Martin Reiter - Meat Mythbusters (Bonus Episode)

This is deep dive into common misconceptions about red meat, methane emissions from cows, and the feasibility of transitioning to grass-fed beef production. We discuss the health impacts of red meat based on the cow's diet, the actual environmental effects of methane from ruminants, and busts myths surrounding CAFO operations and land use. 

Cows. Methane. Climate.
The debate is louder than ever — and still full of myths.
That why, after recording a podcast on why building a $100B home for regenerative brands is key, with Martin Reiter, we went for a Meat MythBusters episode in which we unpack some uncomfortable truths that rarely make it into headlines:

📌 The impact of red meat on health and climate depends entirely on how cows are raised
📌 Methane from ruminants is fundamentally different from fossil CO₂, different cycle, different impact
📌 Pasture-fed cattle can regenerate soils, increase biodiversity, and recycle carbon
📌 The real land-use inefficiency isn’t grazing, it’s how much land we dedicate to corn, soy, and biofuels
📌 A transition to grass-fed beef is not only possible, it may be environmentally smarter

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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Format
• 0:19 Red Meat Health Claim Reframed
• 1:10 Methane Cycles Versus Carbon
• 3:06 CO2e Confusion And Fossil Methane
• 3:31 Can All Beef Be Grass-Fed
• 4:13 Land Use, Ethanol, And Biodiversity
• 5:36 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to Meet Mythbusters with Martin. This is an experiment. We're gonna see what comes up, but we wanted to double-click on some of the things we discussed in the main podcast. If you want to listen to that, please go just have it in a more concise and video first format. So we start with welcome, Martin, first of all, to this uh Mythbuster show with Martin. And start with the first one, which is red meat is bad for you, right?

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

No, um red meat is bad for you if what the cow ate is bad for you. If the cow was finished on corn rations, the cow has an omega-6 to three balance of more than 10 to 1, which is a constant proven unequivocal driver of inflammation in our bodies. If the cow was eating what it's supposed to eat, which is high quality pasture, it has an omega 6 to 3 ratio in line with that of white fish. And it's actually one of the highest nutrient health foods that we have in the whole world.

SPEAKER_01: 0:59

And there's so many follow-up questions they want to ask, but as we're doing quick, that's not the case. There are many resources if you want to read more into it, but just to keep it concise, we're gonna go to the next one, which is methane. Methane, and it's specifically methane coming from ruminants in this case, cows and sheepment, let's say, more. We're focusing a lot on cow burps and farts, apparently in the world. Methane is a big problem, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22

Methane on a global level is a problem. This is a very powerful greenhouse gas. Methane from ruminant emissions, I would argue, is not a problem for the simple reasons that methane has a 12-year atmospheric cycle time. That means that within 12 years it becomes part of the ecosystem of your atmospheric cycle. And so if your ruminant stock stayed constant within that period, uh these emissions are kind of priced in and do not drive incremental global warming. And that is a very, very stark difference to carbon. Carbon has a cycle time of hundreds of years. That means every additional increment of carbon that gets put out compounds in our atmosphere, versus as long as we keep ruminant stock constant, methane from ruminant emissions is not driving incremental global warming. And that is unequivocally agreed by the IPCC.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22

The stock has been the same, like the quantity of ruminants we have globally has been relatively similar over the last decades, right?

SPEAKER_00: 2:30

Yes, yes. In in the Western world, it has decreased slightly, and in Brazil and Asia it has increased slightly. I think in total we are maybe up eight percent. Um, so there's a slight incremental part of that. But what I'm saying is we absolutely use the same line of argument for two things that are absolutely different. The one with a 12-year cycle time, the other one that compounds indefinitely.

SPEAKER_01: 2:55

And that's probably the issue with CO2 equivalent, the little E you always see. We put everything in one bucket, which sort of dilutes it immediately. But that doesn't mean methane isn't a problem, but most methane coming into the atmosphere comes from fossil fuel flaring leaks, etc., which absolutely should be stopped tomorrow or yesterday.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

The the biggest source of avoidable methane emissions comes from oil and gas exploration.

SPEAKER_01: 3:23

So we should talk about that more, which we'll do in another one. Then a big one we tackled or have discussed so many times. Okay, this is all interesting, but the amount of animals we now have inside or in KAFA operations, which is also sort of outside if you look at those pictures of some of the operations, but let's say in concentrated animal operations, they can never be outside. We don't have the space, even if we wanted to, we have to drastically reduce our protein intake from animals to be able to have these animals outside on grass, on pasture, etc.

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

That's not true. Let's just use the US for now. We can absolutely migrate the entire beef production in the US to grass-fed only. The reasons are that we have two sources of ultra-high productivity land that are currently not used for food production or indirect food production. The one is the land used for corn and beans is the highest quality US land that then is used to feed cows. We could just raise cows on that land. And often what is happening is that marginal land, low productivity land, that currently houses a lot of cattle, is used to extrapolate and say, oh, but we don't have enough land on that marginal land. But the US has some very non-marginal land, very, very high productivity land. And John Kempf did a lot of that work. There is a very good case example on Boise, Idaho, very famous one. So you can have tremendous productivity on that land. The second source of that land is used for ethanol or for biodiesel. That's probably one of the worst ideas we've ever had. We are putting more fossil energy into a liter of biodiesel than we get out of it. So I leave it like that, but it's a terrible trade. And we could raise cattle, restore biodiversity. And I think the most important part of that is like we are putting a tremendous amount of fossil fuel into growing corn. And that fossil fuel is carbon that compounds in the atmosphere. And if we raise cattle, cattle fertilizes its own soil, has perennial pasture, you don't need any tillage, you restore biodiversity, you create healthier food, and all of that creates a tremendous positive energy balance. So it's kind of a no brainer.

SPEAKER_01: 5:39

I think that's a perfect wrap up of this episode of Meet Mythbusters with Martin. Thank you so much, and we hope to see you at the next one.