Should We Eat Meat?: Evolution and Consequences of Modern Carnivory 1st Edition

This is not a meat eater bashing book! it is well rounded and informative.

Smil's book was exactly what I was looking for - a potted history of how meat became industrialized and the numbers surrounding the phenomena. He breaks down numbers such as feed, productivity, yield, carbon dioxide emissions, and water usage with incredible nuance. I particularly appreciated the way he approached the water usage numbers, highlighting that we can't consider all water going into meat as the same (e.g. water from aquifers versus rainfall used to grow the feedcrops). I also think he explained well the major determinants in engendering industrial animal agriculture (e.g. advances in refrigeration and the Haber process).As with any Smil book, it can be a bit dry and a slog at times. I think numbers are a good start, but numbers ultimately should be culminating to some sort of wisdom. I didn't always find such in this book. Also, I think he makes numerous fallacies: For example, he contends that malnutrition in India is due to not eating enough meat. Couldn't this also be explained by a general lack of calories? Secondly, he often qualifies meat eating due to evolutionary reasons. Often, his arguments rest on the fact that because humans are evolutionarily optimized to eat meat, we should. This is a fallacy. Modern society routinely dispenses evolutionary goals (e.g. monogamy, having fewer children). We have adopted other values to take its place (such as moral considerations).

Very thorough science, but gives beef a passing grade as opposite to the latest World Health Organization recommendation. Beef made us who we are. He suggests how to handle the overwhelming task of getting people at least to cut down before the Earth is finally destroyed. A heavy read. Not for the weak of spirit or the scientifically ignorant. Few politicians are up to the task, unfortunately.

This is a difficult read thanks to the plethora of facts and figures shared by the author. To his credit he has analyzed and critiqued a number of myths and misconceptions using hard data. This is probably the most well researched book I have read about meat eating and the planetary impact of the meat industry. However the writing style and excessive listing of facts and data makes it a difficult read. Not a book for the casual reader or layman.

It is a bit overwhelming to read all the data in raw text format (I think charts might be better way to demonstrate data), but, in general, it is a great book

Dense read but very informative and I learnt a lot.

Any page has an extraordinary research effort, there is no doubt Samil Vaclav is a polymath.

I don't really think of myself as a Smil fan, though I do keep an eye out for his work. He always does a nice job of addressing a topic and provides copious references to original material. This is not a light read. It is a treatise. A well referenced, thorough treatment of a complicated topic. Enjoyable? Not a word that immediately comes to mind with this type of book. It is a technical book that reads well. Smil is a gifted writer, but gifts do not exist that could make this content read like a novel. Great ob, great insighs.

Vaclav Smil schickt in dieser sachlich orientierten Analyse gleich zu Beginn voraus, dass ein global praktizierter Vegetarismus unrealistisch ist. Zu tief sind die Jagd- und Essensrituale in den verschiedenen Kulturen des Homo Sapiens verankert, mit denen er sich während seiner Entwicklung und Domestizierung von Tieren identifiziert. Auch wenn am Ende des Buches ausführlich auf Alternativen zu Fleisch eingegangen wird, ist nicht zu leugnen, dass es ein ausgezeichneter Lieferant hochqualitativer Proteine und Fette ist. Der Fettanteil in der menschlichen Ernährung sollte 20 - 35% betragen, wobei sich bei unverarbeitetem Fleisch der Anteil an gesättigten und ungesättigten Fettsäuren die Waage hält. Fleisch liefert auch jene neun Aminosäuren, die der menschliche  Organismus nicht selber synthetisieren kann. Ohne den Konsum von Fleisch müsste es einen dementsprechend höheren Verzehr von tierischen Produkten geben, um Mangelerscheinungen zu vermeiden. Interessant sind die von V. Smil beschriebenen Sachverhalte, dass es zwischen Herz- Kreislauferkrankungen und Fleischkonsum keinen Zusammenhang gibt, aber sehr wohl einen Zusammenhang zwischen koronaren Herzerkrankungen und der Aufnahme gesättigter Fettsäuren sowie einen Zusammenhang zwischen kollorektalem Krebs und dem Verzehr von rotem Fleisch. Das in diesem Buch aufgezeigte Hauptproblem besteht darin, dass die derzeitige Fleischproduktion falsch optimiert ist. Weder wird Rücksicht auf die Umwelt noch auf die Bedürfnisse hoch entwickelter friedlicher Lebewesen genommen, die in hohem Ausmaß Schmerz und Angst empfinden können. Enge Käfighaltungen von freiheitsliebenden und geselligen Tieren, katastrophale Transport- und Schlachtbedingungen sind Auswüchse einer nach Preis und Menge optimierten Industrie, die uns Menschen ein Mitgefühl diesbezüglich abgewöhnt hat und uns die von vielen Grausamkeiten begleitete Fleischerzeugung ignorieren lässt. So steigt der Anteil von Stresshormonen im Fleisch durch eine höhere Haltungsdichte, die zur Bereitstellung der nachgefragten Menge möglichst nach oben optimiert wird. Ökologische Auswirkungen der Fleisch- und Futtermittelerzeugung werden in der öffentlichen Diskussion ausgeblendet, denn die dabei entstehenden Gase wie CH4 oder das N2O tragen hochgradig zum Treibhauseffekt bei und sollten wie die viel diskutierte Abschaffung fossiler Brennstoffe ebenso thematisiert werden. Nicht mehr loslassen kann den Leser/die Leserin Tabelle 3.1 auf S 109, wo die Anteile des Kadaver-, Verkauf-, Küchen- und Verzehrgewicht am Lebendgewicht dargestellt wird. Die unglaubliche Relation von Verzehrgewicht an Lebendgewicht beträgt bei Schweinefleisch 38%, bei Rindfleisch lediglich 30%. Was für eine ungeheure Verschwendung von Ressourcen auf so vielen Ebenen!Verantwortungsvollen BürgerInnen und EntscheidungsträgerInnen muss es möglich sein, mit den hier bereitgestellten Daten ernährungspolitische Trends einzuleiten, die nach gesunder Ernährung und ökologischer Auswirkung optimiert sind, denn "Should we eat meat" von Vaclav Smil liefert sachlich und informativ viele Daten und referenziert dazu zahlreiche Studien. Alle, die sich jemals mit ihrer Ernährung beschäftigt und ihren Fleischkonsum aus verschiedenen Motiven heraus einer Neubewertung unterziehen möchten, bekommen hier ein faktenbasiertes Werk in die Hand, das ihnen Erklärungen aus vielen Blickwinkeln liefert. Es informiert über den Fleischkonsum der Menschen aus anthropologischer, gesundheitlicher, ethischer, ökonomischer und ökologischer Perspektive und geht auch auf den ungeheuren Wasser- und Düngemittel bei der Futtermittelproduktion ein.Dieses Buch ist ein faktenreiches Plädoyer für eine rationale Gestaltung der Ernährung. Alle, die sich für Tierschutz und Klimawandel interessieren, sollten es gewissenhaft und genau lesen, damit gegen diese globale Ressourcenverschwendung und Auswirkungen auf das Klima sachlich und ohne moralisch erhobenem Zeigefinger argumentiert werden kann.Fünf Sterne für diese fundierte und wichtige Analyse, die unbedingt auch in anderen Sprachen erhältlich sein sollte!

The below is copied from my Goodreads review about the book.As a person who eats a mostly vegetarian diet, I have been looking for a book which dedicated itself to look at the actual facts known about meat and its consequences on our health, on society, and on our environment. This was that book for me.The other readers have commented/complained about the density of numbers and references in Vaclav Smil's book. I admit, the reading will be slow, and it will probably be hard going at times. That said, personally, I appreciated that this was written like a graduate thesis. It was important for me that I could dig deeper into the references on any topic of interest and I could keep the figures he quoted in mind for when it came time to make my own conclusions.Another point I could also make in defense of Vaclav Smil's style is that, for me personally anyways, a little sober number peddling is a welcome alternative to the polarized debate between meat lovers and vegetarians. I wanted someone who would take a researchers accounting of the facts when I picked up this book. I wasn't disappointed.Apart from that, a little about what's actually in the book:1. The Ancient History of People and Eating MeatIf you have an unquestioning ideological bend against the idea that meat has ever been a part of the healthy human diet then, thankfully, the first part of the book will turn you off and you won't have to waste any more time. Vaclav Smil says the simple truth. At our basic biology (e.g. our intestinal tract, our teeth, the essential amino acids our body does not produce itself) we are fine tuned to include meat as a substantial part of our diet.Also, despite what other readers say, Vaclav Smil doesn't suggest that we can't live with a meatless diet, he just notes what is obvious for any serious anthropologist - us and our ancestors have been eating meat for a long time. You can live a healthy life while meatless but the consensus about our evolution as a species stays the same.2. Livestock's Historical Role in Human CivilizationVaclav Smil touches on what type of animals human beings picked as their ideal livestock. The topic is facinating. For instance, a bear would make a terrible livestock. A bear needs meat as part of its healthy diet. Similarly, anything but a herd animal would be too unruly and more dangerous to its handlers.Then he discusses the historical advantages that ancient farmers took use of to make their subsistence living just a little easier. Large livestock could do work in the field. Also, horses and cows were able to eat the parts of crops that humans can't digest (the cellulose in plants is undigestible in humans and a lot of other animals). Cows were able to turn this inedible roughage into nutritious milk for human beings.Separately, pigs and chickens could be relied on to either eat the garbage left over from human cooking or forage for themselves for their feed. I particularly liked the example of chickens or geese being flocked over a recently harvested field to eat any left over seeds.3. The Manufacturing of Food - Feed Crops, CAFOs, Balanced FeedThis part of the book is the section that most surprised me. Like most other people, I'd seen the images of chickens in small cages, cows shoulder to shoulder at a feeding trough in giant facilities. Those images are the tip of an iceberg. The whole operation is much more industrial, more globalized, and enormously sophisticated.Smil quickly does away with the terms "industrial farming" or "factory farming" and introduces the term Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). This is the term that describes the terrible living conditions of cows, pigs, and chickens who will live in the minimum space mandated by law in large feeding facilities. For chickens, that space is slightly larger than a legal sheet of paper per chicken. For pigs, and cows, often they are close enough that they are almost just rubbing against the animal next to them. Some of these facilities have only as much light in the animal areas as you would find on a moonlight night outside. Often the feces is not removed until the animals have been cleared. Smil documents all of this in extraordinary detail. Meat in modern society is for the first time cheaply and readily available to almost anyone. The tragedy, as Smil notes, is that it is born on the suffering of these animals.The other, and as Smil points out, more environmentally significant aspect of modern meat production is feed crops and compound feeds. I ended up visualizing compound feeds as the Clif bars of animal feed. It is a food substance, often pelleted (I assume for easy portioning) of a balanced portion of macro and micro nutrients from various whole food sources and additives. Making this requires high yield crops such as corn and soybean to be sourced, often across national borders, to facilities for the large scale mixing. The net effect of this work - the farming, the transport, the industrial processing, and the feeding to animals rather than feeding directly to humans - results in a high energy cost for each pound of meat eaten by a person. This translates to a large contribution to the global warming of our environment.The couple of chapters that deal with that in depth are worth reading twice to learn about the fascinating globalized web that brings meat to our tables.4. The Potential Role for Meat in a Future with Many More Mouths to FeedSmil takes his time to make his case but I'll be up front about it, he sees meat as a necessary part of any future solutions that make better use of current farm lands to feed even more people. Unlike what I saw some other readers claim, Smil doesn't say that the world can't be well nourished on a vegetarian diet with the current farm lands we have. What he says, which is obvious, is that most people are not willing to stop eating meat. If anything, the more money that individuals in developing countries have, the more likely they are to regularly buy meat. Smil is being pragmatic in his predictions.What he does make a case for, is being more rational with our meat production. For instance, cows eating plant matter that is inedible to humans anyways could be a larger part of their diet with no detriment to farmland dedicated for producing crops directly for human consumption. Those cows could also produce milk, which is much more energy efficient per pound of feed for a cow.He also talks about the benefits of growing fish aquafarms and the relatively much more efficient feeding of such. He talks about ways to extend ground meat with portions of soy. He also, and I appreciated this, talked about all of us eating a little less meat. There is already a trend to that in developed countries. He makes a lot of sensible suggestions for the reader to consider.TL;DR This is a great book. There is much to learn about how meat gets from a farm to the grocery store, the treatment of animals, the role of animals in mankind's history. I think any vegetarian or would be vegetarians should pick this up, if only to hear the perspective of an academic who has seriously researched the topic of humanity's relationship to meat.

After watching the 2014 documentary Cowspiracy, whose rather depressing conclusion was that anyone concerned about the environment should become a vegan, I set out to search for a book which would provide me with a more detailed analysis of the matter, and would allow me to make an informed decision about my consumption of animal products.And that is exactly what I have found in this book. The scope of Vaclav Smil's analysis is mind-boggling: how much meat is produced in the world today? How much meat do people consume in different countries, and how are those statistics built? How are animals raised and slaughtered? What are the impacts of animal husbandry in terms of water consumption, land use, GHG emissions, etc.? What are the positive and negative effects of meat consumption on our health?In just over 200 pages, the author successfully deals with all these questions, and many more, answering pretty much every question I might have had about meat consumption, in a very documented, scientific manner. And he debunks many hasty arguments that are often made against meat consumption, the kind that you can see in Cowspiracy.And he's not just throwing numbers around and describing a situation: he provides a very concrete conclusion that we should draw from all those facts.The book explores so many different fields, it's a tough read, unless you're well versed in biology, agriculture, etc. But if you have a basic scientific culture, and are willing to look up from time to time a concept that you're not familiar with, then you should definitely not be daunted!Taking off one-star half-heartedly because the presentation of the book could have been better (e.g. it would have been nice to have annexes that recap commonly used figures, such as the average live weights of cows/pigs/poultry, or feed conversion ratio) and because some factual errors have slipped through.

El libro de Smil presenta un análisis exhaustivo del consumo de carne desde diversas perspectivas. Trata desde su función en la evolución del hombre actual hasta su papel como elemento de las diferentes culturas. Hace un gran análisis del coste de la producción de carne, especialmente centrado en su impacto ambiental, valorando diversas medidas de este impacto y discutiendo las que no son adecuadas. Finaliza presentando diversos escenarios de adaptación para reducir el impacto del consumo de carne sobre el medio ambiente.Es un trabajo académico de gran valor que incluye estudios hechos desde distintas perspectivas. Es un libro para leer con la mente abierta y sin una idea preconcebida al respecto. Si así se hace, se aprende mucho y permite formarse una opinión propia al respecto del tema tratado. MUY RECOMENDABLE.

It is a very interesting subject, but in some chapter the author goes into a lot of detail to support his points of view, which I guess is ok, but as a reader it was not that interesting to me to go into all that detail. The book is good anyway.