Table Of ContentCOOKING / SCIENCE
$26.99 US / $34.99 CAN
A D VA N C E P R A I S E F O R
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M E A T H O O K E D A
R M E A T H O O K E D
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ne of the great science and health
S revelations of our time is the danger posed
“Ancient Egyptian meat mummies? Vegan sexuality? Yummy beef made out of
by meat-eating. Every day, it seems, we are
K
carrots? Meathooked bursts with interest all the way from Pleistocene ecology to the
warned about the harm producing and
A
politics of modern food production. But Meathooked is more than just a fast-paced consuming meat can do to the environment and
our bodies. Many of us have tried to limit how much
tour of the quirks of human carnivory. It is also a well-researched plea for nutritional 12/2
T H E H I S T O R Y A N D S C I E N C E meat we eat, and some of us have tried to give it up
sanity and ecological common sense. Marta Zaraska’s sparkling argument for a future
altogether. But it is not easy to resist the smoky,
with a reduced reliance on meat deserves wide attention.” —RICHARD WRANGHAM,
cured, barbequed, and fried delights that tempt us.
M O F O U R 2 . 5 - M I L L I O N - Y E A R
Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University What makes us crave animal protein, and what
makes it so hard to give up? And if consuming
and author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
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meat is truly unhealthy for human beings,
O B S E S S I O N W I T H M E A T
a why didn’t evolution turn us all into vegetarians
ajk A
Gór “This is a book to devour! Meticulously researched and written with a sense of humor, in the first place? In Meathooked, science writer
ka Marta Zaraska explores what she calls the
An Meathooked illuminates the peculiar love affair that so many people have with meat. How T
© “meat puzzle”: the fact that we love meat,
did it start, why is it so pervasive, and, inevitably, why does the love affair end badly—from H M A R T A Z A R A S K A despite its harmful effects. Zaraska takes us on a
MARTA ZARASKA
is a Polish-Canadian journalist a health standpoint—for so many people?” —NEAL BARNARD, founding president witty tour of meat cultures around the
6.25 x 9.5
whose science writing has appeared in the Washington of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine O word, stopping in India’s unusual steakhouses, Basic - HC
Post, Scientific American, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, animal sacrifices at temples in Benin, and S: 15/16
and New Scientist, among others. Zaraska divides her O labs in the Netherlands that grow meat in B: 3/4
Color: 4C
time between France and the United States. “From the role of meat in the evolution of the human brain to the last meals of death petri dishes. From the power of evolution to
the influence of the meat lobby, and from our
K
row inmates, from vegan sexuality to why we don’t eat carnivores, Meathooked is a
genetic makeup to the traditions of our
Finish:
beautifully written and scientifically sound exploration of the complicated relationship foremothers, she reveals the interplay of
E
between humans and meat. Like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, vegetarians and meat eaters forces that keep us hooked on animal protein.
D A book for everyone from the diehard SOFT TOUCH
alike will find this book an engaging, provocative ride. And along the way, Marta Zaraska
carnivore to the committed vegan, Meathooked
makes an utterly convincing case that our planet cannot survive our growing addiction
illuminates one of the most enduring features INTERACTIVE ILLUSION
to animal flesh.” —HAL HERZOG, author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some of human civilization, ultimately shedding OVER ALL TYPE ON
We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals light on why meat-eating will continue to FRONT COVER ONLY
shape our bodies—and our world—into the
$26.99 US / $34.99 CAN foreseeable future.
ISBN 978-0-465-03662-2
52699
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More Advance Praise
for M
eathooked
“Meathooked is a fascinating, and often surprising, exploration of the
human carnivore. At every step of the way, the story of meat eating is
more interesting and more complicated than you’d expect. Zaraska pro-
vides convincing, and provocative, evidence that we eat meat today for
reasons that few people would imagine. It has less to do with nutrition
than with culture, marketing, taste and habit. This is a book that every
meat eater should read.”
—Christopher Leonard, Fellow at the New America
Foundation and author of The Meat Racket
“We know producing and consuming it is terrible for us, the planet, and
billions of farm animals, so what keeps people hooked on meat? Marta
Zaraska’s fascinating Meathooked provides a lively, compelling look
at the many reasons humans are addicted to animal protein. Whether
you’re a vegan, a hardcore meat-lover, or somewhere in between, this
book will help you better understand why you and your loved ones eat
what you do.”
—David Robinson Simon, author of Meatonomics: How the Rigged
Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much—
and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter
“Sometimes the secret is asking the right questions. By examining the
positive and negative history of meat rather than vegetarianism, Marta
Zaraska leads us to a thoughtful and broad array of issues. Meathooked is
a book people need to read.”
—Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Salt and Cod
M E A T H O O K E D
THE HISTORY AND SCIENCE OF OUR 2.5-MILLION-YEAR
OBSESSION WITH MEAT
MARTA ZARASKA
A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP
NEW YORK
Copyright © 2016 by Marta Zaraska.
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New
York, NY 10107.
Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk pur-
chases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations.
For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Per-
seus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or
call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].
Designed by Jack Lenzo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zaraska, Marta, author.
Meathooked : the history and science of our 2.5-million-year obsession with
meat / Marta Zaraska.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-03662-2 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-465-09872-9 (e-book)
1. Meat—Psychological aspects. 2. Meat industry and trade. 3. Food prefer-
ences. 4. Meat animals. 5. Diet. I. Title.
TX371.Z37 2016
641.3'6—dc23
2015027674
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Maciek and Ellie
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Enter Meat Eaters 9
2 Big Brains, Small Guts, and the Politics of Meat 25
3 The Good, the Bad, and the Heme Iron 41
4 The Chemistry of Love: Umami, Aromas, and Fat 57
5 Why Would Abramovich Taste Good? 73
6 Wagging the Dog of Demand 89
7 Eating Symbols 103
8 The Half-Crazed, Sour-visaged Infidels,
or Why vegetarianism Failed in the Past 119
9 Why Giving Up Meat May Be Harder for Some of Us 135
10 Dog Skewers, Beef Burgers, and Other Weird Meats 151
11 The Pink Revolution, or How Asia
Is Getting Hooked on Meat, Fast 167
12 The Future of Our Meat-Based Diets 183
Epilogue: The Nutrition Transition, Stage 5 199
Acknowledgments 203
Notes 205
Index 249
vII
Introduction
I
n the summer of 2009, my mother decided to go vegetarian. She had
been living among vegetarians for years—both her husband (my
stepfather) and his son (my stepbrother) eschew meat. Being a good
Polish wife, she would cook them plant-based dinners every night and
a separate one, containing meat, for herself. No one pressured her to
change her diet, and she didn’t seem to mind the additional work. But in
2009 she stumbled upon an article on the health risks of eating meat. The
data it quoted, which came from a study of over half a million people,
was alarming: high intake of red meat increases a woman’s risk of pre-
mature death due to heart disease by 50 percent and due to cancer by
20 percent. That, my mother thought, was disturbing. She didn’t want
to clog her arteries with LDL cholesterol (the bad one) and damage her
cells with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (carcinogenic substances
that may form during the cooking of meat). She pledged to take better
care of herself. She was done with meat, she told us.
My mother’s resolve lasted about a fortnight. Then the juicy hams
and the creamy pâtés crept back into her fridge. Since that summer she
has tried giving up meat several times more, but it has never worked out.
Her efforts invariably remind me of my husband’s never-ending quest to
quit smoking. At some point, when I asked my mother what happened to
her vegetarianism, she just shrugged. “I like meat, I eat it, end of story.”
But for me, it was only a beginning. Several questions were starting
to form in my head, questions about our relationship with meat: What
is it about animal protein that makes us crave it? What makes it so hard
1
