No-one ever claimed that "fake meat" would save the world

The "fake meat" backlash is here (or maybe it's been here all along). Much has been made in the press - blaring headlines like "Why did it fail to deliver?" - about how badly Beyond Meat's share price is tanking (I know - we bought some just before it started tanking!), and how meat company Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is re-thinking its knee-jerk FOMO investment in plant-based meats.

I find it all a bit disingenuous. Partly, people seem to expect the precipitous increase in demand for plant-based foods over the pandemic (and in the few years before) to continue, and they feel betrayed (not that "meat meat" is doing much better). Maple Leaf Foods, for example, were expecting a 30% growth this last year, which did not pan out. That is Great Expectations indeed! Maybe they were overambitious. Maybe the problem is the whole "eternal growth" model that is at fault. 

Either way, Maple Leaf Foods' response is to lurch in the opposite direction, and try to drop it like a hot potato. Gone is any talk about "sustainability" and "moral imperative" and "the future of food" - it was only ever a means to and end (profits) for MLF. 

And that illustrates another part of the problem. Plant-based veggie burgers were hugely over-hyped, and touted as the best way to fix all our climate change woes, almost overnight (not helped by slogans like Impossible Food's ridiculous "Eat meat, save the planet"). They are veggie burgers aimed quite specifically and transparently at meat-eaters, and so, almost by definition, they are not going to save the planet. At best, they might ameliorate the planet-killing habits of confirmed carnivores. Pretend-meat burgers like Beyond and Impossible are not even that healthy (and I still prefer the taste of the healthier old-style veggie burgers like Yves and Sol).

Which leads me to my third point. Such is the hype surrounding these products that they are often described as though they are expected to SINGLE-HANDEDLY "save the world". Obviously, that is a ridiculous and clearly unattainable goal, that no honest environmentalist (or food company for that matter) would ever claim. That, of course, makes it all the easier to claim that they are "failing" to live up to their hype. (This is similar to the anti-renewables lobby claiming that wind power will never replace coal, ot that solar energy will never be sufficient to phase out nuclear power stations - no-one ever claimed that individual renewable power sources would "save the world", just that wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, etc, are all just elements of a responsible energy mix.

So, yes, a vegetarian/vegan diet is better for the environment, in many different ways, but meat substitutes - can we maybe avoid the loaded term "fake meat"? - like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are just one little element of that. The heavier lifting should be taken by nuts, high-protein grains and pulses like chick peas, lentils and beans. And should plant-based foods be expected to save the world AND give opportunistic investors a good return.

Journalists and reporters need to be more responsible and less cavalier in their reporting of these matters, and to stop attributing unattainable claims that no-one is really making. And don't get me started on that whole "fake meat" descriptor...