Big Meat’s Quiet Plant Pivot and Protein Politics | Rising Anxieties

This is the moment where we have to be paying really close attention. And one of the things I'd like to pay attention to is what's worrying the meat industry. So I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. So I don't want you to think that this is all I think about. This is what I mostly think about. Alright, our first article, oh, I, I was supposed to say, don't forget, we're podcasts, we're on YouTube, subscribe, um, and hit like, and do anything else that you can to get this in other people's feeds.

Uh. I got a couple of articles this week. This is something I should mention from Vegan News. This is vegan-news.net where, uh, they, they just republish articles from other publications. It's very convenient and, and I just wanted to give them a shout out and you probably might wanna follow them. I follow them on Bluesky, I'm sure they're on all the, uh, all the other things as well.

Alright, this article. Tyson food... this is really good. Tyson Foods quietly invested in five more plant protein startups this year while publicly doubling down on beef. And this article was originally published in Veg Out Magazine and uh, and you know, every once in a while we hear about Tyson or another meat industry giant, uh, investing in alternative proteins.

Though we never know whether they're doing it 'cause they wanna kill them or, or I don't know, just 'cause they have so much money they don't know what to do with it or whatever. But this article is, it's pretty in depth and it makes a lot of really good points. And it's not overly optimistic. It's not like, well the meat industry knows they're going down, so they're hedging their bets.

They are hedging their bets though, uh, they just don't think they're necessarily going down. And as this article says, the politics of protein in America have calcified in ways that would've seemed absurd a decade ago. Beef has become a cultural signifier. I think it always was, but it's more so.

Uh, alright, state legislatures are passing laws restricting the label of plant-based products that sure, they keep trying that. They keep failing, but they keep trying it. The word meet itself has become contested legal territory in multiple jurisdictions. So for Tyson, a company whose core customer base skews toward conventional meat buyers in middle America, loudly championing alt protein would be a marketing own goal.

So they're making the point that, that they don't want people to think that they're, they are supporting this. But, uh, but it also points out that ignoring the sector entirely would be a strategic one, uh, strategic own goal. I mean, um, so they do both. Loudly beef, quietly plants.

Doesn't that give you some kind of hope that even Tyson recognizes that things are going in a different direction and, uh, they talk about, uh, big tobacco that were investing in vaping long before they, uh, they ever discussed it or thought that they were going to really lose market share. Oil companies, uh, have been investing in renewables for years.

It doesn't mean that they want them to succeed, but it also means that they know that they might. Might, not guaranteed. And you know, as we know, the plant-based sector, particularly Beyond Meat, which is in real, real financial trouble, um, is struggling. It's also evolving as Beyond Meat is with, its with its new products that are, that are super, uh, low... you know, with very few ingredients, uh, that's, that's their new thing and ingredients that you would've heard of.

So, um, and I'll be talking more about that on the podcast this week 'cause there's another interesting article about, about, uh, Gen Z and why the plant-based meats just didn't happen and are not going to happen with Gen Z, but I'll talk about that uh, in a couple of days.

Um, Tyson's Venture team appears to be reading the tea leaves. Their 2025 investments lean heavily toward next generation approaches. Fermentation, cultivated fat, agricultural infrastructure, rather than the first Gen P protein burger model that is cooled off at retail. So, you know. That burger, the, which, you know, made us all so happy, still makes me happy every time I eat one, The Impossible Burger and The Beyond Burger, the original manifestation, I thought it was absolutely delicious. I thought it was great. I cried when I first ate one. Yeah, nobody else cared. Only we, we cared. We were, we were motivated, but everybody else tried it and was like, yeah, this is fine. Um, but you know what, who cares?

Uh, so, but you know, they're not just talking about Tyson here. They're talking about Cargill, JBS, Smithfield, and they're making these quiet investments in these, these, uh, these new products that they think might work. And, you know, all they wanna do is make money. They don't care. I mean, they don't care about who they hurt in the process, but they also don't care if they don't hurt anybody.

It's not their goal, it's just a, a side effect that they don't care enough about. They just wanna make money. Um, and, and so, you know, there's a lot of reason to be skeptical as this article points out. They, they might be, they might be investing just to get intelligence or to shut them down and, um. But you know, as the article points out, they don't have a moral position on protein, they have a financial one.

And there's a good reason to believe that that financial interests are starting to worry them, and they think this may be the way to go. So I, I thought that was, I like that they're worried about it. That's, that's the purpose of this, this particular segment, uh, finding out what they're worried about and getting that to make us happy a little bit.

Anyway. Uh, all right. Another interesting article that was also republished in Vegan News, but was originally published, uh, in Veg Out. Uh, climate scientists are now ranking foods by their water cost per gram of protein, and the results are reshaping school lunch programs in Denmark.

This is cool because, you know, there's all different ways of measure of comparing foods and, and we tend to focus on carbon when we're talking about climate. You know, they actually care about the, the planet, um, disappearing in Denmark. We're, we don't worry about that here in the United States. Uh, that's, that's not true if you're not in the United States, I want you to know that we do worry about it. It's just that our government doesn't.

Um, but, so this is focusing on a different metric, water cost per gram of protein. And it measures the total liters of fresh water required to produce a single gram of bioavailable protein in a given food. And, um, you won't be surprised at the results. Beef tops the chart at roughly 112 liters per gram of protein.

I mean, what?! Lentils sit near the bottom at 6.3 liters. 6.3 to 112. Um, so there, there is this concept of a water footprint, which has been used in environmental science and to great other things, but bringing it to the, to the protein, you know, everybody's obsessed with protein. That's not gonna change.

We have to face that. And, uh, even we have plenty of protein to offer. And, you know, as I like to point out, our protein is, is grouped with fiber, which is also really good for you. And their protein is grouped with saturated fat, which is not. Um, and, and so instead of going weight or calorie content, they're talking about water.

And water is something that people get. I'm not sure if people get carbon. Like what, carbon? But water, people know we need water, and we're running out. And they wanted a metric that compared foods on the basis of what most people are actually seeking from animal products. And that's protein. And I think that was very wise.

There's this thing called the digestible, indispensable amino acid score. And apparently that is the internationally recognized measure of protein quality. Um, and so they use that to weight their calculations. They're not, they're, even with this, their, their school lunches are not completely animal free.

Um. But they are very, very animal reduced, uh, and beef appears less frequently, reduced from an average of twice weekly to once every two weeks. Lentil and pea based issues have filled the gap. One of the things that I liked about this article is they talk about how they were worried about getting the kids to, uh, eat it.

And so they just hired some kids to do taste testing. Like duh. Uh, and apparently kids care much less than adults do about, uh, about a lot of things, and, and they're fine with it. That was not, that was not the hard part. Um. And so what does it say here? The focus on water rather than carbon may seem like a sideways move, but it reflects a growing recognition among climate scientists that water scarcity will be one of the most disruptive consequences of a warming planet and will be one of the first. And I already think I, I, I think it also is just something that people really get. So, uh, that was a very, uh, it was a great article. I don't know whether the industry is worried about it, but they should be. I imagine they are.

Alright, now we get to the disgusting part of the program. Um, we're starting with RFK Jr.

I'm not saying he's disgusting. I mean he is disgusting, but I'm not, that's not, that's not my point here. Um, uh, so as you know, he's the Secretary of Health and Human Services. God help us. And he suggested, he, he's noted, you know, he is very into everybody eating a lot of meat, which, you know, has not always been his thing, but he got talked into it, uh, and um, red meat is very high on his upside down food pyramid, and so it's expensive. It's really expensive. So now they're like, need to change their, um, their communication on it. And I think this is a real thing. I think this is a more complicated thing than, than these articles are saying, because what he's suggesting is that people eat liver or cheap cuts in response to the high cost of beef.

This is true all over the country, he said, there's a lot of good food in grocery stores that goes away. Like, what the hell does that mean? Where does it go? Is he saying it was wasted? Goes away. Most of the cheap cuts of meat are very inexpensive. Um, you know, and, uh, talks about the fact that nobody can afford a porterhouse steak.

But, you know, liver... I used to eat liver, I'm so disgusted at that thought. Oh my god. It's actually called liver. It's your liver. I mean, it's their liver. Um, the average, you probably are not that familiar with the cost of meat, but the average cost of a pound of ground beef went from $5 and 54 cents to $6 and 75 cents between January, 2025 and January, 2026.

That's really actually a pretty big, pretty big hike. Um, and that there's... alright, this is a quote. There's a very minimal demand for beef variety meats. Don't you like variety in your diet? All right. Here's the variety. Tongue, lips, liver, heart, kidney, stomach and intestine, here in the US. I mean, these are meats, meats that are... i, I don't know what we do with them now. I assume we sell them to other countries where they're more popular. Uh, 'cause I, I mean, have you ever been, I remember once when I was a child, I was served tongue. I didn't realize it was tongue like who would serve a child tongue. And I found out later, I, I, I still have nightmares thinking about it.

Um. I, I think that they are trying to get Americans to eat more of this stuff, and I'm not sure that talking about how cheap they are is the way to go. But I think there's a real push on to expand to, you know, to help out the beef industry, which of course is, you know, hurt by all the tariff stuff, which, who knows in what direction that's going.

I can't pay attention to that anymore. And, uh, and, and, and get people in this country to buy all these like weird parts of the animal, which we don't like to do. We apparently we just like to eat muscles. Um, but he's saying it's because of the money. Alright, another thing that made me think that, I saw this in a post on Blue Sky.

And it was about an article in National Geographic, but I don't get National Geographic and I, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't get them all. Um, but this was from Jan Dutkiewicz and, uh, the, the name of the article is the Case for Eating More Organ Meat. And that apparently gave a lot of reasons. And, um, Jan points out that maybe you should eat some tofu and don't support factory farming.

Uh. This has to do with, he points out, this has to do with affordability and academics behind the nutritional guidelines. And you know, the fact that this has shown up in two outlets at this point. One of the things that he does feature from the article is that eating offal. They call it offal, like it's the worst name for stuff.

It's called offal. So funny. Um, that it reduces food waste. Well, that's what they don't wanna do. They don't wanna waste any of their food. They want you to pay for it. Oh God, it's disgusting. And then there was a response to that, um, post from Kenny Torella, who, uh, reminded us of an article that was actually in The Atlantic in January, which, um, suggested also eating more deer.

Uh. So yeah, maybe they, maybe they should eat more tofu. But there's something going on here. There's, this is more than meets the eye, I think. Alright. That's enough of offal for me. I'm feeling a little mildly nauseous.

This is a terrible, terrible article from AG Daily from Brandy Buzzard. It's a ranch owner, um, after the flames, rebuilding our ag communities from the ashes. And she's talking about, I mean, her ranch did not catch on fire, but she's talking about how, Every year I have struck with grief when wildfire season starts. Every year, it's a season.

Uh, she's concerned because she has family, friends and peers who must fight for their homes and livelihood. And, um, this has just happened to some people that she knows and she wants those who aren't familiar with wildfires to leave this article with a better understanding of the heartache and challenges left behind in the ashes, the left behind in the ashes of places where this happens, or at least there's a risk of it happening every year.

And you know who dies, you know who dies. This is in the, mostly in the plains in the Western states. So you know it's happening elsewhere as well, because of course, climate change. Um. And they can happen really, really quickly, she makes point. It does sound absolutely devastating. Absolutely devastating and terrifying.

And, um, and she does give a nod to climate change. Uh, the climate change has caused fire seasons to last up to a month longer in some parts of the United States, did I mention this... This is a season, it happens every year. And of course friends have shared with me, she says, how they were able to save their home and another large pasture, only to lose upwards of 70 cow calf pairs in another pasture they were unable to reach in time.

Cow calf pairs. Like mama cows and their babies died. 70 cow calf pairs is a massive number of lives lost. She does nod to the fact that they were alive. And the pain and heartache they felt seeing helpless animals succumb to flames is something I can only imagine. How 'bout the pain and heartache of the animals?

The pain is worsened exponentially during strong cattle markets. When a cow calf pair is worth north of $5,000, I'll let you do the math on that, dear reader.

Oh, we see what we really care about here. Um, in the coming weeks she ends, those affected by the fires will start to rebuild, or at least try.

Yeah. Maybe you should rethink instead of rebuilding, like, uh. Once they receive some moisture, pastures will green up again. Yeah. Like it, it. It starts to look much better once the rain starts. Enriched from the nutrients in the ash, but they will likely hold far fewer animals. Fences will be rebuilt, hay delivered, and bonds between neighbors reinforced.

Yeah, and then next year we'll have another fire season. The ash may eventually wash away, but the strength and resilience of rural America will remain. They only love themselves. When they talk about America, all they talk about is themselves. Like, like, oh... did you ever read that book even Cowgirls Get the Blues?

It's by that guy who just died, whose name I can't remember. Robbins, Tim Robbins. Um, it was his most successful book. It was popular probably in the seventies. That's when I read it. And, um, it not, didn't have anything to do with fire, but it had to do with this, uh, guy who, who had built a clockworks under San Francisco waiting for the next earthquake because he was so perplexed by the fact, he was either Native American or Asian, I forget, by that once there had been one earthquake there, the people would rebuild a huge city right on top of where there had been an earthquake. Uh, that's only part of the, um, part of the story and um, just kind of reminds me of that. We just do the same thing over and over and over.

All right. I'm looking up the name of the author, Tom Robbins. Tim Robbins is the actor. It's Tom Robbins. All right. Sorry. Um. All right, next. Next. Oh, next is Disease Watch. I won't go into them in detail. Bird flu devastates. 7.4 million Pennsylvania chickens in a month. Who would've guessed that would happen? What is what a shocking surprise. Apparently it's surprising because it's earlier than they thought it would be.

I won't say anymore. Also on the bird, um, flu front. 101 vultures found dead at Blue Spring State Park, likely from bird flu. This is in Florida, so of course bird flu doesn't only... you know, the wild birds are kind of seen as the enemy. In the other article they even pointed out that wild birds don't always die of, of bird flu, they just pass it on. They're kind of like the bad guys of this story in other people's minds. Well, yeah, vultures, vultures, um, 101 of them and probably more. Uh, they apparently do die of it.

And then a new disease, well, it's not new, but you know, it hasn't gotten here yet, but they're really worried about it. So I just thought I'd give you a heads up. Uh, so we can wait for it to come. African swine fever. Why vi, why vigilance today protects our pigs tomorrow? Yeah, maybe we should just. All right. I'm sorry. I, I will, I'll try to avoid the completely obvious. Alright, ASF as they call African swine fever 'cause it probably sounds better to say ASF, is a highly contagious viral disease, which is harmless to humans, but nearly 100% fatal to pigs.

So, uh, yeah, the pig industry, it's, it's a hundred percent. This is a pretty big number, and it would cause pork to become scarcer and more expensive and consumers might turn to alternative protein sources, further disrupting food markets and potentially leading to increased prices as demand for those sources increased. Assholes.

Um, yeah, there's just a, I mean, it's very contagious. It's not here yet. I think it's just a matter of time, don't you? Uh, that's what I figure. I guess that's it for this week's Rising Anxieties.

Thank you so much for joining me, today. I really appreciate that you're here every week. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment on your favorite podcaster.

And don't forget to tune into our other podcasts, The Hen Report on Thursday and the interview on Friday. I'll see you next time.