Epic+Meat+Culture

Epic Meat Culture

Should We Still Be Eating Meat in 2013? How much is too much?

Artefact - []

This artefact is a video titled “TurBaconEpic Thanksgiving” posted by the YouTube channel Epic Meal Time. The channel uploads videos that create ‘epic’ sized meals and keeps a running tally of calories and fat content, which reach the tens of thousands. The channel boasts almost six million subscribers and reaches a global audience. Epic Meal Time has extended to cooking videos and sells a range of cooking utensils and merchandise, encouraging audiences to prepare their own ‘epic’ meals and supports the creation of more videos. This particular video depicts a Thanksgiving meal comprised of five birds – chicken, turkey, quail, Cornish hen and duck, stuffed inside each other, held together with ‘meat glue’ (processed sausage meat and bacon) and sandwiched between layers of bacon strips and bacon stuffing. This five layered bird is then put inside a pig and (wrapped in bacon) cooked to be shared between nine people, who devour in an almost caveman-like manner.

Public Health Issue

A diet high in meat poses many health risks including obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Australia’s recommendations for meat consumption is between two and three servings of lean meat per day, according to the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines, with these servings being between 65 and 85 grams. Meat in these quantities actually attribute to many health benefits as it contains beneficial macro and micronutrients. The serves of meat glorified in the video however, are well and above that of recommendations and represent an extreme parallel to what is being put on the plates of many Australians. The increased demand in meat results in mass production in farming practices, which has enormous effects on both animal integrity and the environment.