And cheaper cow production, focused on grain-feeding, uses even more water than grass feeding; after spending a month in Switzerland, it's wild to see how addicted we Americans are to cheap beef.
Ha ha, but seriously unlike other nutrients the human body can't really store protein reserves for any length of time. So you do need to keep taking in quite a bit every day or the body will break down muscle in order to sustain other tissues.
The protein doesn't necessarily have to come from beef, although that is one of the highest quality sources in terms of digestibility (for most people) and essential amino acid balance.
You need protein for sure. But unless you want to win Mr Universe you will probably get enough through regular nutrition. And there are a lot of other things besides protein you need in your food. The current “Protein in everything” trend is just a fad created by industry
How much is "enough" exactly? Can you quantify that for us? There's a huge difference between enough to avoid acute malnutrition in a young person versus enough to optimize healthspan in an older person. Did you even listen to the podcast I linked above?
It is totally possible to get enough protein (by whatever metric you choose) through regular food. And yet the reality is that many people don't.
The upper limit seems to be 1g per lb (454g) of body weight. This is for people who lift heavy regularly to build and grow muscle. The lower bound is about 1/3 of that.
A 165 lb person needs about 55g of protein daily for maintenance. This is about one cup of black beans and 3 eggs. Huevos rancheros for breakfast will cover most or all of an average person's daily protein needs and that's before even counting the protein in the cheese or tomatoes.
While vegetables don't have much protein it still adds up. A single medium tomato has 1g, a potato has 3g, 1g in an onion, 0.5g in a carrot, and so on. Eat your daily portion of veggies and you can get maybe 10g of protein. That's nearly 20% of what you need!
Carb-heavy foods such as breads and rice also have some protein. More than veggies, less than lentils, eggs, dairy, and meat. A standard serving of pasta has 7g of protein. A cup of cooked brown rice has 5g.
All of this is to say even vegans who eat a healthy, varied diet are not deficient in protein. If they are ovo-lacto vegetarians it's a layup. They may need to supplement with whey and creatine or eat some chicken a few times a week if they want to squat 3 plates.
Insufficient protein is mostly not a problem in the first-world. The problem is eating crap. Eating grass-fed steaks every meal doesn't compensate for a crap diet.
Lots of sources of complete protein on there besides beef. Don't limit yourself. A combination of quinoa, buckwheat, eggs, soy, pea, milk, whey, beans, and nuts will provide all the amino acids you need. Even beef, despite being a complete protein, is deficient in tryptophan.
I like meat. I'm not a militant vegetarian or vegan or anything like that. I dislike the laundering of people's love of eating meat as "essential for health", when it's anything but (special dietary needs aside). Eating meat is a mostly a choice.
I'll repeat again: varied diets are essential. A single protein source won't cut it. And most people get enough protein going just by raw numbers.
I don't know why you felt the need to post that little rant. No one here claimed that people should only eat beef as their sole source of protein. You're arguing against a strawman.
I'm very pro-protein - we just tend to see better metabolic health outcomes when we eat more of it. Diets with higher proportions of protein result in better body composition, less fat, less chance of diabetes, etc. I think the vast majority of people in America at least would be better off with higher protein diets.
But "Did you even listen to the podcast I linked above" is an insane thing to say in a random online conversation. No, you cannot expect people to listen to a whole podcast to make whatever random unsubstantiated point you have. Explain the important things you took away from the podcast and link it as a reference for if people disbelieve you for whatever reason.
The difference in life expectancy between the USA (where beef is heavily consumed) and India (where you may get lynched on suspicion of eating it) is 78.39 - 72 = 6.39 years at birth.
Most people attribute this difference to the GDP/capita ($89,600 vs. $12,132 PPP) or the number of doctors per capita (36.082 vs. 7.265 per 10k), not the diet.
At the risk of stating the obvious, meat is not the only difference in diet.
But agreed that diet is also not the only link to longevity. Although a Mediterranean diet is higher on plant based foods, considered healthier, and those countries do have better life expectancy than USA.
This stands against the evidence. Beef is causally linked with the largest killers of Americans, including heart diabetes, diabetes, and obesity in general. "a mostly plant-based diet could prevent approximately 11 million deaths per year globally, and could sustainably produce enough food for the planet’s growing population without further damage to the environment."
A "Mediterranean diet" is more healthy than the average American diet because it is more plant-based.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01406...https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/with-a-little-planning-v...
I guess it depends. I have a friend who has dairy cows, grass-fed, very well cared for. He names each one and hates to slaughter them, but when they are done producing, he does take them to the slaughter house. I bought a quarter of a cow from him a few years back, and it was excellent. It did have a hint of gaminess redolent of venison or lamb, but it was delicious.
You are misinformed. I regularly eat our retired dairy cows. They taste absolutely excellent, but they were raised on pasture and ate top quality feed.
Dairy cows from commercial confinement dairies are a different matter. They eat almost exclusively grain and develop horrible health problems.
Yet the same can be said of any meat produced in a CAFO, when compared to that produced on most small farms. Garbage in, garbage out.
My guess is that they have specialized breeds and how they're raised and fed and such, so that dairy cattle wouldn't make for good beef and vice versa. They probably do use them somehow, but maybe for dog food or some similar use.
It’s one of the things I noticed in France and Italy. Like after a few days you notice the mens’ silhouettes are alien. Not in a bad way, but noticeable.
But due to lack of protein, vs less fat and sugar? I'm sure minus the fat, many American men would also lack muscle.
That said, Italy and France are known for smoking a lot, which supresses the appetite. Your original observation was swiss though (land of milk, chocolate and cheese)?
Beef is more nutrient efficient though and has better macros for human consumption. It has 4 times more protein, less fat, and no carbs. Seems to me at least Americans could do well to eat more beef and less products created from processed almonds mixed with refined vegetable oils and sugar.
Beef and milk are harvested ready to eat. Vegan substitutes are all highly processed. Processed food consumption is associated with greater cancer and diabetes risk.
> It has 4 times more protein, less fat, and no carbs
Compared to an almond? Who the fuck eats almond steaks? It's a nonsensical comparison. If you want less fat and more protein per calorie, chicken beats beef. Chicken also has a lower water and carbon footprint.
> Vegan substitutes are all highly processed
Beans aren't "highly processed". Learn to cook and you'll understand that there are options besides processed food for vegetarians and vegans.
"Factory-farmed beef" doesn't even exist. All cows get raised in fields for their first 12-18 months. The ""factory-farming"" is just a feed lot they get taken to for 3-6 months to eat grain before slaughter.
If you want to talk about pigs or chickens, that's an entirely different story. Those do get raised full life cycle in factory-like industrial facilities. But those aren't cows.
Not all pigs and chickens are "factory farmed" but most are. And unlike cows, the term is relatively meaningful and descriptive when applied to the way those are raised. Bro heard about how pigs and chickens get raised in tiny cages never seeing the light of day then assumed that's how it works for cows too, which he now realizes isn't the case because I shamed him into looking it up.
You're going to have to cite strong sources or else this is either heavy cope or straight-up denial.
It is inconceivable that American's consume as much beef as they do, yet production has been able to scale without resorting to factory-farming. Every other commodity food is factory farmed. It's asinine to think beef is immune to that.
Bro, get out of the city or just look at a map, America is absolutely enormous. There is no shortage of land to let cows graze on. Feedlots for cattle aren't even necessary at all, they're only used to increase profit.
What's really asinine is that you have such strong opinions about a subject you know nothing about and demand that other people do research for you.
Cope harder, bro. Show me sources. Cattle is a massive industry and it should not be hard to find sources proving me wrong. Calves live on pasture for the first few months, but are then transferred to backgrounding farms, that are technically still pastures, but are fed a highly supplemented diet and have less room to roam. STFU about me not knowing what I'm talking about.
Feedlots are absolutely necessary at the levels that American's consume beef. It might look like there isn't a shortage of pasture for cows, but the truth is there is not enough land to transition to 100% grass-fed with American's level of consumption. [1]
> Calves live on pasture for the first few months, but are then transferred to backgrounding farms, that are technically still pastures, but are fed a highly supplemented diet and have less room to roam
Glad to see you finally looked it up and saw that I was right. Your attempt to save face is amusing though. From "factory farmed" to "the pastures are a bit small" is funny.
And no, feed lots aren't necessary. They make beef cheaper by making cows bigger, therefore making the industry more profitable, but if you did away with them Americans would still be eating enough beef to make urban vegan weenies seethe.
Cattle water consumption should be meaningless. If a cow is drinking water from a surface water source and breathing/sweating/peeing it out in a pasture, that's the same process that would be happening if humans didn't exist.
It isn't meaningless due to industrial farming. Chickens and pigs are even more likely to be industrially farmed than cattle are.
If we lowered our meat consumption by about 90% then we wouldn't need to industrially farm meat and the 10% would be much more ecologically justifiable.
Then the problem is that the soy we've replaced our meat with is industrially farmed...
The problem is the assumption that cows (and other similarly intensive animals) would exist in the same quantity. You'd expect something like 5x less cow-like biomass without people intervening.
I highly recommend you read up on the actual research of what you're talking about. It points to the exact opposite of basically every sentence you wrote
Not all processed foods are created equal. Almost all of the elevated health risk from processed foods comes from processed meats and sugary drinks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/well/eat/ultraprocessed-f...
Whole grain breads are ultra-processed, and I don't think many are arguing against those.
Beef has absolutely devastating effects on human health including elevated cancer risk, diabetes risk, dramatically higher incidences of heart disease (the greatest killer of Americans). Plant-based substitutes are scientifically shown to lead to better outcomes. Better yet, soy based whole foods are excellent for human health, contrary to the bro-science talking points. Turns out, beans are good for you!
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/the-bottom-line-on-ultra-proce...https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/health-benefits-soy
Beef too. It uses the same amount of water but people eat 30x as much annually.