Why was the demand for beef so high in eastern US after civil war?

The demand for beef in the eastern United States after the Civil War was not particularly high. In fact, the opposite was true. The war had devastated the Southern economy, and many former slaves were now sharecroppers or tenant farmers who could not afford to eat beef regularly. Additionally, the war had disrupted the transportation of cattle from the West to the East, making beef even more expensive. As a result, the demand for beef in the eastern United States was actually lower after the Civil War than it had been before.