My Beef with Epicurious

My inbox is flooded with messages showing me how Epicurious has announced it will no longer publish recipes containing beef. Epicurious says that every time you abstain from buying red meat, you’re sending a signal and that you can influence your friends about your virtuous decision. Fortunately, there are still some smart people who realize this is a false narrative.

So, I went to the Epicurious website to read their excuse. At the top of the page, I see an ad for ultra-processed vegan hot dogs. The ad says “Simple Ingredients. Taste You’ll Love.” Let’s look at the “simple” ingredients of Lightlife “smart” dogs:


Ingredients: Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Soybean Oil, Evaporated Cane Sugar, Pea Protein Isolate, Tapioca Starch, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Yeast Extract, Carrageenan, Dehydrated Garlic, Natural Flavor, Natural Smoke Flavor, Xanthan Gum, Fermented Rice Flour, Guar Gum, Oleoresin Paprika (Color), Vital Wheat Gluten. Contains: Soy Wheat. This product contains pea protein and may not be suitable for people with a peanut allergy


Let’s compare this to some of my favorite, real food hot dogs by Teton Waters Ranch:


Grass-Fed Beef, Water, Less than 2% of the following: Spices including Paprika, Sea Salt, Vinegar, Celery Powder, Garlic Powder, Cherry Powder, Onion Powder.


Which one has simpler ingredients???

But what really irks me is this Lightlife claim: “We’re on a journey to make a real impact on the planet and are proud to be carbon neutral.”

I’m not sure how this is possible… There’s no way that you can produce fake hotdogs with zero emissions. Impossible. The amount of fossil fuels required to plow the vast fields for monocrops (which releases tons of carbon by the way), fuel to plant the soy, the chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, the harvesting, then... the transport of all of the ingredients and energy required to process the ingredients to make these dogs, the packaging, transport again to wholesalers and retailers, the cool storage of these fake hot dogs…and the company is actually implying that their process is carbon neutral and by virtue, environmentally beneficial!? 

I’m not buying it.

By the way, Lightlife is owned by Maple Leaf Foods, one of the largest producers of industrially produced, ultra-processed meats, and the animals are raised in confinement. Yes, this is the company sponsoring the transition away from beef and virtue signaling us to swap it for fake hot dogs.  

But that’s what we’re being sold today and Epicurious is the latest company to jump on the bandwagon touting that if we just stop eating evil beef, we’re doing our part for the environment. 

How simple... how virtuous... and how incredibly naive. 

Let’s get back to the Epicurious article. Their very first claim, that cattle contribute to 15% of greenhouse gas emissions is incorrect. Transportation is a much larger contributor and introduces NEW carbon and methane to the atmosphere. Cattle are cycling molecules that already exist. Even more upsetting is Epicurious’ reliance on incorrect data. The report attributing 15% of emissions to cattle used an incorrect methodology to measure emissions. The authors of the study eventually corrected their error and noted that they only measured tailpipe emissions for transportation while measuring much broader factors for livestock. Read more here.

The second claim in the Epicurious article also fails to encompass the full story. Cattle don’t necessarily require “more” resources than... what? They can convert things we can’t eat into protein, and graze on land we cannot crop. So, if we didn’t produce nutrient-dense meat on land that cannot be cropped, it would leave a hole in our food system. Cattle can also help regenerate landscapes by stimulating plant growth and depositing fertilizer in the form of manure. In fact, cattle are a critical spoke in the ecological wheel of habitats like rangelands and grasslands.

So, the claim that it takes twenty times the land to produce a calorie of beef vs. a calorie of beans is incredibly misleading, because cropland vs. pasture land is different, and because beans are less nutritious per serving than beef. But it sounds really dramatic, right?

In this post, I show how 4oz of beef is far more important to our nutrition than the same portion of beans. As a dietitian, I will argue every time that you should eat 100 calories of beef over 100 calories of beans if you’re looking to improve your nutrition intake.

And no, rewilding our grazing lands is not a great option because we no longer have wild populations of predators that would perform critical species population maintenance. Without the right number of predators, prey species populations explode. Yellowstone found this out when it removed wolves some years ago and wound up with an abundance of elk that overgrazed the valley and created other ecological imbalances. 

Epicurious claims that raising grazing animals is less efficient than poultry or pork, but failed to mention that poultry and pork raised in a confined setting eat ONLY grain and spend their entire lives indoors in cramped conditions (the animals used to produce the very products from their parent company). From an animal welfare perspective, you need to kill more animals to get the same amount of meat, and even cattle that spend their last months on a feedlot spend the majority of their time on pasture eating… grass. And when they’re at the feedlot, they’re upcycling things like the inedible parts of the soy and peas used for products like smart dogs (that would just sit in a pile and emit greenhouse gasses anyway) into nutritious food.

But, Epicurious will no longer feature beef in their recipes...because climate justice.

Oh, and then they mention that Lightlife is a sponsor - these ultra-processed, plant-based fake hot dogs that are less nutritious than just eating a real hot dog with fewer ingredients. 

I’m sure that didn’t influence their decision at all…

On an FAQ page linked from their article (which happens to feature an ad from Lightlife) they also imply that beef production results in manure lagoons (that’s just the dairy industry, not the beef industry, and the dairy industry has reduced emissions over the past 50 years, whereas fossil fuel emissions have only increased).

Why aren’t they telling their foodie followers to give up rice or mussels, which emit WAY more GHG than beef? Why not support regenerative beef that actually builds soil, increases the water-holding capacity of the land, attracts more life (biodiversity), and puts more money in the pockets of the food producer instead of major corporate interests like Lightlife? 

Why?

Because scapegoating beef is an easier story than telling people to stop buying useless, plastic junk and driving gas-guzzling cars. It’s also easier than breaking down the many complex and nuanced aspects of our food system that are the real drivers of things like pollution, poor health, abhorrent labor conditions, and food deserts.

Vilifying beef and making those who eat meat “bad” and those who eat meat substitutes “good” distracts from the real hard work that needs to be done: taking a critical look at our entire food system and the overall environmental impact humans have on the planet. But, this is where we are: more simplistic polarization: either left or right, urban and rural, with no grey area in between. 

And what happens when someone like me who understands human nutrition, cares about the environment, and advocates for the ethical treatment of animals encourages everyone to take a deeper look at the problems affecting our food system and advocates for better meat? Blasphemy! We can tolerate anything but the outgroup.

Now, which food system appears more sustainable and diverse?

This?

 
A monocrop system of corn, soy, and wheat?

A monocrop system of corn, soy, and wheat?

 

Or this?

 
Or a this regenerative Teton Water Ranch in Nevada?

Or a this regenerative Teton Water Ranch in Nevada?

 

My suggestion to folks who haven’t been on a regenerative farm and who think “smart dogs” are a better choice is this: think critically about your food choices. Ask questions about everything on your plate and not just the scapegoat du jour (remember when butter was labeled as “bad” and margarine was labeled as “good”?) Eat real food, as close to how it was produced as possible. Avoid ultra-processed foods which are the real problem in our food system (like Lightlife hot dogs). 

I encourage everyone to stop thinking your simplistic solutions are saving the planet and understand that we have many complex problems that need to be addressed. 

It’s less about WHAT’S on your plate and much more about HOW it got there. Here are some tips if you really want to make a difference:

  • Cut down on your use of fossil fuels (transportation, consumerism, buying things you don’t need, etc)

  • Eat real, unprocessed foods

  • Support food producers that grow and raise your food in an environmentally friendly way that improves the land

  • Stop supporting the global industrial food system and try to get your money as directly to the food producer as possible

  • Eat nutrient-dense food - this means animal-sourced foods plus fruits and vegetables

  • Try to eat seasonally and locally when possible

  • Visit a farm and see how your food was grown

  • Have some nuance in your life and stop seeing things in black and white

  • Learn more about the benefits of better meat.

The documentary and book, Sacred Cow, aim to educate that when it comes to meat production’s impact on the environment it’s not the cow, it’s the how. Explore and share www.sacredcow.info to learn more about the nutritional, environmental, and ethical case for better meat, how it relates to regenerative agriculture, and how you can support it.

I’m quite concerned about the world thinking plant-based protein substitutes are better for our health and planet. This type of diet is likely to be adopted by the United Nations and reeks of entitlement, simplistic thinking, and corporate corruption. I’ll be starting a brand new initiative based on a regional, equitable, and nutritious food system. Please sign up for my newsletter to be updated when I am ready to announce this!

Diana Rodgers