Eat all about it, How you keep'em down on the farm, and more morsels

Welcome to Livin' on the Veg, a weekly newsletter that highlights updates from the world of plant-based food (Relax — it’ll be fun!). If you like what you’re reading, make sure to subscribe using the button above. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

They don't call it disruption for nothing. Vegan news site LiveKindly is getting into the vegan food business, Adele Peters reports for Fast Company: "The newly launched LiveKindly Co., a 'collective' of food brands with $200 million in funding, says that it aims to become the largest player in the plant-based food space." Their strategy includes "targeting plant-based chicken, where it says it sees a gap in the market" and moving towards 'kitchen recognizable" ingredients to counter the stigma that plant-based foods are ultra processed.

Disruption is the mother's milk of invention: Even in the heyday of the ubiquitous "Got Milk" campaign, milk wasn't that great a business, Marian Bull (no kidding) reminds us in the New York Times. But if you build it, they will come. Agritourist destinations, that is. "They’re opening their homes for farm stays on Airbnb and renting out land on Hipcamp," Bull writes. "They’re hosting tours and classes for urbanites who view their professions as picturesque pastimes. For many farmers, turning their land into a destination has been life sustaining."

Factoid [?]

"It took a few decades, but after a long while waiting on the sidelines, beans are having a moment," Chase Purdy informs us in Quartz. "Over the last five years, bean and lentil consumption in the US increased by 73% to a combined 14.5 pounds per capita."

McDonald's still isn't in the plant-based high-speed lane but they continue to "innovate" with beef. Behold: The Double Big Mac, "literally two Big Macs, or four patties all stacked together," writes Aimee Levitt for The Takout, "so you’ll have to open your mouth extra wide, like Dagwood Bumstead. Or maybe they’ll teach you how to disconnect your jaw." To make up for this excess McDonald's has also introduced a beef offset, The Little Mac, a single-patty Big Mac, otherwise known as "a cheeseburger." But, last LOTV heard, even though McDonald was a Big Burger pioneer which introduced a veggie patty in India in 2012, the PLT was still finding itself in the Great White North.

I somehow missed this back in January, but a taste-test by Sam Rutherford for Gizmodo is letting me back into the story of Trader Joe's introducing its own private-label veggie patty, aimed straight at the buyers of Beyond and Impossible (it is also pea-based with "a heavy dose of beets"). FWIW Rutherford still prefers Impossible: "A TJ’s patty tastes like what a Boca Burger wishes it could be: a great plant-based burger. But it ain’t meat." That said, it's the cheapest of the three and my own experience with TJ food is that they really, really try to get it right.

I hope whatever you eat you're taking care of yourself, your families, and each other. Food is a wonderful way to be happy, and to socialize. So break bread with loved ones and be extra kind and generous to the folks delivering your takeout.