Meat Hygiene

The food animals

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Meat is normally as the edible parts (muscle and offal) of the food animals which consume mainly grass and other arable crops, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, deer, reindeer, buffalo, musk oxen, moose, caribou, yak, camel, alpaca, llama, guanaco, vicuna, etc. in addition, poultry have become a major meat-producing species while rabbits, guinea pigs, capybara and various game animals and birds provide a substantial amount of protein, particularly in localised areas. Fish and other seafood have been an important part of man’s diet since earliest times.

Although, theoretically, hundreds of animals could supply meat for human consumption, in practice only a relatively small number of species is used today. This is all the more remarkable since it represents in general the instruction of the Levitical Law of the Old Testament, most of which is in accord with modern sanitary science. The animals suitable for the food of man had a part the hoof and the chew the cud. Only those fish with fins and scales were wholesome. It is true that today we eat pigs, rabbit and hare, but it is recognized that they are subject to parasitic infestation. There appears to be little doubt that the dangers of trichinosis and of Cysticercus cellulosae were recognized 1400 years before the birth of Christ. In many parts of the world, horse flesh forms an important article of human diet. The Danes reintroduced the consumption of horse flesh into Europe during the siege Copenhagen in 1807; slaughter of horses for human consumption is now well established in Denmark , Belgium, Holland and Germany.

All the above animals, including fish, are converters, they utilize green vegetable material with varying efficiency to produce protein. Even microorganisms can be classified as converters in that they use carbohydrates from plants to make protein from simple nitrogenous compounds. Especially when an animal eats something which is inedible for man or could not easy be made into food for man, it is considered valuable as a source of food; so when pigs and poultry, and even other animal species, are used as scavengers to eat scrap, byproducts, etc., they are very useful indeed. However, when food which could be utilized by human beings is fed to livestock, the question of efficiency becomes more problematic. Nevertheless, other factors, such as the production of manure for fertilizer usage, variety in the human diet, etc., have to be borne in mind.

Not only did the Creator command the earth to ‘bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind’ (Genesis), He also ‘made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind’ (Genesis). For both plant and beast, ‘God saw that it was good’ (Genesis). They were both to be used for the food of man.

In more recent times efforts have been made domesticate certain wild animals, although many of these have been used as food since ancient times. In Africa and Russia, elands are being domesticated, as well as antelope in the latter country. Kangaroos are being kept for meat in Australia and, in south America, the large rodent capybara, which is a semi-aquatic vegetarian, is being used as a source of meat, although it is not especially palatable. There are probably many other wild species which could be utilized in meat production and would have some advantages over the domesticated animals since they exist on less valuable land, need only rough grazing , are more disease-resistant and act as a tourist attraction. Some problems, however, arise in connection with feeding, protection from predators, slaughter and meat inspection.