Did you know that marketing campaigns have caused men, to eat beef because beef is what “real men” eat?
For generations, men have watched TV commercials stumping for flame-grilled burgers, steak on a stick or men parading downtown with burgers in their hands singing, “I’m a guy.” Did you know climate issues would be resolved if fewer men ate beef? All news to me.
I recently read about the trend in yet another article blaming beef and dairy production for elevated levels of carbon monoxide and methane gas. This time, however, is the first time I have read that if men just lay off the beef, they would save the plant. I typically move past articles like this, but this one drew me in.
Getting people, specifically men, to eat less beef could “quickly make a large dent in climate pollution. Food and climate researchers have long grappled with how to get people to shift diets toward less beef. And now they are thinking about the problem through the lens of gender,” the online article states.
The writer interviewed several athletes and former athletes about how much better they feel and perform while following a plant-based diet. If that’s what works for them, fantastic. However, that doesn’t mean everyone should become a vegan.
Once I started looking, I was surprised at how many articles had been written about men, their consumption of red meat and marketing campaigns.
Advertising about manly men doing manly things and eating meat started generations ago with the expansion of the West. There were posters of mountain men bringing in wild game to feed their families; that’s what men on the frontier did. Fragile women were at home making bread, raising kids and tending to other things; you know, women’s work. It paints a nice picture of men being tough, but we all know plenty of ladies were doing their share of the work, even if they weren’t stalking an elk or whitetail.
The promotion of meat to men continued with the Western TV serials that romanticized the American cowboy driving cattle all day, then coming to camp, getting off his horse to a nice thick, fire-grilled steak rustled up by a guy called “Cookie.” What those old shows forget to share is that the cowboys faced things like rustlers, stampedes, loneliness, drowning, snake bites, disease, rank horses and even ranker cattle.
I learned a new term from the article: meatfluencer. Supposedly, a meatfluencer is someone, typically a celebrity or online influencer, “who pushes men to eat more red meat.” Only one celebrity was noted in the article as being a meatfluencer, and he is a mixed martial arts promoter. It looks to me like the author wanted to feed off of, no pun intended (well, maybe a little), of that person’s public persona to try to prove their misguided point.
If marketing campaigns are the reason why men are meat eaters, then why haven’t we seen more of those rough-and-tumble men in marketing campaigns focused on plant-based, meat-like products? I guess they better try to set up their game.
I made some comparisons, and the plant-based stuff is a little high for my taste. For want-to-be burger, it’s about $9 a pound. An 80/20 mix, natural beef ranges between $5.87 up to $7.84 for organic burger. I have never bought beef in an aluminum can, but a plant-based product claiming to be just like ground beef sells for $14.95 for a 15-ounce can.
“Real men” should not be based on their dietary choices. Real men are men who take responsibility for their actions and families. Real men are kind and courteous, and put others’ needs before their own. Real men don’t turn tail and run either; they protect and provide. The same chartists hold for “real women;” no double standards in my book. And it doesn’t matter what’s on their dinner plate.
Julie Turner-Crawford is a native of Dallas County, Mo., where she grew up on her family’s farm. She is a graduate of Missouri State University. To contact Julie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
