The phrase "luncheon meat in pouches" strikes me as singularly unappetizing -- industrially grown meat, lashed with God-knows-what chemicals, and stuffed into plastic. Even as an industrial-food-scarfing child, the slippery wetness and sketchy pink color of such food always struck me as just wrong (not that it stopped me from digging in).
Can't be easy on the landscape, either, given the undeniable depredations of industrial meat, and the lifecycle-spanning horrors of plastic. And yet, and yet ... "lunch meat in pouches" is taking the convenience-food world by storm. Reports a trade journal:
US households spent about $3.75bn on luncheon meat in pouches in 2006, marking a doubling of sales from 2003, according to US market analyst Nielson Homescan Consumer Facts.
Ouch. And moreover "Pouches containing the high-protein treat were bought by 56.2 per cent of American families, marking a doubling of sales from 2003."
Consumers seeking "organic" and health-marketed food did their bit to stoke the trend, too:
According to Neilson, organic boasted a 68.6 percent growth leap in dollar sales to $15.1m, natural varieties soared by 47.8 percent in dollar sales to $98.6m, a growth rate double that of the prior year, while fat-presence data for lunchmeat showed explosive sales trends for the "absence of specific fat" varieties rose a massive 987.8 percent rise to $2.0 million in pouches.
Eek.
Meanwhile, demand for such "convenience" packaging, especially plastic, is growing smartly:
According to the Freedonia Group, US demand for food containers will climb 3.3 per cent a year and reach $23.5 billion by 2011.
Plastic containers and bags will experience the fastest growth, with the market worth $9.9bn in 2011 from $8.0bn in 2006, driven by its performance attributes and an increasing demand for smaller packages sizes, the group said.
As a material for rigid packaging, plastic will continue to outpace paperboard, metal and glass in terms of percentage growth. Rigid plastic container demand is expected to grow 6.3 per cent each year from $3.3bn in 2006 to $4.5bn in 2011.
Nothing good can come of these trends.
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JMG Posted 3:21 pm
19 Sep 2007
Michigan State University has the top-rated packaging engineering program in America (I know, I know, who knew that there was such a program, much less enough of them to rank) and it brings smart people from around the world who study the problem of packaging. They give talks about the tradeoffs you have to make while accomplishing the seven functions of product packaging (Sorry, I cannot list them off the top of my head.)
I was talking to one young woman, from Guatamala if I recall rightly, and she was explaining how mystified she was to come to the United States and find all these jars and cans when, in South America, nearly everything is in pouches because they use far less materials and consume far less energy, particularly in transport. You can deliver far more actual product in pouches than you can if the same amount of product is packed in cans, so you are reducing the transport energy, as well as the energy embedded in the can.
Buckminster Fuller used to be fanatical about reducing the weight of things, basically using weight as a good first approximation to environmental cost.
So, while I agree that meat in pouches sounds repulsive, it's because of the contents, not the package.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Pangolin Posted 8:34 pm
19 Sep 2007
Here's a shocking little secret. In compact towns and cities where you could walk or bike to 4 or 5 locally owned restaurants the most environmentally correct way to eat is at a sit-down restaurant.
Restaurants have less food spoilage by far than your kitchen at home. The dishes are washed in a more efficient dishwasher. Food is kept in larger and therefore more efficient coolers. Food is cooked in larger lots that use less fuel. The food comes in larger and sometimes recyclable containers that hold more food volume per unit of packaging material. Even the waste stream is easier to recycle as multiple point sources are eliminated.
If the primary source of taxes was resources, fuel, power, and food instead of labor, it would become immediatly cheaper to eat out than to eat at home.
So go have a nice meal where you can sit down with an actual fork, knife and plate. It's the green thing to do.
Put the Carbon Back
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caniscandida Posted 9:23 pm
19 Sep 2007
Never buying luncheon meats, I am not sure I understand what is meant by "pouch," in this context. Presumably it is not the same as the plastic drum-shaped or however-shaped containers that are attached to a printed heavy paper backing with a hole in it for convenient hanging on a protruding rod: not dissimilar from those shaped plastic-plus-paper packages for household implements that are nearly impossible to open and which were I think discussed in Grist a number of months ago.
If you go to the deli counter and ask for half a pound of salami, bologna, ham, turkey breast, Swiss cheese, whatever, to be sliced before your eyes and weighed out for you, is it not usually wrapped in something plasticky? (Does anyone use waxed paper anymore?) Can that be recycled?
"Plastic: the rigid container material of our lives": it would be reassuring if the various forms it takes could be relatively easily recycled. In NYC, they accept for recycling only those plastic containers marked "1" and "2" in the arrowed triangle, and even then not all 2's.
On a completely different subject: Do Americans tend to make sloppy environmental choices when they have the responsibility of raising children, given everyone's crowded schedule? E.g., so far as food goes, and having to feed the kids, do they resort more frequently to, say, fast-food restaurants, and to industrialized luncheon meats, than childless adults? Or are we all equally sloppy?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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wayneluke Posted 1:43 am
20 Sep 2007
When my brothers and I were growing up, we lived on a small 1 acre piece of land. On that land my parents grew all of our meat (beef, chicken, pork, lamb and rabbit). My mother worked as a teacher for the Los Angeles County Probation Dept. My father was a Probation Officer in the same department. When growing up, we rarely had store bought snacks. My mother made cookies, cakes and all that from scratch. We spent every Saturday in the Summer making Ice Cream. Boy, my brothers and I would turn that handle for hours.
Anyway, I didn't even have my first Oreo cookie until I was in high school (mid 80s). I thought it was disgusting and still do to this day. However now, my parents are home alone and my father has to watch his diet due to diabetes and having had a double bypass a few years back. Both diseases run in the family. But they buy a lot of garbage now. My mother has pre-sweetened cereal for when the grandkids come to visit. I don't buy that. The closest we get is a box of Organic Rice Krispies. She has about 10 different types of store bought cookies in the house at all times and a lot of other junkfood for the grandkids. Personally, I am appalled because I didn't get to eat that stuff when I was a kid and she buys it now for my kids. It isn't time now because she doesn't work now and she still makes cakes and pies from scratch on a regular basis.
Though I think it is convenience. When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, we lived about 30 miles from the closest supermarket and even then we had 2 choices to shop at, Shopping Bag and Gemco. That meant fewer trips. Now they live in an older downtown neighborhood of the city and they have access to a dozen supermarkets including 2 Super Walmarts, Costco and Sam's Club.
I did make her feel guilty the other day. Seems she has some pre-sweetened cereal she needs to rotate out and get rid of. She offered to me and I simply said "I don't allow my children to eat that." She asked why and I responded because that is how I was raised. Even though its hard to resist temptation and my kids are older now so they aren't as influenced by the super sweet commercials during cartoons. It is tough at times when you have to tell your kids no they can't have the "Super Sweet Breakfast Sugar with Cereal Additive" that is hot that week. But I do keep organic chocolate bars in the house for the occasional treat and we do have home made cookies and breads regularly so I believe they are not deprived in the sweet category.
As for meat pouches, never have used them. When we did buy lunch meat, it was always at the deli. Now I don't bother with it. We either slice it ourselves or have alternatives for lunch.
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amc89 Posted 3:28 am
20 Sep 2007
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wiscidea Posted 4:08 am
20 Sep 2007
Like we don't have enough health problems.
I guess it will at least keep the population down... please see current discussion of plastics and fertility.
Better to package food in glass, assuming you value it as FOOD. Okay to package it in plastic if goal is to fill your child's tummy with something --- even toxic chemicals --- and minimize the cost of doing so.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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caniscandida Posted 4:36 am
20 Sep 2007
that is an excellent observation, that we disguise our meat, more or less intentionally, so that we can eat it without having to be aware that it comes from real animals.
That is also why I think the ethical point made by Peter Singer and Jim Mason is so important: slaughterhouses should have "glass walls"; every aspect of the way animals are raised for meat and slaughtered should be placed vividly before our eyes.
WiscIdea,
OK, I believe you, that toxic substances can exude or evaporate from plastic objects. But I do not understand the chemistry involved. It is fairly well known that while plastic functions successfully for the most part to make air-tight wraps and containers, it is not perfectly air-tight. (Anecdotally, when my husband brings home packaged sliced turkey breast to make Little White Dog's dinner, she knows as soon as he walks in the door that he has something for her.) And some objects made of plastic give off their own scent. But on the other hand, given that plastic objects take so long to decompose, they could not always be emanating very many molecules. Perhaps they do so during a certain period directly following their manufacture, but stabilize afterwards?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Sam Wells Posted 4:45 am
20 Sep 2007
Onward through the fog
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askantik Posted 5:40 am
20 Sep 2007
"Though I find all meat pretty repulsive, "luncheon meat in pouches" certainly stands out. The more packaged and processed the meat is, the easier it is for people to forget that it came from a real animal that had to be killed, and I think that may be partly it's appeal for some people."
Well said!
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wiscidea Posted 6:10 am
20 Sep 2007
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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Sam Wells Posted 7:05 am
20 Sep 2007
Onward through the fog
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Brudaimonia Posted 2:42 pm
20 Sep 2007
But only a very small percentage of restaurants uses local food, and only a slightly larger percentage uses organic food. Usually, restaurants are getting the conventionally-grown and -processed stuff.
Even better, have community dinners with friends and neighbors. One person takes turns cooking for several people. And then the group can have discretion over where the food was purchased.
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Pangolin Posted 4:47 pm
20 Sep 2007
I used to live in a cohousing community that had regular community meals. Hell, I designed the kitchen so that it has all restaurant grade equipment. The aveage adult in that community had a masters degree or better; still organizing meals was, and still is, a bizzare task beyond the skills of your average american cook.
One of the efficiencies of a small to medium sized restaurant is that ONE person makes decisions as to what is available and everyone else chooses to partake or not. It actually works well that way. Kitchen commitees always serve faux-camel with couscous and soy gravy.
I would also point out that home kitchens are not set up to feed more than approximately 12 people in a single meal and that only with extreme planning and foresight. A 1,000 sq. ft restaurant can easily put out 200+ meals a day on a breakfast/lunch, or lunch/dinner setup. Think bistro.
Shifting the tax base from labor to energy and resouces encourages the use of labor and thrift on resource use. Currently we discourage labor costs and encourage resource waste.
Put the Carbon Back
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Edith Posted 6:15 pm
17 Jul 2008
As far as the meat packaged in pouches is concerned , i will like to add that the meat in pouches as compared to other storage media is at a similar risk . The only controllable issue that i could find was while going through
ABC Packaging one of the packaging giants, and that too on packaging pet food in pouches. The aim while reading their articles on their blog was to get some hard fact and i felt good that the company was ensuring the pet food freshness as an important thing.
My opinion stands that though its relatively new this idea on packaging meat in pouches but if the pouch is well designed from a health point of view
i don't think that its such a bad idea after all.
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