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Cattle have gotten so big that restaurants and grocery stores need new ways to cut steaks

If you've dined at a steakhouse recently or grilled rib-eye for dinner, you may have noticed a curious trend: Steaks are getting thinner.

As U.S. beef cattle have ballooned in size, experts say, restaurants, grocery stores and meat processors have had to get creative in how they slice and dice them up. Increasingly, that means thinner steaks — as well as more scrap meat and "alternative" cuts designed to make the most of a bigger animal.

The cattle industry argues that it provides cheaper and more plentiful beef from fewer cattle. But there's emerging evidence that Americans dislike the changes to their steaks.