Beef prices surged to an all-time high in July as the market grappled with consistently strong demand and long-term issues in domestic production.
According to the latest consumer price index, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics published on Tuesday, the beef and veal index rose by 2.5% in July, compared to 0.2% for the broader food category. This capped an 11.3% increase over the past 12 months.
Meanwhile, the price of ground beef and uncooked beef steaks has risen by 11.5% and 12.4%, respectively, both now at record levels.
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Good. It’s prolly the most polluting food we make (at least as far as meats go)
This is not the cure. As the article says:
High prices are the cure for high prices because they are the signal for ranchers to try to expand their herds.
This will lead ranchers to
expansionexpand their herds.Not true. Lots of chicken farmers decided to switch their infrastructure to growing mushrooms in the past decade.
1
Beef definitely has those problems. CAFOs are rancid places full of disease. Slaughter houses too.
Yeah, IF the higher prices caused consumers to eat less beef, but that’s not necessarily going to happen.
Well if it makes you feel better the high prices have made me quit eating beef. I’ve switched it out for beans and sausage. I’m not vegan but I am cheap.
Sausage has the extra benefit that it’s already seasoned, so you don’t have to add extra.
I’m amazed the meat replacement companies didn’t start with sausage. The extra flavor would help mask any differences in the flavor of the “meat”
Beyond Need has indeed had sausages for quite awhile now.
Sample size of 1, but I’ve basically stopped buying beef since many years back because of how much more expensive it was as compared to chicken or vegetarian options. Granted, I like the climate benefits as well, but I wound down my beef purchasing before that was a more primary concern of mine.
This is in Sweden where beef prices as compared to alternatives have been high for a long time.
all of agriculture is about 1/5 of our ghge, and we need to eat. let’s shut down the war machines before we start telling poor people they need to change their lifestyles
“We need to eat” rhymes poorly with climate wrecking animal farming, which not only speeds up harvest devastating warming and flooding – it also consumes a lot of food and uses enormous amounts of farmable land.
Poor people are not in any way immune to the apocalypse and will have to change their lifestyles one way or the other.
You’re championing dying with a belly full of cheeseburgers over tofu and a shot at long term survival. It’s not progressive.
Just want to note, just because a person gives up beef doesn’t mean you have to have tofu. I really dislike tofu. Even the years I kept vegan I never had it except to try it a few times.
There are tons of other options in the bean world for protein replacement. Otherwise love your point.
Hehe yeah, I think tofu is sooo good though! :P
I ate tofu before I was vegan, but man I’ve upped my tofu game since then. Pan fry it and finish with sesame oil and soy sauce, and its a game changer.
I know it’s a bit of a meme to say “you just haven’t had the right one yet”, but I think a lot of people get the idea of mushy plain tofu and are rightly turned off. It’s so frickin good when you make it right.
Yes, the distance between poorly prepared tofu and properly prepared is…vast.
I’m championing shitting down the war machines. don’t put words in my mouth
Not to be a dick, but progressive or not doesn’t matter, what matters us effective.
We need two solutions. Short and long term
Short term survival and the long term bounty.
Nothing dickish about making your point, that’s what we’re here for.
I agree that we need effective measures, in terms of combatting climate change there are few things that are more efficient than eliminating animal agriculture. For there to even be a long term, at all, drastic measures are needed in the short term.
But at this point, it feels like LARPing to bother thinking about, climate change. Not a lot of room for the issue in the flooded zone.
Yeah. We do have a mountain sized orange pimple to deal with first. Or at least living through the orwelian nightmare he heralds
Yep, there is that, no way around it
there are few things that are more efficient than eliminating animal agriculture
I doubt it
Agreed. But the west shouldn’t do that until fascists in Russia and China are lead as far away from power as possible and the genocides they perpetrate stopped.
And those can be easily be financed with rich people’s money, there’s a lot of that to go around.
And regardless, if the west accumulates enough weapons, the associated deterrence will be dissuasive enough anyway.
Edit : Also you’re disregarding the fact that meat is the worst, and beef is the worst meat in terms of greenhouse gas emissions :
fascists in Russia and China
all fascists should be removed from power
Let’s start with the ones committing genocides currently first
name one that’s not
Most western europeans – Germany, France, UK, etc…
how is that calculated?
There’s a source on the image at the bottom
it’s a little opaque. can you understand it?
Don’t compare it to other meats. Compare it to corn, wheat, spinach, etc.
Its magnitudes worse than normal food.
Indeed. I feel that way about most articles/posts about “$15 doLLaR BIg MaC!!1” You’re telling me I’m supposed to be mad that people have to pay more money for less disgusting fast food? No, fuck that. Triple the prices on everything across the board and cut portions down to a third. Maybe then those people will get the message to cook something lean, fresh and healthy at home. /rant
I was speaking to my husbands grandmother (92) recently when the discussion of cooking came up. She mentioned when she was young, they never had salads, they weren’t really a thing. She mentioned most vegetables came in a can, and now salads were expected at meals.
This women eats very little, and very healthy. I bet one reason why she’s still sharp at 92. But it made me think of the culture around food we have in the sates over the last 50-60 years.
We now have full generations of folks not taught how to cook from scratch. I was lucky, growing up on a small farm, my guardian did teach me the basics, igniting a love for cooking. That plus the early 2000’s Food Network shows, I was able to self learn and now I feel invincible in the kitchen. Though I will say I still fuck up from time to time. I made zucchini bread, and definitely didn’t add enough flour, and my bread is very hit or miss. Anyways,
You can’t teach your children what you don’t know youself. So many folks out there don’t know what to do with raw ingredients. I grow oregano, and it’s just all over the yard this year. I tried giving some to my (60-ish) neighbor, and she said, “I dont know what to do with that”.
It’s a fucking herb lady, put it in your stew.
The commercialization of foods from the center isles really had damaged our, collective food knowledge. There are exceptions of folks, similar to me, but a vast number have no clue, nor is it a point in our (American) culture to make sure young folks know how to feed themselves with little ingredients. This road began its paving in the 50/60s with convenience cooking, and the loss of home gardens.
And to add, as a well versed home cook, you absolutely can make super unhealthy foods from scratch as well. Learning to cook is healthier than fast food, but you can absolutely throw down some calorie dense foods in your own kitchen too. It’s not a cure all for health.
There is an obvious solution to needing this amount of food worldwide though.
Genocide is not a good solution to high food prices.
who largely attribute this to declining cattle herds that are incapable of meeting demand, as well as a growing reliance on imports and periodic battles with adverse weather.
So this is Republican’s climate denial and tariffs that are the cause. Got it, shame that Democrats won’t.
The cause is 100% the orange morons tariffs on this one.
Beef prices are cyclical. This is because beef producers have a lag time between price increases and their ability to increase their herds (2-3 years).
Historically when beef prices go up, domestic producers sell down their herds to capitalize on the higher pricing. Then imports increase to meet the demand and prices slump. It’s usually only a year or two of high prices and 7-8 years of low prices. Producers are conditioned to sell down their herds when prices are high then slowly rebuild them when prices are low.
Enter the orange moron:
Prices were at a normal cyclical high when he started throwing his tantrum and shitting in his diaper. With all the tariffs, producers in other countries decreased their stocking levels… So prices are soaring.
Demand has remained stable because the largest market is fast food chains. Guess who has spent the past 5 years jacking up prices and making record corporate profits?
Now for more bad news.
Hay prices are beyond depressed. With the decrease in herd size this is normal as supply increases. Again the export market usually absorbs the supply readily with the cheaper pricing. Then as beef prices fall, hay prices climb as producers rebuild their herds. Except the orange moron stepped in and killed the export market. So prices are very low, and supply is very high. We are talking high enough that there will be a shit ton of “mysterious” hay stack fires this fall for insurance claims.
Beef producers and hay producers are often the same operation. Since hay is worthless right now they can not build up their herds and have to keep selling animals to make ends meet.
So the prices at the store are only going to climb higher. Meanwhile the producers are stuck facing diminishing returns as their herd size decreases.
In summary, beans are looking pretty affordable right now.
As the man said, “I ain’t got a dime in these old worm-out blue jeans so I’ll stop eating steak and go back to beans.”
Beans and lentils keep winning
Drives me crazy that “beans” isn’t listed on the “protein” section of restaurants.
Never stop winning.
Yesterday i made rice with beans and i used to eat that to save money or i didn’t have anything else. Now i just absolutely enjoy it.
The price of beans and lentils in my area have tripled in the last 2 years.
Even rice is getting expensive
Probably because we never got HUNTER BIDENS LAPTOP. SAD.
I know you’re fucking around, but we… did get the laptop? That’s what the whole laptop controversy was about- the contents of the laptop.
Well, at least we got a hard drive of dubious origin and chain of custody.
But egg prices are at a historically low price right? I mean he promised. He also promised to deport 10 million ‘illegals’ on day one, and end the Ukraine war on “day one”. So it’s just fine that beef is expensive since President Felon made good on all his other promises, right? /s
And mexico paid for the wall 10 years ago
Yes, historically low. I now only pay $8/dz versus back in history (few months ago) I was paying $12/dz. Thanks Trump! My stupid ass father in law actually said something like this recently.
I reduced my beef intake significantly nearly three years ago. I cook it maybe twice a year for holidays. Beans are absolutely so versatile. Beef is terrible for the environment, and should be expensive.
That being said, I was looking at the sales at my local grocery and they had those “Bubba Burgers” I think the brand is called, frozen beef burgers, on sale, for $16.99 with only 6 patties in the box. I was shocked. Glad I’ve already invested myself in learning the ways of the bean.
High five bean buddy!
Yeah, I haven’t bought beef that I recall in over a year now. Had it for the first time in ages last week at my wife’s parents’ house and her friend’s BBQ. Eating it only a couple of times makes the taste that much better when I do, but man was quitting it several times a week hard.
Hey America are we tired yet from all this winning?
MAGA going vegan soon
The ones that can afford it will still run around telling anyone else, from vegans, to the merely plant-based curious, to those just cutting out red meat for the blatantly obvious health reasons that they’ll eat more meat for them. Because that’s such a knee-slapper.
The ones that cannot afford it will whine that they “aren’t getting their protein” (🤦♂️ and FFS, the way “protein” is marketed in this country is truly absurd) because of Joe Biden, Obama, Hillary, the gays, drag queen story hour, the Bilderbergers, etc., because the amorphous THEY want them to eat bugs and own nothing, or whatever the fuck the black helicopter crowd is saying these days.
The carrot: prices are too high, lentils and beans are much cheaper
The stick: ticks spreading veganism
I wonder when it will hit the true cost.
Meanwhile, the dolts in red hats are going state to state and outlawing cultivated meat.
MAGA Economic Policy:
All hat, no cattle.
They somehow made the idiom so literally true that it basically isn’t an idiom any more.
Well, my hat’s off to them on that accomplishment.
Texas meltdown incoming.
They’ll have to cut down to just breakfast steak, lunch steak and dinner steak.
RIP elevenses steak and supper steak. This must be what it’s like living in Europe with the GAYS!
greed
Cows are cool anyway.
Lab grown meat.
Thank god. Now, please add taxes.
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