Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much―and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter (Men Birthday

Meatonomics: How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much―and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter (Men Birthday

Stop Being Manipulated by the Animal Foods Industry Stop the meat industry from eating into your wallet.  Few Americans are aware of the realities of the economic system that supports our country's supply of animal foods. Yet these forces affect us in ways we can hardly imagine. Though we only fork over a few dollars per pound of meat products at the grocery store, we end up paying much more than that in tax dollar-fueled government subsidies—$38 billion more, to be exact. And that's just one layer of hidden costs. But with the help of sustainability advocate and author David Robinson Simon's  Meatonomics , we can come up with informed, lasting solutions. Improve your health, your life—and the world.  Animal food producers influence our buying choices with artificially low prices, misleading messages, and heavy legislation and regulation control. But learning how these forces work can help you improve both your personal life and the world in so many important ways. Life-changing foods like those in a plant-based diet will do more than just improve your waistline. The information in  Meatonomics  can help you save money, lose weight, live longer, boost your health, protect animals and the planet from abuse, and preserve rural communities worldwide. Learn to make better, more informed decisions on what to buy and how to eat.  In  Meatonomics , Dr. David Robinson Simon uses his excellent truth-finding skills, garnered from his expertise as a lawyer, to show you: How government marketing is influencing what we think of as healthy eating - Just how much of our money is being burnt through by the meat production industry - What we can do to change ourselves and our country for the better If you were fascinated by sustainable food and healthy eating books like  Proteinaholic ,  Eating Animals , or  How Not to Die , you'll be empowered to overcome the meat industry's manipulation with  Meatonomics . “This assessment of the powerful animal food industry and the myriad government policies that support it is well researched and thought-provoking.” —Kelsy Peterson, Library Journal David Robinson Simon is a lawyer and advocate for sustainable consumption. He works as general counsel for a healthcare company and serves on the board of the APRL Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting animals. David received his B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and his J.D. from the University of Southern California. He is also the author of New Millennium Law Dictionary , a full English legal dictionary. He lives in Southern California with his partner, artist Tania Marie, and their rabbit, tortoise, and two cats. MEATONOMICS How the Rigged Economics of Meat and Dairy Make You Consume Too Much-and How to Eat Better, Live Longer, and Spend Smarter By David Robinson Simon Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC Copyright © 2013 David Robinson Simon All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-57324-620-0 Contents Author's Note, Introduction, Part I: Influencing the Consumer, 1. The Brave New World of Government Marketing, 2. Massaging the Message: Shaping Consumer Beliefs, 3. Sausage Making and Lawmaking: Influence in the Political Process, 4. Regulatory Conflict and Consumer Confusion, Part II: The Hidden Costs of Meatonomics, 5. Feeding at the Subsidy Trough, 6. Diseases and Doctor Bills, 7. The Sustainability Challenge, 8. The Costs of Cruelty, 9. Fishing Follies, 10. Recipes for Change, Acknowledgments, Appendix A: Animal Foods and Human Health, Appendix B: Summary of the Annual Externalized Costs of US Animal Food, Production (in billions), Appendix C: Economic Effects of Proposed Meat Tax and Support Changes, Appendix D: Factory Farming Practices, Endnotes, Index, CHAPTER 1 The Brave New World of Government Marketing In his 1932 novel Brave New World , Aldous Huxley imagined a future in whichhumans exist solely to support the economy and are conditioned from birth to buythings. Government bureaucrats manipulate the sheep-like citizens with drugs andslogans to make them consume as much as possible. In Huxley's vision, 26th-centuryconsumers learn that "ending is better than mending" and "the morestitches, the less riches"—that is, buying new things is better than fixing oldones. But for US consumers, this eerie futuristic fantasy—with government usingmarketing slogans and other undue influence to drive consumption—has arrived afew centuries early. This chapter explores government marketing as a feature ofmeatonomics and considers its consequences for consumers. Checkoff Programs: Unseen and Unknown, But Felt Everywhere In the Brave New World of the 21st century—where big box stores and mega marketsdominate the landscape—our government uses innocuous-sounding "checkoff"programs to encourage us to buy more animal foods and other goods. Themechanism's name persists from a time when the assessments were voluntary andproducers willing to opt in participated by simply checking a box. Nowadays, theprograms are tax-like