In pigs, stress and fear of all kinds right before slaughter—due

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In pigs, stress and fear of all kinds right before slaughter—due to factors like rough handling, adverse conditions, fighting, or botched stunning—breaks down glycogen, making the meat pale, acidic, and crumbly. The technical name for this is “pale soft exudative” (PSE) meat, and it looks and tastes as unappetizing as it sounds. PSE meat is usually unsellable, and the pork industry loses $275 million a year on meat that has to be discarded because of pre-slaughter fear and stress. That’s a huge chunk of change but it’s not quite enough to spur large industrial farms to give their pigs a calmer, safer death. Because so much pork is sold as ground meat, according to the Atlantic, some of the lower-quality PSE meat can be snuck in without consumers noticing, so its effect on profits isn’t nearly as high as the costs of improving conditions across the board.

For cattle and sheep, and occasionally pigs and turkeys, the bigger concern is “dark, firm, and dry” (DFD) meat. This is also caused by pre-slaughter fear and stress depleting muscle glycogen. DFD meat is tough, dry, acidic, and dark in color; like PSE meat, it has a shorter shelf life, too.