Call it fake or artificial or cultured. Whatever the label, there was a time just a year or so ago when the meat substitute market looked to be growing as fast as iPhone apps. Products from companies like Beyond and Impossible were popping up not just in grocery stores but at fast food outlets and restaurants, paired with positive reviews in multiple publications online and off. But of late it seems the trend is losing steam. While supply chain issues and inflation had an effect, there's the simple fact that the number of those who have tried it and dislike it is steadily increasing (from 16% in 2021 to 19% in 2023), while those who intend to try it is trending downwards (from 14% to 12% in the same time fame).
Yet despite that short-term move the longer term outlook is positive. Almost every expert expects that the market for alternative protein sources will increase. One says it will double by 2028, another says it will grow more than 50% year over year through 2030. The end result is that in the not-to-distant future your burger is just as likely to be grown on a stalk as on legs.
Which begs the whole question of what to call "it." If you stick with the name of the source you're on safe ground: beef, turkey and pork leave no doubt as to their origin. But when you call something "meat," it becomes murkier. Right now we generally associate that term with animal protein, though it's worth noting that the word itself comes from Old English as "mete,", which translates simply as "food." So in that context Hooray Foods plant-based bacon and Field Roast's Celebration Roast vegan turkey are meat, regardless of what four-letter word your Uncle Herb wants to call them.
That kind of battle was recently fought and won (or lost, depending on your point of view) in a similar arena. In February the Food and Drug Administration released draft recommendations that allowed oat, soy and almond drinks to keep using the term "milk" as part of their product names. It's been a four-decade long fight, as the dairy industry has sought to bar the use of the term if the liquid didn't come from an animal. As Chris Galen of the National Milk Producers Federation said, "You don't got milk if it comes from a nut or a seed or a grain or a weed." Put more succinctly in 2018 by the then head of the FDA Dr. Scott Gottlieb, "An almond doesn't lactate."
But just as with its protein siblings, the growth in plant-based beverages has grown while consumption of traditional cow's milk has declined. Globally the plant-based beverage market is growing at 12% a year, while the growth rate for dairy (which includes all animal milks) is expected to rise by just 2.5% over the same time period. It's true that there is a nutritional difference between animal milks and plant based products, and the FDA addressed that as well. They said that if a carton of rice milk contains less vitamin D or calcium than dairy milk, the label should provide that information to consumers. But the bottom line is that you can keep drinking what you are drinking, and not have to switch to oat juice or soy nectar.
One wonders what other industry trade groups will put up a fight. After all, the French won't allow anything to called champagne if the grapes aren't grown in that region of the country, and you can only call a cheese Parmigiano Reggiano if it is produced in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna and Mantua. And don't you dare call anything a Vale of Clwyd Denbigh Plum unless it was grown in that very small section of Wales. Perhaps that explains why they just gave up and threw in the towel when they created "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." When life hands you lemons, and all that.
There are battles still to be fought: ice cream vs frozen dairy treat? Can you really churn peanuts to make butter? What about black pudding or head cheese, English muffins or Russian dressing? And exactly which lady's fingers are in that trifle? On the bright side, at least freedom fries died a quick death, so perhaps sanity will prevail.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford likes egg creams, which contain neither eggs nor cream. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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