A brief history of meat alternatives and culture

“just eat real meat,” they said

Jan 18, 2023

I’m not sure if anything is more divisive in the comments section of vegan food videos than the mere existence of meat alternatives. Last month, I posted a cauliflower recipe with a voiceover about letting cauliflower shine as a vegetable instead of framing it as vegan chicken. And it went viral. As with most things that go viral, an influx of opinions followed. While some responses appreciated the beauty of cauliflower or questioned why I referred to cauliflower as a “she” (I don’t know, she just is), a few comments implied, “Why do vegans keep trying to imitate meat? Just eat meat.”

Just eat meat! What a fabulous piece of advice! I hadn’t thought of that!

Comments like this miss the point of abstaining from eating meat. Some of us miss the mutton biryani from Sunday dinner, so we make a valiant effort to use jackfruit. Others don’t feel comfortable paying for processes that harm the environment, animals, and public health, but still want to explore dishes that traditionally use meat. The reasoning is simple and shouldn’t warrant judgment.

Today, we have access to ultra-processed meat alternatives, products made from soy or legumes, and vegetables that may be treated like meat, like cauliflower, mushrooms, eggplant, and jackfruit. I’m going to leave the latter category out of this entirely because eggplant should never be called vegan catfish. (I had this at a Thai restaurant once. It was good, but just call it eggplant!) Names like this reinforce the idea that meat must be part of dining while drawing attention away from what vegetables can accomplish on their own.

While Beyond Burgers and Impossible Nuggets have been at the forefront of food media about meat alternatives lately, minimally processed “mock” meats can be traced back to 965 CE, when tofu was mentioned in Anecdotes, Simple and Exotic. Vegetarian cooking in China was further developed by Chinese Buddhist monks, who have been in China since 206 BCE, when Indian missionaries brought their religion to their neighbors. Chinese Buddhists used gluten or soy to impressively imitate everything from duck to pork to squid to lamb. It was probably easier to find a nourishing and tasty vegetarian meal at a 13th century Song dynasty restaurant than some American cities today, where plant-based has become a buzzword. People have abstained from eating meat for whatever reason for thousands of years, so it isn’t surprising that they would find ways to put their own spin on the dominant cuisine, the same way we do with our BBQ oyster mushroom “wings” and crispy chick’n sandwiches.

My own foray into Indian meat alternatives started with a craving. A craving for my dad’s chicken curry, but more specifically, the joy that came with sharing it, savoring the first bite in silence, and discussing how this version compared to past versions. Is the curry thicker than usual? How do we feel about the sharp slices of ginger? To mimic his aromatic gravy with tender chicken, I decided to employ soya chaap—a combination of soy and wheat wrapped around a popsicle stick and found in cans at Indian grocery stores. I know it doesn’t sound appealing, but take these lumps off the sticks, cut them into bite-size pieces, and fry them until golden and crisp on the outside with a flaky, chewy texture on the inside…I hope that sounds better.

In India, soya chaap and nutrela (soya chunks) are considered meat alternatives, but you won’t find soya chaap on the menu at most restaurants. (For more on soy’s journey through India, the Soy Info Center has a comprehensive timeline.) Perhaps it is because Indian cuisine has well-known plant-based options that successfully prove that meat isn’t necessary to complete a meal. That being said, soya chaap is a top notch alternative to meat, which got me thinking about how many minimally processed meat alternatives have been produced by non-Western cultures for centuries, yet we don’t encounter them in the average American grocery store.

The US has its own history with meat alternatives, initially driven by the virtue of good health. In the 1800s, vegetarians avoided meat in fear of overstimulation, so vegetarian food consisted of plain boiled vegetables and breads. At the turn of the century, John Harvey Kellogg (yes, as in the cereal) launched a sanitarium boasting an approach to wellness that attracted people like Sojourner Truth and Amelia Earhart. A Gastropod podcast episode affirmed that Kellogg’s meat replacements made of nuts and gluten were described as “all the naughty things but [with] the advantage of being digestible and wholesome.” Meat was tightly rationed at the time, so the target audience included those who did not have access to meat. Meat alternatives continued to be popular during World War II due to the “protein panic,” which was eventually followed by our inefficient mass production system to ensure we won’t head to protein panic zone any time soon.

Are there issues with meat alternatives? Sure. There are issues with almost everything that can be packaged, shipped, and sold at a supermarket. A common complaint is that imitation meats are highly processed, which can be true, especially for products pervading grocery store aisles and fast food chains. By advertising these products as “plant-based” meat, consumers who associate “plant-based” with “healthy” may believe these mock meats are more nutritious than they are.

There are also questions of who profits and what values these products promote. It is problematic that big meat companies like Tyson and Smithfield profit from their plant-based products while continuing to fuel the horrific factory farming system. Tyson’s spokeswoman openly admitted that the company’s plant-based products addressed a business opportunity. The presence of companies like Tyson in the movement scars the movement’s values and overshadows the harm these companies cause. “We’ll continue to kill hundreds of thousands of animals but it’s ok because we have plant-based products too!”

Prior to writing this, I didn’t think twice about meat alternatives. I didn’t grow up eating beef or pork, so I wasn’t interested in trying the Beyond Burger or anything. In my mind, any meatless meal was a good thing. This FoodPrint report challenged my perspective:

“If these products could deliver on all fronts — be better for animal welfare, better for the environment and better for our health, that would be something to celebrate. So far, all they have demonstrated is that they are better on GHG emissions than their industrial meat counterparts, but they have not demonstrated that they are better than regeneratively raised livestock or a diet of whole grains and legumes — and they rely on the same system of monocultured GMO crops that have proven to be bad for our soils and waterways…These products seem like an appealingly practical solution to America’s seemingly unbreakable obsession with industrial meat: they’re easy to market because they meet popular tastes.”

Despite these critiques, I still believe that the acceptance of these newer alternatives is a step. They are miles away from a perfect solution for animals, workers, and the environment, but still a step. Next steps? Maybe learning from the long history of protein-rich foods, some of which are thought of as ingredients rather than meat substitutes. Assuming the next steps don’t involve telling people to “just eat meat” or referring to cauliflower as “vegan chicken,” I think tomorrow will be better.