Your Love Of Steak Is Killing Everything On The Face Of The Earth

It’s possible to eat a steak and not contemplate the death that went into bringing it to your plate. Sure, the cow it came from most certainly did perish (it did!), but this bitch is dry-aged, so tbh, that moodick died at least a month ago, which means it ain’t no bother to me. This shizz delish.

Except, what if your consumption of that steak wasn’t just killing the cow (and you, because let’s be honest, red meat ain’t the healthiest damn thing on the planet), but was actually complicit in the extinction of almost every species on this planet.

That would be a bummer. Like, take a bite, chew, think about 5,000 fish dying. Take a bite, chew, damn, there’s no more birds.

Might make you rethink that grub, right?

Who am I kidding?

Still, you should learn yourself. The latest research shows that industrial meat production is one of the worst things happening to our planet. A paper out of the Florida International University concludes that everyone eating steak is “likely the leading cause of modern species extinctions.”

Not monkey serial killers. They aren’t the ones killing all the monkeys. No. It’s you. You. You are responsible for the death of the planet’s most beautiful things. Like love. And peacocks.

Here’s the kicker from the study’s abstract.

The consumption of animal-sourced food products by humans is one of the most powerful negative forces affecting the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems and biological diversity. Livestock production is the single largest driver of habitat loss, and both livestock and feedstock production are increasing in developing tropical countries where the majority of biological diversity resides.

The researchers conclude that we need to drastically reduce our consumption of cows, goats, and sheep if we want to stop the loss of diversity in our ecosystem.

But, pork’s still cool, so chow down on some ribs. You love ribs. Although not as much as you love steak.

Life, man. Sometimes doing the right thing sucks.

[H/T Mother Jones]