Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat

The strange, disquieting, and sometimes delicious story of humanity’s love affair with meat

In Meathooked, Marta Zaraska explores what she calls the “meat paradox.” Scientific journals overflow with reports on the hazards producing and eating meat pose to the environment and our bodies—yet nothing has prompted us to give up our hamburgers and steaks. Why do we love meat to so much that we’re happy to let it kill us?

In this witty tour of our love affair with meat, Zaraska takes us to India’s unusual steakhouses, animal sacrifices at temples in Benin, and labs in the Netherlands that grow meat in petri dishess. From the power of advertising to the influence of the meat lobby, and from our genetic makeup to the traditions of our foremothers, she reveals the interplay of forces that keep us hooked on animal protein.

Explaining one of the most enduring features of human civilization, Zaraska shows why meat-eating will continue to shape our bodies and our world into the foreseeable future.