The American Meat Industry

After researching the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign for an assignment about ethics in advertising, I found myself in a rabbit hole of questions about America's political and economic involvement in dairy and meat production. For an assignment in our Data Visualization class, my team and I created the first draft of an informational exposé video made with the purpose to contextualize meat-eating habits in the United States, and to explain the far-reaching effects created by the scale of this industry.

TOOLS

TEAM

- Figma

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe After Effects

- Adobe Premiere Pro

Myself + three other classmates

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Governmental Influence

Over the last 50 years, the meat industry has grown accustomed to having powerful friends in the upper levels of the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA lobbies billions of dollars each year to be put towards encouraging Americans to consume more meat and dairy products with promotional campaigns like "Beef Loving Texans", or by teaming up with major fast-food chains to run a promotion on a Domino's pizza with "40% more cheese". While these lobbying efforts might help the profits of dairy and cow farmers in America, it's creating several different problems for Americans by refusing to fix the core issue. The US Government spends $38 Billion annually to subsidize meat and dairy products, and only $17 million on subsidizing fruits and vegtables. This directly contributes to meat and dairy-focused fast food items, making them cheaper and more accessible than healthier food options. In order to combat America's overproduction of meat and dairy, lobbyists decided to push overconsumption of these products onto the American people.

Health

While Red meat does produce some helpful things for the body such as red blood-cells and nutrients that build muscles and other body tissues, the negatives far outweighs the positives. The regular consumption of red meat causes a number of health problems, such as heart disease, Some cancers, kidney problems, digestive issues, and in some cases death. The type of red meat a person eats makes the most difference, but they all cause a number of health
issues

Resources

Cattle farming is responsible for almost 70% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, followed by agriculture. Farmers have to cut down forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. However, just 27% of crop calories are consumed by people in the United States, and 67% goes to animal feed.

Of all the water on Earth, fresh water only accounts for 3%. Most of that freshwater lies in ice caps and glaciers; only about 1% is accessible surface freshwater. From this usable water, globally about 70% of it is used just for agriculture.

Costs

A study done for the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition found that the average cost for a week of home-cooked meals following the MyPlate guidelines costs $53.11.

Comparatively, the same study created a Plant-Based Olive Oil, or PBOO diet, that shadows the same guidelines of MyPlate and found that a vegetarian PBOO diet only costs $38.75 a week.

Usability Testing

A study conducted by UCLA found that “Shifting away from animal-based foods would add 49% more food to the global food supply without expanding croplands”. By shifting our protein intake away from red meat, even just marginally, we can make an impact. Fish, compared to red meats, are a great source of quality protein and are packed with vitamins, take up less space than other farmed animals, and don’t contribute as much to CO2 emissions on the planet. Now more than ever, we have several options for plant-based meat alternatives. Companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meats are plant-based foods that look, feel, taste, and smell like real meat, and are already at your grocery stores.

"It is just a political context, a culture that has developed over the years at the political level, the food safety program at the USDA thinking of the industry as the customer rather than the consumer, and thinking in terms of efficient inspection rather than protecting public health."

Michael Taylor, Head of the Food Safety Inspection Service in 1990