Beef is sold at a store in Annapolis, Maryland, on April 4, 2025.

Beef is sold at a store in Annapolis, Maryland, on April 4, 2025.

Jim Watson/Getty Images

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Jim Watson/Getty Images

Beef is back on top. Well, at least on top of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new food pyramid, unveiled alongside updated national dietary guidelines. Red meat really never left the great American menu. But how’d it climb all the way up there?

On today’s show, America’s storied love affair with beef. And how big business and government have long influenced what winds up on our plates.

Related episodes: 
Why beef prices are so high
Who’s buying all the beef?

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.