Most people have heard it by now: Our meat habit is bad for the world. Polling suggests that tens of millions of people are taking this message seriou

A no-beef diet is great — but only if you don’t replace it with chicken

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2021-05-23 09:30:07

Most people have heard it by now: Our meat habit is bad for the world. Polling suggests that tens of millions of people are taking this message seriously: One in four Americans said they tried to cut back on meat in the last year, and half of those cited environmental concerns as a major reason. The popular food site Epicurious recently announced they’ve stopped publishing recipes with beef in them, because of beef’s climate impacts, setting off the latest round of discussion on meat’s effects on the environment.

Cutting meat consumption is as smart an idea as advertised. Industrial farming — the source of 99 percent of the meat Americans eat — provides the world with cheap meat, but it does so at a terrible environmental and moral cost.

Where it gets complicated is when people decide which meat, exactly, they’ll be cutting back on. Often, it’s beef that loses out in that calculus. And often, the messaging is that we can save the world by switching out our beef consumption for chicken.