The meat industry benefits from nutritionally sufficient plant-based diets remaining unaffordable for many.
It is widely accepted that meat is a universal protein staple in many households globally. These kinds of health narratives cloud around other animal products as well, namely dairy and eggs.
To feed the almost-constant need for consumable animal products, items have had to become rampantly mass produced — fostering a production system wherein animals are bred to be killed.
With a quick Google search, one can find countless articles presenting the horrific conditions animals must face in the process of becoming commodities in factory farming environments.
However, plant-based food products have begun popping up in grocery stores, with research showing that these plant-based alternatives pack just as much protein as meat products.
Thus, the disturbing realities of factory farming is circulating in mainstream discourse and nutritionally dense, animal free alternatives are being placed on the market. Evidently, these trends point towards progress in plant-based movements.
Yet, animal products remain widely overconsumed.
This overconsumption is not a matter of personal taste or free will over one’s eating habits; global economies directly benefit from the consumption of animal products, giving reason to disproportionately fuel these industries and encourage animal-led diets among consumers.
This point is precisely why this article is not meant to shame those who choose to consume animal products — I am not even a vegan myself. The act that is facing criticism here is the scientific rhetoric pushing the notion that animal products are the sole vehicle to a healthy lifestyle.
The rhetoric used to justify deplorable factory farming systems for profit-motive purposes harmfully intertwines with other oppressive rhetoric presented around us. This namely includes the belief that meat consumption is intertwined with masculinity, which perpetuates dangerous associations between domination and maleness. These mutually reinforcing discourses are the reason why the state’s motives in fueling the meat industry must be interrogated.
Returning to the economics of animal consumption, the Canadian government actively contributes to the rampant success of the factory farming industry. Both the federal government and Ontario’s provincial government support the meat industry through subsidies, which are financial support initiatives for the maintenance of economic growth financed by tax dollars. Last year, the two governments invested $13 million into the meat industry so meat producers and “abattoirs” (or, “slaughterhouses”) in the province could “make upgrades to increase their productivity and efficiency and maintain Ontario’s high food safety standards.”
Registered Dietitian Vesanto Melina also points out that many of the Canadian government’s subsidies in the factory farming industry are sometimes rendered invisible by indirectly encouraging the production and consumption of animal products.
For example, Melina explains that sometimes the Canadian government’s financial support is allocated to soy and corn — which the animal feed found in factory farming environments is largely comprised of — and not always to farms and factories directly. They have also allocated funding for positive advertising encouraging consumers to buy animal products.
Two factors are at play to fuel animal consumption on a state level: the government provides subsidies to keep animal products cheap while amplifying biased health discourses through advertisements.
Despite the fact that meat prices have been on an uptick in recent months, plant-based alternatives that mirror the nutritional profile of meat remain comparatively expensive commodities.
Though some plant-based ingredients— like grains and bean products— are widely cheaper than animal products, opting for meat and dairy alternatives like plant-based “burgers” or nut “milks” will often cost you more than the real thing.
Unfortunately, these alternatives are arguably the most accepted products for consumers flirting with the idea of a plant-based diet, as they taste like the real thing (or better, in my opinion) which makes the shift into a plant-based lifestyle less jarring and restrictive.
Consumers can save cash and replicate these products at home by blending up almonds and water or mashing some lentil patties together — but after a 40-hour work week on top of schoolwork or family responsibilities, can the average consumer be blamed for wanting something quick and convenient instead? Let alone something that doesn’t break the bank.
Ultimately, the current state of plant-based consumption is not financially sustainable for many consumers. Skillfully through subsidies, health rhetoric and plain habit, animal consumption has become the convenient routine — a routine that many are unable to escape despite knowing the horrors of factory farming industries.
The financial barriers associated with veganism and simultaneous economic perks associated with the consumption of animal products should not be ignored in advocacy for plant-based lifestyles. Without recognizing the unequal accessibility to the tools required to object from these industries, plant-based movements exclude large swaths of consumers who deserve to outlet their frustrations toward the anthropocentric discourses limiting their consumption options.