Starting back in the fall of 2019, the recipe and cook­ing resource site Epicurious qui­et­ly start­ed cut­ting beef from its culi­nary cov­er­age. They pub­lished a select few beef pieces since then, but start­ing this week, no more.

Today Epicurious announces that we’ve done just that: We’ve cut out beef. Beef won’t appear in new Epicurious recipes, arti­cles, or newslet­ters. It will not show up on our home­page. It will be absent from our Instagram feed.

We know that some peo­ple might assume that this deci­sion sig­nals some sort of vendet­ta against cows—or the peo­ple who eat them. But this deci­sion was not made because we hate ham­burg­ers (we don’t!). Instead, our shift is sole­ly about sus­tain­abil­i­ty, about not giv­ing air­time to one of the world’s worst cli­mate offend­ers. We think of this deci­sion as not anti-beef but rather pro-planet.

The Planet on the Plate: Why Epicurious Left Beef Behind

If you haven’t taken inven­to­ry of your food deci­sions, please read this piece about their deci­sion mak­ing and the ques­tions they had to con­front. If you have already made changes to your diet, use these links to help spread infor­ma­tion to those around you. The writ­ing and facts are straight­for­ward. It’s also self-aware enough to admit that this is just one lit­tle act that needs big­ger and big­ger support.

Meat — be it beef, chick­en, or seafood — makes up about 5% of my fam­i­ly’s year­ly diet. We start­ed cut­ting it out over two years ago when it had been an every day fea­ture. On about fif­teen spe­cial days a year, we indulge and have a meat meal. Even then, we still choose more sus­tain­able options. Most often that’s local seafood since we’re on the Gulf Coast. We’re also not com­plete­ly vegan; we eat dairy and eggs and cheese. A sus­tain­able diet is a spec­trum and there are some easy wins to help the plan­et by cut­ting out the worst polluters.

Sure, there’s lots of bean and rice meals. But that’s okay. That’s what we should be eat­ing. That’s what a lot of peo­ple all over the world eat. Pitch in, do your part, and join the side of human­i­ty that wants Earth to stay functional.

(Photo Credit: Lou Liebau)