Condé Nast’s Epicurious announced Monday it would no longer publish beef recipes, citing climate change. The announcement came in the form of an explainer, then a follow-up question-and-answer post, revealing the choice was made and implemented some weeks ago.
“Almost 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally come from livestock (and everything involved in raising it); 61 percent of those emissions can be traced back to beef. Cows are 20 times less efficient to raise than beans and roughly three times less efficient than poultry and pork. It might not feel like much, but cutting out just a single ingredient — beef — can have an outsize impact on making a person’s cooking more environmentally friendly,” said the announcement.
It went on, “Today Epicurious announces that we’ve done just that: We’ve cut out beef. Beef won’t appear in new Epicurious recipes, articles, or newsletters. It will not show up on our homepage. It will be absent from our Instagram feed.” Epicurious will still house its previous 1200+ beef recipes, which you can find here.
Condé Nast bills Epicurious as “the most trusted cooking brand in the world.”
The announcement comes at a unique time for the beef-and-climate culture war: Republican lawmakers and media figures have been complaining for days about a fake red meat restriction they say came from President Joe Biden. Biden has not proposed a limit on individual American red meat consumption. No one in his administration has, either.
Freshman representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorne raged online against Biden and the non-existent meat ban, as did Donald Trump Jr.
“Not only does Emperor Biden not want us to celebrate the 4th of July, now he doesn’t want us to have a burger on that day either. Retweet if you’re still doing both because this is America!” Cawthorne urged his Twitter followers, ginning up some outrage over a phony edict, then using it to game a little social engagement.
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