A Demographic Time Bomb Is About to Hit the Beef Industry
A tiny proportion of Americans—particularly boomers—eat the majority of the nation’s beef. Can clever framing sway a younger generation?
Interesting that the article thinks 50 to 65 is the boomer generation. Poor Gen X will be forgotten until they are no more.
I'm definitely represented in this article. I basically don't buy beef anymore despite being raised with it was the centerpiece of my diet.
I've learned to embrace plant-based alternatives generally find them as enjoyable if not more so than beef.
I think of Gen X as people born in the 70s or late 60s, so that age range is pretty much split between X and Boomers imo. They also mention later on that both generations are responsible for similar rates of meat consumption
Boomers/Old GenX still act like Millennial, a generation in their 30s and 40s, is a word for children or young adults.
Who would have guessed, a generation that is constantly struggling on money can't buy expensive meat at the same rate the generation that got everything handed to them has been. Who could have known that there were unforseen consequences to economic strategies that have produced one of the greatest period of economic disparity of all time!
It's almost as though massive wealth consolidation and the maintenance of an economic underclass as we prioritise unproductive shareholders over productive workers is bad for the economy.
Who'd have thought?
Great, it's terrible for the environment and fairly insane animal welfare-wise. So it's cool that we can just stop doing that. The business already doesn't make economic sense and has been heavily subsidized in various ways by the government for decades. I thought capitalists loved the theory of supply and demand?
*Heavily subsidized by taxpayers
I used to love eating meat, till I had to actually think about ethics beyond "whatever the bible says is right" and recognize that all sentient beings are morally relevant
Do you mean sapient? Because plants are also sentient; all sentience is is the ability to react to senses. Sapience on the other hand is the ability to have higher thought, like tool use, teaching, recognizing yourself in a mirror, etc... Finally there is the ability to feel pain which I do not think has a word. Plants from what we can tell cannot process pain, but can process negative stimuli.
No, to the best of my knowledge plants aren't sentient. By sentient I mean "the ability to experience feelings and sensations", which I think is the primary way that word is used. Something could be sentient with no way to react to senses (a paralyzed person for example), or able to "react" to "senses" without experiencing anything (a computer, chemical reaction, or to the best of my knowledge, plants would be examples of this)
the main reason I don't think sapient (as you describe it) is a good marker for who/what is morally relevant is that we can likely agree there are pretty obvious cases where sentient, but not sapient, beings are morally relevant. The first example is baby humans, next is adult humans who are not sapient (terrible injury, disability, etc, could lead to a loss or lack of sapience while retaining sentience), and then even for nonhumans I think we can agree that kicking a dog is a morally relevant action (there could be circumstances where it's justifiable or even good, e.g. kicking them out of the way of a car. But kicking them for fun is wrong)
Sentience may not necessarily mean moral relevance.
For example to be a member of a moral community, which are groups of people who agree to uphold and undertake certain actions with a shared belief of what is good or bad, requires more than just sentience.
For me personally the ability to hold someone accountable for their actions in some way is an important component of moral community membership.
Animals are not held accountable in the same fashion as humans and so it could be argued they don’t deserve membership in our moral community.
If that’s the case then they have some kind of diminished moral standing.
You may then argue that a fetus or comatose person also has diminished moral standing so what obligation do we have in those instances?
One answer to that would be to hold the belief that although a fetus or comatose person is unable to have complete membership to a moral community they are impeded by other circumstances and if those impediments were removed they would be full members. A cow on the other hand will always retain the cognition of a cow, excluding it from full membership.
Have you heard of the veil of ignorance? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
it's a really useful thought experiment, and once you understand it I think it becomes clear why it matters every time any being suffers or experiences injustice and/or exploitation
by that logic, a human with severe brain damage or other severe mental illness could be excluded from the moral community. That seems like a red flag.
What do you think about dog or chicken fights?
all sentient beings are morally relevant
under what ethical system?
I've found a lot of people in my generation (Millennial) don't eat red meat, not because they don't want to but because they can't. It gives me incredible heartburn, and many of my friends become physically ill if they eat it.
Wasn’t there a disease going around that made people sick when eating red meat?
Tick bites can cause it. Something about your body building immunity to a protein transferred by the tick that closely matches those found in beef or something like that.
For a non-tick response- Prion contamination resulting in Mad Cow Disease. One meal and your brain eventually rots in moldy cheese.
Yep, there is, it spreads though tic bites, and once bitten you will allways get sick after eating red meat.
Millennial here and I've had a similar experience. I ate a ton of red meat growing up, but once I got to my early-to-mid 30s, I noticed beef would give me a lot of stomach issues. I switched to eating chicken and sometimes (depending on the dish) substituting the meat entirely for black beans and found my stomach issues got a lot better. And it's still just as tasty to me, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
I’ll usually find that burgers/steaks etc at restaurants are what usually bother me more than if i go and buy/season/cook myself. Not sure if it’s just over seasoned meat, or the type/quality. Even then, I usually prefer chicken or turkey-based (lower fat) alternatives or mixes (like a turkey ground chuck).
I haven’t really gotten into plant-based alternatives, though I’m not opposed to it…as long as it tastes good! Lol
When I had Celiac undiagnosed, all I could figure out was that I felt awful after meals. My theory was I needed to eat more healthy. I started eating whole and organic foods, which didn't help, then became a vegetarian, which didn't help (and some people sure were dicks about it). But yeah, anything that leads to eating more veggies and fiber can help with certain digestive issues and overall health.
I don't get heartburn, but I also don't poop for a few days.
I don't not eat beef/meat, but I also don't really eat it either.
Oh no. Anyway…
Only in the Northern hemisphere. Current industry trends indicate some major meat-craving markets gearing up as we speak (e.g., Brazil). Likely a growing demand continues far into the future right now, even if some developed nations are seeing the pendulum swing the other way.
The problems of meat production on the climate are NOT going to go away on their own.
China is also driving a lot of the global growth in beef consumption. Any recently industrialized country really
Just in time for alt-meats to become cost-comparable and palatable enough to compete I'm genX, voting with my dollars for that, despite beef being so delicious
The only reason plant based meats haven't been way cheaper than animal meat the entire time is because of how heavily subsidized the animal agriculture industry is. Without the government literally single handedly propping up the industry it wouldn't be a viable way to make money.
Am I the only one who doesn't care for red meat? It's good but there's a lot of good food out there. I'd take pizza, sushi or campero with papasa over beef any day. Where's this obsession with beef coming from? Is it just good marketing?
I hear it goes great with leaded water.
I have stopped eating as much beef mostly for economical reasons. I used to eat steak since I loved it and its easy to cook. However, its now way too expensive to buy casually. I love a good steak at a restaurant so that is mostly the only time I eat it now. That it is bad for my health and the environment are mostly secondary.
If you mean to cook at home, I've done well by not caring about the cut and buying whatever is one sale. Not like, old and discounted, but often the stores near me have sales when they have a lot of something or who knows. I bought a 2.2 lb roast for $9 the other day for instance, which is enough for me to eat for days and is even cheaper than ground beef.
It's worthwhile if it's on sale. Just got to find the right time. Hard to plan around it since you never know when it's cheap enough.
Roasts I might start doing more than steaks. Since steaks never go on sale near me
I used to eat a LOT of red meat, but I have started getting bored with it.
So now, I am eating more chicken, and most of the red meat I still buy comes from a nice farm shop, I realize it is a luxury, but I can afford it and it is tastier than store bought meat.
We buy beef like twice a month. Just trying to maintain a healthier diet.
Self reducing demographic
I guess beef isn't what's for dinner.
This is ludicrous, especially in the US. Demand has skyrocketted, processing is at all time highs, and prices are reflecting this.
I think someone is smelling their own farts.
Demand is up because population is up. Per capita consumption is down, per the article that part doesn’t seem to be disputed