Meat In The 1800s Research Paper

The most significant constant theme in our eating habits has been our obsession with meat. A high consumption of meat has always been a staple of the American diet. In the early 1700s, we ate a fair amount of both small and large game. We ate animals like deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit, goose, and turtle. Eating game was much more common in the rural South than it was in the North. Eating meat was so common that everyone needed a smokehouse. They ate so much meat that they needed to preserve it so they could have it consistently. They did this by potting (covering with a thick layer of fat) and jerking (drying) the meat. By the mid-1700s, the colonists were eating even more meat. The colonists ate a lot of fish, shellfish, and wild game. They said that their catches and kills were bigger than the ones back home. The bigger game only fueled the consumption of meat even more by providing more meat per animal. Since America was so large, the colonists had an abundance of land, which they used to grow grains and corn. They

With the first steam locomotive in the 1800s, the Erie Canal opening in the 1820s, and the B&O railroad opening in the 1830s, interstate commerce was at an all time high. This allowed different kinds of meat to reach new places in the country with ease. By the mid-1800s, the American diet was known for eating a lot of meat. The American Famer and Spirit of the Agricultural Journals of the Day said: “There are few things in the habits of Americans, Which strike the foreign observer with more force than the extravagant consumptions of meat… Truly we may be called a carnivorous people.” In the 1860s, the union stockyard opened. This allowed for more convenient trade of cattle. Armour meat packing opened in the 1870s further industrializing animal agriculture. By producing meat on such a large scale, Armour meat packing company was able to provide more meat to Americans and at a cheaper