



The veggie burgers of yesteryear were served with a hacky sack on the side and the mental image of a long-haired vagabond consumer. While that association is largely overblown (it made me feel like a Nixon-era politician to even write that description), it’s no stretch to say that the new clientele for meat alternatives smells more of Silicon Valley than sandalwood.





This is largely due to changing attitudes about health, the environment, and animal welfare. Concerns about these pressing issues have moved out of the counterculture and into the mainstream, putting industrial animal agriculture under the microscope where we’re seeing some pretty unsavory things. Knowledge about the enormous consequences of our reliance on this unsustainable system has fueled diversity in the meat-free marketplace.





Veggie burgers aren’t just homemade endeavors anymore; they take up significant space in the grocery store. It took me about 20 minutes yesterday just to decide if I wanted Tofurky’s spicy black bean patty, Dr. Praeger’s kale burger, or Hilary’s kimchi burger.





(I bought them all, no regrets.)





But in more and more instances, meat alternatives are even finding their way into the meat counter to directly compete with their unsustainable counterparts. These options embody a new wave of products that aren’t just “alternatives”; taste-identical and price-competitive, they actually seek to replace meat. These remarkable new products leverage advanced food science and tech to craft incredibly meaty plant-protein blends. The scientists at Impossible Foods even found a way to isolate heme iron—the protein that gives meat its juicy quality—from plant sources to make their Impossible Burger “bleed.”





That in itself brings up an interesting question: As Eater posed it in a recent article , “Why do people want a veggie burger that bleeds?”





This doesn’t sound like the desire of veg-loving hippies, and it’s not. These products are being created in response to an even greater need. It’s not about making a personal statement anymore. It’s about ending the scourge of industrial animal agriculture. To do that, everyone needs to get on board, even your friend who adds bacon to every meal.





But let’s be real, you’ve talked to him about the ethics, and he’s still not willing to make the dietary changes. What if, instead of continuing to try to win him over for the cause, you were able to give him the choice between two equally delicious burgers—one that contributes to the biggest global problems of our time, and one that is part of the solution? The choice would be a no-brainer. He would finally have an answer to his cognitive dissonance and you could actually save money by cooking together for once. Tech innovators are working on making the choice just that easy, stepping in where activism alone has fallen short.





At the pinnacle of this new-wave innovation is the field of clean meat—that is, meat grown in a culture without the need for animal slaughter, environmental devastation, or hormone or antibiotic use. This means your friend will soon have the choice between two options that are not just taste-identical, but also actually bioidentical.





Talk about an elegant solution.





Really though—talk about it with everyone you know. Clean meat and the new wave of meat alternatives can and will change the world, and everyone should be shouting it from the mountain tops, whether you align with the hippies or the techies.





To learn more about The Good Food Institute’s work to end conventional animal agriculture forever, visit our website

Meat alternatives are experiencing a cultural renaissance, and the vibe of the movement is brand-new.