In “Modern Meat,” an examination of America’s high-tech animal-production system, published in 1984, the journalist and hog farmer Orville Schell admitted that he felt silly, when ordering pork in a restaurant, asking about the life of the pig. “How many restaurant managers are besieged by customers worried about how the meat they are eating is raised?” he wrote. “It is a subject most people would rather not think about, particularly while dining.”