Meat Is Back, on Plates and in Politics

Meat’s reputation has taken a pounding over the last few years.Blamed for poor health, implicated in climate change and attacked for cruelty to animals, it played the villain while plant-based burgers, grain bowls and four-star vegan dishes took their star turn.No more.

Meat has muscled its way back to the center of the plate.Sales of beef, pork, lamb, poultry and other meat in the United States hit a record $104.6 billion last year, according to a March report by FMI, the nation’s largest food retail trade group, and the Meat Institute, the top meatpacking and processing trade organization.On average, Americans ate 2 percent more meat last year than the year before, according to one report.And the number of consumers who said they were trying to eat less meat fell to 22 percent, the lowest level in at least five years.The politics of the moment play a big part.

With support from both the farm-to-table faithful on the left and self-described carnibros on the right — not to mention a Make America Healthy Again movement that lionizes beef tallow and hunting — meat has inspired a bipartisan potluck.“The demonization of meat is over,” said Chris DuBois, a senior vice president at the market research company Circana.“Meat has huge tailwinds going, and honestly that’s a shock because for a long time all we talked about was headwinds.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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