Giving Compass' Take:

• Joe Fassler engages with one of the central questions of alternative protein sources: do we want them? Plant-based and lab-grown alternatives may not appeal to meat-eaters or vegetarians. 

• How can funders help to build eco-friendly products that fulfill the needs and wants of consumers?

• Learn about making meat substitutes in order to reduce animal suffering. 

Alternative proteins are about to hit the American market in two varieties, both of which manage to sidestep the messier realities of the farm and slaughterhouse.

First, there are “plant-based” proteins, vegetable-derived simulacra that convincingly mimic the taste and texture of animal flesh. The best-known example may be the Impossible Burger, an eerily meat-like plant burger that oozes with soy-derived “blood” to approximate the texture of medium-rare ground beef.

“Clean meat,” on the other hand, is real, biological meat. But rather than harvest it from the bodies of living animals, clean meat companies grow it from cultured cells inside a lab. These products aren’t commercially available yet, but they’re close on the horizon if corporate promises can be believed.

The question is whether the end result will be good enough to entice mainstream customers to change their eating habits en masse.

Which raises the question: How high is the verisimilitude bar, really? Plenty of people would be drawn to the Just Scramble not for the taste, but for the novelty, the sustainability angle, the way it completely sidesteps anxiety-provoking terms like “cage-free.” Food manufacturers are even easier to please. They mostly want a cheap ingredient that performs the way they need it to.

Read the full article on alternative proteins by Joe Fassler at The New Food Economy.