To be fair, I don’t think it ever went away, as far as our readers are concerned. But the New York Times grudgingly admits that meat is more popular than ever:
Meat’s reputation has taken a pounding over the last few years. Blamed for poor health, implicated in climate change and attacked for cruelty to animals, it played the villain while plant-based burgers, grain bowls and four-star vegan dishes took their star turn.
I think the Times is describing its own readership, not the American public. Has a single person stopped eating meat on account of “climate change”? I hope not.
No more. Meat has muscled its way back to the center of the plate.
Sales of beef, pork, lamb, poultry and other meat in the United States hit a record $104.6 billion last year, according to a March report by FMI, the nation’s largest food retail trade group….
On average, Americans ate nearly 7 percent more meat last year than before the pandemic, according to one report. And the number of consumers who said they were trying to eat less meat fell to 22 percent, the lowest level in at least five years.
Personally, I am trying to eat fewer Girl Scout cookies.
The Times naturally wants to tie the pro-meat trend to politics, as opposed to human beings’ carnivorous nature. It refers to “a Make America Healthy Again movement that lionizes beef tallow and hunting.” Which account for 0.something percent of the demand for meat. The reality is simpler.
“The demonization of meat is over,” said Chris DuBois, a senior vice president at the market research company Circana. “Meat has huge tailwinds going, and honestly that’s a shock because for a long time all we talked about was headwinds.”
While the rest of us were eating meat all along.
