Inspired by YouTube creators, some people are limiting beef to a handful of ‘feast days’ a year to cut their climate impact
“I love beef,” says Vlad Luca, 25. But unlike most other self-proclaimed steak lovers, Vlad eats it only four times a year, on designated “beef days”.
The “beef days” phenomenon has been popularised by the brothers John and Hank Green, known collectively as vlogbrothers on YouTube. John, 48, is better known for his YA fiction, including The Fault in Our Stars, while Hank, 45, is a self-described science communicator and entrepreneur.
They have been making videos on their shared channel since 2007, and have more than 4 million subscribers. In June 2024, John posted a video announcing that “an idea inspired by early modern humans” – feast days – had pushed him to commit to eating less beef.
John did not want to give up beef entirely, but he feared the impact of the beef industry on the Paris agreement’s limit of 1.5C of post-industrial global heating and the devastating effects of beef farming on deforestation.
