If Rabbits Breed Faster Than Chickens, Why Don't We Eat Them?

For over nine hundred years, rabbit was one of the most common meats on European tables. During World War II, the British government actively encouraged citizens to raise rabbits in their back gardens. In 1944, Americans were raising an estimated 50 million rabbits a year for food. Today, the English-speaking world produces almost none. In this video, we investigate the three forces that converged in the 1950s to collapse a thousand-year food tradition in a single generation: a deliberately released virus that killed 99% of Europe's wild rabbits, a cultural reclassification that moved the rabbit from the farmyard to the living room, and the rise of the industrial broiler chicken that made small-scale rabbit farming economically impossible. And we explore why most of the world — France, Italy, Spain, China, Malta, and much of South America — never stopped eating rabbit at all. #Rabbit #FoodHistory #Agriculture #MeatProduction #BroilerChicken #Myxomatosis #FoodCulture --- ACADEMIC SOURCES & FURTHER READING: • Leach, H. M. (2007). "Human Domestication Reconsidered." Current Anthropology, 48(3). • Alves, P. C., et al. (2015). "The evolutionary pathway to tameness: lessons from European rabbits." Integrative Zoology, 10(1). • Fenner, F., & Fantini, B. (1999). "Biological Control of Vertebrate Pests: The History of Myxomatosis." CABI Publishing. • Sumption, K. J., & Flowerdew, J. R. (1985). "The ecological effects of the decline in rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus L.) due to myxomatosis." Mammal Review, 15(4). • Boyd, M. F. (1987). "The Rabbit Industry in the United States." USDA Economic Research Service. • Gordon, A. (2004). "The History and Development of the Poultry Industry." Poultry Science, 83(2). • FAO. (2022). "FAOSTAT: Livestock Production Statistics." Food and Agriculture Organization. • Lebas, F., et al. (1997). "The Rabbit: Husbandry, Health and Production." FAO Animal Production and Health Series. --- DISCLAIMER: This video is for educational and historical exploration. The breeding comparison in the title is a popular misconception addressed within the video. Rabbit meat production and consumption varies significantly by region and culture.