In yesterday’s post I looked at an Atlantic article looking at the demise of plant based meats in America. Really interesting article and I recommend you check it out.
One of the things that comes up a lot in the article is the idea that eating meat is “right wing coded” with podcasters like Joe Rogan mentioned and of course the MAHA movement headed by RFK.
I would like to take a few minutes to look at this argument and maybe give some insight into what is actually going on.
Is Eating Meat Right Wing?
First of all, I don’t think there is any question that this is coming from what I would call the “new right”. It’s an odd coalition headed up by a bunch of people that pre-Trump would have absolutely been considered to be on the left.
Joe Rogan calls himself a liberal that likes guns, RFK is from the closest thing we have to a Democrat royal family, and several other influencers in the movement have pronounced left-leaning tendencies and have found themselves under this new MAGA/MAHA umbrella.
So what’s going on here?
I think there has to be major forces pushing these two groups of people together, the freedom to make choices you think are best for you and your family and the reality that dietary choices are the main factor in your personal health.
Freedom
Covid was a wild time. We are probably going to be writing books and articles about everything that went wrong from 2020-2024 for a long time but it became crystal clear to many people that the “new left” was absolutely convinced that they knew what was best for us and needed to micro-manage our lives for us.
Whether it was vaccine mandates, government sponsored and backed social media censorship, or the food we served our families, it felt like we were being told what to think, where to go, how to live, and what to eat with no thought for the freedom of the individual to make those choices for themselves.
Freedom of choice is a fundamental right of every American and in the realm of diet, there was a steady push for decades to convince us that plant based eating was best even as we all got sicker and fatter as the decades wore on.
It was this “new right” coalition that started telling people they didn’t have to go along with the propaganda. That Americans should be able to decide what goes into their minds without a filter of government censorship blocking information they might need or decide what goes into their bodies whether that be a vaccine or a steak.
Given a choice, Americans are always going to pick the path of maximum freedom (hopefully) because that’s what enabled us to throw off the chains of British tyranny and build the greatest economic powerhouse of a nation the world has ever seen.
Reality
The second factor is even more basic. Low carb, high protein meat-based diets work. They are relatively easy to stick to, don’t require calorie-counting, and will almost universally result in weight loss and chronic disease reversals for some diseases like Type II Diabetes.
Reality is always going to be a strong factor in anything because ultimately, people want something that works, works well, works easily, and works long-term. Meat based diets do that and do it for pretty much anyone who tries it.
The fact that it was right-wing influencers that were leading the charge on this should be an indictment against the left. When I was growing up, the left was the party of personal freedom and individual autonomy.
I’m not sure where exactly the left lost their way on this but it has been stunning to see and I truly hope they find their way back to the middle on these issues.
