Craving a steak but you just don’t have the cash? Have chicken, eggs or salmon instead!
That’s what U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recommended this week during an interview with Benny Johnson on his podcast, “The Benny Show”.
“If it is too expensive – unlike fuel, Benny – you can eat chicken, pork, salmon, eggs,” Rollins said. “There are other sources of really good protein, and all of those prices are coming down as well.”
She laid the blame for higher beef prices on former President Joe Biden’s administration and Democrats who are concerned with the environmental impact of the cattle industry. In 2022, during Biden’s tenure the USDA noted that meat-for-at-home-consumption prices went up 14.5% from 2019 to 2020. That was amid the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the final year of Trump’s first term in office.
“Beef is so expensive right now because drought, high grain prices, inflation and rising interest rates made cattle farming a costly endeavor in recent years,” said NerdWallet earlier this month. “To deal with rising operating costs, many U.S. cattle farmers reduced the size of their herds – and some got out of the business altogether. As a result, the U.S. cattle inventory is the smallest it’s been since 1951.”
Rollins explained that increasing beef production can be a long process.
“A mama cow is born, right? It takes her two years to get to the point where she can reproduce. She grows a calf. It takes two more years to get that calf to slaughter. It just takes a long time to rebuild the herd,” she told Johnson. “While you have the New World screwworm, we had to close the ports along the border of Mexico for that parasite. We’ve now begun to reopen.”
Even as beef prices have risen over the past seven years, demand remains high. Rollins attributed that in part to the Trump administration’s new Make America Healthy Again food pyramid, which emphasizes beef and protein consumption.
“Consumers have maintained a healthy appetite for it, even amid rising prices,” said NerdWallet of beef. “That combination of low supply and steady demand has pushed prices higher.”
NerdWallet also pointed out that Trump’s tariffs also provide a “wrinkle” in the beef prices story. It said many of the tariffs included beef and other agricultural products imported into the U.S. While Rollins said beef prices should be coming down soon – and the USDA just announced a new $50 million program to help expand meat inspection – NerdWallet said they could actually keep rising.
Now, when it comes to the chicken, eggs and salmon Rollins recommended as a substitute – those prices were up too as of this Tuesday, according to Trading Economics. Overall, the latest Consumer Price Index Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the food index increased in August compared to July and that it increased 2.7% over the last year, with the index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs increasing 1.1% over the last 12 months.
“Four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in August,” said the BLS. “The meats, poultry, fish, and eggs index increased 0.1% over the month, as the eggs index rose 2.9%.”
Rollins has made similar comments before encouraging Americans to opt for other foods In January, she said that “over 1,000 simulations,” indicated that people could eat a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli and “a corn tortilla and one other thing,” for $3, The Hill reported.
As we get closer to the midterm elections in November, affordability has continued to be a top issue for voters. In her interview with Johnson, Rollins mentioned fuel prices – gas prices were above $4 per gallon nationally for the better part of the summer and were near $4.50 Tuesday (more than $1 more than this time last year), per AAA data.
With higher gas prices, it becomes more expensive for food to be transported. It even becomes more expensive to drive to the grocery store and pick up chicken, eggs or salmon.
Since Trump began his second term, eggs prices have fallen from heights so great that people were actually stealing cartons, according to CNN. Under overall inflation, however, a recent NBC poll shows that Americans believe that Trump has hurt the economy.
In addition to food prices, Rollins discussed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help people in need get food. She said that the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative found many causes of SNAP fraud and said that they found “100,000 people driving luxury vehicles.”
Musk himself has called DOGE a “disappointment” and Snopes said in May that it was not able to verify claims about SNAP recipients and luxury vehicles.
“So, we’ve moved almost 6 million people off of the snap program,” Rollins said. “Some of its welfare to work, some of it’s getting rid of illegals, and some of it is the fraud. But 6 million out of 40-plus million, that's a pretty good chunk, and I’m really proud of that work.”
