You don’t hear people say “Oh, I have given up butter and gone over to margarine”. Butter has won the public perception battle in terms of human health and nutritional value.

In fact, dairy has won it with skim and whey, both of which in my childhood, were fed to pigs and even spread on land, but are now very valuable food ingredients. Demand for milk is continuing to increase.

The meat, and especially the beef industry has been rightly criticised for not making the same progress in convincing the public of the value of the industry.

Last week, we hopefully saw the beginning of a change. To its credit, for the last two years Teagasc has been putting together an international conference with the world’s leading scientists and industry players participating.

In detailed scientific papers, one damaging myth after another was demolished by rigorous, penetrating presentations.

Overwhelming evidence

On the nutritional benefits of meat, the evidence is overwhelming that its absence leads to stunting, both mental and physical. What I found horrifying was the address by Prof Alice Stanton on the biases in The Lancet’s influential articles on this subject. While just recently accepting their methodology needed to be updated, clearly their objectivity and analysis will come in for even further questioning.

Another myth that was shattered was the assertion that red meat is being produced with the aid of cereals that should be going for human consumption.

In fact, ruminant livestock consume large amounts of biomass that is produced by crops that cannot be consumed by humans, and the main meat producers that compete for human cereals are poultry. I hadn’t realised that 70% of the world’s land surface is some form of grassland that is not suitable for arable cropping.

Livestock play a critical role in generating food and value from this land, as well as generating direct economic value. Well managed livestock systems improve carbon sequestration and soil health.

The breath of material covered at this conference was enormously impressive – with the bovine accounting for about 75% of Ireland’s agricultural output. Teagasc was absolutely right to pull together the world’s leading thinkers and scientists in this area.

Balance is certainly needed. Ideologically biased discourse in this area has become the norm, despite the evidence of very poor nutritional content and often harmful additives in the ultra-processed meat replacement offerings, as well as the failure, so far at least, for the cell-based artificial alternative to meat consumption.