Protein Diet Craze, Thin Supply of Cattle Fatten Ranchers’ Wallets

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20056-2003Dec21.html" title="Protein Diet Craze, Thin Supply of Cattle Fatten Ranchers' Wallets (washingtonpost.com)">Protein Diet Craze, Thin Supply of Cattle Fatten Ranchers&rsquo; Wallets (washingtonpost.com)</a>: &ldquo;Dietary fashion, having long punished ranchers for their supposed role in making Americans fat, is handsomely rewarding them for their supposed role in making Americans skinny. Here on the mountain-ringed rangeland of southwest Montana, in the heart of the state&rsquo;s No. 1 beef-producing county, obesity is not an entirely discouraging word. 



&ldquo;&lsquo;That Atkins diet has really helped demand for beef,&rsquo; said Bill Garrison, 62, who, along with his two sons, raises cattle on 18,000 acres north of Dillon. He is also the immediate past president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. &lsquo;Prices are higher now than I thought I would ever see.&rsquo; 



&ldquo;Compared with last fall, Garrison and other ranchers around Dillon received about $100 more for each calf they sold in November for delivery to feedlots in Nebraska and Kansas. That spells a $40,000 spike in income for the average local rancher, who sells about 400 calves in the fall. It also means that Dillon, a beef-dependent town of 3,752, is suddenly swimming in cash&hellip;



&ldquo;The nation&rsquo;s taste for beef fell off the table in 1977, when a Senate select committee issued dietary recommendations that instructed Americans to eat more chicken and less red meat. 



&ldquo;Almost immediately, to the horror of the $93 billion cattle industry, consumers did as they were told. The year before the recommendation, per capita beef consumption was at an all-time high of nearly 89 pounds a year. Within three years, it slumped to 73 pounds a year. It finally bottomed out in 1993, at 61.2 pounds a year, which represented a 31 percent decline in beef consumption. 



&ldquo;It appears unlikely that Americans will ever again eat as much beef as they did in the 1970s. Although per capita consumption has increased since the mid-1990s, it was just 64.4 pounds last year.&rdquo;