The Dogma of Meat

We live in a heyday of meat. Americans ate $45 billion of beef in 2025, up more than 10 percent from the previous year, according to Beef Research, an industry marketing group. Ground beef is driving sales — McDonald’s recently released its new half-pounder, the Big Arch — but steak sales remain robust. In a February interview at CattleCon, the beef industry conference, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that his favorite beef cut was strip steak. He eats beef every day — “usually twice a day,” he said, to applause.