DISHING THE DIRT

The Secret History of the Meat on our Plates

Meat is the unhealthy product of an unhealthy system. Most farmed animals are diseased, drugged and infected by the time they reach slaughter – and then they are turned into food for us. The consequences are hardly surprising. Epidemics such as BSE and bird flu lead to human fatalities; intensive farming causes food poisoning and antibiotic resistance; foot-and-mouth sees animals slaughtered to preserve profits - and the next crisis is impossible to predict. All that’s sure is that Government, farmers and retailers have failed to protect the health of animals and humans so far and that the only safe thing to do is avoid meat completely.

Viva!’s new Dishing the Dirt campaign peels back the wrapping and takes a long, cool, nauseating look at meat: where it comes from, how it gets to the plate and what comes with it. It examines the entire system which turns animals into food, including: modern farming and the drugs on which it relies; the diseases of farmed animals and the squalid conditions which cause them; the illnesses caused to humans by infected meat and the failure of governments to protect people from them; slaughter and meat processing; butcher’s shops and restaurants.

Click here to find out more.