Food from animals

Food from animals includes meat, eggs, and dairy products. These foods cost more to produce than do foods from plants. As a result, foods from animals are eaten more in developed countries than in developing ones.

Meat consists mainly of the muscle, fat, and other parts of an animal’s body. The word meat most commonly means the red meat of cattle, hogs, sheep, and game animals. However, the flesh of fish and poultry is also considered meat.

In the United States and Canada, popular red meats include beef and veal from cattle, pork from hogs, and lamb and mutton from sheep. Many Americans and Canadians also enjoy kidney, liver, tongue, and variety meats. Favorite fish include cod, perch, salmon, trout, and tuna. Clams, crabs, lobsters, oysters, scallops and shrimp are favorite shellfish. The most popular kinds of poultry are chicken, duck, goose, and turkey. In some countries, people enjoy the meat of caribou, goats, horses, monkeys, rabbits and snakes. They might also eat ants, grasshoppers, snails, or turtles.

Much poultry is marketed as the whole animal. Many other meats are sold as cuts, such as chops and steaks. Meat usually is heated before it is eaten. Heating develops the flavor and destroys microbes that may cause illness if present in the meat. Ham and corned beef are preserved before being marketed. Meats also are processed into such products as frankfurters and cold cuts. Meat is commonly eaten during the main part of a meal.

Farmers raise poultry, especially chickens, for their eggs as well as for their meat. Chicken eggs are popular as a breakfast or supper dish, or they can be used in custards and other cooked dishes. The eggs of certain kinds of fish are used to make a delicacy called caviar. In some countries also eat the eggs of alligators, crocodiles or certain other reptiles.

Dairy products are important foods in many cultures. Cows provide most of the milk used in the United States and Canada. But such animals as camels, goats, reindeer and sheep supply milk in other parts of the world. Milk and milk products reach the market in many forms. In addition to whole milk, people can buy buttermilk, skim milk, low-fat milk, and condensed, dried and evaporated milk. Other products include butter, cheese, cream, ice-cream, sour cream and yogurt.