The procurement of a high quality and safe food product of animal origin has been a prime directive of most societies throughout human history. Within the field of animal husbandry the ante-mortem period or the approximately 48h before slaughter is known to present animals with a number of novel stressors which in turn can impact significantly on meat quality, yield and animal welfare. As the so called "centralization" process in the animal processing industry continues, the prevalence of larger and more centralized facilities seems to be an economic reality. Hence, animals destined for market will likely continue to be transported for further distances and handled for greater times. As a result, the collective stresses of time off feed and water, novel facilities, personnel and transport are known to degrade meat quality and carcass yield. This is exemplified by such factors as increased dark-firm and dry (DFD) beef, pale-soft and exudative (PSE) pork, reductions in quality grade and toughness that often are evident in animals with increased ante-mortem stress. The fundamental cause of these aforementioned meat quality aberrations is usually endocrine based and can be shown to be due to a degradation of nutritional support of normal physiological functions. The current presentation describes how factors including hypoglycemia, electrolyte imbalance, fluid dehydration and altered metabolic rates contribute to these changes in meat quality and yield. Encouragingly, research over the past several years has also demonstrated that it is possible to utilize preventative and restorative nutritional therapy regimes to successfully counter the stresses animals experience in the ante-mortem environment. Multiple site trials conducted on thousands of cattle for example in the US Midwest have demonstrated that ante-mortem nutritional therapy significantly reduces meat quality aberrations such as DFD, increases the retention of quality grades and increases carcass yield. Increases in carcass yield in pork and poultry can also be seen. The data collectively demonstrate that ante-mortem nutritional therapy is efficacious in reducing stress in animals and in retaining meat quality and carcass yield.