Introduction

The number of animals raised for food has increaseddramatically over the past half-century. In the USalone, almost 9 billion chickens were slaughteredfor food in 2015, an increase of over 100 millionfrom just the year before (USDA, 2016). The weightof farmed animals at the time of slaughter has alsogrown, with the average weight of cows and buffaloin developed nations increasing by over 100kg peranimal between the 1960s and mid-2000s (Alexandratosand Bruinsma, 2012). Thanks to the development andadoption of novel agricultural and foodtechnologies, the world is producing more food fromnon-human animals (hereafter ‘animals’) than everbefore. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense ofthe health of animals, humans and the environment.This chapter explores some of the key ways in whichtechnologies designed to meet human demand foranimal-based food, which this chapter terms carnist technologies, serveto facilitate or remedy food crimes in the 21stcentury.

Carnism is the largely invisible belief system in whicheating certain animals is considered ethical andappropriate, representing a counter-point tovegetarian and vegan beliefs about the role ofanimals (Joy, 2011, p 30). Accordingly, carnisttechnologies are technologies that facilitate, enactor reinforce the normative belief that animals are asource of food. The term highlights the ideologicalunderpinning of these technologies. Carnism alsoresults in a policy environment in which most of theharms caused to animals by the application of foodtechnology are not only legal, but recognised as aninherent part of ‘legitimate food production’(Nurse, 2016, p 36).

In conjunction with carnism, neoliberalism must also berecognised as a dominant ideology shaping the modernWestern food system. As per Croall's (2013)foundational work on food crime, the currenteconomic context of the food system is criminogenicsince it creates a culture where profits areprioritised to the extent of normalising deviantcorporate behaviours. Harms become seen as part ofthe cost of doing business. In short, governmentpolicies are unlikely to fully address even thehuman and environmental harms from carnisttechnologies, and many practices remain ‘lawful butawful’ (Passas, 2005; Gray and Hinch, 2015; see alsoChapter 1, this volume).