Red meat, the silent battle

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The silent battle against ‘red meat‘ and animal husbandry has been going on for a long time, amid general indifference. More or less scandalous news is cyclically repeated, sometimes disproved, without altering the established habits of production and consumption to any great extent.
Few or none have thus noticed-between the lines of the EU Farm to Fork (f2f) Strategy, presented on 20.5.20-the expressed position of the European Commission toward red meat. A declaration of war against the livestock industry, which until then had always received wide support in the Old Continent.
What has changed? Who are the real players in the current battle, what scenarios are on the horizon? It is safe to assume that someone is preparing the ground – cultural and regulatory – for the launch of the
Lab meat
.

Hunting the enemy

The European Commission suddenly includes-in the latest version of a document (f2f) that has been under discussion for more than six months-a reference to only one category of food, red meats, in a list of nutritional values. Red meat is placed side by side with calories, salt, sugar, and fat. (2) With a logical leap that, frankly, is not given to understand. (3)

Excessive sugar and/or salt and fat contents, combined with high energy density, indeed characterizejunk-food. Precisely designated as HFSS(High in Fats, Sugar and Sodium). And scientific research in recent years has focused attention not on meats but on ultra-processed foods, noting a prevalence of junk food in this very food category. (4)

Ultraprocessed foods have been shown to be a primary cause of obesity, overweight and related diseases. The so-called Non-Communicable Diseases, (NCDs), such as cardiovascular diseases (coronary and cerebrovascular, such as heart attacks and strokes), prime causes of premature mortality. As well as cancer and diabetes, the epidemic of the century, and various others.

Why then does the European Commission, in identifying a category of ‘negative’ health foods, point specifically to red meat? On what basis? Why does it not mention instead the ultra-processed, junk food that dominates the food supply aimed at minors in the European Union (>68% of products on the shelf? (5) Or perhaps palm oil, the food industry’s most widely used saturated fat that recurs in a multitude of HFSS(High in Fats, Sugar and Sodium) foods?

Follow the money

Observing the economic forces at play can perhaps help to understand what is moving behind the battle against red meat and animal husbandry in Europe. On one side are hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers, tens of thousands in Italy as well. From whom the market, even before politics, demands greater efforts on both fronts of environmental sustainability and animal welfare.

European animal husbandry seems to have realized the need to invest in animal welfare and environmental protection to ensure human health and its own survival. More hygiene and less antibiotics, no GMO soybeans, yes short supply chain. Less meat but better, in every respect, and fairly remunerated. In line with, among other things, no. 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – of the
Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), in UN Agenda 2030.

On the opposite side stand the financial giants who, under the radar, have already invested billions of dollars in a handful of biotech companies working on Franken-meat. (6) Laboratory meat, in the imperialistic designs of the giants, will be able to acquire and concentrate-in their hands alone-market shares now dissipated across the planet among millions of agricultural and food enterprises.

Laboratory proteins impregnated with artificial blood derived from GMO enzymes, on closer inspection, have nothing to do with sustainability or healthy nutrition. Indeed, the food safety of products derived from genetic engineering is questionable. At least over the long and very long term, in the absence of clinical and epidemiological studies.

And it is ‘curious’ to note how the media battle against European animal husbandry is being waged by some major environmental and consumer groups. Which, ‘curiously’, do not reveal the identity of their sponsors.

The friends of the jaguar

Thus BEUC, the confederation of consumer associations in Europe:

– has never voiced any criticism, nor supported any petition, against food chains responsible for land robbery and deforestation. Such as those promoted by the writer over the years against palm oil, GMO soy, and American meats,

– did not blink an eye on the TTIP (EU-US treaty) negotiations, nor on the CETA (EU-Canada) agreement. Although they result in the import of foodstuffs into the EU that are incompatible with current European standards of environmental sustainability, animal welfare and food safety (7,8,9),

– has not expressed a position on new GMOs, which European institutions have long been blandishing (and the Commission has in fact called out in the f2f strategy), with the idea of
frustrate the cautions imposed by the EU Court of Justice,

– does not care about the US$1.4 billion invested in new thermal power plants, by the protagonists of the #worldeconomicfailure in Davos. Nor of the 7.6 billion euros invested by the ECB (European Central Bank) between mid-March and mid-May 2020 on the fossil fuel industry.

And yet BEUC itself leads an ‘environmentalist’ crusade against European livestock farms, whose greenhouse gas emissions now express 10 percent of the European total and are set to decline. (10) In whose name?

1 a 99

The dystopian scenario of behemoth factories where genetic engineering mimics animal protein is perhaps more realistic than one might imagine. But it inevitably represents the victory of 1, indeed 0.1 percent over 99-99.9 percent of humanity. Where theFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO) itself recently emphasized that the universal right to food-still a utopia, for some 2 billion people-must be guaranteed by promotingsmall-scale agroecology and biodiversity, in the plant and animal kingdoms.

Food sovereignty-that is, the availability of land and the means of production by local communities-is thus the real challenge facing the planet. The unattainable foundation of social justice. Farmers need land to cultivate and also devote, in part, to animal husbandry. According to the customs, traditions, and nutritional needs of communities. This is the only way to develop sustainable food production and consumption practices that are rooted in territories.

A hundred shades of pink

‘Red meat includes beef, pig meat, lamb, and goat meat and all processed meats’ (EC Communication on Farm to Fork Strategy, footnote 33).

The red pigment in meats is due to the higher or lower content in muscle fibers of a protein, myoglobin. Which acts as an oxygen store and serves to sustain intense and prolonged exertion. Age, breed and sex-as well as species-of animals affect the presence of this protein, so too does the intensity of meat color.

Iron absorption. ’50 g of meat or fish, when eaten with other iron-containing foods [e.g., green leafy vegetables, whole grains, ed.], ‘contribute to improved iron absorption‘ (EU reg. 432/12, Annex).

Hundred shades of pink on closer inspection are observed in a variety of meats, where those of pork and veal tend to approach that of free-range poultry and swordfish. Rather than mackerel or anchovies. Comparable to the red of a beef or rump, but also to that of tuna and skipjack. And in those hundred shades of pink, omnivorous consumers since the dawn of time have found the benefits associated with moderate consumption of animal products.

Biotechnology research on lab meats, ultra-processed foods such as the
Impossible Burger
, is now focusing on synthetic replication of heme, the chemical complex that contains the non-protein fractions of myoglobin, hemoglobin, and cytochromes with one along with an iron atom. Progress or Viral Deception, that is, viral deception?

Dario Dongo

Cover: graphic elaboration on Claudio Verna, Fragments, 2011, acrylic on canvas

Notes

(1) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
A Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.
. Brussels, 20.5.20, COMM (2020) 381 final, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1590404602495&uri=CELEX%3A52020DC0381
(2) See document in footnote 1, section 2.4
(3) See section ‘Meat consumption, the new war on Commission‘ in previous article ‘
Special Farm to Fork, the strategy presented in Brussels on 5/20/20.
‘. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 5/24/20, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/speciale-farm-to-fork-la-strategia-presentata-a-bruxelles-il-20-5-20

(4) Dario Dongo. Diet, health, and ultraprocessed foods. The FAO report. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 2.9.19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/salute/dieta-salute-e-alimenti-ultraprocessati-il-rapporto-fao

(5) Dario Dongo. Baby food, 68% is junk food. European research. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 10/30/19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/mercati/alimenti-per-bambini-il-68-è-junk-food-ricerca-europea
(6) Brooke Sunness. Lab Grown Meat Stocks. Cell Based Tech. 12/22/19, https://cellbasedtech.com/2019/12/lab-grown-meat-stocks

(7) Dario Dongo. Chlorinated chicken, hormone meats and new GMOs from the US? TTIP, no thanks. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 1.2.20, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/sicurezza/pollo-al-cloro-carni-agli-ormoni-e-nuovi-ogm-dagli-usa-ttip-no-grazie

(8) Dario Dongo.
CETA, Canada announces battle to Europe over pesticides and GMOs.
. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 4.7.19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/mercati/ceta-il-canada-annuncia-battaglia-all-europa-su-pesticidi-e-ogm

(9) Dario Dongo.
CETA, Canadian meat from cattle fed animal meal.
. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 6.8.19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/mercati/ceta-carne-canadese-da-bovini-nutriti-con-farine-animali

(10) Source European Commission, see footnote 1. NB: The decrease in emissions in animal husbandry will come precisely from the measures in the f2f strategy, as well as from CAP reform. V. https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/pac-post-2020-la-transizione-agroecologica-in-gioco

Dario Dongo
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Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.