Fake Meat Is Having an Identity Crisis

When brands like Impossible and Beyond burst onto the scene in the mid-2010s, you’d have thought that We Did It by the glowing praise and fervor with which food media adopted them. Might as well slap a “Mission Accomplished” banner across the problem of CO2 emissions from meat production, all thanks to the supposed genius of some GMO soy and plant heme. 

So much money exchanged hands as plant-based meat substitute companies claimed that their product could char, bleed, and taste only imperceptibly different from beef. Brands like Impossible and Beyond started showing up at fast food chains nationwide. Vegan chopped cheeses debuted at bodegas in NYC (I’ve had one; it was fine). Chefs like Kwame Onwuachi, Traci Des Jardins, and David Chang got in on the game, using fake meat on the menus at their restaurants, or showing up as star contributors to Impossible: The Cookbook: How to Save Our Planet, One Delicious Meal at a Time. Questlove got involved.