TUCSON, Ariz.— A new report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity found that the annual carbon footprint of beef recipes promoted by top U.S. food outlets adds up to 145 million metric tons of CO2 — more than the entire country of Belgium emits in a year.

“America’s most popular food media outlets are cooking up climate disaster,” said Stephanie Feldstein, population and sustainability director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Recipe outlets have an enormous influence on what people eat and buy at the grocery store. By promoting beef-intensive recipes, food media outlets are helping home cooks serve up climate destruction.”

A Recipe for Climate Disaster analyzed beef recipe promotion on Instagram across 10 of the top U.S. food media and recipe outlets over a 30-day period. The posted recipes called for a total of more than 57 pounds of beef. If their followers cooked those recipes just once that month, it would contribute as much greenhouse gas pollution as nearly 3 million cars on the road for a year.

The report also found that if each Instagram follower of Dotdash Meredith brands Allrecipes and Food & Wine cooked the beef recipes posted by these brands during the analysis month each month for a year, the annual emissions would top 5,000 times the entire 2023 operational footprint of all 40-plus Dotdash Meredith companies.

“These outlets have the opportunity and responsibility to take beef off the menu and promote climate-friendly plant-based recipes instead,” said Feldstein. “This simple change can take a big bite out of food-related emissions and meet the growing demand for sustainable food.”

The report calls on recipe outlets to stop promoting beef, provide climate-friendly substitutions for archived beef content, and increase the visibility of plant-based recipes.

Beef consumption in the United States is four times the global average and is the leading food driving agricultural greenhouse gases. It also contributes to deforestation, water use, and wildlife extinction. Many of the outlets in this report have published articles on the climate crisis and the outsized impact of beef. Aligning recipe content with reporting is an important opportunity for food media to help to scale back U.S. food-related emissions.

At least one food media outlet has already taken responsibility for the climate impact of the recipes it shares. In 2021 Epicurious announced its decision to stop publishing beef recipes, citing sustainability as the primary motivation.