Through Whose Eyes?: Meatpacking, Videos, Justice, and Animal Cruelty

I'm getting ready to go on vacation (A REAL ONE!!) (aka: one in which I don't have to cook), but I wanted to note an event of yesterday: Officials with the USDA shut down a California meatpacking plant after animal rights activists gave the department a video that, they claimed, demonstrated "cruel" behavior on the part of packing plant employees.

I only found out about this when a reporter from the Los Angeles Times called me for a comment. We talked at length, thank god, because my experience is that people freak out when someone (me) doesn't instantly freak out when stuff like this happens. (Packing plant cruelty, I mean, not me answering questions.)

I told her what I believe:

The USDA shouldn't rush to judgment based on a video shot by animal rights activists (or locavores or any other activists who would prefer to shut down meatpacking plants). I mean, think about it: These activists shoot a video (undercover, of course), hand it over, and suddenly the plant's owners and employees are screwed. And unemployed.

Hello? In this country, don't we do the "innocent until proven guilty" thing?

But, you say, there was a VIDEO. Surely that's proof that something was amiss.

Nyet. Got a camera or phone that shoots video? Quick. Run outside and shoot a minute of action. Then load that vid onto your computer and start using Photoshop or a similar program to alter your original film. Make the sky dark when it's actually sunny outside. Erase the person sitting at the wheel of the car so it looks like the car is driving itself.

You get my (sarcastic) drift: Anyone can make any video present any image. Here's a nice (and relevant) example from the late, great Chris Raines.

In the case of this recent California video, the world's premier designer of humane slaughtering systems, Temple Grandin, agreed that it was at least  a bit misleading.

But forget the video for a moment. The larger point, as I told the reporter, is that "cruelty" is in the eyes of the beholder (which was also Grandin's point). In this case, the activists complained that they saw

 cows being jabbed, hit, electrically shocked and sprayed with hot water.

Ya think? It's a slaughterhouse and packing plant, for crying out loud. Workers there kill thousands of animals a day. I have no doubt that at least some of those animals, perhaps even all, are "being jabbed, hit, electrically shocked [or] sprayed with hot water." That's what happens in a packing plant, in part, of course, because the animals aren't necessarily cooperative.

But I'm also sure that people who work in packing plants eventually become utterly and completely inured to the feelings and pain of the thousands of animals who parade by them each day. That's the nature of the [human] beast.

Before you zip off an email denouncing me for being a cruel monster, please note: I don't now and never have advocated animal cruelty. But: if people are going to eat meat, then animals will and do die. Period. If you don't want this to happen, then you should a) not eat meat; and b) try to convince everyone else to do the same.

Whether vegetarian or devoted meat eater, we also ought to care about justice, and in this case, the plant owners certainly didn't enjoy anything remotely resembling justice. Bare minimum, the USDA ought to have independently verified the behavior of plant employees before they decided to throw them all out of work. I have no doubt that some packing plant employees behave badly, just as some human beings behave badly. But punishing every plant employee and the plant owners based on a few minutes of (again unverified) video hardly seems fair.

Put another way, and a lot more bluntly, one thing we humans possess is a rational mind. Why don't we use it, instead of submitting to emotion?

Food Politics In Action, Indeed!

As I've mentioned before, a large part of my (current) work is keeping up with the many (and messy) facets of "food politics" --- the ongoing debate over what kind of food system the US (and world) should have, what we should eat and why, etc. (Oooh boy, is that a GROSS simplification of the "food debate.") Doing so means I follow the writing/politicking/activities of lots of activists and organizations, many of which (whom?) drive me batty, if only because they seem not to see the irony of their form of crusading.

Case in point:

Yesterday, someone at the Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the department supported a Meatless Monday initiative. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association promptly objected with this statement, describing the Meatless Monday campaign as:

an animal rights extremist campaign to ultimately end meat consumption.

(As near as I can tell, the MM initiative is sponsored by an outfit that calls itself the Monday Campaigns and is associated with various schools of public health. The MM initiative is specifically affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I don't see any mention of animal rights groups.) (Animal rights groups, I should add, drive livestock producers and meat manufacturers crazy.)

Almost immediately after the cattlemen complained, the USDA retracted its statement (via Twitter, no less) with an apology, explaining that what appeared to be an endorsement was actually part of an internal newsletter and that, really, the USDA didn't support Meatless Monday.

And the NCBA responded with its own statement, saying among other things:

“We appreciate USDA’s swift action in pulling this disparaging statement off its website.

(You can see why the "food debate" can be a thing of joy...)

Okay. Fine. So NATURALLY that brought this retort from perhaps my least favorite of the food politickers (I'm not intentionally picking on her; it's just that she soooo often sets herself up for it. I cannot help myself!):

If USDA is really supporting Meatless Monday, that’s big news. Historically, the USDA has worked hand in glove with the meat industry and has firmly resisted suggestions that it would be healthier for people and the planet to eat less meat.

Uh. Hmmm. What else is the USDA SUPPOSED to do?

Good question. Historically, the department's role is to support and promote American agriculture, from production to consumption. That means that, yes, on one day, the department urges people to eat meat, and on the next day encourages them to chow down on broccoli on the other .

Contradictory? Not really. Meat and broccoli are both agricultural products.

But according to My Favorite Food Activist, oozing snark, this is simply

Food politics in action!

Translation: the USDA doesn't support HER view of how the food system should work, and the department does not adhere to what she believes the USDA should do (i.e., abandon support for a significant chunk of the American agricultural economy). And therefore once again the USDA has fucked up and caved to the meat interests. Had the Department stood behind the newsletter, of course, that would have been a "win" for HER side, and a loss for a major chunk of the ag economy.

Yeah, baby. Food politics in action! (Can you see why I enjoy my work??)

Drought, Heat, and The Price of Meat

In case you've not heard, the U. S. is having a dry (and, yeah, HOT) summer. Drought is one of the biggies when it comes to food prices. Grains are one obvious reason: lack of rain will harm wheat crops, for example, and so wheat will be in short supply, and the price of Wheaties will go up. Drought also affects meat prices. Why? Because cattle and hog producers rely on grasses and grain to feed their stock. (And please: let's not digress into yet another discussion about the wisdom of feedlots, okay?)

In the very short term, beef prices will drop. But over the long haul those prices will go up, up, up. To understand why, it helps to know something about livestock production.

Out in the far west (think Utah, Colorado, Wyoming), ranchers graze cattle on grasses. Those grasses are sturdy (they've evolved for an arid climate), but even they can suffer in severe drought.

When the grasses are in short supply, ranchers cull their herds: They'll sell off steers AND  cows that would otherwise produce more cattle. Why? Because they can't get enough feed for them.

BUT: even if there was plenty of rain in, say, Wyoming, those ranchers would start selling off their herds anyway. Why? Because they know they won't find buyers for them. Here's why.

Those ranchers sell their grass-fed cattle to farmers who "finish" them for market by feeding them a mixture of non-grass foods, especially corn and soybeans.  But if drought in, say, Iowa or Missouri, damages fields of corn and soybeans, the prices of those crops will soar (which is what's happening now).

So Iowa farmers who would ordinarily stock up on corn and soybeans as feed won't be buying it. It'll cost too much. And because they can't afford those feedstuffs, they also won't buy cattle from western ranchers.

Both groups of livestock producers know this. So what they'll do now is sell off their cattle as fast as they can. In the short term, the market will be glutted with cattle. Packers will have their pick of cattle,which means low prices for them and for consumers. In the SHORT TERM.

But over the next six or so years, beef prices will move up. Why? Because once ranchers/farmers cull their herds, the only way to rebuild those herds is with time -- it takes about seven years to rebuild a herd. Ain't no way to speed up the process of raising new cows who can then give birth to more cattle.

Pork prices will go up, too, because hogs eat corn. No corn equals high prices for feed equals not many hogs. But hogs don't take as long to reproduce, so the cycle for pork prices doesn't take as long to stabilize (plus hogs can and do have litters more than once a year).

So in the short run, expect bargain prices for beef, followed by higher prices over the long haul, and higher prices for damn near everything else that goes in the stomach (including things like beer, wine, and whiskey, all of which are agricultural products that are also affected by drought).

So, assuming you follow all of this, reports like this excellent piece from the New York Times should make more sense to you non-farmers. (I'm not a farmer; I only know this stuff because I just finished writing a book about meat). UPDATE: Here's another long NYT piece about the extent of the drought and its impact on foodstuffs.

And no, I have no opinion on the relationship between global warming and the Awful Summer of 2012. Not that I don't think global warming is "real." Rather it's that having lived in Iowa for nearly sixty years, I know this:

Weather is cyclical. About every seven years, we have a summer that's hotter than bejesus, and about every 15 or 20 years, we get excessive heat and drought at the same time. (Last time was in 1988, which I remember because we had just moved to a new house and it had central air. I'd never had air conditioning, and I remember being SO THANKFUL that we could shut the windows against all the dust that was blowing all day every day.)

For the past three years, we've had glorious summers, so I knew that we were due for a non-glorious summer. And -- ta dah! Here it is, in all its non-glory. I'm still glad to have air conditioning!

"Attention Shoppers": A New Line of Attack Against Antibiotics On the Farm (Plus A Little History. Of Course!)

Well, okay, so I lied about being on "hiatus." Yes, I am, but this is too good to pass up: A coalition of consumer groups has launched a campaign to persuade American grocery chains to sell only meats that are produced with out the use of antibiotics. This blog entry looks at the campaign and offers a bit of historical background and my usual Cranky Caveats. (This is, for me, a longish blog entry. I hope you'll indulge me this once.) (Mainly because I'm going out of town tomorrow and I don't want to do a two-parter.)

The immediate, and initial, target of the campaign is Trader Joe's, but presumably the project will also target other grocers.

The impetus for the campaign, says its "host" group, Consumers Union, is that

The declining effectiveness of antibiotics has become a major national public health crisis.

The CU blames this on agriculture:

The major user of antibiotics in the United States today is not the medical profession, however, but the meat and poultry business. Some 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used not on people but on animals, to make them grow faster or to prevent disease in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, believes that to preserve antibiotics for treatment of disease in people, use on animals must be drastically reduced or eliminated.

Those quotes are from the CU's 26-page report on the subject. The CU conducted polling, and sent secret shoppers to many grocery chains, and polled grocers to see if they carry non-antibiotic meats. The report is worth reading, if only because it's got a good summary of the various labels food processors use. (It points out what I hope all of you know: in the marketplace, the word "natural" has zero meaning. Zero.)

Background (I'll keep this brief and if you're up on the whole "food debate" thing, you can skip this part): There's a significant effort ongoing in the U. S. to end, or at least change, "industrial farming." Critics complain about every aspect of so-called "industrial" or "factory" farming, but one of the most contentious features is the use of antibiotics in livestock production.

The use of these drugs (and hormones) dates back to the late 1940s, early 1950s, when researchers were looking for ways to reduce the cost of livestock production. (I'm eliminating a ton of detail here, but it's a topic I cover in detail in the forthcoming book.) One way to do so was by reducing the cost of FEED for cattle, hogs, and chickens.

More or less by accident (again, long story and I'm keeping this brief), scientists discovered that adding antibiotics to conventional feed acted as a growth "stimulant": animals required less time to reach maturity and market weight. That meant farmers needed to use less feed and so they saved money.

The wisdom of using antibiotics as a growth stimulant was challenged early on. In the late 1950s, for example, a Japanese scientist discovered that bacteria quickly develop resistance to antibiotics. That, in turn, caused others to wonder if feeding antibiotics might lead to bacterial resistance in livestock or in humans.

Again, skipping lots of history and detail, over the years many "consumer" groups have lobbied Congress, the Department of Agriculture, or the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of antibiotics as stimulant. But here we are in 2012, and farmers still use them. What bothers the critics are two points: First, the fear that antibiotics might lead to bacterial resistance. Second, critics argue that farmers also are forced to use antibiotics because they raise animals in over-crowded conditions.

I won't go into the merits or demerits of the arguments on both sides --- trust me on this: it's a contentious issue, and both sides are working hard to "win."

Anyway,  yesterday the Consumers Union announced a new tactic in the war on antibiotics. Heretofore (how's that for a fancy word?), critics have lobbied for changes to laws or rules. But this new crusade takes a savvier approach: it bypasses lawmakers and federal officials, and goes straight to the main intermediary between our stomachs and our food: grocery stores.

Again, skipping lots of detail, grocery chains carry incredible clout in the world of food processing. I devote a great deal of attention to them in the meat book. Grocery chains have buying power and they, more than any other group, are sensitive to changes in consumer buying habits. Think of grocery chains as the canaries in the coal mine of food. (Which is probably a lousy analogy, but it's all I can think of at the moment.)

So bypassing the bureaucrats and appealing to the grocers is a smart move. Indeed, my first reaction on reading the CU's report (more on that in a moment) was: Why the hell did they wait so long? (*1)

And so this new plan might work, too. It's clear that appealing to bureaucrats and lawmakers won't. Activists have been trying that route since about 1972. Ain't gonna happen.

Mind you, I think it's unlikely that the CU and its coalition will persuade EVERY grocery chain to carry ONLY antibiotic-free meat. But if they can persuade all of them to carry at least some AFM, well, that's good.

Me being the crank that I am, here are the caveats.

1. Consumers Union was founded in the 1930s. Most likely you've never heard of it, but I'm sure you've heard of its main outlet: Consumer Reports magazine. The CU is truly the grandfather of American consumer activist groups. (It gained clout and audience almost immediately. Back in the 1930s or 1940s, I can't remember which, it was accused of being a Communist front.)

2. The other members of this new crusade are groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group. Etc. The usual suspects. If you've spent any time at all around this blog, or read the beer book, you know that I am NOT a fan of the CSPI. I don't know much about the rest of the organizations, but here's hoping they're not quite as, um, sleazy, histrionic, or self-righteous at CSPI. In any case, these are watchdog-type groups; Birkenstock wearers in suits, if you will.

3. I read the report issued by CU, and noticed right away that it does not include the questions asked in the poll. If you know anything about politically motivated opinion polls, you know they're designed to produce a specific result. I think it's safe to assume that's the case here. Frankly, I doubt if 87% of shoppers even KNOW that antibiotics are used in livestock production. I think CU got exactly the response it wanted.

4. The CU's report opens with the usual tactic: 80% of antibiotics in the US are used on the farm!! Bacterial resistance is on the rise!! They must be connected!!

That stat keeps getting tossed around; I doubt it's accurate. Worse, the report then mentions that antibiotic resistance is on the upswing --- implying that there's a direct connection between antibiotics on the farm, and antibiotic resistance. The jury is still out on that one. There's tons of evidence on both sides; it's another of those "Who the hell are we supposed to believe?" situations. And, too, much of the resistance to antibiotics is showing up in so-called third world countries, where people rarely eat meat, let alone meat from animals raised on antibiotics.

The point is: the CU is using the conventional tactics of a campaign like this: leaps of logic, fear, lack of full disclosure, and so forth. And, yes, of course, the "other side" does exactly the same thing.

In any case, and Cranky Caveats aside, this is an exciting development. Again, I can't figure out why the anti-anti group waited so long to take a more direct route to the hearts and minds of consumers. But if they pull this off, and grocery chains either switch to "organic" meat only (and I just can't see that happening) or begin offering the option, well, that could accelerate changes in conventional livestock production.

We shall see.

_______________________

*1: The CU's decision to go after grocers reminds me, for all the world, of the tactic employed by the anti-prohibitionists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: they went after the saloons, because those were the most immediate and obvious "place" of alcohol consumption. Eliminate the saloons, and booze would go away. It worked.

How About A Little History With that Meaty Fresh Air?

Think of this blog entry as part of my never-ending attempt to bring history to the rest of us, and to make use of what I learned about meat history from writing the new book. Last week, Terry Gross, the host of a radio program called Fresh Air, devoted a segment to the current controversies surrounding meat. Her guest was Tom Philpott, a blogger who covers food for Mother Jones. (*1)

I’m delighted Gross devoted a program to meat and glad she interviewed someone other than the Usual Suspect --- it’s a subject that can use some, uh, fresh air. (*2)

Gross and Philpott covered a lot of ground: the dangers of the work; antibiotics in livestock production, Lean Finely Textured Beef (aka Pink Slime), and the use of “poultry litter” as the basis of cattle feed. (I disagree with his assessment of Pink Slime: It’s not “pet food.” See this longish explication.)

Gross asked Philpott about why the meat industry relies on tools like Pink Slime and antibiotic use. (Good question!) Philpott is correct when he explained that PS, antibiotics, and large confinement operations are driven by cost: The food industry does whatever it can to a) give consumers what they want; and b) keep costs low for both consumers and for the company bottom line. (That’s so obvious that it’s easy to overlook: companies are in the business of earning profits for their owners or shareholders. The way to do so is by making stuff people will buy.)

Where Philpott went astray is where I would have expected: in his explanation of the historical background (after all, the guy’s an investigative writer, not a historian).

Philpott dated the effort to contain costs to the 1970s and 1980s. He told Gross that back then, meat was a “luxury.” The meat industry decided that if it could produce meat more cheaply, grocers could sell it at a lower price; people would buy more of it, and corporate profits would rise. (*3)

Not quite.

Since the day the first Europeans got off the boat (early seventeenth century), the People Who Would Be Americans were obsessed with having meat, and lots of it. Entitlement to meat is as much a part of our national DNA as our right to free speech. Foreign visitors have always been astounded by the carnivorous bounty of the American diet. (I’m trying to keep this blog entry to a manageable length, so I’ll skip the details, but I detail the point in the forthcoming book.)

Historically, in the U. S. meat consumption, and especially beef consumption, have been tied to income: When incomes rise, so does meat eating. (That’s one reason, although not the only one, that Americans adopted a more efficient method of making meat back in the 1870s and 1880s.)

The connection between disposable income and meat consumption became apparent during and after World War II, when incomes rose markedly. (War, hot or cold, is good for the bank account.) (*4) At the time, farmers scrambled to meet demand by inventing new ways to organize livestock production. By the late fifties, for example, giant commercial cattle and chicken feeding operations had become common. Large-scale hog feeding was slower to unfold, but well underway by the late 1960s.

Philpott apparently believes that meat was a luxury back in the 1970s because he remembers meat prices being high then. It’s true that meat prices rose significantly in 1973 and 1974 in part because the costs of producing meat went up (thanks to high costs of grain and fuel). Consumers raised hell and the White House imposed price ceilings as a way to appease angry voters.

My point is that Philpott inadvertently confused cause and effect: In the U. S., food producers are under extraordinary pressure to keep food costs low. When they don’t, there is hell to pay: Consumers grouse, and politicians demand answers from food makers. (Early on in the process of writing this book, I lost track of the number of congressional investigations into high meat prices.)

Indeed, Philpott’s analysis ignores the way that consumer demand shapes the food processing industry. Put briefly, during the 1970s and 1980s, changes in demographics and in social and cultural mores altered what, how, and where Americans ate. Food processors had to respond to those changes.

For example (and as Philpott noted), starting in the 1980s, food processors integrated backward to the farm and built their own livestock feeding and breeding operations. He says they did so to control costs. That’s true but there’s more to it than that.

In the late 1970s and into the 1980s, demand for beef  fell off a cliff, pork consumption stagnated, but Americans' intake of poultry soared. Why? Because consumers had become obsessed with the dangers of “fat” and chicken has a lower fat content than beef and pork. (Again, I'm simplifying a point that I detail in the book.) Food processors realized that if they wanted to satisfy consumers, they’d have to create “leaner” beef and pork.

How to do that? By breeding and feeding “leaner” cattle and hogs. But rather than simply hope that farmers would produce those leaner animals, food companies guaranteed the supplies they needed by building and operating their own livestock production facilities (using the large-scale and/of confinement systems that farmers had developed thirty years earlier).

Most critics of the “industrial” food system blame “corporations” for the problems of that food system. (*5) Corporations are an easy target, not least because this single, monolithic scapegoat enables activists with diverse interests to rally around a common enemy.

The downside, however, is that when critics blame a monolithic scapegoat, they miss the complexities of the woes they seek to fix. In this case, when critics blame corporations, it's that much easier to cast consumers as helpless victims of corporate greed. But consumer demand is arguably the most powerful force in American society. Leave that out of a critique and, in my opinion, you’re missing more than half the story.

But -- minor details. (Well, in my opinion, of course, not minor at all, but my perspective is shaped by my work as a historian. Historians live and breathe complexity.)

Take 38 minutes to listen to the interview.

________________________________ *1: Yep, that’s two blog posts in a row with that mention him. Not to worry: It’s just a coincidence.

*2: Based on my own experience, my guess is that she probably aimed for the Usual Suspect first, then a Second Usual Suspect; couldn’t get them, and landed on Philpott. Again, glad she did.)

*3: Philpott also blamed Walmart for the pressure that meat producers face. He explained that Walmart entered the grocery business in the 1990s and now “controls” it. And then said that W. controls somewhere between 18 and 25 percent of the grocery industry. That’s not “control.”

*4: A side note: I was amazed at how much meat Americans ate during World War II. I always thought of that period as being marked by rationing and a certain amount of deprivation. Not in the U. S. Americans were insistent that the government “do something” to make sure that meat was available. That’s one of the most interesting parts of the book because that war-time demand drove the research that led to the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in livestock production.)

*5: There’s a historical reason for that: Today’s activists are the grand-children, metaphorically speaking, of Ralph Nader, the godfather of modern consumer activism. Back in the 1960s, he identified “corporations” as the source of all evil.)

The "Food Debate": Introductory Reading

UPDATE: I made a minor update to the text below, based on a comment by someone over at Facebook. (A useful comment!) Since handing over the manuscript for the meat book, I've been reading up on what got neglected while researching that book: Contemporary food politics. The big irony of my work is that reporters often call me for comment on stories related to my work, but they're rarely interested in the historical angle. Which means that most of the time, I'm commenting on current news rather than past events.

Which is another way of saying that I wear two hats: Historian and observer-of-the-current scene. Which is why (hey, that makes three sentences in a row starting with the same word...) I'm spending my time reading up on said contemporary food politics.

And (oh, relief! Something other than "which") last night it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in boning up on the subject yourself. Problem is that it's difficult to find material that's not heavily weighted toward one "side" or the other. (*1) And even harder to find books whose authors take care to be accurate about what they're reporting.

But in recent weeks I've read three books that I recommend for those who are looking to understand the basics of the "food debate."

First is Food Politics, by Robert Paarlberg. (NB: If you decide to read it, make sure you pick up Paarlberg's book, and not a book by the same title but written by Marion Nestle.) (*2)  Paarlberg has been involved in the science and politics of food for decades and knows his stuff. The object of this book is quite simple: to provide readers with a basic overview of the main issues in global food politics. (This book is also a prime case of what I mean about reviewers on Amazon --- see note *1 below.)

Second is Tomorrow's Table, by Pamela Ronald and R. W. Adamchak. The two are husband and wife, both employed at the University of California-Davis. She's a geneticist; he run the university's organic farming operation. The structure of the book is a bit dorky, and it wasn't proofread, which means there are zillions of annoying typos. (*3) But if you can get past that, this is a superb introduction to the debate about the politics of food genetics. Highly recommended. Again, I urge you to read the reviews at Amazon to see what I mean about the one-star reviews. Never mind that she's a highly qualified scientist, and a vegetarian . . . . Hilarious.

Third is Just Food, by James McWilliams. He's a historian at Texas State University who's written, among other things, the single best history of early American food (A Revolution In Eating). But along the way, no surprise, he became interested in contemporary food politics, and he brings a historian's perspective (meaning he takes The Long View of the Big Picture and is obsessed with accuracy) to this new book of his. (And, no surprise, reviewers at Amazon take him to task because, ya know, he doesn't support "their" view and because he debunks many of the most prized views of the "pro-food" crowd.)

So --- there you have it. If you're interested in learning more about the food debate, three great places to start.

___________

*1: One of my current sources of amusement is reading Amazon reviews of books related to food politics. The one-star reviews routinely start with something along the lines of "This book is useless because the author is biased." By which the reviewer means: "The author doesn't support my side of the debate."

*2: Update: It's not that I don't recommend Nestle's book, but I don't recommend it for folks who are trying to bone up on the basics. Nestle's book is important to read, but she has a tendency to play fast/loose with facts and she has an specific agenda. So it's a good one to read after you've had a chance to read other, more factual, more "neutral" works about food politics.

*3: Proofreading of a manuscript is the responsibility of an author, whether he/she does the work him/herself, or hires someone to do it. In the case of this book, the authors apparently didn't bother at all. Urgh!