We can’t have our steak and eat it too.

Grass-fed beef products are contributing to climate change, according to a new study.

Environmentally-conscious meat eaters have touted grass-fed meat and dairy products as a solution to help negate the impact that cows’ flatulence has on the environment.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

“Switching to grass-fed beef and dairy does not solve the climate problem—only a reduction in consumption of livestock products will do that,” Peter Smith, an author on the report, told Science Magazine.

The idea behind grass-fed beef is that if cows are raised on sprawling pastures, the grass and plants will capture the carbon from the air, helping to offset the amount of methane that cows release. One cow releases about 220 pounds of methane a year and there’s around a billion of them throughout the world.

However, the carbon capture only offsets about 20 to 60 percent of methane emissions, according to the report “Grazed and Confused?” published by the Food Climate Research Network.

“And the carbon capture stops after a few decades,” Tara Garnett, lead author of the study, told New Scientist. “Meanwhile, the cattle continue to belch methane.”

Raising grass-fed cows also leads to deforestation – another big climate change issue – as farmers chop down forests in order to expand their pastures.

Most cattle today are raised on “landless systems” or feedlots. These cows don’t have pastures or space to move and are fed a grain-based diet. Quality-of-life arguments aside, this system is meant to help cut down on deforestation. Although, some research suggests that since cows’ stomachs are meant to eat grass, feeding them corn or soy-based grain products just makes them emit more methane.

Essentially, there’s no environmentally-friendly way for humans to eat meat unless we’re eating less of it.

“Sadly, though it would be nice if the pro-grazers were right, they aren’t,” Garnett said. “The truth is, we cannot eat as much meat as we like and save the planet.”