America's meat production has always been a large industry met with demands from those both inside and outside of the United States, which is why it is important that we ensure its' stability and success. In Meat Inspection: Theory and Reality, Gabriel Kolko highlights the origin of one of America's oldest regulated systems and unveils important issues that were suppressed by the progressive movement. Though it is often believed that the meat reform began with the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in 1906, Kolko argues that it really began decades earlier. By the late 1800's meat was in high demand, so companies were producing at a faster rate than they were comfortable with and discrepancies were growing with it. Around this time, Europe was becoming more and more concerned for their health because there was a drastic increase in cases of food poisoning and at one point even threatened to stop their pork trade the United States. Because of this, many meat packaging and production companies had laws put into place guarantee the quality of the meat being sold outside of America. So though technically there were efforts made by companies to quality control their products, prior to Upton Sinclair's discovery, the laws were not taken seriously until after The Jungle was published. .
Sinclair had always enjoyed writing and overtime had become a popular muckracker, uncovering multiple companies faults and revealing them to the public, so it was no surprise that Frank Warren, the editor of a well-known paper, chose him to investigate the meat industry particularly in the Chicago area. He became a worker in the stockyards and documented all of his experiences and the horror he was learning. Sinclair witnessed the true disgust and unsanitary conditions of meat production, it ranged anywhere from rats being ground up in sausage to rotten meat being preserved with rat poison and became aware of the "Beef Trust" alliance that had formed.
