Plant-Based Meats

‘Climate Change and the American Diet’ ∞

February 24, 2020

A new study from Yale’s ‘Program on Climate Change Communication’ came out with some interesting statistics. I’d click the link and futz around a bit, but I think these were the juiciest parts:

More than nine in ten Americans (94%) say they are willing to eat more fruit and vegetables, and six in ten (62%) say they are “very” willing to do so. More than half of Americans (55%) say they are willing to eat more plant-based meat alternatives (products made with vegetables such as soy, potatoes, peas, etc.) and 54% say they are willing to eat less red meat (beef, lamb, pork).

More than four in ten Americans say they are willing to use dairy alternatives (soy milk, almond milk, etc.) instead of dairy-based milk or cream (46%) and/or to consume less dairy (42%).

One in four Americans (26%) say they are willing to eat lab-grown meat rather than meat taken from animals.

Those are the nuts and bolts of ‘The Now’ of plant-based eating. People are interested — when they understand the effects of diet on the climate and its overall taste improves. People are willing to eat more plant-based meats when they cost less than real meat. Subsidies are too important here. Beef and dairy are subsidized in a way that essentially is like giving steroids to Goliath.

These are all good signs and honestly better than I expected. For your ‘TL;DR’, their executive summary is available here.

(via VegNews)

‘Burger King Says It Never Promised Impossible Whoppers Were Vegan’ ∞

February 7, 2020

Burger King, saying it never billed its “Impossible Whoppers” as vegan or promised to cook them a particular way, said a proposed class action by a vegan customer over the plant-based patties being cooked on the same grills as meat burgers should be thrown out.

In a court filing on Thursday, Burger King said plaintiff Phillip Williams should have asked how Impossible Whoppers were cooked before ordering one that he said was “coated in meat by-products” at an Atlanta drive-through.

Burger King said reasonable customers would ask about its cooking methods, and Williams would have known he could request an alternative method had he done even “the smallest amount of investigation” on its website or by reading media reports.

I wondered what BK’s angle would be, and I think this how most restaurants will handle vegan products moving forward. No one will call dishes that have vegan ingredients “vegan” anymore. They’ll either call items “plant-based” or they actually won’t say either. By not using both, they’re free to avoid this hub-bub — but it means it’ll be harder for all vegans to actually spot the vegan items. Bummer. I hope that’s not the case.

‘Tim Hortons Customers Didn’t Warm Up to Plant-Based Meat’ ∞

February 4, 2020

Rich Duprey for the Motley Fool:

Restaurant Brands International may be losing its appetite for plant-based meat, recently confirming it had pulled the last of Beyond Meat’s faux-meat products from its Tim Hortons chain.

Only months after rolling out the faux-meat breakfast sausage and then burger patties to the coffee shop’s 4,000 restaurants, it pulled the items from all of its restaurants except those in British Columbia and Ontario in September, and now says it’s yanking them from those locations as well.

It’ll be interesting to see where plant-based meat products work. I had assumed these would be welcomed wherever they went, but for certain markets maybe it doesn’t make sense. I wonder what went wrong here.

‘Four in 10 Americans Have Eaten Plant-Based Meats’ ∞

January 28, 2020

Forty-one percent of Americans report having personally tried a plant-based meat, with age being the biggest factor in whether they have done so. About half of adults younger than 50, versus 26% of those 65 and older, have eaten a plant-based meat.

Income and age had the largest effect in their report. And most who tried them reported they would try them again.

✏️ by C. W. Moss