Man Meat eating man

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Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food.[1]:1 Humans have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. The advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, pigs and cattle, and eventually their use in meat production on an industrial scale.Meat is mainly composed of water, protein, and fat,[2] and is usually eaten together with other food. It is edible raw, but is normally eaten after it has been cooked and seasoned or processed in a variety of ways. Unprocessed meat will spoil or rot within hours or days as a result of infection with and decomposition by bacteria and fungi.Most often, meat refers to skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as offal.[1]:1 Meat is sometimes also used in a more restrictive sense – the flesh of mammalian species (pigs, cattle, lambs, etc.) raised and prepared for human consumption, to the exclusion of fish, other seafood, poultry or other animals.
Modern agriculture employs a number of techniques, such as progeny testing, to speed artificial selection by breeding animals to rapidly acquire the qualities desired by meat producers.[1]:10 For instance, in the wake of well-publicised health concerns associated with saturated fats in the 1980s, the fat content of United Kingdom beef, pork and lamb fell from 20–26 percent to 4–8 percent within a few decades, due to both selective breeding for leanness and changed methods of butchery.[1]:10 Methods of genetic engineering aimed at improving the meat production qualities of animals are now also becoming available.Even though it is a very old industry, meat production continues to be shaped strongly by the evolving demands of customers. The trend towards selling meat in pre-packaged cuts has increased the demand for larger breeds of cattle, which are better suited to producing such cuts.[1]:11 Even more animals not previously exploited for their meat are now being farmed, especially the more agile and mobile species, whose muscles tend to be developed better than those of cattle, sheep or pigs.[1]:11 Examples are the various antelope species, the zebra, water buffalo and camel,[1]:11ff as well as non-mammals, such as the crocodile, emu and ostrich.[1]:13 Another important trend in contemporary meat production is organic farming which, while providing no organoleptic benefit to meat so produced,[20] meets an increasing demand for organic meat.Several economically important traits in meat animals are heritable to some degree (see the table to the right) and can thus be selected for by animal breeding. In cattle, certain growth features are controlled by recessive genes which have not so far been controlled, complicating breeding.[1]:18 One such trait is dwarfism; another is the doppelender or "double muscling" condition, which causes muscle hypertrophy and thereby increases the animal's commercial value.[1]:18 Genetic analysis continues to reveal the genetic mechanisms that control numerous aspects of the endocrine system and, through it, meat growth and quality.Genetic engineering techniques can shorten breeding programmes significantly because they allow for the identification and isolation of genes coding for desired traits, and for the reincorporation of these genes into the animal genome.[1]:21 To enable such manipulation, research is ongoing (as of 2006) to map the entire genome of sheep, cattle and pigs.[1]:21 Some research has already seen commercial application. For instance, a recombinant bacterium has been developed which improves the digestion of grass in the rumen of cattle, and some specific features of muscle fibres have been genetically altered.

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