In the 1960s most Chinese people lived in extreme poverty, and meat was rare on ordinary tables. Over the following six decades, rising incomes changed what people ate, and meat consumption grew sharply and became more varied, including pork, poultry, beef and fish. The pattern follows a broad rule seen across countries: as people get richer, they eat more animal protein, and their diets diversify. Meat is more resource-intensive than grains or vegetables, so these shifts affect land use, feed production and greenhouse gas emissions. China's change is among the fastest dietary transformations recorded anywhere.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.