In Meat We Trust (47 page)

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“young and leisure-oriented shoppers”: W. G. Vander Ploeg, “Packers Are Still Facing Effects of ‘Deli Revolution,’”
National Provisioner
171, no. 19 (November 9, 1974): 174.

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“The supermarkets are crying”: Quoted in “Tyson Foods: Putting Its Brand on High-Margin Poultry Products,”
Business Week
, August 20, 1979, p. 48.

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“I think my mother”: Quoted in “Don Tyson Tells How He Hopes to Earn 20% Net,”
Broiler Industry
40, no. 2 (February 1977): 27.

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“We really were”: Quoted in Taubes,
Good Calories, Bad Calories
, 45. For the report, see U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs,
Dietary Goals for the United States
, 95th Cong., 1st sess.

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“hell broke loose”: Quoted in Taubes,
Good Calories, Bad Calories
, 47. The example of the egg industry consultant is in ibid., 51. The Hegsted/Frito-Lay connection is in ibid., 53.

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“antimicrobial-resistant organisms”: Quoted in “Poisoning Linked to Cattle Germs,”
New York Times
, September 6, 1984, p. A20. A fascinating profile of the investigation is in Marjorie Sun, “In Search of Salmonella’s Smoking Gun,”
Science
226, no. 4670 (October 5, 1984): 30–32.

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“health reasons”: Bill Fleming, “Survey Confirms: Pork Still Has Image Problem!”
National Hog Farmer
28, no. 12 (December 15, 1983): 6. On the McRib, see, for example, Dean Houghton, “Pork’s Fast-Food Foothold,”
Successful Farming
79 (September 1981): H6, H8; and Debra Switzky, “McRib’s Future Uncertain,”
National Hog Farmer
28, no. 9 (September 15, 1983): 48.

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“A story about”: Quoted in Terri Minsky, “Bleak Pastures: Cattlemen Lose Money as Prices Fail to Rise with Production Costs,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 8, 1981, p. 1.

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“Nobody eats beef anymore”: Quoted in ibid., 17.

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“the Mercedes of Meat”: Terri Minsky, “Beef Industry Turning to Ads to Change Meat’s Reputation,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 1, 1982, p. 29.

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“We thought everybody”: Quoted in Robert Reinhold, “Beef Industry Reduces Use of Disputed Drugs in Feed,”
New York Times
, February 16, 1985, p. 8.

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“inference”: Quoted in ibid.

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“By dropping antibiotics”: Quoted in ibid.

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“the harsh reality”: Quoted in Marj Charlier, “State of the Steak: Beef’s Drop in Appeal Pushes Some Packers to Try New Products,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 28, 1985, p. 1.

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“It’s the younger”: Quoted in Bill Eftink, “Chickens Are Stampeding Our Beef Customers,”
Successful Farming
79 (May 1981): 23.

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“delicious chunks”: “Just What Is a Chicken McNugget,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 3, 1985, p. 33. Consumption statistics are in U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service,
Economics of the U.S
.
Meat Industry
, by Richard J. Crom, Agriculture Information Bulletin no. 545, November 1988, Table 4, p. 7; and U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service,
Food Consumption, Prices, and Expenditures, 1970–97
, by Judith Jones Putnam and Jane E. Allshouse, Statistical Bulletin no. 965, April 1999, Table 4.

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Indeed, researchers theorized: For speculation about the role of vaccinations see Tom Paulson, “Risky Food—Why Now?—10 Years After First Appearance, Tiny Bug Is Still Baffling Experts,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, February 22, 1993; accessed online.

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“so infected”: Paul Shukovsky, “Roadblocks to Reform—Why Agency Didn’t Act,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, February 23, 1993; accessed online.

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“They don’t know”: Quoted in Carole Sugarman, “U.S. Meat Inspections Come Under Scrutiny,”
Washington Post
, February 9, 1993; accessed online.

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“not against technology”: Ibid. The inspection example is from Mike McGraw and Mike Hendricks, “Consumers Can’t Depend on USDA for Meat Safety; Inspectors Seldom Test for Pathogens That Must Be Killed in Cooking,”
Kansas City Star
, January 31, 1993; accessed online.

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In the wake of: The reporter’s point about the two agencies is in Christopher Hanson, “Roadblocks to Reform—U.S. Inspectors Know Trouble but Action Slow,”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, February 23, 1993; accessed online.

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“we wanted to find out”: Quoted in Bettie Fennell, “Success Keeps Murphy Farms High on the Hog,”
Wilmington (NC) Star-News
, January 18, 1987, p. 1E.

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Deliverance arrived: For brief histories of Smithfield, see Mitchell Gordon, “High on the Hog,”
Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly
65, no. 47 (November 25, 1985); accessed online; and Sharon Reier, “High on the Hog,”
Financial World
157, no. 14 (June 28, 1988); accessed online.

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“We are not against”: Quoted in Stuart Leavenworth, “250 Debate Animal-Waste Issue at Public Hearing,”
Raleigh News & Observer
, June 24, 1992; accessed online.

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“wildly cheering”: Quoted in Martha Quillin, “Bladen Divided Over Plant—Slaughterhouse’s Jobs Wanted, Not Its Waste,”
Raleigh News & Observer
, March 7, 1991; accessed online.

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“All of a sudden”: Quoted in Greg Barnes, “Factory Farms Take Hold,”
Fayetteville (NC) Observer
, December 16, 2003; accessed online.

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“Didn’t nobody mean”: Quoted in Joby Warrick, “Hog-Waste Spill Fouls Land, River in Onslow,”
Raleigh News & Observer
, June 23, 1995; accessed online. A solid account of the North Carolina spills as well as other conflicts over industrial farms in the 1990s is in David Kirby,
Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment
(St. Martin’s Press, 2010).

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“environmental Alamo”: Joby Warrick, “Hog Spills Change Lawmakers’ Views,”
Raleigh News & Observer
, August 6, 1995; accessed online.

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“AIDS look like”: Quoted in Sam Howe Verhovek, “Talk of the Town: Burgers v. Oprah,”
New York Times
, January 21, 1998, p. A10.

8. Utopian Visions, Red Tape Reality

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“I don’t have papers”: The exchanges between Coleman and the inspectors are recounted in Stephen M. Voynick,
Riding the Higher Range: The Story of Colorado’s Coleman Ranch and Coleman Natural Beef
(Glenn Melvin Coleman, 1998), 156.

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“losing battle”: Quoted in ibid., 139.

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“Inflation costs”: Ibid., 145.

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“We had to do something”: Ibid., 149.

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“tingle ran down”: Quoted in ibid., 152.

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“mood of intolerance”: Quoted in Mary Elizabeth Barham, “Sustainable Agriculture in the United States and France: A Polanyian Perspective” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1999), 153, 154.

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But in the wake: For a useful discussion of changes in attitude, see Randal S. Beeman and James A. Pritchard,
A Green and Permanent Land: Ecology and Agriculture in the Twentieth Century
(University Press of Kansas, 2001), especially 89ff.

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“When you start trimming”: Quoted in Jessica Frazier, “Monfort of Colorado Markets Organic Beef,”
Greeley Tribune
, December 26, 1971, p. 18.

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“a colossal blunder”: Quoted in George Getschow, “Meat Producers Fear FDA Will Curb Use of Antibiotics, Thus Reducing Supplies,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 6, 1975, p. 18. University economists confirmed the gap between idea and profit. One study predicted that putting beef cattle back on pasture would result in a short-term 50 percent drop in beef, and that livestock producers would earn higher profits. But they concluded that over the long haul, eliminating antibiotics and hormones would drive up farmers’ production costs and lead to higher meat prices for consumers who would likely respond by reducing their consumption. (Economists did not calculate an important intangible—how consumers would respond to the taste of grass-fed beef—nor did they factor in rising land prices.) As for hogs, analysts predicted that returning to pasture and natural breeding schedules would prevent meatpackers from running their plants at capacity year-round, so they’d charge more for their products. A good summary of the “what if” studies is in
Antibiotics in Animal Feeds: A Report Prepared by the Committee on Animal Health and the Committee on Animal Nutrition [and] Board on Agriculture and Renewable Resources
(National Academy of Sciences, 1979); but also see Henry C. Gilliam et al.,
Economic Consequences of Banning the Use of Antibiotics at Subtherapeutic Levels in Livestock Production
, Departmental Technical Report no. 73–2 (Department of Agricultural Economics and Sociology and Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, 1973); and Henry C. Gilliam Jr. and J. Rod Martin, “Economic Importance of Antibiotics in Feeds to Producers and Consumers of Pork, Beef and Veal,”
Journal of Animal Science
40, no. 6 (1975): 1241–55.

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“Food is a scarce item”: Quoted in Marian Burros, “A Maverick’s Views,”
Washington Post
, January 8, 1976; accessed online.

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“It’s obvious”: Quoted in Lynn Heinze, “Although Less Beef Consumption Likely, Cattle Have Future,”
Greeley Tribune
, March 9, 1976, p. B-23.

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At the center of: The elder Rodale died in 1971. The most substantive study of the Rodale empire is Andrew N. Case, “Looking for Organic America: J. I. Rodale, the Rodale Press, and the Popular Culture of Environmentalism in the Postwar United States” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2012).

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“Don Quixote”: Quoted in Suzanne Peters, “The Land in Trust: A Social History of the Organic Farming Movement” (Ph.D. dissertation, McGill University, 1979), 221.

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“ecosystem”: Quoted in Beeman and Pritchard,
Green and Permanent Land
, 93, 94. For Commoner, see Michael Egan, “Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival” (Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University, 2004).

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“massive intervention into nature”: Quoted in Beeman and Pritchard,
Green and Permanent Land
, 93.

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“As far as our methods”: Quoted in Peters, “Land in Trust,” 279.

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“voluntary simplicity”: Quoted in Curtis E. Beus and Riley E. Dunlap, “Conventional Versus Alternative Agriculture: The Paradigmatic Roots of the Debate,”
Rural Sociology
55, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 608–9.

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“I like horses”: Quoted in “Earl Butz Versus Wendell Berry,”
CoEvolution Quarterly
17 (Spring 1978): 57.

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“independent”: Quoted in ibid., 55.

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“modern, scientific”: Quoted in ibid., 51.

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“machine”: Quoted in Beus and Dunlap, “Conventional Versus Alternative,” 606.

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“We can go back”: Quoted in ibid., 609.

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“practical alternatives”: Quoted in Peters, “Land in Trust,” 283.

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“appropriate farm technology”: Quoted in ibid., 287.

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“Energy shortages”: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Study Team on Organic Farming,
Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming
, July 1980, p. iii.

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“strongly”: Ibid., xiv.

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“It will permanently warp you”: Quoted in Lynn Bronikowski, “Mel Coleman: A Trailblazer Naturally,”
Rocky Mountain News
, April 22, 1990; accessed online.

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“made [his] . . . lip curl”: Quoted in Voynick,
Riding the Higher Range
, 119.

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“I believed”: Quoted in ibid., 143.

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“If you don’t have to buy”: Quoted in ibid., 166.

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“If I stock your beef”: Quoted in ibid.

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“just a bunch of hippies”: Quoted in Clay Evans, “Rancher Becomes ‘Natural Beef’ Guru,”
Juneau Empire
, June 21, 1998; accessed online. The article originally appeared in the
Boulder Daily Camera
.

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“the mountain air is clear”: Quoted in Voynick,
Riding the Higher Range
, 179.

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“look like a real rancher”: Quoted in ibid., 179–80.

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“Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture”: There are no substantive histories of the late-century effort to insert sustainable agriculture into the establishment, but a useful recounting of events by a participant is J. Patrick Madden,
The Early Years: The LISA, SARE, and ACE Programs
(Western SARE, n.d.); accessed online. Also see U.S. General Accounting Office, Report to Congressional Requesters,
Sustainable Agriculture: Program Management, Accomplishments, and Opportunities
, GAO/RCED-92–233, September 1992. There is also useful information from participants in Barham, “Sustainable Agriculture”; and Andrew Marshall, “Sustaining Sustainable Agriculture: The Rise and Fall of the Fund for Rural America,”
Agriculture and Human Values
17, no. 3 (September 2000): 267–77.