Should We Eat Meat? by Smil, Vaclav -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

About the author Other books by this author Preface

Should We Eat Meat?

1 Meat in Nutrition Meat Eating and Health: Benefits and Concerns

Meat and its nutrients Meat as a source of food energy High-quality protein and human growth Carnivory and civilizational diseases Diseased meat

2 Meat in Human Evolution Hunting Wild Animals: Meat in Human Evolution

Primates and hominins Meat consumption during the Paleolithic period Extinction of the late Pleistocene megafauna Hunting in different ecosystems Wild meat in sedentary societies

Traditional Societies: Animals, Diets and Limits

Domestication of animals Population densities and environmental imperatives Long stagnation of typical meat intakes Avoidances, taboos and proscriptions Meat as a prestige food

3 Meat in Modern Societies Dietary Transition: Modernization of Tastes

Urbanization and industrialization Long-distance meat trade Meat in the Western dietary transition Transitions in modernizing economies Globalization of tastes

Output and Consumption: Modern Meat Chain

Changing life cycles Slaughtering of animals Processing meat Consuming and wasting meat Making sense of meat statistics

4 What It Takes to Produce Meat Modern Meat Production: Practices and Trends

Meat from pastures and mixed farming Confined animal feeding Animal feedstuffs Productivity efficiencies and changes Treatment of animals

Meat: An Environmentally Expensive Food

Animal densities and aggregate zoomass Changing animal landscapes Intensive production of feedstuffs Water use and water pollution Meat and the atmosphere

5 Possible Futures Toward Rational Meat Eating: Alternatives and Adjustments

Meatless diets Meat substitutes and cultured meat Protein from other animal foodstuffs Less meaty diets A large potential for rational meat production

Prospects for Change References Index