TAX THE MEAT!

The debate over vegetarianism is complicated by the way, in the absence of a modern civilisation, humans do in fact need to eat meat to survive.

For the majority of human history,meat was either a rare treat, a hard-won reward, or part of a sacred ritual.

What’s happened in the last probably only 50-60 years, is that meat has become super-cheap.

Meat is now so cheap, it’s used as an example of a new way of thinking about economics, and that “supply and demand” is no longer considered enough to fully and neatly explain consumer behaviour.

Consider that nobody buys chicken because they think “I need a certain amount of protein, who can supply me this protein at a cost I can bear?” Rather, chicken producers set their prices as low as they can to attract sales (actual supply is just one of many factors in setting this price) and then consumers think "Gosh, two whole chickens for $7? I'd be ma not to take advantage of that bargain!

The inevitable and unpleasantly pink-goo-stained is factory farming of meat. We’re now so good at producing tonnes of tonnes of good quality (or at least, largely disease-free quality) meat, we have the social phenomenon of people being mocked for their vegetarianism is now considered a radical form of “opting out" of the status quo.

How the heck did that happen? How did a decision to eat readily available plants from the same shop as sells the meat turn into a political thing?

Cheap meat has done much for nutrition and, at first, it probably extended the average life expectancy.Even before the obesity thing, the downsides of factory meat farming included the fact that billions of animals die every year -80% of them to feed us and 20% of them to be thrown away.And the processes we use to grow the meat consume resources, and pollute the environment.

And about that obesity thing: Medical evidence is getting pretty conclusive about how the human organism is designed to eat meat only sometimes, and that eating it all the time messes us up.

Economists are starting to notice the deferred healthcare costs of a meat-rich diet. Some even now advocate the creation of a “meat tax”, a simple 40% levy that they say would reduce consumption by over 13%.

That might not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to cancel out the greenhouse gas contribution of the entire aviation industry. And if everyone cut their meat consumption to just three nights a week, that could be the same as taking every car off the road, pollution-wise.

A meat-tax has precedent if you consider that we usually end up taxing “socially undesirable” products.Use of cigarettes and alcohol can place a later cost burden on society, and it’s difficult to figure out who should pay the bill for the treatment of the people who have been made sick by these products. So ciggies and booze get taxed, and that tax (supposedly) goes toward healthcare.

The purpose of the meat-tax is the same.Not just to cut consumption, but to create a war-chest, as it were, to treat obesity and cardiac diseases.

No that thi will happen. There’s a lot of money in meat,and besides that, steak is delicious.

But the meat debate is just another factor in a rising truth of future. We can save ourselves and our preferred configuration of the biosphere, by simple practicing a little self-denial.

Even one meat-free night a week, every week by everyone, would save millions of animals, reduce pollution, and show measurable health benefit. But can we bring ourselves to this?

The history of humanity has for the most part, been a desperate struggle for survival. If you could kill two antelope instead of just one, that’s a cause for celebration. This mentality - if you can grab an extra one then by God you grab it - is deeply ingrained. The idea of saying “I know I can just reach out and take that, but Iwon’t” is very alien to us.

Humanity now dominates the environment. Our meat factories are a perfect example. Want steak for dinner? Just make sure you have a job that pays okay. No hunting, no risk, no fear of starvation if you don’t succeed. Jut stir fry beef in black bean sauce.

The point of all this, the reason this is now a problem,is the dawning realisation that, if this civilisation is going to go on to bigger and better things,we’re going to have to learn the art of compromise.

The current politics -prices must never increase, availability must never decrease, choices must never be limited, quality must never go down- just isn’t sustainable.

By Anthony Fordham in "Australian Popular Science", issue 104, July 2017, excerpts p.32. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.