Eating at the Service of Life

By: Liesl Stewart

Art by Zach Stewart

In my previous blog post, I used a conversation I overheard about the high cost of pot roast to write about the corporatization of our food systems–and specifically animal agriculture–in the US and the world. As corporations use industrial production methods to farm animals, Creation pays heavy costs. The earth, the environment and climate, plants, and animals (human and nonhuman) all suffer in the name of profit. I will talk more about these costs, but let me first talk about seeds and life.

According to the Gospels, Jesus sometimes told parables about seeds to explain the ways of his governance. I’m a gardener, so I do love these seed parables. For a few years now I’ve chewed over one particular parable in Mark’s Gospel:

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” (4:26-28 NRSV)

I find grace in this parable. The seed sprouts and grows, even when the farmer isn’t attentive to it. Yes, they scattered the seed, maybe even poured water over them; but the farmer couldn’t make the seeds themselves grow. The farmer’s work is to serve the life within the seeds, to help with the external factors that make the seeds flourish–watering, pruning, mulching, and feeding. The farmer even gets to rest from their work as part of the growing cycle.

The grace for me is the expansiveness of life formed within each tiny seed. A blueprint for growth is embedded in the seed’s matter, and a mysterious life force creates new, differentiated cells as if out of nothing. The seed grows to become the glorious plant it was created to be. Life pulses forth with vibrant color and splendor in God’s created order, and it is our humble, but sacred, work as human animals to serve this life. 

But we know the parabolic farmer could have gone to the fields and uprooted the seedlings. They had the power to bring death to those plants. And if we extrapolate this parable to the present era, human animals collectively have the power to affect weather patterns that bring death to the plants.

Today, our dominant global food systems don’t serve life. In his excellent book, The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith & Food Justice, Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics Christopher Carter delineates the ways the US and global food systems are built on the ideologies and business models of coloniality and white supremacy, which bring death to Creation.1 To serve corporate greed, human and nonhuman animals are treated as “less than.” This food system is rooted in the beliefs that some people are worth less than others, and that, as people, nonhuman animals and the earth are ours to exploit.

In his book, Carter makes a clear call to reject this corporatized system and unhitch ourselves from food institutions dealing death to Creation, and instead to “create ‘food institutions’ that are at the service of life.”2

At the service of life. 

I find this phrase so helpful when I think about the kinds of food institutions I want to support. I’ve been learning about food systems, and I believe it’s clear the prevailing corporatized food system doesn’t serve life.  

Let’s look at the costs of corporatized farming, costs that don’t serve life:

The corporatization of a country’s farming comes at a terrible cost to the people working in food production systems. It isn’t a coincidence that, in the U.S., meat corporations recruit our society’s most vulnerable people as employees. The system relies on the exploitation of people—disproportionately BIPOC and immigrants—who are desperate for any income, and therefore are willing to work for low wages under harsh and dangerous working conditions, without job security. 

The corporatization of a country’s farming comes at a terrible cost to the animals that are farmed. Every nonhuman animal that is farmed is a sentient being able to suffer. When animals are valued only as units of profit, the standards for kind or even acceptable treatment drop lower than the poop-covered cement floors they spend their days on. For their whole miserable lives—from inception to slaughter—these animals are owned by corporations, and their quality of life counts for nothing against their potential to bring profit.

The corporatization of a country’s farming comes at a terrible cost to our climate. We are facing catastrophic climate change if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced. Animal agriculture accounts for 14.5%-18% of human-caused emissions. To meet increasing demands for meat,  forests are being cleared to grow feed crops, causing stored carbon to be released into the atmosphere. There are differing opinions about whether meat can ever be produced sustainably (or with the welfare of animals farmed for food in mind) for the global population; but it’s certain that if we are going to avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to substantially reduce our consumption of animal-based foods produced in industrialized farming systems.

The corporatization of a country’s farming comes at a terrible cost to public health and the environment. It’s impossible to have thousands of animals living and dying in confined spaces without harmful consequences for public health (antibiotic resistance, the spread of zoonotic diseases and pathogens, etc.) and the environment (pollution, contaminants, and chronic illness). In addition, it costs ordinary people a lot of money to address the harm caused by these corporations. These externalized costs never show up in the companies’ accounting books; they are paid for by the public—either directly or through taxes.

Back to that conversation about the high cost of pot roast. The cost of the meat produced in industrialized farming systems is far bigger than the prices we pay at the cash register. These terrible costs don’t serve life. 

Many of us want to rethink the foods we eat and the sources of our food, which could lead to a repositioning in response. We can start by paying attention to where we source our food. There are many localized food networks offering good alternatives to the corporate food system. 

If we eat animal-based foods, we can choose to eat much less, and commit to sourcing from small farms that are known to farm at the service of life. (They need our support!) For those who wish to reduce consumption of animal products, CreatureKind offers guidance with DefaultVeg, a program that helps reframe what constitutes a good meal.1 Or one could consider eating a wholly plant-based diet. There have always been indigenous people eating plant-based diets who are guiding the way for others. Now, many people who have been raised within corporatized food systems are breaking away and choosing plant-based diets.

Changing eating and food shopping habits can feel overwhelming, but good, lasting changes don’t have to be dramatic or abrupt. I can speak from my own experience: over the past sixteen years, my family has been on a food journey that has transformed the way we eat. It has been a gracious journey of many small changes made over time. Through participation in a food buying collective, we thoughtfully and intentionally changed the foods we buy, from whom we buy, and our purchasing rhythms. 

The grace has also been that we haven’t journeyed alone. There’s still much to learn, and we have been strengthened by joining our efforts with other people seeking to eat in the service of life.

1. This book is well worth reading to understand our food system’s historical and current contexts. Christopher Carter, The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith, and Food Justice (University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 2021). ↩
2. Christopher Carter, The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith, and Food Justice (University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 2021), Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2, Rakuten Kobo.↩
3. Around the world more people are eating more meat each year, and that increase is mostly produced through industrialized systems. In 2018 the average person in the USA ate a record 220 pounds of meat. (Eleanor Cummins, “America’s obsession with meat, explained. Here’s the beef,” Popular Science, Oct 28, 2019, https://www.popsci.com/why-americans-eat-so-much-meat/)↩
4. Advocates for regenerative farming methods argue that when farmed animals are allowed to graze and forage naturally on managed pastures, water, carbon and nutrients are sequestered in the soil. They argue that in this way regenerative systems improve ecosystem resilience and mitigate climate change. ↩
5. What is DefaultVeg? DefaultVeg is simple. By making plant-based food the default, we make the choice at every meal to help animals, the environment, and other people (including farm and meatpacking plant workers all over the world). At church or other group events, we give people the choice to opt in for meals with animal products if necessary, instead of having to opt out of them. A DefaultVeg approach is simple, inclusive, and cost-effective.↩

The Cost of Pot Roast

By: Liesl Stewart

Recently, while cooling off in a pool in Arizona (USA), I overheard a conversation. As they bobbed on foam noodles, a group was bemoaning the high cost of pot roast. “Have you seen the prices?!” Heads shook in knowing commiseration, for meat prices had indeed increased noticeably. The conversation rolled along covering in great detail exactly where pot roast could be bought for the cheapest prices.

I was interested in this conversation because I knew food prices were climbing, and people generally were concerned about food inflation. In February this year, global food prices reached the highest level ever. They had increased by 24.1% in the last year. 1

And the cost of that pot roast? While food prices were climbing, Tyson Foods,2 the U.S.’s largest meat corporation by sales,3 posted a $1 billion profit the first quarter of 2022–up 48% from that same quarter the year before.4 This seemed confusing to me because, in the same period, meat prices in the U.S. increased by an average of 13.1%.5

How could this be? How could Tyson Foods and other meat corporations report spectacular profits when consumers were feeling a tighter pinch to their wallets every time they bought meat? When Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King celebrated these company earnings, he said, “The company worked closely with customers to pass along that inflation through price increases.”6

There we go. That’s how this can be. The company–read this with giant air quotes–“worked closely with consumers.” How did they do this? By setting much higher prices for meat, and letting consumers pay for those increases. 13.1% increases, to be exact. Their profiteering has, in fact, increased inflation.7 It's hard not to feel incredulous anger toward this industry and the corporate systems that enable their activities!

However, as expensive as it is now, I’ve learned that the true cost of pot roast isn’t simply the money paid at the cash register. There are costs that are hard to see behind the price tags, and these costs have everything to do with corporations gaining dominance in the business of animal farming. To talk about both the overt and hidden costs of meat in the U.S., it’s important to identify the source of the problem: the corporatization of the nation’s–and world’s–food systems.

I grew up hearing the narrative that the U.S. is a patchwork of small family farms–from the “amber waves of grain” to the “fruited plain”. I believed that each of these family farms is a healthy ecosystem of crop varieties and different farmed animal species feeding the country in the most wholesome ways. This was once true but not anymore. This image is so strong, however, I didn’t realize how much the country’s land and foodscapes have changed in just my lifetime of fifty-some years.

A 2008 report produced by the Pew Commission found that over the past seventy years industrialized production has replaced the traditional, decentralized family farm system as the dominant reality of animal farming in the U.S. today.8 In this concentrated system, there are far fewer farm operations, and each is enormous in scale, holding large numbers of animals of the same species in enclosed, crowded conditions that restrict the movement of the animals. In addition, this model of industrial farm animal production employs far fewer workers than the decentralized system.

Animal production on this scale is driven by corporations. If a person eats meat, eggs, or dairy products in the U.S. without deliberately sourcing from the small farms that are the exceptions, the animals have been factory-farmed and processed by a handful of corporations that are politically powerful. Their dollars speak loudly in state legislatures and in the lobbying halls of Washington D.C. They dominate U.S. animal agriculture, such that many small family farms have gone out of business.9 Sadly, many countries around the world have also adopted this corporate production model.

How did I not know this? Because the world is urbanizing and, like many people, I’ve only lived in cities. I don’t often see what’s happening in rural areas where food is produced. I don’t see the enclosed concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and industrial facilities that don’t look at all like the picturesque family farms I thought dotted the countryside. I don’t see the trucks carting live, frightened animals from the CAFOs to be killed at meat processing plants. And, I don’t see the poorly paid CAFO and slaughterhouse workers living in rural poverty because they aren’t my close geographical neighbors. As Christopher Carter writes in his important book The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith, and Food Justice, “To be fair, this is how industrial food systems are designed to operate: we consumers are not supposed to think about where our food comes from.”10

I began writing this blog as we finished celebrating the Easter season. As I followed the lectionary readings, the words of Jesus jumped out at me: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15) We don’t simply proclaim with words. Our discipleship is expressed in full-bodied, everyday living, and the good news is for all that Creation encompasses–not only for human animals, as I believed for so many years. The way we live and eat should proclaim good news to all of Creation.

I now believe that corporate agribusinesses exploit Creation. Decisions about the welfare of people, animals, the earth, and the environment as impacted by industrial farming are made in boardrooms, not in day-to-day embodied interactions with the people and animals living, working, and dying within farming systems. CEOs are answerable to their shareholders, who are primarily interested in short-term profits–not in providing good working conditions for employees or the kind treatment of animals within their care. When governmental oversight and regulatory bodies aren’t powerful enough–which they definitely aren’t in the U.S., nor in most countries–corporations can exploit Creation in the name of profit. 

This industrialized mode of meat production has terrible costs for Creation, costs that are much greater than the price tag on a pack of pot roast. I’m going to look at these costs–the true costs of industrially farmed pot roast–in a follow-up to this blog, for it’s important to know what those costs are. Thankfully, we can learn new ways to support food systems that proclaim good news to all Creation, so I’ll also write about some of those. 

This discussion will continue in my next blog…

1. Food Price Index hit record high in February, UN agency reports, UN News, March 2022 [Online resource] retrieved from https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113332#:~:text=The%20Food%20Price%20Index%2C%20which,per%20cent%20up%20from%20January.&text=This%20is%20also%2024.1%20per,higher%20than%20in%20February%20201↩
2. Though they're well-known for chicken, Tyson produces significant amounts of beef and pork with brands like Steak-EZE®, Original Philly™, Hillshire Farm®, Star Ranch Angus®, and more.↩
3. Michael Hirtzer, Tyson Soars as Rising Meat Prices Boost Profit, Sales View (Bloomberg.com, 7 February 2022), retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-07/tyson-foods-tops-earnings-estimates-with-meat-prices-rising↩
4. Sarah Ovaska quoting Robert Reich, former US Labor Secretary, “Grocery Store Prices Are Up, But So Are Corporate Profits” (Cardinal & Pine online, 14 April 2022), retrieved from https://cardinalpine.com/story/grocery-store-prices-are-up-but-so-are-corporate-profits/#:~:text=Tyson's%20CEO%20says%20they're,This%20is%20about%20corporate%20greed.↩
5. https://www.foodmanufacturing.com/supply-chain/news/22172152/usda-predicts-food-price-hikes↩
6. Elizabeth Crawford ‘Tyson: In this dynamic environment, we will be aggressive in monitoring inflation and driving price recovery activities' [Tyson Foods is celebrating a better-than-expected fourth quarter thanks in part to “aggressive” pricing actions that buoyed sales and offset inflation, and a “bold” new productivity plan that seeks to bring the company’s operating income margin up to at least the 5-7% range on a run rate basis by mid-fiscal 2022.] (Food Navigator, 16-Nov-2021) Retrieved from HTTPS://WWW.FOODNAVIGATOR-USA.COM/ARTICLE/2021/11/16/TYSON-BENEFITS-FROM-AGGRESSIVE-PRICING-TO-OFFSET-INFLATION-LAYS-OUT-BOLD-PRODUCTIVITY-PLAN ↩
7. Michael Hirtzer, Tyson Soars as Rising Meat Prices Boost Profit, Sales View (Bloomberg.com, 7 February 2022), retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-07/tyson-foods-tops-earnings-estimates-with-meat-prices-rising↩
8. Pew Commission Report: “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” [Executive Summary] (A Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2008), 1.↩
9. I liberally used the wording directly from the source: The Pew Commission Report: “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” (A Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2008), 49.↩
10. Christopher Carter, The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith, and Food Justice (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, 2021), 43.↩