ABSTRACT
Alongside the abundance of meat in shops, restaurants and fast food outlets has come the increase in consumption. Some people must be eating maybe ten times as much meat per year as their great-grandparents consumed, possibly much more. Meat is no longer the special occasion food, like the fatted calf of Biblical fame. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is a call to policy makers, academics, and citizens to take steps to reduce meat production and consumption to sustainable levels. A huge amount of epidemiological research is being amassed, showing connections between over-consumption of meat with, for example, colon cancer. The saturated fats so abundant in most meats are recognized as contributing to the growing global epidemic of obesity and its knock-on conditions such as Type-2 diabetes and heart disease.
