Meat Is Back and Maybe Not for the Reason You Think

Home cooking is at an historic low while, at the same time, interest in food has never been more pervasive. There are celebrity chefs, food networks, competition shows of professional and amateur cooks, college courses in food science, and newspaper sections featuring all things related to food.

The food and beverage industry invests big time to shape our choices. More than $14.1 billion was spent in the United States in 2024 persuading consumers to eat burgers, chicken, pork, dairy, bottled soda, beer, wine, water, and energy and health drinks. Besides advertising and payments to social media influencers, an additional $30 million was paid for lobbying efforts.

A surprising food trend is that after years of declining sales, meat is making a comeback on the dinner plate. At the same time that people are eating more meat, the sale of cultured (artificial) meats has faltered.

Nutritionists still urge less meat-eating, and animals continue to be treated brutally by the food industry.

So why the swing back to meat?

The answer may be found in a study published in 2014 by University of Kent researchers Kristof Dhont and Gordon Hodson of Brock University, which concluded there is a correlation between adherents of right-wing ideology, as measured by social dominance and right-wing authoritarianism, with animal exploitation and meat consumption. “Right-wing adherents do not simply consume more animals because they enjoy the taste of meat, but because doing so supports dominance ideologies and resistance to cultural change,“ they observe.

A shift toward what some call the MAGA diet is consistent with what would be expected based on Dhont's study. Given the political climate of anti-immigrant sentiment and manosphere influencers, it can be anticipated that meat eating would be on the rise and concerns for animal welfare and laborers’ working conditions would be fading.

During the presidential campaign, for example, J. D. Vance explained that while his wife is a vegetarian, he is a meat eater and attacked Kamala Harris, falsely, for wanting to ban red meat. Such a get-tough attitude is captured in an interview with Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who has played an outsized and public role in the Trump administration. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.”

Of course, not everyone who eats meat is authoritarian, anti-immigrant, resistant to change, or against social equality. What is true, though, is that, for many, empathy is a weakness, and cultural norms of the early 20th century, such as patriarchy, unfettered capitalism, and homophobia, are a virtue. The culture shift is clear, and its influence wide, affecting many who don’t share the return to older values. This is good news for the meat industry but not so good for workers and animals in slaughterhouses.

A once-popular slogan had it, "You are what you eat," but the reverse may be closer to the truth: "You eat what you are."