"Preface The consumption of red meat and meat products has a long history in most cultures. Meat is a source of nutrients, as well as a sign of wealth in some countries. Various techniques have been developed in different parts of the world over the centuries to preserve meat for extended shelf life and enjoyment. Even nonedible parts of animals are used for various reasons. Thus, meat, meat products, and by-products are important to our daily life....

Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the apalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then...

Ted Genoways uses the story of Hormel Foods and soaring recession-era demand for its most famous product, Spam, to probe the state of the meatpacking industry, including the expansion of agribusiness and the effects of immigrant labor on Middle America. "A powerful and important work of investigative journalism that explores the runaway growth of the American meatpacking industry and its dangerous consequences. On the production line in American...