Eating less beef is a climate solution. Here's why that's hard for some American men
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's NPR's annual Climate Solutions Week. This year, NPR is looking at the ways climate change is affecting what we eat and how what we eat is affecting climate change. NPR's climate solutions reporter Julia Simon is here with us. Welcome.
JULIA SIMON, BYLINE: Thank you. It's going to be fun today.
RASCOE: I understand you've been working on this story about beef. And I'm an interesting person for you to talk to about beef because my favorite food since I was a kid has been steak. So even at, like, 8 or 9 years old, back in the day, we'd go to Golden Corral. I would order steak, and they would bring the steak to the table, and they would point it at the adult or the male in the table, and they'd be like, no, it's for the little girl over there (laughter).
SIMON: Wow. That is an image. Interesting that they assume the beef is for the man because that's what we're getting into today.
RASCOE: Yes. Where do we begin?
SIMON: We're going to start with this commercial.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) I am man. Hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore. And I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food.
RASCOE: We're seeing a man walking around. I guess he was in this fancy restaurant, it looks like, getting a little fancy plate. He just threw that away. He's a man. He got to find some real food, not this fancy-schmancy (ph) stuff.
SIMON: Exactly. Yeah - guy wanting a Whopper, basically. It's a Burger King commercial. A lot of boys and men get messages from advertisements and culture that connect eating meat with being a man, particularly eating beef.
RASCOE: Julia, you're a climate solutions reporter. Why are you so interested in beef?
SIMON: It's because of cattle. When cattle burp, they release methane, this very potent planet-heating gas. Demand for beef drives deforestation, which also releases gases that heat the planet.
RASCOE: So what's the solution here?
SIMON: It turns out if people eat less beef - not even eliminating it, eating less - that would have a big impact on global warming. Diego Rose, professor at Tulane University - he and other researchers did a study asking, what if, on a given day, you subbed out beef? You decide not to have a beef burger. You have a chicken burger instead.
DIEGO ROSE: And with all of the substitutions, we found that it dropped people's dietary carbon footprint in half, 48%.
SIMON: This is particularly important for the U.S., because Americans, we go to Golden Corral. We consume a lot of beef - a lot, about 300% more beef per capita than other countries, according to the United Nations. But we're not all eating that beef equally.
ROSE: Whenever we've looked at the question of gender, we've always seen that men eat greater amounts of beef than women.
SIMON: Rose and other researchers looked at U.S. government data and found that 12% of Americans eat about half of the beef consumed on a given day. That 12% - disproportionately men.
RASCOE: But other than me (laughter) - like, I'm the exception to the rule on this. I had no idea.
SIMON: Yes, yes. Some American women eat a lot of beef too, but that 12% is disproportionately men. So climate researchers say paying attention to men makes sense. Here's Anna Grummon, a professor at Stanford Medical School.
ANNA GRUMMON: Because men eat more beef, that means you're going to, as a society, get more bang for your buck from the men changing their behavior.
SIMON: But researchers say there are specific obstacles for men to reduce meat and reduce beef. It's not just that Burger King commercial. There are lots of societal messages for men to eat meat. A spokesperson for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, an industry lobby group, maintains that beef has many benefits. In an email, a spokesperson said, quote, "Research continues to show the important role high-quality protein like beef plays in a balanced diet." But we talked to lots of researchers who told us, most people can get enough high-quality protein from lots of different things, including plants. It doesn't have to be just meat.
RASCOE: So what do researchers tell you might help men in particular shift their diets towards less beef?
SIMON: Well, I went to a basketball practice with an NBA player to find out a solution.
This is the court you sometimes come to?
JALEN HOOD-SCHIFINO: Yeah, we'll come out here sometimes, play a little bit one on one, do some spot shots.
SIMON: Nice.
HOOD-SCHIFINO: Little bit. Yeah, yeah.
SIMON: I'm just - I'll try to not get hit.
I met up with Jalen Hood-Schifino...
HOOD-SCHIFINO: Point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers.
SIMON: ...To watch him prepare for the upcoming season.
HOOD-SCHIFINO: I'm not even - it's three dribbles.
SIMON: Hood-Schifino is 21, and he is plant-based. In high school, he started cutting meat from his diet. He had many motivations, including his health, ethics, animal welfare.
HOOD-SCHIFINO: Just how our lives are important, animals' lives are important as well, so leave the cows, whoever, alone.
SIMON: His change to a plant-based diet was mostly self-directed, but he, like you, Ayesha, grew up in North Carolina, the birthplace of a very famous NBA point guard. You want to guess?
RASCOE: Point guard - the only person I know from North Carolina is Michael Jordan (laughter).
SIMON: Oh, man. OK. Well, there's another one, sometimes called the Point God.
RASCOE: I don't know.
SIMON: CP3.
RASCOE: Oh, Chris Paul?
SIMON: You got it. You got it.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
SIMON: Paul has been in the NBA since 2005, a long time. And since 2019, he's been plant-based. When Hood-Schifino was in high school, he went to Paul's basketball camp, and they served lots of vegan food.
HOOD-SCHIFINO: I would kind of just ask him questions about, you know, the vegan diet, and he would always talk about how, you know, that helped his longevity in the NBA and how much energized he feel. Definitely seeing him do that was definitely cool to see, and I'm excited that, you know, he's on that lifestyle, and, you know, me now being a part of that is, you know, dope.
SIMON: Researchers say seeing a famous athlete or someone in your circle of friends or family reduce meat first - that can make it seem more socially acceptable. Hood-Schifino of the LA Lakers says someday he hopes to be a role model for others if they might be interested in plant-based diets or just reducing meats like beef. Climate scientists say eating less beef is one of the easiest ways for Americans to cut their carbon footprints.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Julia Simon. Julia, thank you so much.
SIMON: Thank you, Ayesha. And Ayesha, what are you thinking now?
RASCOE: You know, I'm going to still eat my steaks, but maybe once in a while, I could sub in maybe some salmon. I like salmon (laughter).
SIMON: Yeah. And that all adds up.
RASCOE: Thanks, Julia.
SIMON: Thank you.
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