As the consumption of meat in our food rises tremendously, the meat industry starts to evolve into a more ethical way of producing meat. I don’t know if its ethical or not but lets first hear about its evolution and then see for ourselves. Is this the future of the meat industry?
According to the post by LA Times, KFC kills around 350 million chicken annually for its business. It serves more than 12 million customers each day in 115 countries. And as per data by Statista, there are about 24104 KFC restaurants worldwide in 2019. And one of the biggest producers of beef is the famous Mcdonalds. It kills around 5.5 million cattle each year in the US alone. And as per the statistics shown by Statista, they are 38695 restaurants worldwide. It’s approximately assumed to serve about 68 million people each day which is about 1% of the world population.
What are the problems with our current meat consumption? And how can we change it? FAO has recently estimated that livestock (including poultry) accounts for about 14.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. And also there are various negatives to eating meat. Which I will cover in a whole different blog post.
As the growing needs of meat increase, the scientist has been challenged to come up with more viable options. Which could be more effective and also faster for production thus negating the problems of current greenhouse gas. The research is still going on and the meat is called in-Vitro meat: meat produced using tissue engineering. I couldn’t digest the term in-vitro meat when I first research on it and if it was to ever come in real sense I think It will feel strange to many consumers.
And another thing that comes to the rescue is the controversial anencephalic animal’s meat which I think is cruel in nature and doesn’t overcome many of our current environmental downsides. To put it simply anencephalic meat is produced by killing a genetically modified brainless animal. Its main purpose is to kill the animals without feeling pain.
Thus from my point of view eating meat is not a healthy option and it needs to change. It not only degrades the global environment but also weakens over bodies. I remember listening to the audiobook when I was in high school called a china study. It is study done by T. Colin Campbell and his son, Thomas M. Campbell II. It examines the link between the consumption of an animal-based product and chronics illness such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bowel cancer. It concludes that avoiding animal products as a main source of nutrition will reduce the development of such disease.
SamShae 