There are Better Ways to Promote Beef

By Jennifer Hill

Last spring Colorado Governor Jared Polis ruined a perfectly fine spring day by declaring it ‘Meat Out Day’, where everyone was supposed to go veggie. New York City schools recently announced that in addition to ‘Meatless Monday’s’ they are now adding in ‘Vegan Only Fridays’, while college campuses around the country develop a weekly meat-free day in their cafeterias, all a disturbing trend. So how do we combat this nonsense? We partner with nutritionists and advocates in the keto, carnivore, paleo and No Sugars No Grains movements.

Have you ever spent time around a vegetarian? If you have, you know it because they will scream it from the rooftops. The same can be said for the keto and carnivore community. Those people will rabidly talk diet and nutrition to you all day long. They are a natural fit for beef advocates. They eat a ton of our product, lose weight and build muscle mass while doing it. They can cite data and studies and describe macronutrient ratios in their sleep. The carnivore community often jokes that when they feel like a vegetable they’ll have chicken. These are our people and we should be giving them as big of a platform as possible.

Following major players in the meat friendly diet world on social media and blasting their work as much as possible while encouraging our own industry to work with these people would help spread the message about the power of beef in a far more organic and real way than anything we’re currently doing. Dr. Shawn Baker is an orthopedic surgeon who believes in treating disease through nutrition. He authored the book The Carnivore Diet and is considered by many the Godfather of the movement. The dude is ripped and has helped thousands of patients achieve peak physical performance and cure what ails them by sticking to a strictly meat-only diet. He’s interviewed on large platforms including the Joe Rogan Podcast.

 Nina Teicholz is how I was first introduced to the movement and author of the book The Big Fat Surprise, which details the corruption behind official US Dietary guidelines and the way the government’s push to reduce fat and meat is scientifically unsound. She uses her social media to expose the unethical connections and advice from groups like the USDA, American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association, all of which keep people sick.  

 Vinnie Tortorich is a celebrity fitness trainer, author and creator of the No Sugars, No Grains group. He is a regular on Adam Carolla’s show as well as hosts his own podcast Fitness Confidential where he interviews scientists, doctors and other “illuminaries” who discuss the importance of diet and the valuable role meat plays in it.

All of these people see the vegan/vegetarianism movement as a threat to public health and have the background knowledge and data to back that up. They also all have large followings that could be taped into.

Instead we’re paying our Beef Checkoff dollars to more celebrities to keep the ‘Beef. It’s what’s for dinner’ campaign alive. This time around it’s Tony Romo. 1995 called, they want their marketing plan back. Celebrity endorsements are increasingly ineffective, especially for the 35 and under crowd who grew up surrounded by them and are now skeptical. They become even less useful when done by an irrelevant, old sports star. Can anyone honestly say they’ve purchased car insurance from The General because Shaq told them to? People who are concerned about keeping or adding beef in their diet are not going to be persuaded by Tony Romo talking about how much he likes to grill on the weekend. They want to know that beef is nutritionally and environmentally sound. They want to be given permission by those who’ve done the research and have the evidence to enjoy our product. Tony Romo can’t give that to them, but the carnivore and paleo community can.