AN ACRE A MEAL? - MEAT: A Benign Extravagance - page 25

Only 11 per cent of the feed goes to produce the beef itself, with the rest either
burned off as energy in the conversion process, used to maintain normal bodily func-
tions, or excreted, or absorbed into parts of the body system that are not eaten - like
hair or bones.
But these parts of the dead animal 'like hair or bones' which are not eaten - 50 to 55
per cent in the case of beef and 25 to 30 per cent in the case of pork - are not wasted. 18 The
motto of meat processors everywhere, whether industrial packers or smallholders in their
kitchen, has always been 'everything is used except the grunt' (or 'moo' or 'baa', depend-
ing upon the species).
The most obviously useful byproduct of a cow is its hide, which once cleaned and
tanned is of considerable value. And every other part has its use. Collagen, an element of
the connective tissues, is used in glues, wallpaper, plasterboard and sausage casings. Gelat-
in is used in various foodstuffs and plastics. Fat is used in soaps, waxes, margarine and
cosmetics. In 1982, animal fat represented 68 per cent of all of the fat and oil used in UK
soap manufacture, 19 but now a good deal of that has been replaced by oil from palm planta-
tions which are held responsible for deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia. 20 The hooves
and horn are used as an ivory substitute. Hair is used in paintbrushes. Insulin and glucagon
from the pancreas, blood plasma, trypsin, thrombin, bone marrow, intestines and ACTH [a
hormone] from the pituitary gland are all used for medical purposes. 21 Bones can be used
for glue. Waste meat can be turned into pet food, or it can be rendered and fed to pigs or
fish. Anything which isn't eaten or otherwise used can be turned into a high value fertil-
izer. The fact that some of these products are currently wasted is not a fact of nature: it is a
consequence of globalization and of incompetent animal health policies (a matter which is
covered in more detail in Chapter 5).
Moreover, 'edibility' is a subjective concept. Under duress, human beings can probably
eat 90 per cent of a cow. The skin of a pig is normally eaten, but can be turned into leather;
the skin of a cow is normally turned into leather, but it can also be eaten. There is a moment
in The Goldrush when Charlie Chaplin boils up his boots and tucks into them with a knife
and fork. Things haven't got that bad in Nigeria, but leather producers there are concerned
by the growing popularity amongst poor consumers of pomo , a delicacy made by boiling
and softening cow hides. 'These pomo eaters have decided to walk on bare feet because
they have decided to eat their own shoes,' the provost of the Zaria College of Leather Tech-
nology was reported as saying. 22
Which parts of a carcase are edible, or not, depends on social factors: how rich people
are, what alternatives are available, and nowadays, what advertisers, health geeks and
celebrity chefs happen to be propagating. In 1986 British people ate 1.1 kilos of offal per
year out of 54 kilos of meat. In 2008 they consumed even more meat - 58 kilos - but