technological advancements has been accompanied by a rise of animal consumption. Currently, the average person consumes an exceptional amount of meat each year. In order to compensate for this, an overwhelming amount of changes has enveloped the meat industry. Animals aren’t raised, they are manufactured. Eric Schlosser, the author of “Fast Food Nation” uses imagery, understatements, and short sentences when describing his visit to a meat packing plant to develop his argument against the inhumaneness of the meat industry.

The meat industry today is not what it was nearly a century ago. While improvements are thought to have been made, an ever changing society has brought upon new problems that have been piled on to the previously existing ones. While these problems are not like those found in The Jungle, they do parallel how by exposing what is going on in the meat industry; new regulations would be the answer to the noted problems. The increased demand for meat has made it a rushed mutated production instead of a means to raise livestock for consumers. Taking into consideration the demand for cheap meat that will be used for in quick and high demanded products such as frozen and fast food, this demand of meat has greatly skyrocketed. Animals whose sole

What is the price of cheap meat? Is the mistreatment of animals, immigrants, manipulation of local politics, and monopolizing industry really something that people want to support just so they can purchase meat cheaper and in larger quantities? Ted Genoways book The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food dives into the meat packing industry, specifically Hormel and the Quality Pork Processors Inc. He investigates how the factory is run, how the employees are exploited and mistreated, the abuse of the hogs that are used for the meat, and the overall disgust that stems from the industry. Big business has always had a reputation for being shady and always looking for new ways to manipulate rules and regulations in order for them to maximize

In the cover story, “Loving Animals to Death” by James McWilliams, it discusses how important it is to know where you get your meats from. For example, Bob Comis of Stony Brook Farm is a different type of a professional pig farmer, in fact, the good kind. He believes it's important that the animals he has should be raised with dignity and not unfairly and crudely. Although Comis' believes what he does for a living is wrong, he does it because it's what we all enjoy eating regardless of how much we truly know about it. What's most important when it comes to food is where it's coming from and how it will be prepared. If a person loves pork, that's fine, as long as the pork comes from a local humane farm. The food movement is basically more constructural rather than nutritional. Eating anything you want is fine as long as it comes from a place that is nonindustrial.

In most third world countries meat is usually scarced. Even if there is meat available, it is extremely expensive and is eaten on special occasions. Here in the states and most first world countries, meat is found in abundance and can be cheaper than plant produce. The large production in the meat industry made meat cheaper. A surprising fact that “70 percent of grain produced is fed to animals” (Motavalli). The amount of grain put into an animal and the amount of meat that is produced is less than the grains. The same applies for fresh water. Hypothetically, the grain could be able to feed starving communities in third

Nonetheless, the real prices of certain commodities such as lamb, tobacco and beef have increased over time due to increasing world average income, which encourages world demand. Interestingly, developing countries, which form the predominant exporters of primary commodities, earn lower relative prices over time, for instance, palm oil arrives primarily from Indonesia and Malaysia and raw sugar arrives mostly from Brazil and Thailand. Contrariwise, the world suppliers of lamb are the United Kingdom, Spain and Australia and, moreover, 14% of world bovine meat arrives from the United States (Simoes, 2013). Therefore, it can be argued that greater advantages are granted to suppliers in developed countries than those in developing countries by trade liberalisation.