Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
took away the main advantage of pork - that, being fatty, it tasted better when salted, and
so could be packed and preserved without refrigeration; and it meant that Chicago packers
could take over and centralize the lucrative beef byproducts industry.
12
But it was the rise of the hamburger that finally tipped the scales in favour of beef. As
far as the meat industry was concerned the hamburger carried out one crucially important
function. Because it consisted of ground beef, meat from different cows could be mixed
together. Lean beef, from the Western rangelands, or from Central or South America, could
be made more palatable by mixing it with fatty beef fed on grains in feedlots. There was no
reason why the lean beef could not have been mixed together with a small amount of fatty
pork; this would have been more efficient in terms of grain use and probably cheaper. But
such a hybrid would not have conformed to the statutory definition of 'hamburger'. Marvin
Harris, after making unsuccessful inquiries to the US Department of Agriculture as to how
the Federal Code's defiition was decided, concluded:
The exclusion of pork and pork fat from hamburgers suggests that beef producers
had more influence in government than pork producers. If true, this would be the nat-
ural outcome of a basic difference in the organization of the two industries which has
persisted since the late 19th century. Beef production has long been dominated by a
relatively small number of very large ranches and feedlot companies, while pig pro-
duction has been carried out by a relatively large number of small to medium farm
units … To sum up, beef achieved its recent ascendancy over pork through the direct
and indirect influence of all-beef hamburger.
13
If Harris is right, the definition of this one word is responsible for one of the biggest eco-
logical cock-ups in modern history, the beef feedlot industry, which pumps vast amounts
of corn and forage from irrigated pastures down the throats of animals that are least able to
process it efficiently. One wonders also whether the Jewish lobby did not have some influ-
ence upon the definition, since Harris adds:
Ground pork can be eaten, ground beef can be eaten; yet to mix the two together
and call it a hamburger is an abomination. It all sounds suspiciously like a rerun of
Leviticus … In mediating the age-old struggle between pigs - consummate eaters of
grain - and cattle - consummate eaters of grass - the USDA had followed ancient pre-
cedents.
Over the last 20 years, the grain-fed meat industry has spread from the USA and other
wealthy countries to emerging countries in the Third World, but it has not taken much beef
with it. Brazil is producing increasing quantities of feedlot chicken, much of it for export to
Europe. China's consumption of pork and poultry has shot up, and she is having to import
