A Concordia University nutrition panel held last Friday claimed, among other things, that large-scale animal agriculture is linked to “Western modernism,” “patriarchy,” “Eurocentrism” and “whiteness.”
One of the panellists also compared the killing of animals by humans for consumption to genocide.
The virtual panel titled “Why (Not) Eat Beef?” was hosted by the Montreal university’s Food Studies Working Group. The latter sought to tackle meat eating from several disciplinary points of view; including sociology, animal studies, feminist studies, marketing, history, and nutrition.
The panel featured Concordia sociology and anthropology professor Sheila Rao, history associate professor Anya Zilberstein and PhD candidate Ali Kenefick. It was moderated by Concordia marketing professor Jordan Lebel.
In her presentation, Kenefick said that industrial animal agriculture is rooted in “Western modernism,” with the latter being guided by patriarchal Eurocentric logic and a “universalistic, white, andro and anthropocentric” worldview.
She added that modernist strategy is “assisted by oppressive tools and languages designed to fragment and distance humans, other animals, materials and environments and categories,” which has “resulted in an exploitative culture that reduces these bodies into objects, resources, and metaphors for use and consumption by the ruling class.”
The PhD candidate also compared humans raising and killing animals for their meat to genocide, saying “we have this giant exploitation of animal bodies, which I mean, in any kind of human perspective, if we were doing this to people… one might even call it genocide. Because we were producing so many animals and killing so many.”
Rao offered land use, critical and feminist perspectives on meat consumption as part of her presentation. She also noted that humans will need to reduce their beef consumption by over 50% to respect “planetary boundaries.”
She explained that feminist agricology movements seek to redress “unequal gender relations, as well as other intersecting relations of marginalization such as race, class, caste, ethnic identity.”
Kenefick and Zilberstein also shared feminist points of view regarding meat. The former noted that she sees meat consumption as “a strongly gendered situation,” while the latter said that “masculinity is closely tied to meat eating.”
Zilberstein offered a critique of lab grown meat, which has been increasing in popularity as an alternative to traditional meat, noting that the latter is “very capital intensive” and also “corporate and highly centralized.” She also said lab grown meat is “bad news for advocates of small farmers, for local choices, for food sovereignty.”
Also present at the panel were two prominent senior Concordia scholars; who offered critiques of some of the points and arguments made by the panellists.
One noted that it is important to remember the significance that meat has for many different cultures, tribes, and religions, including Indigenous peoples. The other scholar said the panel’s discussion had lost credibility in the first syllable because it was woke.
She explained that farmers who she met would have found the conversation to be “bulls**t”, and that discussions surrounding the issue of meat consumption need to be non-threatening, non-intimidating and non-woke, in order to relate to “Linda” – an anti-vaccine working-class farmer. “I think increasingly we have to put Linda in our sites and talk to Linda as much as we talk to each other,” said the scholar.
The question whether or not humans should continue to consume meat, including beef, has become contentious in the last few years – amid progressive activists saying the latter is bad for the environment and people’s health.
It should, however, be noted that humans have been consuming meat for at least 2.6 million years, and that cows began to be domesticated around 8000 BC.
Several experts are also recommending that humans continue to eat meat, including beef – while all meat diets, including the lion diet developed by Mikhaila Peterson, have gained popularity over the last few years amid them having several beneficial health outcomes.
