“Beef … It’s What’s for Dinner”

“Beef … It’s What’s for Dinner” was a radio, television and print advertising campaign launched in 1992 by the National Livestock and Meat Board through its promotional arm “The Beef Industry Council” aimed to promote the benefits of beef in a healthy diet.  It’s first narrator was Robert Mitchum, followed by James Garner and Sam Elliott, all actors known for their roles in “western” movies, strong men in turbulent times.  The campaign ran for seventeen months and was very effective.  The slogan “Beef … It’s What’s for Dinner” is recognized by more than 88 percent of Americans (even more amazing given the campaign ran almost thirty years ago).

Beef has gotten a bum rap in the intervening three decades.  It has been attacked by healthcare professionals, vegetarians, environmentalists, and not to be left out or overlooked, politicians.  Let’s look at the attack claims.

“Cancer, type 2 diabetes, stroke, infections, and diseases of the kidneys, heart, respiratory tract, and liver all linked to red meat consumption. … People who ate the most red meat [are] 26 percent more likely to die of nine diseases than those who consume the least.”  The causes are red meat and animal fats.

Etemadi, A., R. Sinha, M. Ward, B. Graubard, M. Inoue-Choi, S. Dawsey, and C. Abnet, “Mortality from different causes associated with meat, heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study: population-based cohort study,” BMJ 2017; 357:j1957.  doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j1957 

From 1970 to 2005, beef consumption decreased by 22 percent.  Foods rich in saturated fats evidence an even clearer trend; butter down 15 percent, lard down 47 percent, whole milk 73 percent.  Over the course of the 20th century Americans’ overall consumption of saturated fats were down 21 percent.

Wells, H., and J. Buzby, “Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in US Food Consumption, 1970-2005,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service (ERS), March 2008; S. Gerrior et al., “Nutrient Content of the US Food Supply, 1909-2000,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), November 2004; M. Enig, “Know Your Fats: the Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol” (Bethesda Press, 2000).

Recent decades have evidenced an obesity epidemic and increases in heart and other chronic diseases.  Nutritional guidance has been to reduce red meat and animal fat consumption, which has clearly happened.  Yet the epidemic and diseases continue to increase.  Can it be, perhaps, just maybe, beef is not the foundational problem?

What about our consumption of vegetable fats?  We were advised to switch from dairy fat to vegetable fat, from butter to margarine, from real mayonnaise to Miracle Whip.  The vegetable fats of choice were partially hydrogenated vegetable oils … manmade trans fats.  “It is typically added to food to increase its shelf life, improve its texture and maintain its flavor.”  The obesity epidemic and disease mortality increased.  Finally, on June 18, 2018, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classified foods containing artificial trans-fat, partially hydrogenated oils, as adulterated and became illegal.  Too little too late; tens of thousands of people who ate foods containing artificial trans-fat made from vegetable fat now suffer or will suffer cardiovascular disease and heart attacks.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Targets Trans Fat in Processed Foods,” News Release, November 7, 2013  https://www.airforcemedicine.af.mil/News/Display/Article/582956/fda-targets-trans-fat-in-processed-foods/; D. Maron, “Some Danish Advice on the Trans Fat Ban,” Scientific American, November 14, 2013, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/some-danish-advice-on-the/

How about sugar?  By weight sugarcane is the world’s largest crop.  The processed-food industry’s response to health warning about fat was to devise “low-fat” products in which sugar replaced the flavor that once came from fat.  Americans now get about 15 percent of their calories from added sweeteners, sugars that do not naturally occur in food.  Sugar is the primary cause of the rise in heart disease in the US and globally.

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, “Food Outlook: Global Market Analysis,” May 2012.  https://www.fao.org/3/al989e/al989e00.pdf; Yang, Q, Z. Zhang, E. Gregg, W. Flanders, R. Merritt, F. Hu, “Added Sugar Intake and Cardiovascular Diseases Mortality Among US Adults,”JAMA Intern Med. 2014 Apr;174(4):516-24. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13563. PMID: 24493081; Yudkin, J., Pure, White and Deadly (Penguin Books, 2013).

Industrial agriculture took off at the end of World War II when bomb manufacturing plants were converted to ammonia-based fertilizer production.  Synthetic fertilizer was soon followed by synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.  Next came specific design genetic modification of corn, soybeans and wheat.  Today between 85 and 95 percent of corn and soybean crops are industrially genetically modified and grown using synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

The surge in chronic diseases has occurred while our consumption of beef and animal fat has been falling.  Studies are beginning to show that neither red meat or saturated fat is much of a risk factor in cardiovascular disease.  So what is the cause?  If you look at the timelines for the rises in chronic diseases, all chronic diseases, the trend lines follow the acres planted in GMO corn and soybeans grown in industrial agriculture, that is, with widespread use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.  What is the primary use of GMO industrially-grown corn and soybeans?  They are fed to beef cattle.  Who eats the beef cattle; we do.  The synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides end up in our bodies.  Unfortunately, very few studies have been undertaken to trace the effects of GMO plants and synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides through the beef we consume that has been fed industrially-grown corn and soybeans.

Mozaffarian, D., “The Optimal Diet to Prevent CVD [Cardiovascular Disease]: What Is the Role of Saturated Fat?,” a plenary talk at the Health Effects of Dietary Fatty Acids Symposium, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 2020, http://meandmydiabetes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Feinman-Webinar-Mozaffarian-Part-1.mp3.

Humans and their ancestors have been carnivores for millennia.  Forget the opening scenes of “2001: A Space Odyssey;” jump to the time of our grandparents.  In our grandparents era chronic diseases were not as prevalent as they are today (some argue it was a lack of identification, but I don’t think so).  My grandparents had a garden in the back yard.  Even at five-years-old I had to help (more likely get in the way).  We ate fresh; we ate what was in season; we ate without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides; nothing was genetically modified.  My mother and grandmother canned so we would have fresh vegetables and fruits throughout the year.  My grandmother got beef from the farmer across the alley where the cows grazed on grass.  It wasn’t until the mid-1950s that my dad got excited about Nebraska “corn fed” beef.

The moral of this story was aptly articulated by Michael Pollan, “Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”  Pollan, M., In Defense of Food (Penguin Books, 2009).  Put another way, only eat what you grandmother ate.  Unfortunately, doing so is virtually impossible in today’s world where industrially-processed foods dominate; industrially-processed foods manufactured from industrial crops.

Focusing strictly on beef, yes, you can eat what your grandparents and great-grandparents ate.  You just have to buy grass-fed, grass-finished beef.  Here are three ranchers we buy from, eat and recommend … Desert Mountain 100% Grass-Fed, Nourished by Nature, and Keller Crafted.  There are others; check in your local area.  The producers recommended here do not use antibiotics or growth hormones, the grass the animals eat is not sprayed with pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers.  These ranchers also practice regenerative agriculture, in which beef cattle are a key element.  Working with Mother Nature is a lot better than trying to outsmart Mother Nature, or thinking you can.

Now we have to address the faux (“fake”) meat challengers to beef.  The Silicon Valley-backed “clean meat” purveyors claim they are healthier and more environmentally friendly than the “messy and brutal” beef producers.  Take the health claims first.  Studies have shown that plant-based meat has about the same fat content as red meat, is extremely high in salt content, and uses almost exclusively genetically modified plants.  It is not just processed, but ultra-processed, containing more than twenty ingredients, mostly synthetic, all designed to give fake meat the texture and taste of beef.  Pardon me if I don’t get it … industrial processes to make a product to replicate what Mother Nature produces.

E. Atkins, “The Promise and Problems of Fake Meat,” The New Republic, June 7, 2019.

Faux meat manufacturers, notice I use the term “manufacturers” and not ranchers, loudly claim their industrial processes are more environmentally friendly than meat.  They claim they require far less land and water, and emit lower levels of greenhouse gases.  It has been demonstrated that a leading cause of water pollution in the US is large-scale, synthetic chemical-intensive GMO monocrop agriculture, the source of faux meat ingredients.  Further, an energy trade-off analysis shows that regenerative agriculture, in which livestock are an essential component, is far more energy efficient than any industrial food production operation.

On the horizon is faux meat taken to an illogical extreme, lab-grown meat.  Lab-grown meat requires the use of animal serum, growth-inducing hormones taken from the blood of animals.  Again, concept failure … you need hormones from animals to put into a Petrie dish to grow a substitute for the very same animals.  I thought “Soylent Green” was supposed to be a work of fiction.  No thanks, I’ll stick to grass-fed, grass-finished beef … real food.

M. Simon, “Lab-Grown Meat Is Coming, Whether You Like It or Not,” Wired Magazine, 2018.

The World Economic Forum, both in 2021 and 2022, has had numerous speakers and recommendations that to save the world we all need to eat plant-based foods, particularly faux meat, so that land devoted to cattle can be converted to industrial agriculture.  Just last week the Pope got into the same act.  There was not a single farmer who spoke at WEF 2022; I could not find a single farmer or farm representative or farming advocacy group listed as an attendee.  However, all of the major players in mono-culture industrial agriculture were represented. 

You can rest assured that no one present at the WEF gave up his or her cote de boeuf for faux meat.  Swiss cattle are one-hundred percent grass fed and grass finished; you will not find any Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Switzerland.  Even though Bill Gates is a vocal backer and investor in plant-based food (and the single largest owner of agricultural land in the US), his favorite food is a “a good old greasy cheeseburger.”  You can bet it’s real beef, not fake.  Perhaps the best description of the World Economic Forum is “hypocrisy on the hoof.”

The best foods are “whole” foods (not the grocery chain).  Real foods offer superior nutrition; they are complex and contain a variety of micronutrients that our bodies need.  Minimally processed foods contain various protective compounds, including phytochemicals and antioxidants.  In 2013 The Guardian called beef “one of the most nutritious foods” available.  “[B]eef has appetite-sating high-quality protein, which has all the essential amino acids needed … to build muscle and bone.”  Beef is also a great source of essential vitamins.

J. Blythman and R. Sykes, “Why Beef Is Good for You,” Guardian, December 13, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/16/why-beef-is-good-for-you-grass-fed-grain-fed

Now we can answer Clara Peller … “where’s the beef?”  It’s in cattle raised and finished entirely on grass.

In September 2016 California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that regulated gaseous emissions from cows, specifically belching, farting and their manure.  Dairy farms were required to reduce methane emissions to 40 percent below their 2013 levels by 2030.  The state proposed to spend $50 million help offset the cost of so-called "dairy digesters," which are intended to capture methane spewed from cows and convert it into electricity.  After that, the state's Air Resources Board had the authority to set whatever regulations they deem necessary to reach the stated goal.

The California law won't stop cows from belching and farting, of course, because cows are notoriously disrespectful of human-passed laws.  Instead, it will make life more difficult for dairy (and beef) farmers in California.  The law is basically a tax on cows.  Further, given that California has a long history of creating bureaucracies from legislation, are there now job descriptions for “cow belch and fart inspectors?”

When you eat something that “disagrees with you,” with your gut that is, what commonly happens … burping, passing gas or both.  Cows are no different.  I have approached multiple agricultural research organizations to pose the question whether the gas emissions from cows, belching and farting, are different between cows raised on one hundred percent grass, and specifically grass that has not been sprayed with herbicides, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and cows in feed lots being fed industrial genetically modified, sprayed with synthetic fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides Field Corn No. 2.  Cows are ruminants; Mother Nature designed their digestive systems for grass, not corn.  I believe, but do not have the data to support, that the environmentalist CO2 issues arise primarily from feedlot cattle, not grass-fed cattle.  CAFOs are undoubtedly large single-point sources of pollution and greenhouse gases.  Why are agricultural research organizations reluctant to undertake this research?  Because a vast portion of their research funds come from “Big Ag,” which controls the majority of beef production virtually exclusively using CAFOs.

“Grass-fed, grass-finished beef … it’s what IS for dinner.”