Article pp.293-301 du Vol.28 n°4-5 (2008)

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FOCUS : JSMTV

Meat consumption throughout history and across cultures

J. Contreras

1 – FROM BIOLOGY TO CULTURE

Before considering the role of culture in meat consumption, it’s helpful to recall several fundamental “biological principals”. Most populations have maintained meat as an appealing protein source, and it is generally agreed that this attraction consti- tutes a response to biological determinants. Because it takes the body longer to digest and absorb meat’s complex amino acid molecules, meat tends to provide a feeling of satiety that is strong and long-lasting; thus meat has been preferred to vegetable products by all peoples seeking satiety (Lambert, 1997: 242). The physiol- ogy and digestive processes of our species predispose us to prefer products of animal origin because they constitute better protein sources, per cooked portion, than most products of vegetable origin. And proteins are important because the body uses them to stimulate and control tissue growth (Harris, 1985: 31). Thus many cultures have placed and continue to place great value on “meat” and maintain that, without it, people will “remain hungry” no matter how many vegetables and legumes they eat.

Biological conditioning, however, isn’t sufficient to explain human food consumption behaviour, which has been subject to many different determining factors since the very origin of the species. The importance of cultural considerations in understanding food behaviour is clear when we note how biological factors manifest themselves in different ways in different societies. Three different observations serve as a point of departure:

1) Different preferences and aversions exists in different cultures regarding the same protein sources (insects, frog, snail, dog, horse, pig, cow, etc.) that go beyond biological conditioning and that reflect different strategies of adapta- tion to their environments;

2) In all known cultures, food taboos related to products of animal origin are much stronger than those related to products of vegetable origin. Animals possess morphological characteristics that make them much “closer” (than vegetables) to humans; and the “closer” they are to humans, the more they become objects of taboos, prohibitions, and aversions (Fischler, 1995; Lam- bert, 1997; Leach, 1972); and

Chair – Le Studium and University of Barcelona.

Correspondence: contreras@ub.edu

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3) Ethnologists have frequently observed that meat is the most coveted food product. The consideration of meat in different cultures and historic periods has been so significant that historians have considered growth in the per capita meat consumption of a society as a measure of its prosperity; in general, when income rose, so did meat consumption (Fischler, 1995: 117-118;

Harris, 1985: 23-24).

2 – THE PERCEPTION OF NATURE AND THE ANIMAL-HUMAN

CONTINUUM AS THE ORIGIN OF FOOD PREFERENCES AND TABOOS

As Fischler (1995) indicates, despite nutritional reasons that explain the taste for meat, the human attitude towards meat has always been ambiguous, ambivalent, and even contradictory. One moment meat is exalted, the next it’s forbidden; one moment meat is appealing, the next it’s revolting. Throughout history, and in many different cultures, meat and products of animal origin have been subject to all sorts of rules, at times simply restrictive and at other times definitively prohibitive. These rules are generally related to religion. In the Old Testament, “Paradise” is vegetarian.

It’s only after the Great Flood that God gives man the right to eat meat – and then provided only that he abstain from consuming blood, which emerges as the anima of living beings and something that belongs to God. In the High Middle Ages, the Church applied alimentary restrictions only toward animal species. After the Middle Ages, Lenten rules, the division of the calendar into days of fasting and of non-fasting – more suggestively called “fat” and “lean” days – imposed a particular rigor on the eating habits of Catholics. (In certain historic periods, the year comprised between 120 and 180 days of fasting; that is, without meat or animal fats).

Aside from religious restrictions, personal aversions to meat also exist. There are almost always products of animal origin that provoke disgust. Thus, among foods most frequently rejected in France or in Spain, for example, we find innards (brain, liver, etc.), “meat fat” and milk derivatives. In effect, it seems that all animal-based food products are in essence subject to triggering disgust. Not only do the majority of cultures apply taboos or experience feelings of repulsion toward certain (biologi- cally comestible) animal species, but they generally reject more animal species as food than they accept. The “Bushmen” of the Kalahari, for example, identify 223 animal species in their surrounding environment. Of these, they consider only 54 comestible; and of those, they regularly hunt only 17. In Europe, the proscriptions established for the penitents of the High Middle Ages concerned the “unclean”, declared certain species as “unclean”, and formed long lists of impure animals and circumstances. Jewish food prohibitions are particularly notable for their ultimate authorization of only a very limited number of animals; and those animals must fur- thermore be consumed only under very restrictive conditions. The list of prohibitions or of “abominable” species is so long that one must ask whether prohibition is the rule or the exception. Ultimately, animality itself might be the factor that is fundamentally repulsive.

Different attitudes toward meat are clearly determined by social and cultural codes that reflect the figure of the animal. Thus, for Leach (1972), notions of whether foods are edible or non-edible result from a logical “derivation” that begins with a certain conception of nature and identifies animals as comestible (or not) according to a series of conceptual dichotomies. Alimentary taboos respond to the proximity

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or distance between each animal species and human beings. Animals close to humans are forbidden, as are those most distant. The taboo against eating the flesh of predators is linked to the problem of killing. Eating such animals implies incorpo- rating into one’s own body a sort of disorder and threatening the socio-cultural distance between humans and nature. Taboos against non-predators reflect the fact that the forbidden animals belong to a certain culturally defined (“animal”) world and, at the same time, contradict it. Taboos also exist when animals resemble humans in a certain way or when they violate the cultural definition of the boundaries between man and animal.

3 – SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATIONS: POWER, AUTHORITY, GENDER…

The more or less important presence of meat in the diet has varied not only from culture to culture, but also within given societies. Historically, in stratified or hierar- chical societies, access to meat constituted an indicator of well-being and even of power, and, to that extent, an element of social differentiation. Up until and even into the 19^th Century, heaviness, considered rather as “corpulence”, implied health, prosperity, and honour (Fischler, 1979: 2008), and, in many societies plagued by under- nutrition, obesity was transformed into a sign of wealth.

Meat was a rare commodity in most societies and throughout much of history. In Italy and Romania during the 19^th Century, for example, corn represented up to 90%

(by weight) of total food consumption, a preponderance that closely approaches exclusivity. Fresh or preserved vegetables played only a small role in the diet of rural Europeans and probably represented just 5% (in weight) of the consumption of corn.

Meat consumption, frequently reserved for certain celebrations, was very low. Dairy products, usually reserved for children, were rare. Consumption of fats was also rare; they were used principally to add a bit of flavour to other dishes rather than to be eaten as nourishing foods on their own. Men received certain supplements during periods of particularly hard work, but women did not; and indeed, women were those most heavily affected by pellagra (Warman, 1988: 160-161). Many modern dishes such as pizza and pasta, Irish stew and Shepherd’s Pie, chop suey, and oth- ers derive their origins from traditional peasant dishes in which a large quantity of a staple food was rendered more appetizing by the addition of a small amount of fla- vourful meat or vegetables (Fiddes, 1991: 224).

Meat consumption as a differential indicator occurred even within individual households. “Qui gagne le pain, mange la viande” (“He who puts bread on the table eats the meat”): this aphorism, says Segalen (1988, 276), refers to the many differential consumption practices in peasant and working-class families and symbolises the preferential allocation of food within families. The “head of the family” consumed the largest quantities and the best pieces of meat. This practice is linked precisely to the image of meat as that which sustains the labourer. The woman internalized this situation to such a point that she didn’t even need to repress herself: she didn’t like meat, she wasn’t hungry, and she didn’t even feel as though she were making a sacrifice.

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4 – THROUGH THE CENTURIES, THE APPETITE FOR MEAT AND SATIETY…

« Les légumes n’apportent rien de plus que des tracas ; la viande nourrit et donne de la joie. » (“Vegetables don’t bring anything but troubles; meat nourishes and brings joy.”). This saying expresses, physiologically and spiritually, the perception of meat, on one hand, and vegetables, on the other, in a society such as Spain.

The same perception might well apply to many other societies. The diet of Spanish farm workers during the first half of the 20^th Century comprised 1400 grams of bread daily, and, per month, three litres of oil, four litres of vinegar, one measure of salt, and a few heads of garlic. With these ingredients, they prepared gazpachos, vinai- grettes, or sopeados that they ate three times per day. Occasionally, they also had the custom of adding a few olives, oranges, peppers, tomatoes, etc.. – that is, sea- sonal products that could be acquired cheaply. Only supervisors, foremen, machin- ists, and wardens ate hot food; for the evening meal, they prepared a dish of legumes – garbanzos or fava beans – combined with potatoes or rice, and added oil as a condiment; sometimes they might also add fifty grams of bacon per person (Argente del Castillo, 1924: 38). Among industrial workers in the city of Sabadell in 1910 (Carrasco, 1986: 138), consumption of animal protein was generally rare (21.4 kg per year, besides pork). Meat was generally consumed as an accompani- ment to stews or single-dish meals; on special occasions, it might be served as a main dish. Farm animals were very highly valued, and very expensive relative to the daily wages of a labourer. Entrails and variety meats were used to make broths and soups.

It wasn’t always the same story in all countries and historic periods. We know of certain diets that were almost exclusively carnivorous, such as that of the Inuit, and of the importance of the meat consumed in certain societies and/or social groups without those consumptions constituting a privilege. In Mexico in 1580, for example, the price of meat was one-eighth that of bread, and in 1590, one quarter. In Vene- zuela, “fried meat” has been, since the 16^th Century, the national dish par excel- lence. Its popularity has been such that, at the end of the 19^th Century, in almost all of Venezuela, “fry” became a synonym for food or for the daily meal (Lovera, 1988:

75). Likewise, in the viceroyalty of Peru, meat consumption was frequent and abun- dant: six pounds per week, as certain colonial ordinances seem to testify (in Roel, 1970: 152).

In good measure, up to the middle of the 20^th Century, meat consumption enjoyed very positive esteem, both nutritionally and organoleptically. From their van- tage point, medical reports throughout the 19^th Century and the first third of the 20^th Century confirmed the infrequent consumption of animal proteins and recom- mended increasing meat consumption among the working class. Several authors from the beginning of the century used the infrequency of meat consumption to explain even the socioeconomic lag of countries such as Spain:

“There are those who believe, and without appearance of uncertainty that the delayed and limited development in Spain owes principally to garbanzos; and, what’s more, many observations have proven that peoples who eat significant quantities of meat are superior in both intelligence and physical power. Whoever is in doubt need only compare English men and women with Spanish men and women and frankly judge who has contributed more to the progress of humanity” (Sela, 1910: 246).

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5 – FROM APPETIZING TO REPULSING? FROM “CARNIVORISM”

TO VEGETARIANISM?

The 1950s constituted a certain point of inflection for meat consumption and its nutritional and cultural assessment. In more industrialized countries, meat consumption began to be considered excessive not only for one’s good health, but also for an appropriate relationship with the environment. Red meat, whose image symbol- ized best both vitality and physical strength, lost is attractiveness in favour of white meat and fish, which had been rejected previously because they “don’t last long in the stomach” – that is, that they aren’t sufficiently nourishing (Lambert, 1997: 242).

In the same way, the signs of animality in meat became ever more inconspicuous.

Consumption of offals continued to decrease. Animal meat acquired more and more the appearance of a material that was “processed”, transformed, and distanced ever more from the living animal and its identifiable form (Fischler, 1995: 127-128).

One data point, though only partially explicative, testifies to the significant changes in meat consumption and perception that have taken place during recent decades. According to the Foodways Foundation, between 1985 and 1992, the number of vegetarians in the United States increased from 6 to 12.5 million – an increase of more than 100% in just seven years. In general terms, one might say that vegetarianism (or anti-“carnivorism”) has increased considerably in industrialized countries, and especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. We might question whether such an increase in vegetarianism and decline in the prestige of meat are related to a corresponding change in the sensibility toward concepts such as death, suffering, violence, waste, pollution, and even animals themselves, which we tend to recognize more and more as “little brothers” (Fiddes, 1992: 227-233). Among the motivations given to justify their adoption of vegetarianism, a group of vegetarians in the Mid- lands of eastern England list moral motivations related to the raising, transport, and slaughter of the animals, as well as (and even more so) reasons related with health, taste, and ecology. Certain observations demonstrate the progressive incorporation of vegetarianism into the conventional eating paradigm: the proliferation of specialty food shops which sell vegetarian products; the appearance on the general market of pre-cooked vegetable proteins; vegetarian-product sections in supermarkets; and the inclusion of vegetarian menus in conventional restaurants (Beaddsworth and Keil, 1992 and 1993).

Vegetarianism, however, isn’t a new attitude or behaviour. Certain cultures have continuously been fundamentally vegetarian, whether for ecological reasons (such as the Amharas of Ethiopia [Farb and Armelagos, 1985: 45-46]) or philosophical ones (Hinduism). In either case, the increasing industrialization that began around 1870 gave birth (Eder, 1996) to a large array of alternative activities and an increase in the intellectual justification for an “anti-carnivorous” culture. These movements – comprising the so-called “natural reform” – included various group and different doctrines and world views: the natural healing movement, the anti-alcohol movement, and the vegetarian movement, which renounced meat consumption and animal sacrifice for ethical reasons, etc. The “vegetable” became the quintessence of an alternative to the dominant alimentary culture. From then on, as urban society had less and less contact with the surrounding environment upon which it depended (Fiddes, 1992: 227-232), a minority of people began to concern themselves with

“human abuse”. They created nature reserves, animal protection societies, and nat- uralist and vegetarian movements.

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All this gave birth to a certain paradox of modernity. If the scientific movement

“re-animalized” man a bit, the socio-cultural movement tended to humanize the animal. We became more conscious of the fact that animals are also sensitive beings capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. Animals earned more and more of a role within the family and have been assigned growing levels of individuality and identity.

If, on one hand, industrialized animal breeding has objectified animals, on the other, individualist society has humanized them (Fischler, 1995: 130-131). Ultimately, there has been such a change in sensibility that “animal rights” has become an important philosophic topic. Thus, in today’s industrialized, democratic, technical, and rational society, alimentary taboos continue to exist, just as in traditional societies. The con- temporary system of alimentary taboos, however, is based largely on the concept of individual subjects and their rights.

These cultural notions began to solidify in the 1970s, manifested through particular alimentary behaviours that claimed to pursue a return to a “more natural” way of eating: nature is good, while man has been warped by civilization. Arguments began to emerge on various planes. There are economic arguments: animal breeding uses 24% of the cultivated land on the planet and consumes 35% of the world’s grains;

some poor countries use their grain production to feed animals destined for export rather than to feed their own people. There are ecological arguments: intensive breeding, as it produces considerable biological waste, also contributes to global warming via the greenhouse effect. There are medical arguments: meats, rich in toxic pesticides, antibiotics, and saturated fat, are bad for one’s health. There are moral arguments: slaughtering animals for meat is cruel, even criminal. All this repre- sents an ascetic ideal, the praise of renunciation, the rejection of the modern world, the idealization of the past and of nature, and even a certain adoption of culpability.

We must also take into account the sociological consequences of industrialization. For example, the increasingly sedentary nature of work has implied a general decrease in the physical effort required, which has implied a reduction in people’s energy expenditure; this in turn has decreased meat’s attraction as “filling” or “satis- fying”. Under-nourishment, and the subsequent realization of alimentary excess, is at the origin of the change in preferences observed throughout the 1980s in industrialized countries, and especially among its more affluent populations. A certain inver- sion of tendency in the game of food substitutions appeared: now, the attractiveness of products of vegetable origin became more and more significant;

this trend was also reinforced by the claims emerging in the medical-nutritional world. Meat (and especially red meat) became associated frequently with fat, and, for this reason, was rejected in response to the enthusiasm for the “diet” ethic that developed above all among middle-aged women (Lamber, 1997: 242).

On the other hand, eating meat ceased to be a privilege of the upper classes.

With the increase in salaries and the decrease in prices, meat and deli products became, in recent decades, an accessible luxury. Their consumption increased without interruption from the end of the 19^th Century through the 1960s, a trend which was accompanied by a decrease in the consumption of vegetables, potatoes, bread, and pasta. In France, average meat consumption was 55 grams per person per day in 1840; 192 in 1960; and 300 in 1991. Nevertheless, the 1980s saw a reversal of the trend: the accent shifted to “lighter” foods, and meat consumption was severely cri- tiqued. It was above all upper classes who reduced their meat consumption, particularly of beef and veal, while consumption of deli and poultry products increased (Apfeldorfer, 1994: 174-175).

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6 – WHAT HAPPENED?

What happened, then, that we passed from a general positive valuation of meat to a reduction and elimination of its essential constituents? “Fat” and “calories”

might today be called “public enemies”; they’ve become enemies of “health” and of the “figure” to such a point that cholesterol-free products represent the latest gener- ation of health products and are presented as a way to prevent cardio-vascular dis- ease. Health concerns can also lead to other modifications of meat itself: reducing certain of its material constituents (fat and cholesterol, for example), reducing the quantity of one of the primary ingredients used to flavour and conserve it (salt), and even adding to it other products, such as – to cite an additive not only completely foreign to meat but associated with an altogether different, if not to say completely

“opposite”, product – the bifidus bacteria associated with yogurt:

“Sanissimo chorizo is made only with select lean pork meat, salt, and paprika. In its production, everything that helps to improve your health is important. For example, do you think that bifidus is an agent found only in yogurt? In fact, Sanissimo chorizo contains bifidus bacteria to enhance your intestinal flora. You’ll have a more balanced diet and you’ll feel better. If you’re looking for foods low in fat, salt, and cholesterol, or if you simply want to live a healthy lifestyle without giving up great taste, you can enjoy all the products in the Sanissimo line: chorizo, sausage, turkey paté, ham, and chicken breast. Pleasure is Sanissimo (…) Sanissimo. The pleasure of eating healthy”.

The idealization of good health naturally leads medical authorities to effect a moral discourse, declaring what’s good and bad, permitted and forbidden, and sometimes even to do so with legislative force. Thus, we’ve moved from simple advice to the establishment of coercive measures that try to impose good behaviour upon society in its entirety (Apfeldorfer, 1994: 51). Language used in diet-related materials has a moralizing character. And the media largely exploit this tendency toward the moralization of food in their publicity campaigns [It’s the right thing to do!

(Quaker Oats, in the United States)]. The moral valuations associated with thinness and diet are generally justified in the name of health.

7 – CONCLUSION

Several reactions to the 1996 “Mad Cow” crisis furnish us with key examples for evaluating the cultural dimension that currently exists regarding meat consumption.

Cazes-Valette (1997, 210-211) recalling Levi-Strauss’s ideas of ethnocentrism and xenophobia, affirms that one can understand how some French people, confronting the threat of “Mad Cow” and evidently ignorant of the science behind the matter, were satisfied simply by the label VF (« Viande Française », “French meat”): the enemy was foreign (in this case, England). In Spain, in December 1996, little more than a month after the first outbreak of “Mad Cow”, a new Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) was approved for Galician Veal, about which publicity brochures said this:

“Galician Veal: meat with an identity card. The first beef with an integral control and a certificate of guarantee. The Regulatory Council of Galician Veal protects and

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certified animals born, raised, and slaughtered exclusively in Galicia. Our breeds, our climate favouring the cultivation of excellent fodder, and the special treatment of the animals by Galician farmers make this meat unique and appreciated in all of Europe.

Beginning on December 17, 1996, thanks to Regulation number 2400/96 (CE), the Committee declares that Galician Veal merits inclusion in the Register of Protected Geographical Indications, and, consequently, to be protected as such under Euro- pean Community legislation. Galician Veal, a product with a history.”

This is another example of alimentary ethnocentrism. The product is well-known,

“has a history”, and comes “with papers” – that is, with an “identity” – and thus it is

“controlled” and unthreatening. Alimentary industrialization would have liked to elim- inate the need for “references”, but consumers continue to demand them. Lacking other points of reference regarding the place of production, primary material, elabo- ration techniques, or a precise understanding of the information producers provide regarding all of these, “labels” (PDO, PGI, « Label rouge de Qualité », “Organic”,

“house brands”, etc.) appear as new and possible “marks of identity” that engender feelings of security and trust. These “brands” permit certain products to emerge from the undifferentiated mass of anonymous meat products; such products have been vetted by some entity in fully transparency and according to certain pre-determined criteria, among which – and among the most important – is the origin or identity of the products. All this might help to explain, according to Cazes-Valette (1997, 222-223), why meat products with such labels experienced less of a decline in sales during the “Mad Cow” affair than other (non-labelled) products. In addition to the legal protections they offer, such labels also brand and call attention to the product, identify it, and constitute a commitment on the part of their “authors” to guarantee consistency; these products are put forth as an improvement, different – and differ- entiable – from other products on the market.

The food industry has increased the availability of food, permitting society to move from scarcity to over-abundance; and it’s introduced to the market new products whose characteristics have served, essentially, to alter the composition and

“manipulate” the sensorial attributes that traditionally permitted people to identify food. Consumers, however, think that technology is more a service to food producers, transporters, and re-sellers than to their own taste buds (Gruhier, 1989). The

“food industry” upsets the traditional relationship between man and food, as man loses contact with the cycle that produces his food. Animals and vegetables consumed really are “mutants”. In “industrial cuisine”, neither the composition nor the forms of foods invoke familiarity or meaning. The biggest risk for the agro-alimentary industry, which provides an unprecedented abundance of foods, seems to lie in the difficulty of “classifying” its products – products that come without a known history and which the consumer himself classifies only at the borderline of comestible.

Ultimately, “cultural aspects” have played a significant role during recent years in the progressive diminution of the appetite for meat and in the modifications associated with its consumption.

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