Who Is Big Meat?
Who Is?
iHeartRadio + NowThis
4.1 • 803 Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2020
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the first season of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow explored Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the military industrial complex. But what about the meat industrial complex? Whether it’s beef, chicken, or pork, most of the meat that winds up on your dinner plate is the ultimate result of an industrial food system controlled by a handful of powerful multinational meatpacking corporations: JBS, Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson, and National Beef. Big Meat. And for the most part, the story of Big Meat--and the system of industrial meat production that it controls--is a story untold, despite the enormous impact that these companies and this system has on everything from our diets, to the health and economic stability of rural communities in the United States, to the global climate crisis. On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow takes a trip inside the refrigerator--and beyond--for the story of how Big Meat came to be, and what we can do about it.
- Leah Douglas, an associate editor and staff writer at the Food and Environment Reporting Network
- Sherri Dugger, executive director of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project
- Joe Maxwell, former Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and co-founder and president of Family Farm Action Alliance
- Shefali Sharma, director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s European office
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you're worried about environmental justice or social justice issues, if you're worried about where your taxpayer money is going, if you're worried about national security and food security, if you're worried about America being great for your family or your grandchildren, if you're worried about feeding your children well, if we're worried about any one of those things, this big meat, consolidated corporate system of industrial agriculture, this is our issue. |
| 0:22.9 | And we should be caring about it. |
| 0:25.0 | I think a lot of people listening today and general public grasp big pharma. |
| 0:31.4 | They grasp big banks. |
| 0:33.9 | But this is really a story untold. |
| 0:37.1 | And that is the political power and the influence that Big Meat |
| 0:41.3 | has in our capitals. They have enormous political power. I mean, along with the economic power |
| 0:48.9 | that they have, they have enormous political power. It's just a total kind of a revolving door scene where the political interests are one and the same. |
| 1:00.5 | And that's why it's so difficult to regulate them. |
| 1:03.7 | Enormous political power. Revolving door scene. Those are my favorites. |
| 1:08.6 | Don't get me wrong. I love meat. And I'm not going to try to convince you on this episode that you need to give up eating meat. |
| 1:15.2 | What I am going to do is introduce you to the fucked up corporate system that gets the meat you love to your dinner plate. |
| 1:21.4 | Talk about how that came about and let you know what you can do about it. |
| 1:25.8 | This is about the power that a handful |
| 1:28.3 | of highly consolidated meat packing companies |
| 1:30.9 | wield over our food system, our government, |
| 1:33.9 | and even our diets, |
| 1:36.1 | and the immense profit they make |
| 1:37.7 | to the detriment of our health, |
| 1:39.8 | the health of rural communities, |
| 1:41.6 | and the planet itself. |
| 1:44.1 | So, who is Big Me? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartRadio + NowThis, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartRadio + NowThis and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.