Save your brain: Eat more meat



The vegetable lobby has had a good run. For decades, the conventional wisdom on brain health has been some variation of the same tired sermon: eat less meat, eat more plants, and maybe your aging mind will hold together long enough to remember where you parked the car.

A new study out of Sweden suggests that for roughly a quarter of the American population, that advice has been wrong — measurably, consistently, damagingly wrong.

Life is exhausting. Depletion is something else. And only one of them is fixed by a rib-eye.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the study tracked more than 2,000 Swedish adults over 60 for 15 years. Among carriers of the APOE4 gene — the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease — those who ate the most meat showed slower cognitive decline and lower dementia risk than those who ate the least.

Among the those who ate the most meat, the elevated dementia risk associated with carrying APOE4 disappeared entirely.

The most feared dementia gene in medicine — at least in this cohort — effectively disarmed by the food that built the brain carrying it.

Brain drain

One in four Americans carries at least one copy of APOE4. Two-thirds of people with Alzheimer’s carry it. This is a massive slice of the country.

Tens of millions of Americans have been dutifully following brain-health guidelines that may be contributing to the very decline those guidelines promised to prevent.

This is what happens when nutritional science gets hijacked by ideology and the bill comes due 30 years later.

APOE4 appears to influence how efficiently the body absorbs and uses certain nutrients, particularly vitamin B12 — essential for nerve function and found almost exclusively in animal products. APOE4 carriers who ate more meat showed measurably higher B12 levels in their blood.

The gene also affects how the body processes fats and cholesterol — the building blocks brain cells require for fuel and structure. APOE4 is the oldest variant of the gene, one that likely predates agriculture entirely. Some bodies, it turns out, never got the memo about kale smoothies and the moral purity of eating like a rabbit.

Steakholders

None of this will surprise anyone who has eaten a quality steak and felt, within the hour, unreasonably capable.

That sudden clarity. The alertness. The faint, irrational optimism about existence — that’s iron talking. Heme iron, specifically, found in red meat and absorbed at rates far higher than the iron in spinach and lentils, which the body processes with all the urgency of a man skimming terms and conditions.

Roughly 40% of American women are iron-deficient. A significant portion of the population moves through daily life in a low-grade fog of fatigue and poor concentration they have simply come to accept.

Life is exhausting. Depletion is something else. And only one of them is fixed by a rib-eye.

Iron dome

The dietary culture most likely to produce iron deficiency is the same one celebrated as virtuous. Plant-based iron comes pre-sabotaged. Phytic acid in grains and legumes — the foods canonized by clean eating — actively blocks absorption before it reaches the bloodstream.

The demonization of red meat has been so thorough, so relentless, and so institutionally backed that an entire generation grew up believing a burger was more dangerous than a cigarette.

This was not an accident.

Decades of dietary guidelines, food pyramid revisions, and industry-funded nutrition research pushed animal products to the margins of the respectable plate, while carbohydrates and seed oils quietly took the center.

Early-onset dementia is rising in people who should be nowhere near it — men and women in their 30s and 40s, the first generations raised under the full weight of anti-meat orthodoxy.

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Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images

Nipped in the bud

Meanwhile, more parents are raising children on exclusively plant-based diets, motivated by love and a sincere belief that they are doing right by their kids. The research on what chronic iron deficiency, B12 absence, and inadequate animal protein does to a developing brain is not something the wellness industry tends to advertise. In several studies, it reads less like a dietary choice and more like an uncontrolled experiment conducted on people too young to consent.

Meat consumption has been falling for years. Alzheimer’s rates have been climbing for years.

No one in an official capacity has connected those dots — which is itself worth noting.

The Swedish study does draw one important line. Processed meats showed no protective benefit and were linked to higher dementia risk regardless of genetics.

Bacon, sausages, deli meats, the sweating cylinders of mystery protein rotating slowly at the gas-station counter — these are not the argument.

Fresh red meat and poultry, unprocessed and cooked with basic competence, are what drove the cognitive benefit.

Carnivores settled continents, built civilizations, and mapped the known world. Every civilization that ever amounted to anything ate meat.

The ones that didn’t aren’t around to argue the point.

Wild horses ripped from Nevada’s plains — and into US beef



Imagine dawn breaking over Nevada’s badlands. A herd of wild horses charges across the sagebrush, manes whipping in the wind — living emblems of American freedom, the soul of the West. Then the silence breaks. Helicopter blades thunder overhead, driving the animals into traps. Foals stumble. Mares collapse. Families scatter in terror.

This isn’t a scene from frontier history. It’s happening now — a government-funded assault on one of the most enduring symbols of the American spirit. The Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse roundups have become routine cruelty disguised as “management.” And with the agency preparing its most aggressive operations yet, the time to act is now.

No more federal helicopters terrorizing symbols of liberty while criminals flood our markets with cheap ‘beef.’

Congress once recognized the value of these animals. The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act promised protection and stewardship, not slaughter and imprisonment. But decades of mismanagement have turned that promise into a taxpayer-funded nightmare.

The Bureau’s Wild Horse and Burro Program devours $142 million a year to chase, capture, and confine herds that should roam free. The agency calls it conservation. It looks more like erasure — the slow extermination of the very wildness that once defined the West.

From Nevada into your ground beef

More than 64,000 wild horses and burros now languish in government holding pens — taxpayer-funded cages that solve nothing. The Bureau of Land Management calls it “management,” but it’s warehousing life. Meanwhile, the agency ignores real issues like overgrazing, water misallocation, and habitat loss.

In Nevada, the carnage is especially stark. Last fiscal year, federal contractors ripped 2,196 horses from the Triple B Complex. Twenty-seven died on-site, collapsing under the stress of helicopter chases. The rest face grim odds in confinement, where mortality rates hover around 12%. Videos from inside these facilities show workers kicking panicked horses — proof that “humane management” has devolved into cruelty.

The story doesn’t end in captivity. Many of these captured horses end up in the slaughter pipeline. Sold at auction for as little as $5 to $25 a head, they cross borders into Mexico and Canada, where their meat re-enters U.S. markets illegally — blended into ground beef at a time of soaring prices.

This scandal isn’t just about animal welfare; it’s about corruption and public health. The same pipeline that traffics horse meat often intersects with drug and human smuggling networks, all subsidized by American taxpayers.

Actress and horse rescuer Dawn Olivieri, known for her roles in “Yellowstone” and “Homestead,” has called out the hypocrisy: With beef prices at record highs, why is the government allowing wild horse meat to undercut the market — and endanger consumers?

Call for accountability

The federal response has been a blueprint for more misery. The fiscal year 2026 presidential budget proposal guts the program by over 25%, slashing funding from $142 million to $100 million, all while dangling lethal options like euthanasia for healthy herds.

Nevada's herds are ground zero. The Bureau of Land Management’s latest bombshell is a plan to yank nearly 5,000 wild horses from the Callaghan Complex using those same inhumane helicopter drives, ignoring fresh data and science on fertility controls or habitat restoration.

This isn't land management. It's a war on wildlife, propping up special interests while ranchers and communities bear the brunt of unbalanced ecosystems and federal overreach.

Demand action now

Fixing this problem requires more than outrage — it demands bold, commonsense conservatism. Cut the waste, restore the range, and honor the law’s original intent.

Start by releasing healthy captives into the designated herd areas envisioned by Congress in 1971. Doing so would ease the $142 million burden now falling on taxpayers and return the animals to the land they’re meant to roam.

Replace helicopter roundups with proven, humane population control. PZP vaccines work. They prevent overbreeding without cruelty and cost a fraction of constant captures.

Then empower local communities. Offer tax credits to ranchers who adopt sustainable grazing practices. Build revenue through eco-tourism — guided mustang trails, for instance — and expand adoption programs that put horses to work without the whip.

Finally, shut down the slaughter pipeline for good. Enforce the Save America’s Forgotten Equines Act to ban horse meat exports nationwide and close the kill-buyer loopholes that make butchery profitable.

RELATED: ASPCA, Humane Society live large on your donations, warns watchdog

Photo Paul Harris/Getty Images

This battle echoes larger fights against government bloat. Just as we decry asset forfeiture abuses that seize property without due process, we must end the Bureau of Land Management’s unchecked grabs of Nevada's heritage. Fiscal hawks know the math: $142 million squandered yearly could fund tax relief for veterans or bolster border security.

No more federal helicopters terrorizing living symbols of liberty while criminals flood our markets with cheap “beef.”

The establishment thrives on apathy, but Nevadans, from ranchers to rescuers, aren't buying it. Nevada's wild horses aren't Washington's playthings — they're our legacy. Let's reclaim the range before the dust settles for good.

Say no to synthetic: America needs real meat, not lab slop



The push for lab-grown and artificial meat is no accident. It is a coordinated campaign to reframe how Americans think about food. From glowing media coverage to celebrity endorsements, the message is clear: Ranching is destructive, eating real meat is backward, and the future belongs to synthetic substitutes.

Beneath the glossy propaganda lies a troubling experiment — one that threatens the livelihoods of ranchers, undermines food security, and hands more control of the food supply to corporate and global elites.

What ‘fake meat’ really means

Plant-based “meat” products like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods use plant matter mixed with additives to mimic the flavor and texture of beef. Lab-grown “meat” is even more radical: animal cells cultivated in bioreactors through a chemical process, then marketed as the real thing.

These companies aren’t simply offering another option at the grocery store. They are trying to redefine what counts as food — and consolidate who controls it.

Both are ultra-processed concoctions. They imitate rather than nourish, raising serious questions about their long-term effects on human health.

Under normal circumstances, such products would remain niche novelties. But with heavy investment from billionaires like Bill Gates, development has accelerated. Gates has argued that “all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef” and poured millions into the industry. At the same time, mainstream media outlets have worked overtime to present lab-grown and plant-based meats as inevitable, urgent, and morally superior.

Follow the money

The driving force is not consumer demand. It is financial interest. These companies aren’t simply offering another option at the grocery store. They are trying to redefine what counts as food — and consolidate who controls it.

Consumers are told they are “saving the planet.” In reality, they are enriching investors and empowering corporations that want to dominate the food supply chain.

What’s in it?

The supposed “better” alternatives raise their own health concerns. Plant-based burgers are not vegetables pressed into patties but chemical cocktails that include methylcellulose, a laxative additive, and soy leghemoglobin, a genetically engineered substance designed to mimic myoglobin, the protein in meat that people often mistake for blood.

Lab-grown meat, even less tested, relies on processes with no precedent at scale. Regulators are barely beginning to study safety issues. Meanwhile, we already know ultra-processed foods shorten lives. A 19-year study linked high consumption of such foods to a 31% higher mortality rate, along with increased rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

To assume that fake meat will escape these dangers is wishful thinking.

The attack on ranchers

If this were merely a matter of consumer choice, the stakes would be lower. But the movement does more than promote itself. It vilifies ranching, branding cattlemen as climate villains.

That message lands hardest when ranchers are already under siege. U.S. cattle numbers have fallen to 86.7 million head — the lowest since 1951. Since 2017, more than 100,000 beef operations have closed, a 15% decline. Rising feed costs, volatile markets, and the dominance of giant packers already squeeze small producers. Fake meat could finish the job.

RELATED: Florida bans lab-grown ‘meat.’ Who’s next?

Photo by Nick Otto for the Washington Post

When family ranches collapse, food production falls even more under the control of corporate giants and investors with little connection to rural America. Transparency disappears. Communities lose their anchor. Consumers end up beholden to whoever controls the labs.

This push isn’t about “helping the planet.” It’s about gaining control and consolidating power.

What policymakers can do

Markets work only when buyers get honest information and producers compete on equal footing. State and federal officials should:

  • Require clear labels (“plant-based” or “cell-cultivated”) so shoppers know what they are buying.
  • Police false environmental or health claims.
  • Enforce competition laws to keep big buyers from crushing small ranchers.
  • Improve price transparency.
  • Help local producers connect with consumers and earn fair value for sustainable grazing.

Supporting ranchers and strengthening antitrust enforcement would do more for food security and public health than subsidizing experimental startups.

Keep food real

Fake meat is sold as progress. In reality, it risks damaging our health, weakening our food supply, and destroying the ranchers who have long fed the nation.

Even if lab-grown meat proves harmless, centralizing control over food erodes transparency, accountability, and community. The future of food should not be synthetic. It should be local, rooted in real ranching, and kept in the hands of Americans who have nourished this country for generations.

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Just in time for July 4, opinion piece suggests giving up fireworks, speaks of 'the conflation of selfishness with patriotism'



Scads of people around the nation are likley to enjoy dazzling fireworks displays later this week as they celebrate Independence Day, but in an opinion piece posted by the New York Times, contributing opinion writer Margaret Renkl suggested that people should give up the American tradition.

"The conflation of selfishness with patriotism is the thing I have the hardest time accepting about our political era. Maybe we have the right to eat a hamburger or drive the biggest truck on the market or fire off bottle rockets deep into the night on the Fourth of July, but it doesn’t make us good Americans to do such things. How can it possibly be 'American' to look at the damage that fireworks can cause — to the atmosphere, to forests, to wildlife, to our own beloved pets, to ourselves — and shrug?" Renkl wrote.

'We can eat more vegetables and less animal protein.'

She pointed out that the lound noises from fireworks frighten animals, like pet dogs, and can cause fires.

"We have no real way of knowing how many wild animals suffer because the patterns of their lives are disrupted with no warning every year on a night in early July," Renkl wrote. "And all that's on top of the dangers posed by fireworks debris, which can be toxic if ingested, or the risk of setting off a wildfire in parched summertime vegetation."

"It would be so easy to find a new way to celebrate the founding of a nation. So easy, at the very least, to limit fireworks to public celebrations meant to bring communities together. When those communities use low-noise fireworks, as well, they limit the stress on people and animals, and they mitigate some of the dangers to local wildlife," she asserted.

Renkl's piece also seemed to advocate for people to eat less meat and to set their thermostats to higher temperatures in the summer and lower temperatures in the winter.

"Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss on a planet with eight billion human residents won’t be simple," she wrote. "But there are easy things we can do at no real cost to ourselves. We can eat more vegetables and less animal protein. We can cultivate native plants. We can seek out products that aren’t packaged in plastic, spend less time in cars and airplanes, raise the thermostat in the summer and lower it in the winter."

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Researchers examine how fungus could be the food of the future, possibly replacing meat



Researchers have been on a quest to find the most sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to meat and other animal-based products. Nature Communications recently published a study that suggested our dystopian future could feature genetically engineered mold as a prime source of nutrition, according to the Debrief.

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reportedly led the study, and they demonstrated "how the edible fungus, Aspergillus oryzae, can be bioengineered to enhance its nutritional value and sensory appeal as a meat substitute."

Researchers were able to use synthetic biological tools to modify the fungus' genome, raising the production of key nutrients and flavor molecules, according to the study. The researchers said that their method brought the substance closer to mirroring the texture and taste of real meat.

The lab reported that fungi could be the future of our daily nutritional intake, as they include "a huge range of tasty and nutritious proteins, fats, antioxidants, and flavor molecules." Vayu Hill-Maini — a chef-turned-bioengineer — has been investigating the possibilities for new textures and tastes that can be produced by modifying the genes in fungi.

“I think it’s a fundamental aspect of synthetic biology that we’re benefiting from organisms that have evolved to be really good at certain things,” Hill-Maini said, who is a researcher at UC Berkeley in the lab of bioengineering expert Jay Keasling.

“What we’re trying to do is to look at what is the fungus making and try to kind of unlock and enhance it. And I think that’s an important angle that we don’t need to introduce genes from wildly different species. We’re investigating how we can stitch things together and unlock what’s already there.”

Keasling, a senior scientist at the Berkeley lab, said that "these organisms have been used for centuries to produce food, and they are incredibly efficient at converting carbon into a wide variety of complex molecules, including many that would be almost impossible to produce using a classic host like brewer’s yeast or E. coli.”

“By unlocking koji mold through the development of these tools, we are unlocking the potential of a huge new group of hosts that we can use to make foods, valuable chemicals, energy-dense biofuels, and medicines. It’s a thrilling new avenue for biomanufacturing.”

However, it is unclear how soon it could be before consuming fungus becomes a mainstay of our dystopian diet.

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