I have friends who are ranchers. I don't know. There are glutamate receptors in our taste buds, which are clearly linked to the consumption of meat. For me, the important thing is some kind of connection to what you are doing, some kind of respect, and somehow affording a sense of dignity to these creatures that we have co-existed with for thousands of years. Our current system doesn't do this.
People have so little idea of how cattle and hogs and poultry are being raised and slaughtered.
For me it was really important to let them know. You can read the book and become vegetarian, or keep eating meat, but you really should know where your food is coming from, and we don't. We're such a suburban urbanized nation that's completely cut off from any sense of this. What we've done, feeding meat to ruminants, and making animals into factory products is a very strange thing. It comes out of this worship of science.