The future of meat is… meat-free?

I’m just back from vacation and, as usual, I enjoyed catching up on some reading. One thing I’ve been thinking about is the rising popularity of vegetarian and vegan food. And this isn’t just in restaurants, where the options – if they existed – used to be limited to mushrooms, mushrooms, and maybe some cheese for the vegetarians if you were lucky.

Now, it’s pretty easy to find places that not only offer vegetarian or vegan dishes, but are purely dedicated to these ways of eating. Food retailers have also caught on, and plant-based food and meat alternatives can be found in the aisles of most supermarkets. Sites like HappyCow allow you to search for vegan restaurants, stores, hotels and holiday resorts wherever you are, and McDonalds even serves McVegan burgers now – although only in Sweden and Finland.

So what’s going on? Obviously, the millennials have got something to do with it… my son is a vegetarian for example and it’s a common choice among his contemporaries. But I think a few other developments have also helped pushed vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian lifestyles to this tipping point.

1. The rising influence of… influencers. If your favorite singer/actor/person who is famous for being famous shares their belief in cutting meat or animal products from their diet, that might just persuade you to do the same. When I checked, the number of #vegan posts on Instagram was more than 83 million. Ok, so I’m being a little flippant here – it’s not just about impossibly glamorous individuals and aspirational quotes. But social media platforms are ideal for sharing visual and creative inspiration, which has helped open up opinions about meat-free choices way beyond the old “rabbit food” cliché.

2. Health benefits. Again, our sharing culture has played a significant role here and people now have easier access to information about plant-based eating. In the past, research into reduced-meat or meat-free diets centered around potential nutritional deficiencies. But now, several studies have confirmed that – if properly planned – they are not only nutritionally sufficient, but could also reduce the risk of many chronic illnesses. Spoiler alert: a new diet built exclusively around French fries won’t make the grade here.

3. Concern for the environment. With our population growing and living longer, farmable land shrinking, and fresh water becoming scarcer, devoting more land to grain for animal feed is becoming a less viable course of action. Just last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, restating that greenhouse gas emissions – to which livestock farming makes a significant contribution – must be reduced to keep global warming at bay.

With all of these influences combined, it’s not surprising that vegetarianism and veganism have gained more prominence. More than 200,000 US consumers – including some celebrities you might even have heard of – have signed a petition to bring the McVegan to the United States. With McDonalds’ arch rival Burger King already offering the Impossible? Whopper?, and other big brand/meat-free partnerships on the table, the pressure is definitely on. Just don’t mix up those ? and ? symbols or there’s bound to be trouble.

The consulting firm A.T. Kearney believes this trend won’t slow anytime soon. Actually, it predicts that the entire meat industry, a multi-billion dollar machine, will be completely disrupted within the next few years as more and more people turn to vegan products that imitate the sensation of meat, like those from Impossible Foods, Just, and Beyond Meat, or that actually are meat, but have been grown in a lab.

Scientists are working now to prototype and test this “cultured meat”, which is created using cells extracted from living animals, slaughter-free. It’s early days, but it’s thought that this will be most likely to swing the balance for people who enjoy eating meat, but have ethical or other concerns about it.

So, is the future of meat going to be meat-free? Well, not exactly. In fact it’s likely that these new biotechnology methods will eventually be able to create milk, egg white, gelatine and fish products too. I’m intrigued.

As for me, I have to admit that my son’s influence has rubbed off on me. I’m trying hard to eat less meat, but I’m not there yet – I fell off the wagon and had a steak for dinner last night. One day at a time, right?

Photo credit: Thomas Huston