Threat of the Vegetarian Dogma: National Cattlemen’s Association, Vegetarianism, and World Hunger, 1959-1989

Leah Silverman & Abeer Saha

Introduction

Big Meat, which has infiltrated American culture and secured an unrelenting seat at the

American dinner table, has been met by opposition from a growing vegetarianism movement. This research examines the rhetoric and relationship between beef producers and the vegetarianism movement through an analysis of archival sources from the National Cattlemen’s

Association and scholarly articles about American consumerism and the world hunger crisis. The world hunger crisis, characterized by a series of devastating famines in Asia and

Africa during the 1960s and 70s, brought tensions between the meat industry and ethical vegetarian movements to a head. It prompted the formation of a vocal anti-beef campaign that critiqued the meat industry’s inefficient practice of feeding grains to livestock at a time when millions were starving due to a lack of grains, which in turn captured consumer attention and roused the fury of beef producers. This research establishes the importance of the often- overlooked role of ethics in food politics, a field that historians of consumerism and consumer politics have traditionally defined as being driven by prices and concerns about health and safety, and exposes the tactics of Big Meat in the face of an ethical crisis.i ii It also provides insight into how to approach looming issues of global hunger and food insecurity today.

i Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship In Twentieth Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005) ii Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2004) The World Hunger Crisis

In the two decades between 1960 and 1980 repeated famines around the world were responsible for the death of over 25 million people.iii The crisis commenced with the two-year long Great Leap Forward Famine in China, which began in 1959 and was dubbed the “single biggest famine event in history in terms of absolute number of deaths” with a death toll estimated at 24 million.iv The late 1960s saw a major famine in Biafra, Nigeria with an estimated 750,000 deaths and was followed with famines in Bangladesh (1974) and Cambodia (1979), with 1 million and 1.6 million deaths, respectively.v During this period, smaller scale famines also arose sporadically, in stark contrast with the Post-World War II period of relative global satiety.

In the midst of these global famines, meat consumption in America diverged drastically from the global average. In 1966, people in the United States consumed an average of 66 grams of animal protein per day (71% of their daily protein intake).vi This hugely outnumbered the average of 20 grams of animal protein that the rest of the world consumed per day.vii The development of concentrated animal feeding operations, or feedlots, since the 1940s had fueled the transition from grass-fed cattle to grain-fed cattle in the United States. Even as an increasing amount of grain was being fed to domestic animals in the United States, grain scarcity bedeviled

iii Hasell, Joe, and Roser, Max. “Famines.” Our World in Data [database online]. 2017 [cited April 2019]. Available from https://ourworldindata.org/famines. iv IBID. v IBID. vi Catron, Damon V., and Milton R. McRoberts. “Animal Proteins in the Diets of the World's People,” RS21-7-12, Box 47, Folder 1 (October 10,1966), pg. 2, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming vii IBID. much of the much of the rest of the world. Anticipating a backlash to grain centered beef production, animal scientists were called upon to make beef production more efficient.

Cattle Industry Pre-Scrutiny Buffers

By 1966, animal scientists could see a future where the grain consumption of agricultural animals would be questioned. Researchers had come to the consensus that one acre of land could fulfill one man’s protein requirement for only 77 days if the land were used for beef production, compared to 236 days if the land were used for milk production; 773 if the land were used for corn cropping, and 2,224 if the land grew soybean protein.viii At this time, the animal science community widely accepted that animal proteins were superior to all other forms, as they provided all essential amino acids. Damon Catron and Milton McRoberts, two prominent animal scientists with strong industry connections, released a report suggesting actions that must be taken by the meat industry in response to growing global protein availability disparities. They urged the cattle industry to adopt confined housing and automatic equipment in place of increasingly pricey land and labor inputs. In terms of helping other countries, the researchers urged the United States to teach other countries its “know-how” when it came to technologically efficient animal production.ix In the researchers’ eyes, no change in eating behavior was imminent among the country’s citizens, but exporting our animal agriculture knowledge to developing nations could “help their people help themselves.”x The researchers placed the burden of famine on countries experiencing extreme hunger, suggesting that they must reform

viii Catron, Damon V., and Milton R. McRoberts. “Animal Proteins in the Diets of the World's People,” RS21-7-12, Box 47, Folder 1 (October 10,1966), pg. 8, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. ix IBID. x IBID. their ways of producing food to match the productively efficient standard of the United States.

They went so far as to state that “malnutrition perpetuates malnutrition. Where pregnancy or infant malnutrition has produced a mentally retarded adult, the ability to learn technology is impaired.”xi In the researchers’ opinion, industrialized animal agriculture based on large-scale grain-feeding remained the clearest solution for world hunger.

In the face of growing claims about the inefficiency of animals as food sources, the cattle industry refused to budge on their support for animal agriculture. Predictably, the cattle industry saw no future devoid of grain-fed cattle as a protein source. Rather than addressing caloric inefficiencies head on, the cattle industry pivoted and addressed them only on a relative basis, figuring out how to improve its best assets. In 1968, Artturi Virtanen, recipient of the 1945

Nobel Prize in Chemistry, wrote, “milk production has the highest efficiency in regard both to feed and protein. Theoretically, the cow should be the domestic animal best adapted to live in the world of the future.”xii A future without animal protein was unfathomable, so Virtanen embarked on a quest to boost the efficiency of milk production, elevating its status as the most efficient protein source to fill America’s stomachs. The 1968 Yearbook of Agriculture documents Virtanen’s 1961-1962 experiments, which consisted of feeding cattle virtually protein-free, and entirely synthetic, diets. Cattle were fed only purified starch, wood cellulose, granulated sugar, minimal amounts of urea, ammonium sulfate, and phosphate.xiii With urea and ammonium salts as the sole sources of nitrogen, Virtanen discovered that cows put on synthetic

xi Catron, Damon V., and Milton R. McRoberts. “Animal Proteins in the Diets of the World's People,” RS21-7-12, Box 47, Folder 1 (October 10,1966), pg. 9, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xii Virtanen, Artturi I. “Will Cows on Synthetic Diets Help End World Protein Hunger,” 1968 Yearbook of Agriculture, 1713, Box 121, (1968), pg. 248, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xiii Virtanen, Artturi I. “Will Cows on Synthetic Diets Help End World Protein Hunger,” 1968 Yearbook of Agriculture, 1713, Box 121, (1968), pg. 249, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. diets could attain a “moderately high milk yield without any protein,” or grain.xiv Such findings opened up the possibility of reducing protein and grain inputs of feedlot agriculture and confirmed the cattle industry’s perception of cattle as a viable protein source in the face of world hunger. Cows were seen as malleable and independent of natural processes.

Recognition of Problem & Consequent Public Involvement

The United Nations’ 1974 Declaration on Food and Population sought to address the growing food crisis through international collaboration. In this call to action, the UN first documented that the years of 1972 to 1973 had seen growing numbers of hungry people due to low grain stocks and the depletion of surpluses from World War II, rising food prices, unavailability of cheap protein sources to supplement grain-based diets, social unrest in hungry areas, and increased reliance on fertilizer and other energy sources.xv The UN declaration painted a grim picture, stating that, “literally tens of millions of lives are suspended in the delicate balance between world population and world food supplies,” and that, “[food] is the greatest manifestation of world poverty.”xvi In response, the UN urged the need for international and deeply participatory changes in food consumption patterns. The UN directly implicated the animal agriculture industry in its proposal, suggesting a widespread shift away from animal protein-heavy diets. It stated that social unrest due to food shortages and diseases related to

xiv Virtanen, Artturi I. “Will Cows on Synthetic Diets Help End World Protein Hunger,” 1968 Yearbook of Agriculture, 1713, Box 121, (1968), pg. 250, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xv UN. “Declaration on Food & Population,” 1713, Box 45, (1974), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xvi IBID. undernourishment were further “aggravated by the consumption of more and more grain to produce meat, eggs, and milk.”xvii

The final words of the UN declaration were moving: “in the name of humanity we call upon all governments and peoples everywhere, rich and poor, regardless of political and social systems, to act – to act together – and to act in time.”xviii Though the UN did not directly encourage vegetarian diets or explicitly urge the world’s populations to base their consumption behaviors on ethical grounds, the general sentiments and urgency of this declaration soon reverberated through the American media.

In 1975, CBS released a 60 Minutes Episode titled “Let ‘Em Eat Grass” that pushed viewers to adopt a more plant-heavy diet in the face of world hunger.xix Gordon Van Vleck,

NCA President at the time, responded to this publication with polite rage, explaining that feed grains and food grains were “not synonymous” and that reducing use of feed grains and the consequent reliance on animal proteins, would have no effect on the world hunger crisis.xx Van

Vleck explained that animal feed, which was inedible to humans, was also increasing in price so much so that the cattle industry had transitioned from having 80% of its cattle come from feedlots in years prior to only 60%.xxi Van Vleck purposefully neglected to mention what he meant by feed grains. Corn, grain sorghum, barley and oats were the most common feed grains in the United States. The kind of corn grown for cattle was different from sweet corn, but not inedible--it is still used to make the cornmeal and corn chips we see in supermarkets. Grain

xvii UN. “Declaration on Food & Population,” 1713, Box 45, (1974), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xviii IBID. xix Van Vleck, Gordon. “Letter from NCA President to Mike Wallace at CBS News,” 1713, Box 42, (February 19, 1975), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xx IBID. xxi IBID. sorghum was rarely consumed by persons in the United States, but eaten around the world, as were barley and oats. The NCA president misrepresented himself as a fellow victim in the time of the food crisis and cast the organization’s farmers as struggling under high grain prices while receiving unwarranted blame for a problem that they took no part in. But he was wrong.

In the Spring of 1975, Reader’s Digest bombarded Americans with a plethora of reasons to give up meat. Articles titled “Do We Eat Too Much Meat” and “Why the Food Crisis?” were explicit about each meat-eater’s direct impact on world hunger.xxii In the former, author Daniel

Grotta-Kurska quoted the New York Times in stating that, “if Americans were to reduce their meat consumption by only ten percent for one year, it would free for human consumption at least

12 million tons of grain.”xxiii This amount was projected to feed “60 billion grain eaters for a year” and was forecasted to mitigate developing famines in India and Bangladesh.xxiv In this article, Reader’s Digest asked its readers to take baby steps, implying that if each American consumer changed only slightly, the problem of world hunger would subside. Readers were made to feel guilty about their gluttonous eating habits, but demands for change were overtly incremental. A section labeled “A Trace of Guilt” suggested that if readers did not take small steps toward vegetarianism, they should feel a sense of shame for failing to do their duty to the hungry millions around the world.xxv

xxii Van Vleck, Gordon. “Correspondences Between NCA President and Laura Belle Owens with Magazine Articles Included,” 1713, Box 42, (May 28, 1975), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxiii Grotta-Kurska, Daniel. “Do We Eat Too Much Meat?” Reader’s Digest, 1713, Box 42, (1975), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxiv IBID. xxv IBID. In “Why the Food Crisis?” author Jean Mayer detailed “how we came to the brink of catastrophe” as the world’s food reserves approached depletion.xxvi Mayer blatantly argued that the “conversion of feed into animal food for humans is far from efficient,” with only five to seven percent of calories fed to steers making it into the mouths of American consumers.xxvii In concluding his argument for personal accountability in food consumption, Mayer delineated two

“dangerous attitudes” towards the world hunger crisis that had formed amongst Americans: “One advocates ‘triage,’” Mayer wrote, “the abandonment of some poor countries -- and millions of lives -- to their fate.”xxviii This attitude had been earlier reflected in McRoberts and Catron’s

“help [other countries’] people help themselves” sentiment. Mayer continued, “the other, more generous but not farsighted [attitude] advocates aid with no strings attached.”xxix Mayer found this attitude only produced shaky, unreliable results. He stood against consumer tendencies of perceived helplessness in the face of crisis, ending his piece with the words, “both of these attitudes imply that we cannot control events and work to improve the fate of mankind. Both are unworthy of us.”xxx Whereas Grotta-Kurska implicated guilt, Mayer demanded action -- a remedy not only for the crisis at hand, but also for the question “can I make a difference?” In the publication of these calls to action, Reader’s Digest created for its readers an image of a moral consumer that could be as easily tarnished as fulfilled. The magazine did not advocate ruthlessly for complete vegetarianism, but it was radical in its marriage of morality to consumer choice.

xxvi Mayer, Jean. “Why the Food Crisis?” Reader’s Digest, 1713, Box 42, (May 1975), pg. 73, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxvii Mayer, Jean. “Why the Food Crisis?” Reader’s Digest ,1713, Box 42, (May 1975), pg. 74, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxviii Mayer, Jean. “Why the Food Crisis?” Reader’s Digest ,1713, Box 42, (May 1975), pg. 77, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxix IBID. xxx IBID. The National Cattlemen’s Association believed it could wriggle free from these charges of ethical violation through the dissemination of research and information supporting the beef industry. Quickly following the Reader’s Digest publications, NCA President Gordon Van

Vleck wrote to the concerned Laura Belle Owens, Tehama County Cattlemen and Cow Belles representative, explaining the NCA’s approach to resolving the industry roadblock that the magazine had created. Van Vleck stated that the NCA had “been in touch with the publication… sent them considerable information, and… urged their consideration of an article presenting more correct facts and different views.”xxxi To the NCA, ‘better’ facts and more favorable publications were the key to the industry’s success. This tactic exposed the NCA’s readiness to polish its public appearance, yet complete unwillingness to adapt its agricultural practices to meet the standards of a morally vigilant customer base.

By 1977, American responses to the world food crisis were in full force, and even the words of Cosmopolitan Magazine posed a threat to Big Beef. The publication of an article titled

“Meat & Vegetarian Concept,” which included claims like “meat squanders the world’s protein sources” alongside many health benefits of vegetarianism, gripped and angered the National

Cattlemen’s Association.xxxii Tom McDermott, NCA Communications Specialist, wrote to

Cosmopolitan aggressively stating that “it seems especially unfortunate that a magazine read by so many young women is so ill-informed about nutrition.”xxxiii Along with refuting the health and environmental benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, McDermott proposed that meat eating did

xxxi Van Vleck, Gordon. “Letter from NCA President to Mike Wallace at CBS News,” 1713, Box 42, (February 19, 1975), pg. 1, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxxiiMcDermott, Tom. “Letter from NCA Communications Specialist to NCA Director of Communications on Cosmopolitan Magazine Article Response,” 1713, Box 430, (May 23, 1977), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxxiii IBID. the exact opposite of what Cosmopolitan claimed: that it provided a high-quality protein source in a land not suitable for plant-based production. He stated that only 15% of U.S. land was suitable for raising grain, while almost triple that much land could be used as ranges and pastures where ruminant animals could graze.xxxiv What is ironic about this point is that by 1977, the majority of American cattle spent their days in concentrated operations being fed mixtures of foods that did not contain a blade of grass.

NCA worry escalated in April of 1977 when a presidential dinner commemorating the year’s Food Day set its menu to be entirely vegetarian. Tom Monier, the National Livestock

Feeder Association’s president at the time, wrote directly to Jimmy Carter, pleading for the addition of meat to the menu. Failing to serve meat would at the least “lead to a discriminatory endorsement of food-faddism and certainly a sanction of a meatless diet,” and at worst be taken as a corroboration of “the unrighteous propaganda programs against meat and meat products.”xxxv Monier implicated the government in any potential backfires that the President’s menu may have on the industry. He added a reminder that the meat industry was the largest segment of U.S. agriculture and food production, and that any suffering imparted on the industry at the hands of a presidential recommendation would have ricochet effects through the economy.

The battle between vegetarian advocates and members of the National Cattlemen’s

Association continued even after the World Food Crisis began to ebb away. In the May of 1980,

Cosmopolitan Magazine again used its power as a cultural influencer to promote a vegetarian

xxxiv McDermott, Tom. “Letter from NCA Communications Specialist to NCA Director of Communications on Cosmopolitan Magazine Article Response,” 1713, Box 430, (May 23, 1977), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxxv Monier, Tom. “Letter from NLFA President to United States President Jimmy Carter on Dinner Menu,” 1713, Box 443, (April 19, 1977), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. lifestyle. Writer Gary Selden wrote an article titled “The Virtues of Vegetarianism” that appealed primarily to ethical consumerism, and only secondarily to the health benefits of a vegetarian diet.xxxvi By this time, about seven million Americans were vegetarian and the movement was characterized as one of young, racially-mixed middle-class people that was centered around college campuses.xxxvii In the article, Selden highlighted key vegetarian celebrity figures like actress Cloris Leachman and actor Denis Weaver. Weaver’s attitude was that, “vegetarianism is not a fad. People come to it sensibly and they’re saying, ‘no matter what the majority says, this is my body and I’m going to take care of it and make it last.’”xxxviii The attack on the meat industry was now more direct, personal, and divorced from the context of the world hunger crisis. The politically correct act of foregoing meat in the face of famines around the world had now become a lifestyle choice endorsed by popular media outlets. Besides touting the health benefits of a vegetarian diet, Selden’s article argued for vegetarianism on a moral ground that would outlive any food crisis. Selden further enforced his points by quoting

Leachman, who stated that the American public had been “brainwashed with four-food group propaganda… which teaches people the wrong way to eat” and that she could enjoy a life of an

“abundance of vitality without ever eating meat again.”xxxix Further, the Cosmopolitan article invoked the importance of animal liberation, as promoted by major figures ranging from

“Pythagoras and the Buddha to Tolstoy and Gandhi” before attempting to address the questions around meat productions inefficiency and waste.xl

xxxvi Selden, Gary. “The Virtues of Vegetarianism,” Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1713, Box 11, (May, 1980), p.136, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xxxvii IBID. xxxviii IBID. xxxix IBID. xl IBID. This 1980 article shows the vegetarian movement coming of age, having moved beyond its appeals to timeliness, garnered support from celebrities, and secured air-time in mainstream media. In doing so, it represented a more intense threat to Big Meat than its previous avatar as a temporary remedy to the World Food Crisis. Nonetheless, Selden did not refrain from pointing out that, “the most prestigious meat--beef--has a twenty-to-one protein-to-waste ratio” and that,

“in a very real way, a steak on [the reader’s] plate means seven empty bowls in Bangladesh.”xli

Despite past spats with the National Cattlemen’s Association president, Cosmopolitan did not hold back in its scrutiny of the cattle industry, suggesting that its readership probably approved of its message. Over the course of the world hunger crisis, the vegetarian movement moved from a suggestive prescription to a moral must on pages consumed by millions of young

Americans.

With this rise in the vegetarian movement’s intensity and popularity came an equally intense pushback from the National Cattlemen’s Association, where this anti-beef propaganda signified a growing threat with the power to turn the backs of 7 million Americans away from the beef industry. The article, “The Virtues of Vegetarianism,” made its way up the organizational ladder at the NCA, past the ranks of communication specialist to President Merlyn

Carlson, who refuted seven individual points made in the article, all whilst circumventing the ethical question: ‘is meat moral?’.xlii Responses were sharp, and largely deflectionary: “Sally

Fields and Burt Reynolds eat meat,” Americans only consume “about 25 grams of [meat] protein per day – less than half the recommended daily allowance for men (56 grams) and well below

xli Selden, Gary. “The Virtues of Vegetarianism,” Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1713, Box 11, (May, 1980), p.136, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xlii Carlson, Merlyn. “Letter from NCA President to Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine,” 1713, Box 11, (June 3, 1980), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. the 46 grams recommended for women,” and on issues deemed untouchable, “no comment.”xliii The severity of the clash between Big Beef and ethical consumerism was easiest to see in Carlson’s concluding statement: “If I were interested in taking a “cheap shot” at Mr.

Selden’s article (similar to the many ‘cheap shots’ he has taken at my industry), I would point out that he failed to mention the most celebrated vegetarian of all time in his article. Adolf

Hitler.”xliv Selden’s argument was deemed senseless, irrational, and disrespectful. His moral claims were bypassed, pushed aside, and labeled “cheap shots.” The NCA’s responses displayed a deliberate avoidance, a non-consideration, of ethical consumerism, and a profound discomfort at the thought of consumers foregoing beef products. Underlying the aggravated response of the

NCA was an unwillingness to evolve, a sense of helplessness. There was no working together: the beef industry and its dissenters were a newly constructed “us” and “them.”

Continuation of Importance

In the November of 1979, TIME Magazine author John Leo wrote, the “[vegetarian] dogma is spreading rapidly. Most college campuses now have vegetarian sections, and on many campuses the faithful are herding to form vegetarian clubs.”xlv The world hunger crisis gave rise to a wave of unprecedented ethical consumerism. Exposés of the inefficient system of grain- based feedlot production revealed the roots of global food injustice. Though the moral quandary of eating meat was initially brought to light in the face of widespread famine, the rhetoric of the vegetarian movement grew beyond a reaction to famine alone. This particular discourse on

xliii Carlson, Merlyn. “Letter from NCA President to Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine,” 1713, Box 11, (June 3, 1980), National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. xliv IBID. xlv Leo, John. “How to Beat the Beef Against Meat,” TIME Magazine, 1713, Box 11, (November 5, 1979), p.112, National Cattlemen’s Association Records, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. ethical consumerism exhibited several stages. Prior to the mainstreaming of vegetarianism, animal scientists were already concerned about the feed efficiency of feedlot animals, though they failed to develop alternatives to grain feeding. Following media exposures of the world hunger crisis and the merits of a vegetarian diet, a contestation of facts, figures, and ideas commenced between the National Cattlemen’s Association and media outlets promoting vegetarianism. Eventually, the anti-beef campaign developed a systematic, rather than contextual, critique of Big Beef. Arguments evolved to ask and answer more fundamental questions -- to spur radical, long-lasting ethical consumerism. In this stage, Big Beef and its dissenters were at an impasse, with ethical consumers seeking sincere and permanent reform in animal agriculture, and Big Beef seeking to maintain its business by attacking the ‘fad’ of vegetarianism. This impasse may recently have come to head.

Impossible Foods, a California based company founded in 2011, has created impeccably- realistic meatless meats, with burgers that bleed. Their tagline echoes the words of Cloris

Leachman from the 1970s: “We’re making meat using plants, so that we never have to use animals again.”xlvi In the April of 2019, in collaboration with Impossible foods, popular fast- food chain Burger King released the Impossible Whopper.xlvii In an article concerning this unexpected menu addition in The Guardian, a senior meat industry lobbyist “admitted the surprisingly realistic taste of modern fake meats [is] a ‘wake-up call’ to livestock farmers.”xlviii Further, Director of Public Affairs at the Missouri Farm Bureau, Eric Bohl, reacted with the statement, “if farmers and ranchers think we can mock and dismiss these products as a

xlvi Milman, Oliver, “Burger King’s plant-based Whopper gets glowing review – from a meat lobbyist,” The Guardian (April 8, 2019). xlvii IBID. xlviii IBID. passing fad, we’re kidding ourselves.”xlix Big Beef’s new and growing recognition of the vegetarian and vegan movements represents an opportunity to transform the cattle industry’s operations towards accommodating both moral demands by vegetarians and the taste demanded by the meat-eating public. This is a chance to productively move past the state of impasse that has been lingering over the past four decades. In this long-term movement towards ethical consumerism, the confluence of the world hunger crisis with the rise of vegetarianism was pivotal, but perhaps more important was the evolution of the vegetarian movement from a reactive discourse to a more permanent ethical critique.

xlix Milman, Oliver, “Burger King’s plant-based Whopper gets glowing review – from a meat lobbyist,” The Guardian (April 8, 2019).