Meat’s Nightmare Impact: Why The ‘Steaks’ are High for Our Planet’s Health

Meat production is responsible for about 40 per cent of all deforestation while producing just one pound of beef requires approximately 1,800 gallons of water

  The future of meat is shifting to plant-based products

With all of these changes, investors in companies that are in the business of producing plant-based food stand to be winners, as does anyone who aims to enjoy the taste and texture of meat without the downsides of conventional meat.

  Want to Reduce World Hunger? Eat Less Meat (Especially Beef)

America is one of the world leaders in per capita meat consumption—which means we’re also one of the most inefficient users of land and other resources when it comes to feeding people.

 Eating meat will be considered unthinkable to many 50 years from now

People in the future will be horrified that we once ate meat.

 Eating Meat: Let’s Argue About It

Readers discuss going vegetarian, prosperity and consumption, and nutrition.

 Every Popular Kind of Meat, Ranked by How Healthy They Are

You will be shocked by where pork lands on this list! Shocked, I say!

 Lab-grown meat will be on your plate soon. It won't be what you expect

Lab-grown meat will be on your plate soon. It won't be what you expect

 Meat no longer requires animal slaughter

You can grow it in a laboratory.

 Please do not try to survive on an all-meat diet

If your love of ribeye knows no bounds, perhaps you’d be interested in the carnivore diet. The rules are simple—eat only meat—and the purported benefits seem boundless. More energy. Less body fat. You can even cure your Lyme disease, depression, and rheumatoid arthritis. Or at least, so say the proponents of the carnivore diet, including Shawn Baker, a former orthopedic surgeon who has been one of the biggest public advocates for consuming only meat.

 The Actual Reason Meat Is Not Healthy

In a world where nutrition science can seem plagued by methodological disputes, varying interpretations of data, and conflicts of interest, this is a fact that anyone who studies food and health can no longer disagree with. Moderation will no longer suffice.

 The Keto Way: What If Meat Is Our Healthiest Diet?

Eating high-fat, low-carbohydrate foods has helped many people battle obesity, diabetes and other health problems—even as livestock agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse-gas emissions.

 The Pandemic Has People Rethinking Their Relationship With Food, Especially Meat

But while companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods saw tremendous demand for their products over the last several years, some say they might have a hard time surviving the pandemic. One issue could be the price. A Beyond Meat burger sells for about $13.00 a pound, as opposed to beef which, for now, sells for about $4.00 a pound. Many would-be vegetarians might find the price of these meat alternatives unpalatable.

 The way we eat could lead to habitat loss for 17,000 species by 2050

Each year, billions of animals are slaughtered to put food on our plates. The animal welfare and climate change implications of this are well-documented — most animals are factory-farmed, and global meat production accounts for 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. But according to two recent studies — one published in Nature, the other by the think tank Chatham House — global meat production threatens even more than climate and the animals we eat; it could also wipe out thousands of species in the next few decades.

 What’s your beef? An ethicist’s guide to giving up meat

The case for giving up meat should be easy to win. Eating meat is clearly inconsiderate to animals: slaughtering billions of sentient beings each year seems gratuitously cruel when our nutritional needs can easily be met in other ways. It’s demonstrably unfair to our fellow humans and the environment, too. Meat-eating – especially consuming beef, which is the most wasteful and environmentally damaging kind – is responsible for most of the carbon emissions the food industry produces. Yet those who eat meat are largely unmoved by the arguments against it.

 Why you should go animal-free: 18 arguments for eating meat debunked

Unpalatable as it may be for those wedded to producing and eating meat, the environmental and health evidence for a plant-based diet is clear.

 You'll Probably Live Longer if You Stop Eating Meat

"The evidence is consistent that increased intake of red meat, especially processed red meat, is associated with increased all-cause mortality.”

Avoiding red or processed meat doesn't seem to give health benefits

There are no health reasons to cut down on eating red or processed meat, according to a new review of the evidence. The claims, which contradict most existing dietary advice, come from a review of existing studies led by the Spanish and Polish Cochrane Centers, part of a global collaboration for assessing medical research. Numerous health bodies have said for decades that we should limit our intake of red meat because it is high in saturated fat, thought to raise cholesterol levels and cause heart attacks. More recently, both red and processed meat have been linked with cancer. In the latest review, though, the authors came to a different conclusion because they considered separately the two main kinds of research.

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This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Give Up Meat

Given how important meat has been to the human story, and how vegetarianism and veganism has done a takeover of your Instagram feed, you might wonder what happens to the human body if you walk away from it completely. Well, wonder no more.

Who lives longest: meat eaters or vegetarians?

What we eat – as opposed to how much we eat – is also a hot topic to study and meat consumption is often put under the microscope. A study that tracked almost 100,000 Americans for five years found that non-meat eaters were less likely to die – of any cause – during the study period than meat eaters. This effect was especially noticeable in males.

1,800 Gallons of Water Goes Into One Pound of Meat

Cut down on your water footprint without starving yourself at dinnertime.

Americans should eat less meat, but they’re eating more and more

The campaign to persuade us to cut back on burgers and bacon has been a bust so far.

Big Meat Thinks Pork and Beef Are Healthier Than Broccoli

New dietary guidelines recommending that Americans consume less meat have the pork and beef lobbies quaking in their boots.

Cooking Up Cancer?

You probably don’t want to turn yourself into the neighborhood Cassandra. On the other hand, Cassandra was a visionary, if not a particularly popular one. All I’m saying is that, if you’re the sort of person who likes to say, “I told you so,” this may be a golden opportunity.

Debunking What the Health, the buzzy new documentary that wants you to be vegan

The film on Netflix mischaracterizes what we know about food and disease.

How Americans Got Red Meat Wrong

Early diets in the country weren't as plant-based as you might think.

How red meat spurs changes in the gut that can raise heart attack risk

The case against red meat continues to build: A new study reports that a nutrient found in steaks, egg yolks, and other animal products can activate certain microbes in the gut, spurring physiological changes that increase the danger of blood clots and heart attacks.

Humans Are 'Meathooked' But Not Designed For Meat-Eating

I encounter claims that humans were designed to eat meat — that it's in our genes, that we have teeth made for eating meat, that we need meat to get all the right nutrients — all the time in casual conversation and in media in stronger and weaker versions.

In The War On Meat, Count Me In The Resistance

With respect to health, it is true that overconsumption of meat can be harmful to one’s health. But that’s true of all foods — whether it be kale, tofu, or bacon.

Is there a moral case for eating meat?

Where are the philosophers arguing that eating meat is moral? When I started researching this piece, I’d already read a lot of arguments against meat, but I hadn’t seen a serious philosophical defense of carnivores. So I started asking around. I asked academics, meat industry representatives, and farmers: Who was the philosophical counterweight to Peter Singer?

Meat of the Matter: Are Our Modern Methods of Preserving and Cooking Meat Healthy?

Why steaks could be in but hot dogs are still out.

Red Meat Is Not the Enemy

There are people in this country eating too much red meat. They should cut back. There are people eating too many carbs. They should cut back on those. There are also people eating too much fat, and the same advice applies to them, too. What’s getting harder to justify, though, is a focus on any one nutrient as a culprit for everyone.

The diet that helps fight climate change

Do we all have to go vegan to save the world?

The Kindest Cut

Which meat harms our planet the least?

The Race to Find Meatless Protein Products

The future of protein could be a meal worm, a fungus, an obscure plant or a run-of-the-mill pea.

Why certain diets may increase your cancer risk

If you were privy to the great bacon freakout of 2015, you know that eating processed meat — including hot dogs, bacon, and lunch meats — seems to slightly increase a person’s risk of colorectal cancer, according to a World Health Organization review of the available research. Now a new study, published Thursday in the journal JAMA Oncology, pinpoints what about processed meats and certain other foods may drive up that risk, and suggests that their inflammation-promoting properties may be a key factor.

Eating meat has ‘dire’ consequences for the planet, says report

To feed a growing global population and curtail climate change, scientists say we need to radically change our food systems.

How much would giving up meat help the environment?

Going vegan for two-thirds of meals could cut food-related carbon emissions by 60%.

Meats, ranked

We decided to honor these meats by ranking them based on taste, texture, and versatility in preparation. (To be clear, the environmental implications of each meat on this list are complicated and often controversial; their sustainability is a whole different story and didn’t factor into our rankings.)

The Kindest Cut

Which meat harms our planet the least?