Report or activist project

8 The cultural hegemony of meat

and the animal industrial complex

Amy J. Fitzgerald and Nik Taylor

We wanted to take the opportunity to write this chapter and contribute to this volume for three main reasons. The first is that we are part of, and witnesses to, the development of a new discipline – Animal Studies – and while we are greatly appreciative of all the work done under this umbrella we are interested to explore what specifically Critical Animal Studies might mean and what it can bring to empirical, as well as theoretical, work. The second is that we feel the belief in the human right to use other animals is so pervasive in modern societies that it is akin to sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination. We also believe that it rests upon similar foundations to other forms of discrimination and thus one cannot successfully counter one without countering the others.

Ecofeminists have historically been at the forefront of interrogating the inter secting subjugation of “nature” and marginalised human groups (see for example, Adams 1991; Gaard 1997; Kheel 1995; Plumwood 1996; Warren 1997). We expand upon this idea later, so suffice to say for introductory pur poses that a belief in the need to expand theories of intersectionality to include speciesism motivates us. Finally, we chose to write about the cultural hegemony of animal products as a specific empirical, test- case, because it is here, we believe, that the ultimate expression of human superiority and exceptionalism is made, precisely because it is made normatively and by assumption. This means that challenging it is necessary but also difficult as it requires addressing some thing so taken- for-granted and embedded that most are unable, or unwilling, to see it. That said, addressing the hidden mechanisms of social life is arguably one of the most important functions of sociology, as Burawoy (2007: 28) points out in his idea of an “organic public sociology”, which brings “sociology into a con versation with publics” (see also Twine 2010 and Cudworth, Chapter 1 this volume). One of the projects of such sociology is “to make visible the invisible, to make the private public,” which we applaud but would make explicit that achieving such a goal is only possible if we attend to the ways in which power plays out and manifests itself through discourse; hence, our interest in the norm ative discourses of the acceptability of the human consumption of animal derived food products.

This chapter, then, will begin to map some of the ways in which entrenched beliefs about animals and humans are created and maintained by different

discursive practices. We do this by analysing the various normalisation dis courses surrounding the consumption of animal products. Using empirical data drawn from two main fields of practice where animals are constituted simply as consumables (human food and “pet” food products) we seek to begin to uncover the mechanisms whereby the production and consumption of animal products are normalised. We argue that this consumption is so taken for granted in modern industrial societies that there exists a cultural hegemony regarding not just the acceptability, but the necessity of animal consumption and seek to deconstruct the specific ways in which this occurs. We consider these issues within a framework that seeks to illuminate the operation of a general speciesist ideology and argue that this is a result of, and at the same time underpins, the “animal- industrial complex” (A- IC) (Noske 1989; Twine 2012). We utilise Twine’s (2012: 23) definition of the A- IC as “a partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate . . . sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, social, and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, techniques, images, identities and markets”. In particular, we focus on the interplay between images, identities and markets by analysing the entanglements of animal- derived food production and consumption practices (and in this particular case we mean the literal consump tion – ingestion – of animals) as they are sterilised and made palatable for general consumers through various campaigns. This allows us to begin high lighting the interconnected, local and global, character of the animal- industrial complex. We do this in the spirit of Twine’s exhortation that in order to make the A- IC an organising concept for CAS we need to continually map the connec tions between overlapping sectors where animal abuse and exploitation occur. Believing that the obfuscation of meat- as-animal- life is one of the most important cornerstones of the animal- industrial complex under capitalist and neo- liberal regimes, we analyse data where animals are absent, manipulated or otherwise used within a political economy that depends on their very bodies for its maintenance, not in a nutritional sense but in the sense that they are consti tuted as necessary for maintaining the political economic status quo.

Background and context

While the growing discipline of Animal Studies has legitimised a consideration of animal abuse, much of the focus is on the cruelty perpetrated by individual humans to companion animals. Institutionalised cruelty receives far less atten tion (for exceptions and more on this see Beirne 2009; Fitzgerald et al. 2009; Flynn 2002), perhaps precisely because it is institutionalized and therefore subject to both concealment and protection by those with vested interests (see Groling, Chapter 5 in this volume, on this point). Other factors play a role in the concealment of the various animal abuses that take place in the processing of their bodies into products – for example, a desire to maintain the clear bound aries between human and other animals and thus shore up human superiority; a need to “prove” human civility, which necessitates the concealment of anything considered unpalatable and barbaric and in turn led to the moving of slaughter practices from open view to the outskirts of society (Elias 1978; Vialles 1994). As Elias points out,

It will be seen again and again how characteristic of the whole process of civilization is this movement of segregation, this hiding “behind the scenes” of what has become distasteful. The curve running from the carving of a large part of the animal or even the whole animal at table, through the advance in the threshold of repugnance at the sight of dead animals, to the removal of carving to specialized enclaves behind the scenes, is a typical civilization curve. (Elias 1978: 99)

However, we believe that these forces legitimate institutionalised animal abuses rather than pre- figure them. By hiding what actually happens – whether this occurs literally through the move to the edges of society of slaughterhouses, or discursively through the constitution of animals as less worthy than humans of moral concern – abusive treatment becomes legitimated and, ultimately, con sidered to be normal and necessary. Thus we see discourses abound regarding the nutritional necessity for humans to eat meat as well as those that situate animal production as a necessary part of a “thriving” economy. In turn, the abuses that animals suffer as a part of this process are covered up – again discur sively and literally – through, for example claims that their welfare is of para mount concern throughout the commodification process, or claims that humans could not live without the nutrition granted to them through the consumption of animal products (see Cole 2011 for a more in depth discussion). This discursive sleight of hand effectively silences any opposition partly because abusive prac tices are “out of sight, out of mind” but also because they are discursively con stituted as normal – “nothing to see here folks, move along”.

In our opinion, this is where Critical Animal Studies (CAS) comes into its own. Developing, in part, from the rich ideas of ecofeminists from the 1970’s onwards, who pointed to the intersected nature of the oppression of nature/ animals/environment and the oppression of women, CAS scholars seek to eluci date the mechanisms of these intersections in order to end them. 1 We would further argue that (some) other feminist approaches have much to offer any ana lysis of the abuse of animals in modern society. Liz Kelly’s concept of a “con tinuum of violence” (1988) is a particularly useful one here. This concept is based on an acknowledgment that violence against women is far from an aberra tion and, in fact, is normative. The normative character of violence against women leads to inattention to the ways it plays out on a daily basis because of a pre- occupation with extreme cases. This focus means that the socially sanctioned spectrum of male violence against women, which includes, but is by no means limited to, extreme forms of horrific instances of cruelty and abuse, go under acknowledged and under- analysed. We feel that this is often the case in Animal Studies as well as in society generally, where attention is given to individual instances of cruelty to companion animal species. While worthwhile, this body of scholarship neglects the institutionalised nature of abuse and therefore rein forces a form of speciesism by privileging harms perpetrated against some species over others. As a consequence such theories are bereft of any detailed analyses of power at a structural level, which we feel is necessary. 2

To better understand how violence against animals at the socially sanctioned end of the “continuum of violence” is normalised and has reached the level of hegemony, our analysis is centred on discourses of the meat production segment of the animal- industrial complex. By using empirical data, we hope to make some of the mechanisms of the A- IC clear and in so doing avoid falling into the trap that Twine identifies when he notes that usage of the concept “may have become simply assumed and almost rhetorical, deployed monolithically to represent, but also to reduce the myriad complexity of the multiple relations, actors, technologies and identities that may be said to comprise the complex” (2012: 15). While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to map all of the inter connections and detail the nuanced interplay between the various arms of the complex, by locating our work empirically we begin to describe some of the concrete mechanisms at play in the A- IC. We focus on the most common themes we observed, but before turning to those findings, we detail our sources of data and analytical method in the next section.

Data and method

We examine two sources of messages about animal- derived food products, tar geted at two fairly distinct audiences. The first is websites for red meat export ers, which are aimed at companies looking to secure supplies of red meat from Australia (a major meat exporter). We selected our sample of red meat exporters using an online search function of the Meat and Livestock Australia website. This website (www.mla.com.au/Marketing- red-meat/International- marketing/ Red- meat-exporter- database) states that its purpose is that “International meat buyers seeking Australian red meat suppliers can use MLA’s Australian Red Meat Exporter Database to find companies that can supply Australian beef, lamb, mutton, goat meat and offal products.” The search function has various ways of limiting responses, e.g. “importing destination”, or “species type”. Leaving all of these fields listed as “any”, an open search was performed. This resulted in 136 hits. Of these 110 had active websites broken down by product (beef = 94; sheep = 74; goat = 43; offal = 67; other = 24), certification (halal = 92; organic = 37;

EU grain fed beef = 11), and region (Americas = 75; Europe = 77; EQA = 41;

Africa = 64; Asia = 105; Middle East = 80, and Other = 27). From these, 55 were selected at random and these websites formed the data for the current analysis. We then analysed the front pages of each website and pulled out various recur ring themes, an examination of which occurs below.

The second source is print advertisements published in cooking magazines in North America and aimed at individual consumers. We selected three maga zines, Food and Wine, Bon Appétit and Cooking Light, because they are among the top Epicurean magazines according to the circulation averages compiled for the first half of 2012 by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. We analysed all adver tisements for products derived from animal sources, including meat, dairy, eggs and “pet” food, appearing in the first seven issues of 2012 for each of these monthly periodicals. These selection criteria resulted in 89 total advertisements (Food and Wine = 12; Bon Appétit = 12; Cooking Light = 65). The removal of duplicate advertisements left us with 74 unique advertisements (63 for human food products and 11 for “pet” food).

The mass media and the power to define

Before moving on to discuss the themes, we want to pause a moment here to reflect on the role of both media and discourse in determining beliefs about, and attitudes toward, non- human animals. Discourse refers to more than simply language:

Discourse is about the interplay between language and social relationships, in which some groups are able to achieve dominance for their interests in the way in which the world is defined and acted upon. . . . Language is a central aspect of discourse through which power is reproduced and communicated. (Hugman 1991: 37)

In modern Western society the media has an enormous power to disseminate ideas about issues, to frame things in certain ways and to determine what is con sidered normal. As Molloy points out (2011: 1) “animal narratives . . . play an essential role in shaping the limits and norms of public discourses on animals and animal issues and so constitute a key source of information, definitions and images”. Morgan and Cole (2011) argue that a “flesh- eating hegemony” (p. 120), which is a reflection of dominant social attitudes, permeates the modern media, and it is evidence of this we are keen to analyse. They further point out that “looking at stories relating to other animals . . . gives us some idea of what is seen as important or worthy of discussion – and equally importantly, what is not worthy of discussion” (ibid.: 120). By expanding this to examine advertisements and websites, which include images relating to the production and consumption of animal products, we can begin to deconstruct how animal production and con sumption are normalised in a “carnist” (Joy, 2009), “anthroparchal” (Cudworth (Chapter 1), and Jenkins and Twine (Chapter 11), this volume) culture.

The themes

We analysed our data using Content Analysis, a method that allows the exam ination of material for themes and meanings. We coded both explicit and implicit messages in the text and images contained in the advertisements and websites. This analysis of the data showed several prominent themes throughout both sources (the magazine advertisements and the websites). We focus on the three most prominent themes here, and while for analytical purposes we tease these themes apart, there are also important interconnections between them which we discuss throughout.

The replacement of “realistic” animals with “happy” animals

One of the themes common to both sets of data is the absence of any acknow ledgment of the processes used to convert live animals into dead products. In many ways this echoes Adams’ argument that,

Behind every meal of meat is an absence: the death of the animal whose place the meat takes. The “absent referent” is that which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product. The function of the absent referent is to keep our “meat” separated from any idea that she or he was once an animal . . . to keep something from being seen as having been someone. (Adams 2010: 13)

This omission of the processes used to produce meat has been documented in other research examining cultural representations of meat (e.g. Heinz and Lee 1998) and particularly in the case of chickens where, as Molloy points out, there is a disconnection between live birds and their “reconfigured” form (2011: 110).

However, while the processes that animals are subject to in order to become products – as opposed to whole, living beings – are absent throughout both data sites, actual animals are not. Animals are clearly discursively constituted as “happy” throughout many of the adverts and websites (“happy animals” appeared in 25 per cent of the advertisements and 40 per cent of the meat exporter websites) with the implication that the animals used lived happy and productive lives, presumably until the time came to turn them into products.

Less than one- fifth of advertisements analysed contain images of “live” animals (as opposed to pieces of meat); however, almost half of these depictions are drawings. And only dairy cows are depicted in photographs, which could indicate that pictures of dairy animals (in pastures as opposed to modern dairy farms) are less risky than pictures of animals that are consumed as meat. As Molloy (2011: 114–115) notes,

much of the popularly available imagery of dairy farming has been gener ated by the dairy industry, where advertising . . . has continued to deploy culturally specific visions of contented cows in rural landscapes. As a result the publicly available meanings of dairy farming and cows have been refracted through readings of nature as “environment” and “landscape”.

In turn, Molloy argues, this is used to suggest “natural” and “healthy” and is reflected back upon dairy cows and their produce, thus suggesting healthy

p roducts

obtained within a welfare- friendly environment (Molloy 2011: 114, 120). Thus, even though some companies use images of animals in their adver tisements, they employ idyllic images of dairy cows in pastures and even cartoon depictions of happy, appeasing, docile animals. This docility is central to the concept of human rights to “control” other species (Cole 2011). The ads more commonly rely on text and cartoon depictions to convey their message that the animals used in these products at least lived happily (no mention was ever made of happy deaths) and were even used willingly. Others have also pointed to the use of these techniques to sell animal products to consumers (e.g. Cole 2011). The use of cartoon/animated animals and the construction of suicidal animals willingly giving up their bodies constitute genres in the advertising of animal products (see also Griffin, Chapter 6 in this volume). Advertisements for Starkist tuna are illustrative of these two genres. These ads present a cartoon depiction of Charlie the Tuna, who is gesturing with his fin as though he is proudly present ing the product – tuna flesh. The three different ads for Starkist tuna included in our sample all contained Charlie the Tuna and a print statement thanking Charlie. Another ad for Skinny Cow ice cream includes an illustration of a cow lying horizontally (and even provocatively) with a smile on her face and a measuring tape around her thin midsection. These depictions not only communicate implicit claims about the animals being kept in such humane conditions that they are happy about it, they also imply that aware of their own limitations, these animals give themselves over to more able, human hands. These messages are reminis cent of historic claims about slaves and those imprisoned in concentration camps benefitting from these arrangements because they are being “taken care of ” (see Patterson 2002; Spiegel 1996).

We note that the claims about the happiness of animals are also devoid of content about the actual welfare of the animals being used, which is also com plemented by the absence of visual depictions of “realistic” animals – those that actually are or resemble those used by industrial animal agriculture. The notion of happy agricultural animals no doubt mitigates angst among some consumers. As Cole (2011: 84) points out in his application of Foucauldian ideas regarding “pastoral power” and “happy animals”, such discourses “attempt to remoralize the exploitation of ‘farmed’ animals in such a way as to permit business as usual, with the added ‘value’ of ethical self- satisfaction for the consumer of ‘happy meat.’ ”

On the production side, claims about the “naturalness” of the living con ditions of animals were linked with claims about their “happiness”. However, it is evident that there is some selectivity used in visually representing the natural ness of these conditions and the happiness of animals. For instance, while one meat exporter website provided video of the lifespan of cattle and sheep from birth through to arrival at the slaughterhouse, the footage ended when the gate the animals were herded through at the slaughterhouse was closed. Thus the last image we have of these animals is one of them as whole and healthy, and spe cific links between these animals and the images of plated meats are left unmade and subject to a “symbolic distancing” (Hamilton and Taylor 2013). Similarly, less extensive visuals were provided of the processes that chickens were subject to, presumably because they tend to be raised in more concentrated and confined facilities. It is also worthy of note that this was the only website that included any reference whatsoever to the slaughterhouse.

Thus, both meat exporter websites and the magazine adverts market a sanitized version of production, not only through the happy animals discourse but also through the visual images they choose to use, as well as those they omit and conceal. It is not surprising that those marketing animal products to individual end users or consumers would not provide realistic visuals of the way that the majority of animals used for human consumption are raised and killed. Doing so might risk turning individual consumers off consuming these products (although as Salih, Chapter 3 this volume, points out, exposure to information about the production process does not necessarily translate into changes in consumptive behaviour). What is more surprising is that marketing through the meat exporter websites, which targets business interests, is similarly sanitised, although not to the same degree. The marketing here does contain images of live animals, and one even includes video footage of some animals. However, the websites are also saturated with images of idealised rural agriculture. Modern industrialised and concentrated animal agriculture is not represented here, even though the target audience is busi nesses and not individual consumers. This can be analysed in several different ways. First, the meat exporter websites could be cognisant of the chance that the general public could happen upon their publicly available marketing materials, although animal product consumers are not known to go searching for information about how the animals they consume live and die; most consumers do not want to know how the meat, dairy and eggs they consume are produced (Foer 2009). Second, it could also mean that they are concerned with a form of corporate “impression management” (Goffman 1959). If, for instance, they depicted how these animals are actually raised, the importers they seek to do business with may opt to take their business elsewhere – to a company that is providing a more sanit ized view of the industry. This possibility seems more likely than the former, although it may not tell the whole story. Irrespectively, as Twine points out in his discussion of the discourses surrounding genetically modified animals, the lan guage used is ‘uncanny’ in that it “combines instrumental language related to profitability, efficiency and death, with the subjectification of [particular animals] as a ‘she’ ” (2012: 110). This “uncanny” subjectification flies in the face of the realities of the slaughter at the heart of the business of these corporations. Finally, it is also possible that sanitised depictions of the industry have become so hege monic that companies simply reproduce the same message and strategies over and over: the animals used are happy and only those that appear that way (i.e. in pas tures instead of in confinement barns) are to be depicted. This would indicate the substantial power of the ideology promulgated by the A- IC to continually repro duce itself, as well as demonstrating “how capitalism creatively commodifies its own excess” (Twine 2012: 19).

The relative absence of live animals (and the total absence of “realistic”, industrially-p roduced animals) in these ads stands in stark contrast to what we found in the 11 additional advertisements we analysed that were marketing animal products in the form of pet food. Of those advertisements, all but one (91 per cent) contain images of animals, but not the species of animals contained in the food; instead these images are of “pet” or companion animal species (i.e. cats and dogs) who will presumably be consuming the food. They are pictured eating, posing for the camera, or interacting lovingly with human companions. Consist ent with the majority of advertisements for human food, none of these advertise ments for pet food feature images of the species of animals contained in the food. Thus, some species of animals are actively rendered invisible as part of the commodification process (see Shukin 2009), while other species are intention ally foregrounded and constructed by corporations as family members that deserve the best that money can buy. These companies are exploiting and bene fitting from the existence of a sociozoologic scale (Arluke and Sanders 1996), which privileges some species of animals (e.g. pets) over others (e.g. livestock and poultry). The A- IC, as a whole, relies upon the continued cultural salience of this sociozoologic scale, which is in turn reaffirmed by the presumption of its naturalness.

Romanticisation of “naturalness”

The “happy animals” narrative was frequently connected with a discourse about naturalness. We noted the romanticisation of nature (in 42 per cent of the meat exporter websites) and of relationships between human farmers and the animals they keep (in 8 per cent of meat exporter websites). The advertisements were also replete with messages about the naturalness of animal- derived products. For instance, the copy in an ad for Kerrygold’s cheese and butter uses the word “natural” three times in the span of two sentences: “We don’t mind telling you what goes into our pure, all natural Irish cheese and butter. It’s pure, all natural Irish milk that comes from cows that graze on pure, all natural Irish grass.” Another ad for dairy products asserts the “naturalness” of their product based on their claims that they do not use artificial growth hormones. 3 Interestingly, the small print under the claim about growth hormone- free cows states “Our farmers pledge not to use artificial growth hormones. No significant difference has been shown in milk from cows treated with the artificial growth hormone rbST and non rbST treated cows.” Despite this interesting qualification, which we can only assume is in place to protect against lawsuits, we find the word “natural” is used frequently in both samples to imply that a product is healthy.

We suggest that this discourse of naturalness serves to normalize the produc tion and consumption processes of animal- derived food products. The romantici sation of nature and of human relationships with both it and the animals considered to be an integral part of it, conceptually associates food animal pro duction with nature and the idea of the “natural”. This implicitly legitimates human use of animals based on rhetoric of necessity (nature- as-resource) and of control, which, in turn, rests upon post- Enlightenment beliefs in human exemp tionalism and the supremacy that technological advances are held to give us as a species (Castree and Braun 1998). Research has found that the presumed natu ralness of the consumption of meat is so pervasive that even those organisations that challenge the nature- as-resource perspective (i.e. environmental organisa tions), generally fail to question the human “need” to eat meat (Packwood Freeman 2010).

It is worthy of note, however, that the discourse regarding the “naturalness” of these “products” is actually one of a carefully controlled nature. These are not images of a wild, windswept nature that defies human control and dominance. Rather they are images of a romanticized, yet domesticated, nature, which is again linked to human dominance through a civilising discourse. As Ingold points out (1994: 6), “man’s rise to civilization was conceived to have its coun terpart in the domestication of nature”.

This “natural order” discourse was both gendered and speciesist. In our ana lysis, sexism was apparent in the reification of traditional gender roles in both the magazine advertisements and through The Red Meat Exporters’ websites. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the advertisements for animal products were clearly directed at women, presumably as the primary shoppers. On the flip side, the materials of The Red Meat Exporters depicted farmers as exclusively male. This resonates with Cudworth’s (2008: 43) arguments that the process of “becoming- meat” in an anthroparchal (i.e. human dominant) system is a gen dered one. As she explains:

As a complex social system, anthroparchy is intersectionalised . . . [where] the intersection of capitalist and patriarchal relations is particularly marked. . . . The object of domination in the manufacture of meat is patriar chally constituted. As such animals are largely female and are usually fem inized in terms of their treatment. Farmers disproportionately breed female animals so they can maximize profit via the manipulation of reproduction. Female animals that have been used for breeding can be seen to incur the most severe physical violence within the system, particularly at slaughter. Female and feminized animals are bred, incarcerated, raped, killed and cut into pieces, and this tale of becoming- meat is very much a story of com modification. Yet whilst the production of meat is shaped by relations of capital and patriarchy, it is most clearly a site in which anthroparchal rela tions cohere as certain kinds of animals are (re)constructed as a range of objects for human consumption.

Linked to the gendered nature of oppression in animal product representation is speciesism, particularly in the ways that (hegemonic) masculinity is linked to meat eating (Adams 2010; Rogers 2008). As Rogers demonstrates in his analysis of television advertisements, failure to consume meat, particularly among men, is framed as challenging the “natural balance” between genders and species. Meat consumption is linked with “natural” predation, particularly by men. The materials we analysed also naturalize speciesism and this occurs on a few dif ferent levels. On one level they support the underlying speciesist assumption that humans have the right to enslave and commodify animals in the name of profit. This assumption supports the constructed dichotomy between human and non human animals. However, we also find another level of speciesism at play here that points to the existence of a continuum between human and non- human animals. As discussed earlier, in the magazine advertisements it was rare to see photographs of live animals; however, we find that in the advertisements for pet food products, photos of companion animal species are ubiquitous, while the animals contained in the advertised products are once again omitted. This finding illustrates the power of speciesism: some animal species are foregrounded in photographs and referred to as family (i.e. companion animals), while others are literally and symbolically annihilated (i.e. animals used as food).

Sexism and speciesism sit happily side by side in the materials we analysed and this again demonstrates the utility of a critical animal studies approach that is grounded in intersectionality. Speciesism and sexism (as well as other forms of domination) are intertwined precisely because they originate from, and within, a particular system of oppression. As Nibert (2002) points out:

the oppression of various devalued groups in human societies is not inde pendent or unrelated; rather, the arrangements that lead to various forms of oppression are integrated in such a way that the exploitation of one group frequently augments and compounds the mistreatment of another. (Ibid.: 4)

The hegemony of these forms of oppression makes them appear natural.

The naturalness discourse in the materials we analysed most explicitly nor malise the current mode of industrial animal agriculture. On the production side, both the red meat exporter websites and the magazine advertisements make claims about the animals being raised and managed in “natural” conditions. These claims divert attention away from the industrial conditions that the vast majority of animals are raised within in developed countries. They can also simultaneously normalise these conditions by implicitly framing them as “natural”. This is possible because there is no objective standard for “natural ness”, which also makes it a useful and inexpensive marketing tool, akin to “tradition”.

The websites framed messages of “naturalness” within the larger theme of happy animals and romanticized agriculture. Within this larger theme, science and technology were also apparent and seemed to coexist comfortably with mes sages of naturalness. It seems that Western cultures have accepted science and technology as a natural part of meat and dairy production. This acceptance speaks to the power of the A- IC to frame their increasingly technologically advanced practices not only as harmless, but even as natural. It also enables them to capitalise on the cultural authority of science and illustrates the interconnect edness of actors within the A- IC, such as agribusiness companies, marketing companies, companies and governmental agencies invested in new scientific and technological developments and the pharmaceutical industry.

Good health and good taste

In addition to normalising the ways in which animal- derived food products are produced, we suggest that the “naturalness” discourse more generally legitimises the consumption of animal- derived products and even assists in constructing them as healthy and smart choices (i.e. if it’s “natural”, it must be healthy). In turn, this also plays out through discourses that suggest that animals reared in natural, healthy ways (“happy animals”) will taste better and thus, as Cole (2011: 93) notes, the intermingling of animal welfare friendly and “happy meat” dis course “always posits a win- win scenario: happy animals taste better”. By impli cation those who choose these products demonstrate their own good taste, ethically and gastronomically. By far the most common message conveyed in the advertisements analysed is that consuming animal products is a healthy and therefore smart decision. This finding is consistent with Heinz and Lee’s (1998) observation that the concerns raised about the healthfulness of meat in the 1980s and 1990s caused the industry to begin “aggressively promoting meat as a natural, healthy part of daily food intake” (ibid.: 86). Seventy per cent of the advertisements explicitly or implicitly claim that consuming animal products is healthy. One of the more explicit messages appears in an ad for Campbell’s Chunky Healthy Request Chicken Noodle Soup. The focal point of the ad is a heart- shaped bowl, which presumably contains the chicken noodle soup being advertised. Above the bowl the headline reads: “The flavour that captured your heart, made heart healthy.” To reaffirm the message being communicated about the healthfulness of the product, in the lower left hand corner there is a heart with a check mark through it and a statement indicating that the product is certi fied by the American Heart Association because it is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. The copy at the bottom of the advertisement states “It’s amazing what soup can do”, which in combination with the rest of the advertisement seems to imply that this soup may actually even be able to reverse dangerous health conditions. At the very bottom of the ad, in small print, the following dis claimer appears: “While many factors affect heart disease, diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.” Similarly, the large print banner at the top of an ad for pork by the National Pork Board in the US, reads simply: “Be healthy”, and the ad also contains the American Heart Associ ation checkmark for being “Extra Lean”, which in combination implies that it is a healthy food choice.

While Heinz and Lee (1998), in their analysis of cultural representations of meat, found that messages about the healthfulness of meat raised critical ques tions about whether it could be healthy and taste good, we find in the ads we analyse that claims about the healthfulness of the products are accompanied by claims about the tastiness of the product two- thirds of the time. Illustrative of the frequent tethering of good taste with healthfulness, the headline of an advertise ment for Al Fresco chicken sausage and Classico creamy Alfredo sauce urges readers to “Lighten up, in the most delicious way possible.” Two different ads by the Beef industry – specifically by The Beef Checkoff programme of the US

Cattlemen’s Beef Board, whose logo reminds one of the American Heart Associ ation’s ‘heart check mark’ programme – emphasize the leanness and good taste of their product. The tag line of one ad refers to it as “Lean and delicious, with endless possibilities.” Exploiting the traditional tension between good taste and healthfulness, which Heinz and Lee (1998) identify, while claiming a confluence of the two in their product, one series of ads by TruMoo Chocolate Milk includes pictures of two men: one as an angel (dressed like a milkman of years gone by) and the other (dressed in a black delivery uniform) as the devil. The banners on their ads include the following statements: “Purely good and devilishly delicious” and “Good nutrition meets great taste.” According to the copy in the ad, “TruMoo is a delicious chocolate milk you can feel good about giving your kids, every day.”

While taste was not necessarily specifically referred to on the meat exporter websites it was implied through images of meat-b ased food, plated and looking appetising. Fifty two per cent of websites analysed had this imagery. Both those marketing to individual consumers and to businesses seeking to import meat therefore emphasise the good taste of the product through text and this is often accompanied by images of pieces of meat or of dairy products. These products are framed as being about more than meeting nutritional needs; flavour is a crit ical component. However, we find an important difference between the claims about taste made in the magazine advertisements and by The Red Meat Export ers. In the magazine advertisements the claims about the good taste of the prod ucts commonly appear with reference to the healthfulness of the product. This coupling is not observed in the marketing materials of The Red Meat Exporters. Those purchasing their products – businesses that will then sell to consumers – do not need to be convinced that the product is not only tasty but also healthy. They simply need to be convinced that the product is tasty because their ability to modify taste itself is constrained. They can, however, subsequently add claims about the healthfulness of the product in their own marketing, which, in turn, has an ethical implication – in order to be “tasty”, these animals had to be reared in a welfare- friendly manner. These interconnected discourses (happy animals/happy meat, animal welfare, good taste, ethical responsibility) ultimately reinforce the idea that farm animals are no more – or less – than meat- in-waiting, which is illustrative of the ways in which discourses communicated from within the A- IC are tailored to the specific audience of interest:

“Happy meat” discourses therefore posit that happiness becomes an adjunct of meat (or for that matter eggs), something to be consumed along with the muscle fibres, fat and blood. The “ethical consumer” is morally satiated by consuming the happiness of the animals at the same time as her or his belly is filled with their corpses or secretions. The juxtaposition of “welfare” and “quality” is therefore more significant than a legitimation of exploitation. (Cole 2011: 94)

We therefore suggest that the happy animal/animal welfare discourse is making it possible to reconcile claims about healthfulness and tastiness that previously would have seemed incongruent. For instance Franklin (1999) has asserted that as health concerns have been raised about meat, it has come to be “marketed for its taste, flavours and versatility rather than its essential health and strength giving properties”. (ibid.: 174). We find, however, that these two claims are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and are likely being brought together by the development of a happy meat/animal welfare discourse.

The coupling of the messages about taste and healthfulness in the magazine advertisements could also be read as an acknowledgement that individual con sumers are sufficiently concerned about the healthfulness of these products that they require reassurance even in the presence of great taste. It may also serve to assuage those consumers who are uneasy about consuming these products in two ways. First, one is made to feel less guilty about consuming an indulgently tasty product if it is also said to contain health benefits. Second, and more implicitly, the pairing of claims of health benefits with claims of good taste can help to nor malise the consumption of animal products. Most people are of the opinion that meat products taste good. That alone, however, is not necessarily justification for consuming them. Combining claims of taste with claims of health benefits can be more convincing and reassuring for individual consumers. It serves to rein force the notion that consuming animal products is necessary for health reasons, which is also connected to the theme of naturalness, as discussed earlier. The coupling of these themes may belie an evolving environment wherein the agri cultural arm of the A- IC cannot rely simply on the taste of their product and cul tures of consumption, and instead needs to leverage additional justifications. Further research exploring animal agriculture discourses over time could use fully map this trajectory

This discourse played out slightly differently in the meat exporter websites. Claims about the healthfulness of animal products were not entirely absent in the marketing materials of The Red Meat Exporters we analysed; however, they took a backseat to the messages they chose to foreground. Rather than stressing benefits to individual health of meat consumption, these sites pointed to their clean, green, safe production (18 per cent), scientific/quality control management (22 per cent) practices and the advantages of their national or regional location (62 per cent). We point to the audiences being targeted by both sets of actors to explain this divergence. The Red Meat Exporters are targeting businesses looking to import red meat. They are selling a brand and do so by drawing on the image of Australia to sell products, pointing to the country’s history of meat production and the physical and cultural environment and messages of safety and scientific rationality. On the other hand, the advertisements we analysed are aimed at end-u sers – the individuals purchasing food for themselves and/or their family; cooking it and consuming it. Here the most prevalent message is the alleged healthfulness of the products. It appears that healthfulness is not neces sarily a quality inherent to animal products: it is a discourse aimed at individual consumers in response to relatively recent questioning of the effects of the con sumption of animal products on human health. Our analysis of these two players in the A- IC (advertisers and red meat exporters) therefore illuminates how messages are shaped by economic objectives: the advertisements in the cooking magazines are aimed at increasingly health conscious consumers, whereas the Red Meat Exporter websites are aimed at importers interested in a reliable and safe supply of meat.

Conclusion

Our aim in this chapter was to outline the strengths of a specifically Critical Animal Studies analysis of the ways in which animal products form a corner stone of the A- IC and to outline some of the mechanisms by which this occurs. We wanted to do this, in part, to facilitate Twine’s call to make the A- IC an organising concept for CAS, agreeing with him that the strength in this approach is that it “contextualizes the use of animals as food not primarily within a rubric of inadequate ethical frameworks but as part of the wider mechanisms of capit alism and its normalizing potential” (Twine 2012: 15). We point to three main themes within our samples that normalise the consumption of animal products and the practices of industrial animal agriculture.

The discourses emanating from the A- IC are of particular importance today. The relationship between people and their food used to be immediate and direct. A growing divide between production, processing and consumption has been promulgated by the A- IC, which has positioned itself to be provisioner of information about animal- derived food products that consumers no longer have first-p erson information about. People now receive mediated messages about their food. As Heinz and Lee remark, “We do not so much eat meat as we consume socially produced meaning” (1988: 98). This therefore makes the mes sages the A- IC communicates to potential consumers particularly important. We have sought to illuminate these messages here, paying particular attention to how they normalise consumption of animal- derived products and therefore protect their own financial interests and the status quo of a capitalist system grounded in the industrialized production and processing of animals for human (and “pet” animal) consumption more generally.

Our analysis also illustrates how the continuum between humanity and ani mality intersects with the continuum of violence, introduced by feminists and applied to violence against women (e.g. Kelly 1998), which we seek to apply to violence against animals. The consequence of this intersection is that the percep tion of harm against animals depends upon the context within which the harm takes place and the species of the animal involved. To illustrate the importance of context, consider the death of a cow by having his/her throat slit. If under taken within a slaughterhouse by an employee, it is deemed socially acceptable, even beneficial. The same act undertaken by someone wandering by a feedlot would be considered socially unacceptable, and indeed deemed criminal. Our analysis indicates that the A- IC is working skilfully to normalise and rationalise the violence inflicted upon certain species of animals in order to make them con sumable, while simultaneously admitting the existence of an animality–humanity continuum instead of a strict dichotomy between the two. This is observed in the elevation of pet animals to the level of family, while simultaneously subjugating other species of animals for their consumption (see Herzog 2011). The salience of this demarcation is being witnessed at the time of this writing vis- à-vis the outrage inspired by the discovery of horse meat in various beef products consumed by unsuspecting consumers, primarily in Europe. The violence visited upon those horses is being denounced not because they are slaughtered any differently than any other animals (they are not), but because as a species they occupy a liminal space between pet and consumable livestock. Ironically, the A- IC may have a vested interest in allowing some animals to be closer to the humanity side of the animality–humanity continuum because the existence of carnivorous “pet” animals provides an important market for the industry’s (by-)products.

There are few things presumably as private and intimate as the consumption of food. We offer up this analysis as one instance of how a sociological per spective can and ought to demonstrate how the private is publicly mediated and individual experiences are in fact social (Burawoy 2007; Mills 1959/2000). We do so through employing a CAS perspective that elucidates the larger social structures that the discourses promulgated by the A- IC are embedded within. This analysis also suggests that as CAS scholars continue to investigate the A- IC, it will be imperative to count marketing and public relations as critical, constitutive components.

Notes

1 There are other factors that demarcate a CAS approach, but our purpose here is not to list them in order to place rigid demarcations re what can, and cannot be considered CAS. Rather, it is to apply key CAS principles to an empirical test case. 2 We want to clarify that in drawing this distinction between Animal Studies and Critical Animal Studies we are not implying that there is some sort of impermeable divide between the two. We recognise that there is considerable overlap between the two fields and that scholars frequently contribute to both bodies of scholarship. Our point is that the goals of this chapter require a critical engagement with the animal- industrial complex and the forms of power that it is built upon and reproduces, which necessitates grounding it in Critical Animal Studies.

3 For a detailed examination of how milk came to be constructed as a pure and natural

product, see DuPuis (2002).

References

Adams, C. (1991/2010) The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist- Vegetarian Critical

Theory, New York: Continuum.

Arluke, A. and Sanders, C. (1996) Regarding Animals, Philadelphia: Temple University

Press.

Beirne, P. (2009) Confronting Animal Abuse, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,

Inc.

Burawoy, M. (2007) “For public sociology”, in D. Clawson, R. Zussman, J. Misra, N. Gerstel, R. Stokes, D. L. Anderton and M. Burawoy (eds), Public Sociology: Fifteen

Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-fi rst Century,

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Castree, N. and Braun, B. (1998) Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium, London:

Routledge.

Cole, M. (2011) “From ‘animal machines’ to ‘happy meat’? Foucault’s ideas of discipli nary and pastoral power applied to ‘animal- centered’ welfare discourse”, Animals, 1: 83–101.

Cudworth, E. (2008) “Most farmers prefer blondes: The dynamics of anthroparchy in

animals’ becoming Meat”, Journal for Critical Animal Studies, 6(1): 32.

Cudworth, E. (2011) Social Lives with Other Animals: Tales of Sex, Death and Love,

London: Palgrave.

Du Puis, E. M. (2002) Nature’s Perfect Food: How Milk Became America’s Drink, New

York: New York University Press.

Elias, N. (1978) The Civilising Process, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, Oxford: Blackwell. Fitzgerald, A., Kalof, L. and Dietz, T. (2009) “Spillover from ‘The Jungle’ into the larger community: Slaughterhouses and increased crime rates”, Organization and Environ ment, 22: 158–184.

Flynn, C. (2002) “Hunting and illegal violence against humans and other animals:

exploring the relationship”, Society & Animals, 10: 137–154.

Foer, J. S. (2009) Eating Animals, New York: Penguin Books. Franklin, A. (1999) Animals and Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human-A nimal Rela

tions in Modernity, London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Gaard, G. (1997) “Ecofeminism and wilderness”, Environmental Ethics, 19(1): 5–24. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York: Doubleday

Anchor.

Hamilton, L. and Taylor, N. (2013) Animals at Work: Identity, Politics and Culture in

Work with Animals, Boston and Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.

Heinz, B. and Lee, R. (1998) “Getting down to the meat: the symbolic construction of

meat consumption”, Communication Studies, 49(1): 86–99.

Herzog, H. (2011) Some we Love, Some we Hate, Some we Eat. New York: Harper

Collins.

Hugman, R. (1991) Power in the Caring Professions, Basingstoke: Macmillan Ingold, T. (1994) “From trust to domination: an alternative history of human animal rela tions”, in A. Manning and J. Serpell (eds) Animals and Human Society: Changing Per spectives, London: Routledge.

Joy, M. (2009) Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to

Carnism, Massachusetts: Conari Press.

Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Kheel, M. (1995) “License to kill: an ecofeminist critique of hunters’ discourse”, in C. Adams and J. Donovan (eds) Animals & Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Durham: Duke University Press.

Mills, C. Wright (1959/2000) The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press. Molloy, C. (2011) Popular Media and Animals, London: Palgrave.

Morgan, K. and Cole, M. (2011) “The discursive representation of non- human animals in a culture of denial”, in B. Carter and N. Charles (eds) Human and Other Animals: Crit ical Perspectives, London: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 122.

Nibert, D. (2002) Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liber

ation, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.

Noske, B. (1989) Humans and Other Animals; Beyond the Boundaries of Anthropology,

Montreal: Black Rose Books.

Packwood Freeman, C. (2010) “Meat’s place on the campaign menu: how US environmental

discourse negotiates vegetarianism”, Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 4(3): 255–276.

Patterson, C. (2002) Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust,

New York: Lantern Books.

Plumwood, V. (1996) “Nature, self, gender: feminism, environmental philosophy, and the critique of rationalism”, in K. Warren (ed.) Ecological Feminist Philosophies, Bloom ington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Rogers, R. (2008) “Beasts, burgers and hummers: meat and the crisis of masculinity in

contemporary TV advertisements”, Environmental Communication, 2(3): 281–301.

Shukin, N. (2009) Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times, Minneapolis;

London: University of Minnesota Press.

Spiegel, M. (1996) The Dreaded Comparison: Race and Animal Slavery, Philadelphia:

New Society Publishers.

Twine, R. (2010) Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal

Studies, London: Earthscan.

Twine, R. (2012) “Revealing the ‘animal- industrial complex’ – a concept and method for

critical animal studies?” Journal for Critical Animal Studies, 10(1): 12–39.

Vialles, N. (1994) Animal to Edible, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warren, K. (1997) (Ed.) Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, Bloomington; Indian

apolis: Indiana University Press.