Meathooked

Title: Meathooked – The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat

Author: Marta Zaraska

Publisher: Basic Books, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9780465036622

Pages: 263

Most of us eat meat. Those who shun it and goes vegetarian do it out of a conscious effort, either for religious or ethical reasons. The craving for meat is felt by everybody, but the reasons for it are not so obvious. Since it contained lots of protein, which was not available as a full package from any other food, the thirst for meat was at first thought to be a physiological urge. This book dispels some of the common myths associated with eating meat. It analyses the reasons why meat is so attractive to us, which are linked to our genes, culture, history, the power of the meat industry and the policies of our governments. Marta Zaraska is a Polish Canadian journalist who works as both a foreign affairs correspondent and a science writer. She lives in France and her articles have appeared in leading science journals and other publications.

The book provides a very informative discussion on the history of meat eating. Quite audaciously, the author begins with the evolution of eukaryotic cells (those cells having a nucleus) which is presented as a case of a cell devouring another one of its kind. However, seeding the story right from such primordial mists of time is a case of imaginative overreach than a lucid interpretation of good science. The history of meat eating in hominins is much more interesting as most of our close cousins like gorillas and orang utans are strict vegetarians. In Zaraska’s opinion, the absence of a coat of hair in humans is due to the change in predation habits. To eat the flesh of other animals, either you have to scavenge the remains from other predators’ kills, or you have to hunt the small game yourself. Both cases involve a good amount of running and quite surprisingly, human endurance in running is legendary. Antelope and cheetah are definitely faster, but they can’t keep the pace for an extended period of time as man does. Such a high dissipation of energy mandated an efficient method of cooling and the coat of hair gave way to sweat glands. Stamina for hunting and running necessitated the eating of meat, which is projected as the cause of man’s dependence on meat.

The author dismisses some common misunderstandings about the necessity and efficacy of meat as a provider of protein. Our body needs specific amino acids to make the proteins essential for us. We can obtain these amino acids by decomposing proteins collected from a meaty diet. Of course, these amino acids are available in plant food as well, but the most essential ones (nine in number) come fully assembled in meat and egg. If you want to compensate this using vegetarian food, a lot of varied ingredients are to be painstakingly combined to harness the amount of protein required by the human body. For example, beans have many amino acids, but not the crucial methionine, which is available in plenty in grains. Zaraska makes it absolutely clear that the primary principle of nutrition in the 1950s, which articulated meat as the sole source of protein, is false. With many illustrative and witty examples, she clarifies this point conclusively. This balance of vegetarian food is applicable only to the modern western world who can afford a large variety of vegetables. For poor people in developing countries and those people of the ancient, meat is/was the only option for protein as agricultural yield and variety of vegetables were poor.

It is an undeniable fact that the fascination of meat to a large number of people involves the delicious smell it emits when cooked. The book examines what makes people hooked to meat. The delectable side of attraction to meat is the highly desirable aroma and flavour produced by a chemical reaction known as Maillard reaction that occurs when meat is cooked. There are chest-thumping naturalists among us who would shun anything ‘chemical’ and would go only for ‘natural’ products. These people are sure to miss a heartbeat when they learn that hundreds of chemicals are formed when meat is cooked! Gamma-heptalactone smells fruity, tri-methyl-pyrazine is musty in odour, while 3-octen-2-one is like crushed eggs. And no, they are not added by the cook, but made out of naturally occurring ingredients in meat. Japanese researchers found that contrary to previously believed, human tongue can distinguish a sixth kind of taste, which they termed umami (delicious in Japanese). And they isolated the chemical monosodium glutamate (MSG) from kombu (a kind of edible sea weed widely eaten in East Asia) which activates the umami receptor. Later, they produced the concentrate in industrial scale under the brand name ajinomoto (Japanese for quintessence of flavour). About 3.5% of people are blind to the taste of MSG, and the author hazards a guess that it is the proportion of people who are vegetarians, because, they can’t detect the delicious taste of meat! Apart from conscious vegetarians who stay away from eating meat for religious or ideological reasons, genetic factor is a serious contender for the aversion to flesh. The giant panda though technically belongs to bears and hence should be an ardent carnivore, has a gene that disables umami receptors. It is then no wonder that the panda thrives solely on bamboo shoots.

Zaraska portrays the gruesome methods by which animals are reared and ‘harvested’ (an industrial euphemism for killing) by the meat industry. Some of the practices are unethical and most cruel. Pigs’ testes produce a hormone called androstenone which imparts a bitter taste to its meat after it is killed. The industry’s solution to this issue is shocking – pigs are castrated while young without anesthesia, by making an incision on the testes and slowly squeezing the balls out with the unfortunate pig wailing its lungs out. Pale Veal is a kind of meat produced from animals separated from their mothers soon after birth which are then stuffed into tiny cages that don’t allow any movement and fed with milk formula which is devoid of iron. This deficiency makes the animal anemic and imparts an attractive pale colour to its flesh. The meat is tender because the animals never move, so the muscles are low in collagen. Such veal crates were banned in the EU in 2007, but still permitted in the U.S. There is an indirect cost to animal breeding to be paid by society. 60% of corn and half of soybeans that grow in U.S. are used for feeding livestock. However, there are gentler ways adopted by the meat corporations, at least for enhancing the quality of meat. The last hours and minutes of an animal’s life are much important in determining the taste. The more it suffers, the less tasty it becomes. Stress hormones like adrenaline and increased body temperature at the instant of a violent death reduces the quality by acidifying the muscles. Oozing of liquids that contain protein is a sure sign of stress at the last moment. But clever marketers add absorbent pads at the bottom of the containers to soak up the liquid. The most renowned brands of course use ethical practices, but the cost of it is also high, like Angus beef and Kobe beef.

It is reiterated many times in the book that meat is not a biological necessity to us. We can very well manage with plant-based diets, but the socio-cultural pulls exerted by meat is considerable, even in spite of the health hazards associated with it, such as increased likelihood of cancer, heart diseases, and diabetes. Eating meat symbolized power and potency in sex. Killing and eating something which can hurt us trumpeted the masculinity of the hunter. Going towards more vegetarianism is the way to proceed in view of conservation of resources, pollution and global warming associated with rearing cattle. There can be no hard and fast rule on the definition of vegetarianism. But there are some interesting terms used, like pescaterians (eats no meat, but fish is allowed), pesco pollo vegetarians (no red meat, but chicken and fish agreeable), flexitarians (generally avoids meat but eat it occasionally) and VB6 (vegetarians before 6 pm)! The term ‘vegetarian’ is derived from the Latin word ‘vegetus’ which means ‘a person who lives a healthy life’. Difference between a ‘vegan’ and a ‘vegetarian’ is not spelled out in the book, though it uses both words quite a large number of times. Zaraska addresses the peculiarity of India which traditionally held a vegetarian diet. This may be because the country is home to about fifty varieties of lentils, peas and beans – all loaded with protein. The culinary diversity helped Indians stick on to their plant-based food for this long. It is also said that perhaps nowhere else in the world except in India would it have been possible 3000 years ago to be a strict vegetarian.

The book includes a good index and a considerable section on Notes. It lists some hypotheses which seem to be not entirely based on fact. The author’s assertion that the higher a person’s IQ is at age 10, the less likely he will be a meat lover as an adult is debatable. Similar is the claim that the more a tribe bases its diet on animal products, the less power women hold and the more meat is consumed in a society, the more distance fathers keep from their infants.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star