Myths about cooking steak that need to go away (2013)
seriouseats.com
seriouseats.com
I get what you're saying (I've got like 4 different circulators here, I'm not against them!) but the reverse sear is forgiving and flexible enough that I don't really even get a convenience win from it.
(For calibration: my modal steak is a Whole Foods ribeye or strip, unmodified except for being salted ahead of time).
We buy half a beef every six months or so (split with my parents, so I guess it's technically 5/7th's of a half? 5/14th's of a cow?). For a few hours on a weekend doing some prep/portioning, I can dramatically reduce the workload for several week's worth of meals.
Obviously there's other tradeoffs involved and different personal circumstances to consider, but for me the circulator wins out from a convenience perspective.
That's the convenience. I don't have to worry about the temperature. I drop it in the bath and I take it out at my convenience.
Nobody's gonna say that a circulator steak is bad. It's the second-best way to cook a steak. :)
I just keep a thermometer in for the entire duration of the bake time. Someone in this thread posted a screenshot of them doing the same thing with some sort of bluetooth thermometer.
how long are we talking here? 1 hour? 2 hours?
I do like sous vide for very thick steaks with some marbling—so a strip is a pretty decent one for the dip. However, I've found ribeyes come out spongey when you sous vide them and are better off being reverse seared.
Edit: if you're shopping in the supermarket, filets will usually be more expensive. If you're buying prime dry aged from a butcher, it's a different story, mostly because filets aren't usually dry aged. Check Pat's steaks for reference: https://shop.lafrieda.com/collections/dry-aged-beef
Since it's so tender, I've always felt filet are OK to cook a little more well, and you solve for the flavor with sauce, seasoning, or marinade.
But objectively speaking a strip steak is cheaper. Based on my observations of supermarket sale prices, the ranking goes:
fillet > ribeye > strip > others that I don't bother with (sirloin/round)
A filet is almost always more expensive than a strip, in the supermarket, at the butcher, or in the steakhouse.
Even as someone that has a dedicated dry aging unit, I don't know that I would recommend dry aging filet. I don't count the pellicle as waste, since I make use of all of it, but you do have to cut off a decent chunk - it's too tough to eat on the steak itself. The end result is that you just don't have a whole lot of steak left over.
You might see "dry aged" stuff for 2-3 weeks, and there's significantly less pellicle, but it's not nearly the same thing as something that goes for 60+ days.
I have a dedicated dry aging setup that I truss my subprimals up in, and then it recirculates air, including through a UVC light. I've never had any mold form, even on 120+ day dry ages. I haven't gone much higher than 120 days, though - I enjoy 240 day dry ages, but not in large quantities, and I also lack the patience, so you might see more going to that length. But in the 60 to 120 day range, however, I have never had mold form in any quantities large enough for me to notice.
The practical advantages of it have a lot more to do with timing, prep dynamics, and consistency than they do with final quality.
There are some things that it makes possible or easy that are otherwise nearly inaccessible to home cooks and that is cool if you want to play around with it. Or if I'm cooking 6 steaks for guests or whatever but that's not a problem I've been having recently. But otherwise I don't find too much value in it personally.
Speaking of which it's annoying to reverse sear on a grill because covering it first for 10 or so minutes cools it down enough that the sear is not as nice as when it's done on the higher heat achieved without a cover.
My other secret trick is to sous-vide chicken wings, so I don't have to fear about contamination of my tools, people being like "is it cooked enough? It looks pink". After sous-viding, I leave them on a cold side of the barbecue until they turn golden brown: the meat is soft, moist and almost candied. It's fool proof as they'll never really have a chance to burn and they always come up perfect.
The one routine thing I make that the circulator is unimpeachably excellent for is sausage. Bring sausage up to 145-150 or so, and then toaster oven on the broiler setting for like 7 minutes.
I own a small Breville oven, and since it’s PID controlled, I set it at a very low temperature like 160 F and then put a separate probe in the meat to pull it at just the right temperature (takes a few hours). I end up with edge to edge evenness and a nice crust as well. It beats the Joule every time I’ve tried it.
I will say that I haven’t found anything that beats sous vide for chicken and duck though.
That seems really fast, at least compared to the time I get with a regular oven. Either you're using really thin steaks, or your toaster oven's temperature is way off.
Two things:
1. The toaster oven is probably more efficient than your regular oven (put an electronic grill thermometer in your oven and watch the temperature fluctuations; do the same with a toaster oven, compare).
2. I've usually got the convection thingy on in the toaster (I just forget to turn it off).
It doesn't much matter either way, though: the point is, it goes in the oven and comes out when it reads ~115 when I stick it. :)
But shouldn't the oven temperature matter? The hotter the oven is, the hotter the outside of the meat will get, even if you pull out the steak at 115 exactly. If you want the steak to be as even as possible, you want the oven temperature to be as low as possible.
I just double checked, and not only is my temp right, but my timings are just about his timings too. I'm getting his mid-rare result 5 minutes faster than he does, but again, I'm cooking in a convection toaster oven, and I'm guessing he tested in a "real" oven.
You could automate this entire process with much better temperature control and an internal probe to get the timing right. I've done engineering on professional combis and what you can do with those is pretty awesome.
Anova won't be the one to make it in the mass market but eventually one of them will step up to kick off the next air fryer craze (since combis can do that too)
The one thing I wish the APO had was a controllable vent to purge the steam but it gets by with quick temperature swings.
I have used the APO's psuedo vide mode for steaks using the probe and it does work very well and is quite quick. It's also killer for bread - way easier and (for me) better results than the dutch oven methods.
Now that the APO has a new tank design it solves the only real complaint I've had it it though, so I do highly recommend it. Between it at my Breville SOA I haven't used my regular oven in years.
All this being said, other than requiring a bit of extra planning, I have been quite pleased with the results of this slow cook. Maybe try a small temperature increment the next time I do it.
http://up.csail.mit.edu/science-of-cooking/
3cm Steak starts at 72°F
250°F and 250°F for 20:00
72°F and 300°F for 4:00
300°F and 72°F for 4:00
72°F and 72°F for 5:00
The transition from medium to well at the innermost part takes place at just over 10m when cooking at 250°F for the 3cm steak.
If, however, the steak is 5cm thick, that the 115°F in the inner part isn't until 16m.
Your method may need to be adjusted for the size of the cut, though if you're ordering the same thing it probably does work for you.
Why rely on calculated estimates when you can just measure the internal temp?
The difference between a 5cm thick and a 3cm thick was rather surprising to me that it changed it that much for what a 250°F cooking does for some duration.
It also provides a "cooking for 70 minutes says it should be X in simulation while the oven is providing Y" that something is off between the simulation and (unmeasured) reality and one of the assumptions of either the simulation or reality is off.
Out of curiosity, what do you use the sous-vide for? Steak is the "typical" use case but you seem to think it's not as good for that.
I’ve also used my circulator to make diy duck confit which is fantastic.
Can be a really killer way to do ribeyes and porterhouse.
I'm not afraid to use a good amount of post oak or cherry when smoking anything, including steaks, though.
The searing is on the hottest my stovetop can make my pan, which is about 500℉. I do 45 seconds on each side. That doesn't seem to be long enough to have much effect other than near the surface.
https://genuineideas.com/Assets/imageassets/Reverse-Sear.jpg
Taking it up to 115 also gives you some wiggle room if you want a really intense sear, or if you want to baste (I usually throw a handful of thyme in the butter while I sear).
Maybe take a chop to mid-rare instead of Pittsburgh blue rare, but otherwise: just like a steak. Kind of a revelation the first time you do it.
For me one of the biggest revelations for cooking damn near everything was "of COURSE moisture ruins the ability to get a good sear, how did I not realize that before"
So many things come packaged wet, or at least moist, and then I'd get a pan ripping hot... and still have a mediocre sear.
It's something I learned for cooking steaks but has been pretty universally applicable.
It takes about 5 minutes or less depending on your stove, it will get you the rare meat inside, yet the delicious outside - just like the picture in the article, except it's way easier and faster.
It will work best on "cheap cuts" as fat fried this way tastes perfect.
For keto followers, serve with Otorogi mustard. No extra salt is needed as even if you try to remove the salt you used the day before, enough will remain to give a great taste.
That's the point of the reverse sear (which is the opposite of what you're doing); "cook" the steak (bringing it up to almost its desired final temperature) very slowly at low heat, so the whole steak cooks consistently and evenly (almost the same color edge-to-center) and then sear it. You also get a better sear, because the cooked steak is drier than the one you pulled out of the fridge.
(Salting ahead of time probably doesn't remove moisture; the steak reabsorbs the liquid it sweats out).
Having said all that: some people just prefer steak that isn't edge-to-center the same doneness, so your method might just suit your tastes better.
I like meat rare, so the grey band has been one of my concerns. But if the oil reaches a high enough temperature while the steak comes directly from the fridge, the coldness of the meat is often enough to prevent the grey band.
My method depends on a very high temperature gradient, and in my experience is indistinguishable from the reverse sear, while only taking a fraction of the time
> (Salting ahead of time probably doesn't remove moisture; the steak reabsorbs the liquid it sweats out).
Very possible; it's likely that leaving the steak in the fridge uncovered is what removes a lot of moisture.
BTW I just realized I could make a lot of thin-blue-line jokes about my steaks :)
That seems like a silly prohibition. The taste is kind of the whole point; if one prefers the taste of "sear then cook" over "cook then sear", then great. Whatever floats your boat. So what if the presentation doesn't meet some arbitrary standard? Unless you're cooking for Gordon Ramsay or something like that, hardly anyone's gonna care, 'cause steak is steak and - barring being burnt to a crisp - will be delicious all the same.
The couple times I tried reverse searing a 1/2" supermarket steak, I ended up overcooking. But I might try it again with a lower oven temperature, or refrigerating before searing.
Meanwhile, traditionally pansearing a thin steak works, I just flip and scoot it around until there's some crust, then let it rest. I think that's what they were talking about, simple method that works.
It is, but with the help of a very cold steak (to limit the risk of overcooking), and presalted. Simple and foolproof!
But also just this idea that a steak is a pure thing meant to be enjoyed without a powerful sauce --- some of the best sauces in cooking were invented for steaks. Deglaze a steak pan, cook down some shallots, hit it with some cream and maybe a shot of whiskey, and break up some Roquefort in it while the sauce reduces. It's an overwhelmingly flavorful sauce --- invented for steaks. Steaks are delicious. Sauces are delicious. Steaks and sauces are synergistically delicious.
Don't apologize for saucing a steak.
Why does anyone combine flavours and use sauces and different elements of taste?
I don't put ketchup on my steak either, but let's not pretend that the idea of sauces or combining sweet and savoury is somehow unfathomable.
With pork ribs I actually agree: I drown them in BBQ sauce and pretty much only care that they are tender.
With steak and cow cuts... hey, I'm Argentinian, we care about our grilled meat [1], the thought of just not bothering about how much it's cooked personally offends me!
[1] though not most restaurants. Given the importance beef cuts have in our diet, it's surprising most restaurants just don't care. They will either serve you meat so bloody the cow might as well still be alive, or something that is hard, chewy and not tender at all ("the sole of a shoe"). Honorable exceptions exist and tourists seem happy even in the worst restaurants, so what do I know?
Im agree with fancy restaurants cooking meat without care about it.
anyway, i think 33% is meat quality, 33% knowladge and 33% experience. 1% is the fernet or wine you are drinking while cooking.
Also, the best steaks that you're getting in steak houses are honestly pretty boring (at least, until you dry age them halfway to the point of rot) and if you think that a prime ribeye is the acme of cuisine, I really recommend you go out and find yourself some birria.
That's not to say that I don't like a good simple steak, but there is nothing extraordinary about a grocery store cut of meat to warrant eating it with just salt and pepper all the time. Hell, at least goat, elk or salt water fish are gamey enough to have enough complex flavors going on by themselves. Steak is honestly, a little one dimensional.
IMO, a medium rare, dry brined and cast iron seared fatty steak with some chimichurri on top is admittedly excellent. Also, complaining about a welldone steak not being as juicy as a medium rare steak is ridiculous. But if thats what they like, then making fun of people's culinary tastes because you have a specific classist hangup about your food is snooty and stupid.
At least for me, I love it when a place serves steak on a hot metal plate. They usually sear it and go under a little, assuming it'll be cooked further just from the plate during delivery. I can cut my steak into little pieces and push it the rest of the way myself. The chef doesn't try to substitute strip for filet because he's a pretentious snob and I don't have to eat gelatinous, bloody steak for the same reason. Not every wants beef sashimi.
>Try ordering a steak any temperature above medium or up...
Medium rare is below medium. ;)
The red liquid isn't actually blood! The blood gets drained out at the slaughterhouse. It's a protein called myoglobin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/trumps-first-d...
This is also a myth (it comes from Kitchen Confidential, I think?). What's really happening is that you're probably getting a thinner cut of steak (same weight, different shape) so your entree finishes at the grill station at roughly the same time as everyone else at your table's does.
> I personally find the tiny bits of connective tissue-rich meat, fat, and gristle stuck to the bone to be the tastiest part of the steak
So yeah, unless you can get the bone out perfectly you'll get more flavoursome meat if you leave it in.
Also it's not entirely insane to believe bones impart flavour, since marrow is incredibly flavoursome, though you probably won't be able to cook bones enough to get the marrow out.
Also I think some steaks (like T-bone) do have some amount of marrow, their myth doesn't specify rib steaks.
(Marrow, though, would make a steak taste better! Order a marrow bone, cook the marrow, and then baste your steak with it when you sear it.)
1) The marrow isn't touching the actual meat
2) Bone marrow and steak have very different preparations
Claiming bones don't have any flavour is a silly overcorrection though.
Brown stock is made from roasted bones, among other things, so I too feel somewhat skeptical about the claim that bones cannot import at least some sort of flavor.
I can also easily admit that it's possible that the "bone-in steak has more flavor" argument might actually just be a consequence of the above: people leaving the bone on may mistake the flavors of said meat and fat for flavor imparted by the bone, rather than being innate.
However, I'm trying to weigh the one source here calling this a myth against plenty of reputable Chefs who subscribe to this myth - not just with steak, but also with poultry. It's quite possible that these Chefs are fooling themselves (they frequently do; I've seen enough contradictions), but it nevertheless is an extraordinary claim.
It's not impossible that it would have an impact, but there's no obvious mechanism either. (And as the author points out, there's no particular reason why, even if flavour transfer was happening, it'd go the direction you want either.)
https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-...
I've never had the need to stab my steak with a steak knife. I have on occasion accidentally stabbed my finger with one.
Secondarily, while it is true that letting meat come up to room temperature does not make a difference by itself, the article does point out that one effective option for seasoning meat is to do it at least 45 minutes before cooking. You might as well let it come up to room temperature in that time, too.
> The Reality: Again, the amount of juice lost by a single slit-and-peek is completely inconsequential in comparison to the whole piece of meat.
I think this one might depend a lot on how sharp your knives are. And most people that I know have dull knives. Thus, when cutting a steak to peek, they end up pressing it, which releases juices. So this wouldn't be a myth for most people I know.
The question is now: Do most people have dull knives? Or do they have sharp knives? Most people around me have dull knives, except for chefs. I've seen lots of cooking videos, and chefs often tend to have good and sharp knives. So my guess here would be that chefs have sharper knives than most people. Meaning that a chef can't properly test this myth unless they take this factor into account.
I haven't been able to find any data on knife spending, or average sharpness of knives depending on if people are chef or not. Here's an experiment we could try: have people evaluate the sharpness of a single knife, and see if non-chef tend to evaluate it as better than chefs.
This is, I think, how science works. Sometimes you have proved something, sometimes it was just counfounding factors. There's a good article about that being discussed currently: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o....
I'll finish this by saying I have a huge respect for J. Kenji López-Alt. I only raise that point because here, I believe being a chef can introduce bias.
> The question is now: Do most people have dull knives?
I would say the question is: Does cutting a steak with a dull knife cause enough juice loss that it's actually going to be noticeable in the finished steak?
Even the author admits that you lose just by cutting it open. But he says that it isn't enough for anyone to notice. So the question isn't whether or not the dull knife causes more juice loss, it whether it's even perceptible. And you're going to have a hard time convincing me that you actually know the answer to that question off hand.
So that's a new variable to take into account with knife sharpness: steak size.
The whole “soyboi” thing has got to be one of the funniest but also saddest things I’ve ever seen. Pour one out for the men who eat nothing but carbs, meat, salt, and dairy. You’re all keeping the blood pressure medication business alive.
But isn’t the whole soy thing about US supermarket foods which overwhelmingly contain soy, whereas someone eating a whole foods diet would be unlikely to consume much soy unless they were specifically seeking it out?
The “soyboi” thing is indeed terribly sad, you can just go to any American supermarket to witness the hordes of disgusting fatties rolling around on their mobility scooters, collecting their daily doses of HOT POCKETS®. What a tragedy.
Of course, soy itself isn’t the actual problem. (correlation, not causation)
Only if they're bone-in.
Most cooks who advocate for Myth #1 will salt and pepper the steak, then let it rest for 20-30 minutes. The salt draws out some of the moisture from the surface of the steak and leaves it behind on the resting surface. The less moisture that enters the pan means better browning.
Unless you're using paper towels to blot the steak dry, the amount of water left on the plate is absolutely negligible. If anything salting that late is worse. For one, you don't get as good penetration of the salt, so it will taste salty on the outside but bland on the inside. Plus, drawing out the moisture to the surface means there's more water to drive off when you're searing, which means a worse sear. Taking all of that into account, I think you're better off salting hours in advance (eg. in the morning or overnight), and letting it sit in the fridge to dry off.
Method 1: salt and pepper, then cook immediately
Method 2: salt and pepper, let rest, then cook
Method 3: salting hours in advance, let it sit in the fridge, then cook
Obviously 3 > 2 > 1, but Method 3 wasn't done historically (by most cooks). Cooks either went with Method 1 or Method 2, and Method 2 "won" out in the end because people consistently noticed that it produced better results. Myth #1 was an incorrect explanation as to why Method 2 is better than Method 1.
1. dry it out and salt the steak
2. Heat the pan to highest
3. Put the stake into the pan with a lid on
4. Wait till the whole steak changes colour
5. Lower the temperature to 5 or 6 (out of 9)
6. Flip it
7. Flip it again
8. Flip it again
9. Check the temperature
9a. If 54 degrees Celsius take it away to rest
9b. If less than 54 flip it and measure again shortly afterwards - should be done in a minute
10. Done
Something like that. Steak is always tender and good. Guests are amazed every time. Better than any restaurant I've ever been.
I bring the steak to room temp, sear first, bone in, minimize cutting.
That said, most of these are quibbles with the reasons, not the practices themselves.
Some are stylistic too, particularly the desire for an even steak. Some like a strong gradient.
Otherwise, yep.
I will add that by far the number one thing you can do to up your steak game is to just buy better steaks. There's a massive difference between a good cut and an ok cut.
Personally, I find that if you buy American or Australian Wagyu in bulk you can get absolutely incredible cuts for a pretty good price. I buy mine at wagyushop.com .
(I've had A5 prepared at sushi places, and that I get, but it's a totally different preparation).
I find that American/Australian wagyu is not like Japanese wagyu, but it is still extremely good - it's just a really really good 'regular' steak. It's going to be beefier than a Japanese wagyu with less marbling.
I'd be really surprised to hear that you can't tell the difference between a 'regular' steak and Japanese A5 though. They're really, really different - the marbling is extreme by comparison.
"A5" gets my attention in a good way. "Wagyu" gets my attention in a bad way. But I might be nuts!
I do, however, definitely eat whole ribeyes of A5 lol
I haven't found the price difference on Kobe to be worth it over Kagoshima or Miyazaki, though.
Edit: I see this is answered in another comment :)
We use that $20 instant-read for everything including baking, and it works great after 15 years.
I remember being told once that food should always be stored covered in the fridge. Is that another myth?
From the article:
"Or better yet, salt them and let them rest uncovered on a rack in the fridge for a night or two, so that their surface moisture can evaporate. You'll get much more efficient browning that way." (emphasis mine)
>I remember being told once that food should always be stored covered in the fridge. Is that another myth?
AFAIK that's for food safety reasons.
Also makes things less likely to spill or have stuff fall into them.
So not a myth. Also nothing exotic, just common sense. It you want something to dry out by all means leave it uncovered.
You usually want to store food covered the fridge so that this exact thing doesn't happen, and so that odors don't transfer between foods. Or at least that's what I think.
For steak at least, it's nice to have a slightly crispy outer and tender pink inside.
Everytime u open the lid, all the hot air is released and the grill takes time to reach steady temp.
Still... I've done both ways and they certainly work.
Getting hungry....
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-more-tips-for-perfe...
The article talks a lot about cooking steaks evenly (they use the word 7 times), which is not what I'm interested in.
Or minced up raw as a tartare. Not really what many would consider a steak, but a fine use for a good piece of meat anyhow.
(Also love steak tartare.)
People from USA just burn the beef >.<
Good quality meat, be with friends, more time cooking and NO fire (please, no fire). Use hard wood to burn ember and cook with it. Try not to use charcoal, do not use a fork with the meat NEVER, use kitchen clamps... just let the meat to rest on the grill.., use salmuera sometimes (water, salt, pepper and bay leaves..) to not let the meat dry..., and be with friends.
that is all.
Generally speaking, the quality of beef in Argentina is very good, the price (subject to the economy which is always a factor) has historically been low and the culture is very carnivorous - these are the things that give Argentina its fame for beef along with a strong export industry. Nobody really rates the Argentines as cooks, though, and the parrilla is just a basic adjustable-height open flame grill.
You can add tira de asado, bife de chorizo, ojo de bife, bife angosto, matambre (also matambre a la pizza), entraña, vacio, cuadril, chorizo, morcilla, salchicha parrillera, lomo, roast beef (that is very tasty and cheap), chinchulines trenzados, riñones, tripa rellena..
you can add those to your repertory, but picanha is nice too.
I'm less interested in how Argentina cooks steaks than I am in how they cut them. South American beef butchery is super interesting. I'm in Chicago, and there are a couple butchers here that are really into Brazilian and Argentine cuts.
We don't really burn our steaks here, but one very fair knock on American steaks is that they are super boring. Ribeye strip ribeye ribeye filet ribeye "sirloin". Bleh.
I think there is one way to cook for every one that is cooking. And you will find a lot of ways to cook them, some you will like, some you will not.
Lets do a hackers barbacue next time there!
Sorry for being the downer, but it's going to happen. And I like steak as much as the next guy :-(
https://cen.acs.org/synthesis/catalysis/New-method-makes-sta...
Not that I'm endorsing this stance, but dodging large-scale consequences for our indulgences are one of the privileges of being well paid professionals in the imperial core. I don't think people here will be particularly affected by this shift.
"Males are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity. They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really “properly” cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence—it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes—“puts him out”, for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy."
C.S. Lewis -- The Screwtape Letters 1942.
The same goes about following arbitrary rules about how food "should" be cooked. It's your tongue and nose that will experience your cooking. Not Julia Child's. Cook food using your senses and cook food so that you like it. Cook as thou likest. That shall be the whole of the law.
But a lot of the "scientific cooking" is about repeatability. I know I like my steaks rare, edge to edge, with a hard sear. I know that the easiest way for me to accomplish that is using an immersion circulator, combi oven, or reverse sear, drying it (and if I have time, cooling it down briefly), and then either searing/basting it in cast iron or finishing it off on my kamado grill with the temperature ramped up to inferno.
I've cooked hundreds of steaks just on a grill, or just in a pan. I can nail a rare or medium rare steak on the grill, and adjust for temp, etc. But there are inherent limitations to those methods - it might be rare in the center, but simply because of the physics at play, more of the meat than just the surface is going to be well done.
And as for the myths in the article... a lot of these are just things that are patently untrue. It's not about "scientific cooking" vs. cooking to personal taste, people just believe a lot of things that are just flat out wrong.
The high end of "scientific cooking" is figuring out what and why things taste good, or how to do it. Unfortunately it also becomes a catalog for people buying useless expensive crap because it's "healthy" or something. See: juicero.
> Cook some identical roasts or steaks. Cook one bone-in, cook one with the bone removed but tied back on, and cook a third with the bone removed and tied back on with a layer of impermeable aluminum foil in between. Then cut them all up and taste them (preferably with a large group of people in a blind setting). You'll find that they all taste pretty much identical.
This "scientific cooking" is all about the taste that results. People aren't applying these myths because they've tried it both ways and their senses tell them one is better than the other, that's the whole point of making an article like this.
If you're starting off with that attitude, why should I try to engage with your comment?
Roughly 12% of GHGs are attributed to meat agriculture.
Since few people decide anything rationally since they want their steaks and Big Macs, I challenge anyone to visit Greeley CO, Tar Heel NC or North Platte NE and see if they still want to have a steak, pork chops, or their sense of smell.
Climate change is another thing that will be very bad (about as bad as WW2), but mostly to other people and not us, and ending society is a tail risk but not the median prediction. So using it to get Americans to stop doing things either isn't very convincing or requires you to lie. The most important thing by far is to get people to drive less.
The cause of anthropogenic climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, not the raising of animals for food. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon at a rate and in amounts that are too high for the natural mechanisms in the environment, that normally bind carbon, to cope with.
The carbon gasses released by cows and other ruminants are part of the planetary carbon cycle that circulates carbon gasses between the atmosphere and the biosphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_carbon_cycle
Plants bind carbon from the air, cows eat plants, bacteria in cows' stomachs ferment plants, fermentation releases the carbon bound by plants back into the air, plants bind carbon from the air. This cycle is stable, it's been going on for millions of years, and it has never caused climate change, not of the scale we see today.
Climate change started with the Industrial Revolution, when fossil fuels began to be dug up and burned for power. Today, power production is responsible for almost 75% of all carbon emissions. The vast majority of this power production is from burning fossil fuels:
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sec...
If you're concerned about climate change and you want to raise the alarm, then raise the alarm about the continued burning of fossil fuels and the misinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry. Misinformation that seems to be very successfully co-opting the animal rights movement, I might add. You want to be "on the right side of history" as you say in another comment? Don't side with the fossil fuel industry by directing attention away from their role in climate change.
https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graph...
i know there has been a lot of pushback because of the individualist nature of exxon et al's carbon footprint red herring.
but reduction of emissions is a project every single individual, corporation, and government must be part of.
we are are deeply intertwined, all terrestrials, all earth bound. and the anti-individualist shove-off of responsibility onto corporations is going to get us equally nowhere.
_Both And_, people.
What do you disagree with in what I wrote above? That anthropogenic climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels? That it's the fossil fuel industry that is responsible for that? What?
to say "we should be primarily focused on energy" is ignoring an equally large factor. fossil fuels enabled the food and agriculture industry to grow in the climate destroying behemoth it is now.
we need to restructure our diet and address food waste and production.
we are all earthbound means that we all need to act, individual and corporation alike, because all our fates are tied to the reaction of the earth.
That graphic also doesn't list any numbers. The numbers you quote, 24% and 25% come from a different graphic, titled "Emission Sources & Natural Sinks", found in the main page of the Drawdown Framework website, here:
https://www.drawdown.org/sites/default/files/rainbow_forpres...
In that graphic, 24% is listed as the proportion of CO₂ emissions from "Food, agriculture and land use" and 25% is from "Electricity production". The graphic also lists 21% for "Industry", 14% for "Transportation", 6% for "Buildings", and 10% for "Other Energy-Related Emissions".
I think you took the figure for "Electricity production" to stand for the emissions from burning fossil fuels for all power production, which is not right. Industry, transportation, heating buildings etc all need power that is generated by burning fossil fuels. So it's not 25% but 76% that goes to generating power. The ourworldindata.org chart I linked lists pretty much the same figure and breaks it down in the same categories, also.
The dradown.org graphic shows that 59% of the CO₂ released remains in the atmosphere, which is roughly consistent with the amount attributed to power production from burning fossil fuels. The rest of the CO₂ is bound in carbon sinks in the environment. The arcs of the graph that end in the legend "Current sinks" add up to 24 + 17 = 41%, which is plenty to cover our food production needs (given the 24% figure listed in the same graphic for all food production).
That's what I say above in my comment: climate change is caused by excess carbon released into the environment by the burning of fossil fuels, not by farming. The environment can handle farming, even at the industrial scales we practice it today (which I agree is excessive and needs urgent reform). What the environment can't cope with is burning fossil fuels that release in days carbon stored over millions of years.
Given all of the above, do you still disagree with my initial comment? If so, can you explain how you disagree?
if we shut off all fossil fuel burning tomorrow, sure maybe we would be able to make up for destructive practices of agriculture. but that won't happen and we need a broad approach.
diet maintenance and it's downstream effects is a clear, easy goal that individuals can take on. meanwhile governments can tackle whatever industrial legal changes need to happen.
negating diet and food waste as a meaningful goal is harmful at best, and deliberate sabotage at worst.
you said [emphasis mine]
> If you're concerned about climate change and you want to raise the alarm, then raise the alarm about the continued burning of fossil fuels and the misinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry. Misinformation that seems to be very successfully co-opting the animal rights movement, I might add. You want to be "on the right side of history" as you say in another comment? Don't side with the fossil fuel industry by directing attention away from their role in climate change.
my disagreement is that the fossil fuel industry somehow coopted the animal rights movement. certainly capital has embraced the plant-based diet as demand has risen, but to say that was driven by fossil fuels is absolutely bonkers to me.
we can do both. be loud about fossil fuels (we are. at least, some of us are), and also embrace a low waste, plant based (or low meat/no beef, I don't care) diet.
I wear a mask, get vaxxed, and I vote for leaders who affirm public health.
Thanks for making it clear.
> if we shut off all fossil fuel burning tomorrow, sure maybe we would be able to make up for destructive practices of agriculture.
That's not right. Burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change. To stop burning fossil fuels is not to "make up" for agriculture emissions, it's to remove the cause of climate change.
Agriculture is not causing climate change, burning fossil fuels causes climate change. The emissions from agriculture are only of concern because of the climate change that is already underway caused by the emissions from burning fossil fuels. Without the emissions from burning fossil fuels there would be no climate change and there would be nothing to "make up" for because emissions from agriculture alone are not capable of causing climate change (again, because the environment can deal with them).
You say that "diet maintenance" is a "clear, easy goal that individuals can take on". It's much more than that. It's a fine excuse for people to not do anything substantial to help stop climate change. They eat a bean burger once a week and then go home happy that they did their bit for the environment, because their favorite influencer told them so. And they do nothing to challenge the fuel industry that keeps doing business as usual. Because their influencers don't tell them to.
In order to stop climate change (we can't reverse it, but we can stop it developing further) people must understand its causes. Farming is not the cause. Burning fossil fuels is the cause. That's what we need to address.
But I think there's a misunderstanding. I made a comment about the misinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry, and you seem to have taken it as a comment in a debate about individual vs collective action, to which I never intended to contribute. I agree that personal action is necessary to stop climate change. My point is that eating a vegan diet is not the right action because farming is not the cause of climate change. Burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change and the goal of any personal action must be to stop burning fossil fuels.
> my disagreement is that the fossil fuel industry somehow coopted the animal rights movement.
Maybe "co-opted" is a strong word, but the industry can't be very unhappy with the current state of affairs, where everybody's having a food fight on social media about what to eat and lets the industry off the hook.
"Go vegan" is the popular message on social media because it's the easy answer. But, the answer to what? The hard question is how we reconfigure our civilisation to stop burning fossil fuels and causing climate change as a result. Going vegan doesn't begin to address that question. What you eat is irrelevant to how we generate power.
I am also so frustrated at all the propaganda being disseminated by oil companies and bought out YouTubers alike, about doing only the smallest amount possible. and I completely agree the anthropocene epoch is clearly driven by fossil fuel.
I think people feel (and are in actuality) powerless to change the fossil fuel question. which is why the biggest contribution individuals can start today along side advocating policy change, is to halt wasting food, cut out or reduce meat (mainly beef) consumption to a tiny fraction of what is currently culturally normalized.
however in all honesty I live in pure horror of this whole thing every single day.
I'm worried too and I live in a place that will be hard hit by climate change. In fact, this year the house was flooded to an extent that was really unprecedented (we've had flooding before but not like that) and I wonder if that's just the sign of things to come. Who knows.