How have plant-based foods been re-branded and positioned for mainstream grocery stores?

Several factors have contributed to the current plant-based trend, formerly vegan. Among them are the rise in wellness culture, scientific findings of increased cancers from eating too much red and processed meats, environmental concerns, and marketing tools used by the vegan community. Concern for the future of world's food supply and the impact of climate change are other factors which have contributed to the plant-based trend. Only documents related to plant-based products are relevant.

Research the reasons behind a specific dietary trend for this question.

Vegetarian or omnivore: The environmental implications of diet

The argument that a vegetarian diet is more planet-friendly than a carnivorous one is straightforward: If we feed plants to animals, and then eat the animals, we use more resources and produce more greenhouse gases than if we simply eat the plants. As with most arguments about our food supply, though, it’s not that simple. Although beef is always climatically costly, pork or chicken can be a better choice than broccoli, calorie for calorie.
Much of the focus on the climate impact of meat has been on cattle, and with good reason. Any way you slice it, beef has the highest environmental cost of just about any food going, and the cow’s digestive system is to blame. Ruminants — cows, sheep, goats and also yaks and giraffes — have a four-chambered stomach that digests plants by fermentation. A byproduct of that fermentation is methane, a greenhouse gas with some 20 times the heat-trapping ability of carbon. One cow’s annual output of methane — about 100 kilograms — is equivalent to the emissions generated by a car burning 235 gallons of gasoline.
Methane isn’t the only strike against ruminants. There’s also fertility. Cows can have one calf per year, which means the carbon cost of every cow destined for beef includes the cost of maintaining an adult for a year. Pigs, by contrast, can have two litters a year, with 10 or more pigs per litter.
Then there’s feed conversion. It takes six pounds of feed to make one pound of beef, but only 3.5 pounds for pork and two pounds for chicken. Considering the methane, the babies and the feed, it’s clear that the ruminants do more damage than their one-stomached barnyard compatriots (monogastrics, they’re called).
Comparing cows with pigs, and meat with plants, is often done using data from the Environmental Working Group, which produced a report in 2011 that detailed the environmental cost of meat. The report includes a chart that ranks various foods according to the amount of emissions generated in the course of production. Ruminants are the worst offenders, with lamb generating 39 kilograms of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent) for each kilogram of meat, and beef generating 27. Then come pork (12), turkey (11) and chicken (7). Plants are all lower, ranging from potatoes (3) to lentils (1).
When a food’s carbon footprint is measured in terms of weight — how many kilograms of greenhouse gases are generated to produce every kilogram of the food — vegetables and legumes look good. But when the focus is changed to measure climate impact by calorie, some results are quite different; tomatoes, broccoli and cheese are reordered most significantly. (washington post graphic)
But there’s another way to look at the same information. If you stop eating beef, you can’t replace a kilogram of it, which has 2,280 calories, with a kilogram of broccoli, at 340 calories. You have to replace it with 6.7 kilograms of broccoli. Calories are the great equalizer, and it makes sense to use them as the basis of the calculation.
When you reorder the chart to look at climate impact by calorie, the landscape looks different. The ruminants still top the chart, but the monogastrics look a whole lot better. Low-calorie crops like broccoli don’t do so well. Although beef still looks bad and beans still look good, pork and poultry are on a par with green vegetables. (Which means that a beef-and-leaf paleo diet is the worst choice going, environmentally speaking.)
The claim that vegetarianism is kinder to the planet also fails to consider a couple of kinds of meat that aren’t on the Environmental Working Group’s chart. Deer and Canada geese do active damage in the areas where they’re overpopulated, and wild pigs leave destruction in their path wherever they go. Eat one of those, and do the planet a favor.
Most people, though, are most likely to get their food from the farm, and it’s important to note that, although the chart attaches one number to each kind of food, farming styles vary widely and not all pork chops — or tomatoes, or eggs — are created equal. Unfortunately, it’s all but impossible for us consumers to figure out the climate impact of the particular specimens on our dinner table, whether they’re animal or vegetable.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, organic agriculture’s CO2 emissions per acre are significantly less than those of conventional agriculture. But yields per acre are also generally lower, and that mitigates the savings. Counterintuitively, the strawberry you buy from the farmer down the road might have a bigger environmental footprint than the strawberry you buy from far away, where a large farm in an ideal climate may grow it more efficiently. But it might not. You can’t know. It’s maddening.
When it comes to meat, trying to eat responsibly presents a genuine conundrum: What’s best for the planet is often what’s worst for the animal. The efficiencies of modern conventional livestock farming do indeed decrease greenhouse gases, but they also require the confinement and high density that draw the ire of animal welfare advocates.
Growing an animal as quickly as possible decreases climate impact because it’s that many fewer days (or weeks or months) the animal is here to pollute. Increasing feed efficiency likewise decreases the acreage devoted to growing the animal’s food. Rich Pirog, senior associate director of the Center for Regional Food Systems at Michigan State University, has studied the environmental impact of various ways of raising livestock; he has co-authored studies of Iowa cattle and pigs. For beef, he found that feedlots, where cattle are kept at high densities and fed grain, beat pastures, where animals are allowed to graze, in the tally of environmental impact. (A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science reached a similar conclusion.)
For pigs, there was some overlap in conventional farming and “niche” systems, in which pigs have deep bedding and outdoor access. Pirog says that “the most efficient niche producers were pretty comparable to the average conventional producers.” There’s less research on poultry, but what has been done indicates that chickens raised in confinement also use fewer resources.
Confinement equals efficiency, but confinement also equals, well, confinement. Although no farmers I’ve ever spoken with believe their animals are unhappy, many welfare-minded meat consumers (including me) prefer to support a system in which animals have elbow room and outdoor access; where cages aren’t used, tails aren’t docked and antibiotics aren’t routinely administered.
There are other arguments, on both sides — so many that it’s easy to pick the ones that make the case for whichever kind of agriculture you’re inclined to support. Grass-fed cows don’t compete for plants humans can eat, and animals grazing on non-irrigated pasture don’t compete for water that could be used to grow food (true!), but grass digestion creates more methane than grain digestion (also true!). Grazing cattle on grasslands can sequester carbon in the soil, but improperly managed grazing can make things worse rather than better. Pollution from manure reservoirs on conventional farms can threaten water and crops, but manure in reservoirs, from animals in confinement, can be converted to energy by methane digesters. Then there’s the price of meat, inevitably higher in less efficient systems.
The meat-vs.-other-meat debate is irrelevant to the committed vegetarian, but there are issues other than greenhouse gases in the meat-vs.-plant debate, too. The case for meat includes the ability of an animal to contribute constructively on an integrated farm (chickens help with pest control), the potential for turning food waste (spent grain, whey, expired dairy) into high-quality protein, and the ability to use grasslands, inappropriate for row crops, to produce human food (with grazing cows or goats).
The case for plants has to include their nutritional value. Carbon aside, broccoli beats pork, hands down. And it has to consider killing, which many plant eaters find unacceptable. While the moral implications are beyond the brief of a column devoted to matters of fact, we all have to acknowledge that agriculture is an animal-killing enterprise. Does the rat, poisoned because it’s a threat to the grain stores, count for less than the pig, raised and slaughtered with care?
But let’s go back to where we began, with greenhouse gases. Even if climate impact is your top priority, it’s important to look at the food data in the context of other lifestyle factors. Eating beans is definitely better than eating beef. Driving a Prius is better than driving a Hummer. But one decision trumps every other — potentially by orders of magnitude — and that’s how many children you have. No amount of bean-eating or Prius-driving will compensate for reproducing, and it’s the childless, not the vegetarians, who are more likely to save the planet. Which doesn’t mean that we should ignore the benefits of beans and Prii — or that we shouldn’t have kids — it just means that we should acknowledge that human survival takes a climatic toll. Our obligation isn’t to minimize our carbon footprint at the expense of all other considerations; it’s to try to be prudent, taking those considerations into account.
There are many ways to do that, but no one label — vegetarian, local, organic — has the corner on responsibility. For me, animal welfare is important, and my take on meat is that we should eat less of it, pay more for it, use all of it, and know where it’s from. But that’s not the last word. There isn’t a last word, which means there’s not a lot of room for sanctimony. While I think we all need to pay attention, vegetarians shouldn’t tell omnivores to eat quinoa instead of pork any more than omnivores should tell vegetarians to eat venison instead of quinoa.
Haspel, a freelance writer, farms oysters on Cape Cod and writes about food and science. On Twitter: @TamarHaspel. She’ll join today’s Free Range chat at noon: live.washingtonpost.com.
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Impossible Burger: Here’s what’s really in it

Plant-based meat burst onto the international stage this year, with a dramatic IPO from Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger making its way into 17,000 restaurants in the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macao, and retail outlets such as Wegmans, Gelson’s and Fairway Market. The product label is a long list of tough-to-pronounce ingredients — which meat advocates have seized on to assert that plant-based meat is highly processed. This month, the Center for Food Safety, a watchdog group that opposes genetically engineered foods, called on the Food and Drug Administration to recall the Impossible Burger product from grocery stores, citing safety concerns because of its use of genetically engineered heme, an iron-rich molecule found in meat and plants, for use as a color additive. Impossible Foods’ chief communications officer, Rachel Konrad, called the allegations “false and frankly ridiculous.” She added: “The FDA has acknowledged multiple times that the Impossible Burger’s key ingredient is safe to eat. The FDA has also acknowledged multiple times that Impossible Foods’ rigorous safety testing meets or exceeds extensive federal requirements.” There seems to be consensus that a pivot to plant-based meat would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the animal cruelty associated with traditional animal agriculture. But is the Impossible Burger, which is kosher- and halal-certified but not organic, good for you? Here’s how it compares to an average same-size beef hamburger that is 80 percent lean beef and 20 percent fat. Price: Financials: Greg Wank, leader of the Food and Beverage Industry Practice of the accounting firm Anchin, Block & Anchin, does some back-of-the-envelope math, estimating Impossible Foods probably spent over $100 million in research and development. “When you’re innovating from scratch a brand new product that’s never existed before, that in and of itself takes years and countless millions. Then you’ve got to mass produce it, you’ve got to figure out what machines can make it and then you’ve got to train employees how to do it — that’s many millions more.” Top five ingredients: Calories: Cholesterol: Fat: Sodium: Protein: Heme: The rest: Read More Impossible vs. Beyond: We tested cook-at-home versions to see who make a better vegan burger Veggie burgers were living an idyllic little existence. Then they got caught in a war over the future of meat. Shalt thou eat an Impossible Burger? Religious doctrine scrambles to catch up to new food technology.

Price: Financials: Top five ingredients: Calories: Cholesterol: Fat: Sodium: Protein: Heme: The rest: Read More Veggie burgers were living an idyllic little existence. Then they got caught in a war over the future of meat.


The meat-mushroom blend makes sense

A mix of mushrooms, vegetables and spices adds moisture and flavor to the ground beef in Mushroom-Blended Graffiti Burgers. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)
If you have a question about mushrooms, Bart Minor is your guy. As the president and chief executive of the Mushroom Council for 16 years, he has a stunning depth of knowledge about edible fungi and an alarming enthusiasm about them. Minor could talk forever about enokis (did you know they are grown in plastic bottles?), industry sales (a record $1.1 billion for 2012-13 in the United States) or nutrition (mushrooms are the only item in the produce aisle containing vitamin D).
But Minor is particularly excited about what he sees as the latest miracle of mushrooms: their ability to mix with and boost the flavors of ground meat in foods such as burgers and chili, while simultaneously cutting calories, fat and costs. A sensory study funded by the council, to be published in the Journal of Food Science this fall, showed that consumers generally preferred meat-mushroom blends in tacos over a 100 percent beef filling, citing increased aromas, flavors and moisture.
“You can make things healthier by putting broccoli in it. You can make things cheaper by putting soy in it,” Minor says. “This is revolutionary because it’s so simple. It’s meat and mushrooms. They go together like peanut butter and jelly.”
Clearly, Minor has skin in the game. If chefs and restaurant operators see what the industry calls “blendability” as an easy way to serve more-healthful food, his members are going to sell a lot more mushrooms. But then, the man does have a point. In an industry that thrives on giving customers what they want, the best way to get people to improve their diets is to find healthful foods that don’t taste like a sacrifice.
No wonder, then, that the Cheesecake Factory and Seasons 52 restaurant chains recently added meat-mushroom burgers to their menus. Institutions including Yale, Harvard and the University of Southern California use mushrooms in Bolognese sauces, taco fillings and chilies. Compass Group, one of the world’s largest food-service operators, is encouraging its cafes to do the same; more than 300 locations have already signed on.
Mixing meat and mushrooms, Minor admits, is hardly a novel idea. Beef dishes such as Wellington and stroganoff are classics because the pairing with mushrooms is a natural one. But positioning blends as a healthful and more eco-friendly alternative is new. The evidence is compelling: Substituting mushrooms for just one-quarter of a recipe’s beef content reduces calories, fat and sodium by about a third. Because livestock production and distribution accounts for an estimated 14.5 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, eating less meat is also environmentally responsible.
The push for blending started in 2011, when the Mushroom Council, an industry trade group, joined a Culinary Institute of America initiative called the Healthy Menus R&D Collaborative. Participants, which include McDonald’s, Panera, Compass and Cargill, aim to develop practical ways to expand healthful dining choices.
Chefs at the CIA in Napa, Calif., worked to develop recipes that substituted mushrooms for ground beef. At an early tasting, Minor says, the dishes “tasted good, but the texture was wrong.” For a follow-up, chefs quartered button mushrooms, cooked them, then minced them to mimic the texture of ground beef. “That,” he says, “was the aha moment.”
The technique can be applied in any kitchen. Among the most enthusiastic adopters have been school cafeterias. In 2010, Congress passed tougher federal nutrition guidelines governing school meals, and food-service directors have been scrambling to find ways to cut back on calories and fat and to add more vegetables. With uncharacteristic speed, institutional suppliers brought meat-mushroom patties to the market. Next fall, the patties will be available in cafeterias that serve more than 4 million children in five states, including Maryland.
Corporate cafeterias are embracing the strategy as well. The Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna Va., feeds 1,800 people a day. Its customers are looking for comfort food, something they can eat quickly or take back to their desks that they know will satisfy them. At the same time, “they are constantly being told to eat healthier. And most of the time, they don’t know how,” saysthe cafeteria’s executive chef, James Foley, who works for Compass Group. “They think ‘healthy’ is low-fat cottage cheese.”
And so several months ago, Foley began replacing about 25 percent of ground beef with mushrooms in recipes such as meatloaf. “Mushrooms introduce moisture and a lighter texture. It’s all the things you want in a nice meatloaf, with less calories.”
Even though the Mushroom Council study found that consumers preferred a 50-50 blend of beef and mushrooms over the all-beef taco filling, some fine-dining chefs — many of whom have been using that technique for years — say 20 percent mushrooms is about the limit before the dish starts to taste too much of mushrooms. “At 20 percent, people don’t realize,” Jehangir Mehta, executive chef of Graffiti in New York, says of his signature burger — although the recipe he provided for it uses 6 ounces of mushrooms for 1 pound of beef, or about 27 percent. “It just tastes like a very flavorful burger.”
Dwayne Motley, executive chef of Nage in the District, agrees that the 80-20 ratio provides the right balance: “It gives you a depth of flavor, but you still taste the meat, the cheese, the garlic, everything.”
To make his Angus Burgers, Motley first makes duxelles, the classic French mixture of mushrooms, aromatics and seasonings; he uses a blend of creminis and portobellos, plus morels when they are in season. He finely chops the mushrooms and cooks the mixture twice to release any remaining liquid. Then he combines it with Parmigiano- Reggiano cheese, Worcestershire sauce, oregano and ground beef. The resulting burgers are served with cheese and a few drops of truffle oil.
Neither Motley nor Mehta says he uses mushrooms to make his food more healthful: That’s just a bonus. And that, says Minor, is the beauty of blendability: “The bottom line is that people in America love burgers. People know they are supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables. If we are actually going to change things for them, we need to improve the things they eat most often.”
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Basic Mushroom Meat Blend
Mushroom-Blended Graffiti Burgers
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Can a vegan hot dog compete with the real thing? This company is banking on it.

It’s the sort of boast that starts bar fights. A vegan hot dog, launched in London on May 10, “is identical to its pork counterpart in taste, smell and texture,” its creators claim. But does it live up the billing?
Well, as I learned when I tried the hot dog at the launch, with that classic red-brown sheen, and an appealingly authentic smokiness, it certainly looks right and it smells right. And the flavor? Put it this way: If you didn’t know this was a meat-free product, you probably wouldn’t guess. It’s miles ahead of most vegan hot dogs — heck, it’s better than most pork (and beef-based) hot dogs, even down to the texture and the snap when you first bite into it.
“It’s incredibly important, that first bite,” says Simeon Van Der Molen, founder of Moving Mountains, the company behind the dog. Although this hot dog doesn’t have a skin — in common with classic hot dogs like the “skinless beef Franks” made by Nathan’s of Coney Island, for example — there’s a tautness to the surface, a perceptible resistance when you bite into it, that feels right.
“You’ve got to be able to separate between what is the bread and what is the ‘meat,’ ” Van Der Molen says. “We’ve worked with sensory analysts to develop the product: It’s not just about making it look the same and smell the same, it’s got to have that whole chew, mouthfeel, everything.”
Moving Mountains chose Unity Diner, a vegan restaurant in the heart of Hoxton, east London, to launch its hot dog. Served with caramelized onions, mustard and ketchup in a hot dog bun, it costs 12 pounds ($15.50), a price that, while on the steep side, might even tempt a few committed meat-eaters to cross the square from Meat Mission, a burger restaurant where a more unreconstructed hot dog, called the Ripper — made from beef and wrapped in deep-fried bacon — is on the menu.
The Moving Mountains hot dog is different from that, and from other vegan hot dogs, in terms of ingredients. Historically, vegan dogs have been made from a diverse array of base ingredients: soy protein, falafel or, in the case of Beyond Meat’s Brat Original, pea protein. Moving Mountains’s effort is based on sunflower seeds and coconut oil, a mixture that “reacts in a very similar way” to animal flesh during the production process, which involves a bowl cutter to grind the combination down into a paste.
The hot dog is entirely plant-based, Van Der Molen says, with additional ingredients including onions (for texture and flavor), carrots (for color) and paprika. The ingredients are mixed into a paste, then shaped into a hot dog and cooked. Finally, it is smoked in a smokehouse — there’s no fake flavoring here. Sunflower seeds work well for the paste, Van Der Molen says, but they’re also nutritious: high in B complex vitamins, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, vitamin E and protein.
The resulting dog is a pretty healthy proposition (depending, of course, on how much ketchup you add): Each 10-inch, 5½-ounce frankfurter clocks in at 146 calories and is gluten-free. Despite its launch in a vegan restaurant, the product is aimed at meat-eaters who want “something a bit healthier,” says Van Der Molen.
“The reason why we’ve made it so identical [to a classic hot dog sausage] is to appeal to people that love hot dogs,” he says. “We want to create a product that everybody can eat without that label on there of ‘vegan,’ which can deter people from trying food. This is something that everyone can eat.”
Having launched Britain’s first meatless “bleeding” burger, which oozes beet juice when cut into, in September 2018, Moving Mountains has had a busy few months. The burger is now on sale at more than 2,000 restaurants in Britain, including the Hard Rock Cafe and Unity Diner (home of the Moving Mountains hot dog launch). In a city where the world’s first “Vegeburger” was created in 1982 by entrepreneur Gregory Sams, it’s currently leading the way, but, globally, competition is heating up. California-based Beyond Meat saw its value rise by more than 200 percent after launching on the Nasdaq composite index last week, while Impossible Foods in January updated the recipe of its Impossible Burger, which is now sold at Burger King. The plan is to make it available in 7,200 restaurants by the end of 2019.
Work on the hot dog began over a year ago and has been driven by Van Der Molen’s evident perfectionism. He says he is delighted with the result. “I took it around to a cousin’s barbecue, and they served it up as a pork hot dog, and nobody knew the difference until I said, ‘Oh, by the way, that hot dog you’ve just eaten and demolished was actually made from plants,’ ” he says.
Americans will soon have the opportunity to try these hot dogs. The product will launch in Zurich later this month, with the U.S. debut penciled in for mid-June. And after that? Van Der Molen says he and his team are working on “all types of different meats,” including poultry, a plant-based cheese dog, and something he’s calling a brat-dog: “It’s got the nutmeg flavor you get with a bratwurst, but not the texture. I want to do something different this time.” If any of these upcoming projects are anywhere as good as his most recent creation, consider us intrigued.
Hawkes is a UK-based food, drink and travel writer.
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The next frontier for vegan restaurants? Not calling yourself a vegan restaurant.

is 100% plant-based. It is (whatever your diet is) – friendly." Nussbächer began dropping animal products from his own diet and for the last four or five years has been adhering to what he calls a "compassionate lifestyle." He doesn't like the word "vegan." He knows it can be an off-putting word to some diners. Often, the perception "is that we're giving up a whole lot." That being said, not using the V-word wasn't necessarily a specific marketing strategy. Instead, Nussbächer said it was about "letting the product speak for itself." Nussbächer grew up in Israel, which he said exposed him to a diet that naturally leans toward fresh produce and legumes -- the stars of the pitas, rice and lentil bowls and salads at Shouk. A mushroom pita and house-made almond drink at Shouk. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post) "It wasn't about being a vegan business," Nussbächer said of his offerings. "It wasn't about veganizing dishes." The only thing that comes close to imitating a dairy product is the cashew labneh, a Lebanese yogurt cheese, made here with only cashews, water and salt. "We're not using any quirky ingredients to make it taste like cheese," Nussbächer said. "I'm not using the term vegan at all," she said. "I really want people to focus on the veggie- and plant-based aspect of what we're doing." "I think that while people are becoming more and more open to trying plant-based foods," she said, the vegan label "does a disservice." Nussbächer said the key was not to just put his food on a level playing field with non-vegan dishes, but make it better to counter any skepticism. (Allow us to chime in: No need to be skeptical of the food at Shouk, which is, overall, well-executed.) The occasional diner will ask where the chicken is, but "I feel that we have been very, very warmly received," Nussbächer said. "I didn't know what to expect." Some of the reaction is best described as "pleasant surprise," he said. No matter the label, Petersan said, "People are really just looking for good food." Shouk, 655 K St. NW. 202-652-1464. shouk.com. Related items: Can vegetarians dine in meat-centric D.C. restaurants? Why this chef is turning mushrooms into 'bacon' and tofu into 'blue cheese' What D.C. restaurants have finally changed about the way they treat vegetables Vegetables: Are they the new bacon? José Andrés and other chefs think so.

Shouk is a new plant-based, fast-casual spot near Mount Vernon Square. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post)
Step into the new Shouk and you'll see a number of things: Shelves of Middle Eastern products such as date syrup and za'atar, exposed brick walls and customers chowing down on house-made pitas stuffed with fillings that include roasted cauliflower, sauteed mushrooms and lentil patties.
What you most definitely will not see: meat, dairy or eggs.
You also won't see the word "vegan." Anywhere.
Instead, your only tip-off to the overriding philosophy governing this new fast-casual spot from first-time restaurateur Ran Nussbächer is an understated line on the bottom of the wall-mounted menu: "Shouk food is 100% plant-based. It is (whatever your diet is) – friendly."
Nussbächer began dropping animal products from his own diet and for the last four or five years has been adhering to what he calls a "compassionate lifestyle."
He doesn't like the word "vegan." He knows it can be an off-putting word to some diners. Often, the perception "is that we're giving up a whole lot."
That being said, not using the V-word wasn't necessarily a specific marketing strategy. Instead, Nussbächer said it was about "letting the product speak for itself."
Nussbächer grew up in Israel, which he said exposed him to a diet that naturally leans toward fresh produce and legumes -- the stars of the pitas, rice and lentil bowls and salads at Shouk.
A mushroom pita and house-made almond drink at Shouk. (Becky Krystal/The Washington Post)
"It wasn't about being a vegan business," Nussbächer said of his offerings. "It wasn't about veganizing dishes."
The only thing that comes close to imitating a dairy product is the cashew labneh, a Lebanese yogurt cheese, made here with only cashews, water and salt.
"We're not using any quirky ingredients to make it taste like cheese," Nussbächer said.
Sticky Fingers bakery proprietor Doron Petersan knows something about vegan cheese, too. She'll be incorporating cashew, coconut and almond variations into some dishes at her pending diner, Fare Well, on H Street NE. She's taking a similar approach to marketing as Nussbächer.
"I'm not using the term vegan at all," she said. "I really want people to focus on the veggie- and plant-based aspect of what we're doing."
"I think that while people are becoming more and more open to trying plant-based foods," she said, the vegan label "does a disservice."
Nussbächer said he thinks D.C. is particularly receptive to these kinds of concepts, and "there's no question that the market is right and the time is right," for him to be opening Shouk, especially following the success of such establishments as José Andrés's vegetable-focused, fast-casual Beefsteak.
Nussbächer said the key was not to just put his food on a level playing field with non-vegan dishes, but make it better to counter any skepticism. (Allow us to chime in: No need to be skeptical of the food at Shouk, which is, overall, well-executed.) The occasional diner will ask where the chicken is, but "I feel that we have been very, very warmly received," Nussbächer said. "I didn't know what to expect." Some of the reaction is best described as "pleasant surprise," he said.
No matter the label, Petersan said, "People are really just looking for good food."
Shouk, 655 K St. NW. 202-652-1464. shouk.com.
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Can vegetarians dine in meat-centric D.C. restaurants?
Why this chef is turning mushrooms into 'bacon' and tofu into 'blue cheese'
What D.C. restaurants have finally changed about the way they treat vegetables
Vegetables: Are they the new bacon? José Andrés and other chefs think so.


Is this the beginning of the end of meat?

The Impossible Burger, which is made largely from potato and wheat proteins. (Impossible Foods) That vision may yet be a long way off -- even Brown admits as much. But next week the concept will get an important early test: Impossible Foods is opening its first large-scale facility in Oakland. The Oakland plant, which will begin to produce burgers this summer, is the first concrete sign that Impossible Foods and flagship offering are anything more than utopic moonshots. The plant will prove whether or not the concept can scale, which has implications for public health and the environment. It also has consequences for the emerging clean-meat industry, of which Impossible Foods is an early (and highly visible) player. Unlike Boca or Morningstar before them, which sought to corner the vegetarian market, these companies aim to appeal to hardcore meat-eaters by creating a meaty plant-based product. Beyond Meat, a popular vegetarian brand, has dipped a toe in those mainstream waters with its beet-juice "bleeding" Beyond Burger. And earlier this week, the start-up Memphis Meats announced that it had successfully created a lab-grown chicken strip -- at a whopping price per pound of $9,000. But few of these companies have proved that they can commercialize yet, and even those that have, like the Beyond Burger, still only sell at Whole Foods. With this new facility, a spokesperson for Impossible Foods said, the company’s production capacity will increase 250-fold -- allowing it to supply 1,000 restaurants by the end of this year. “The mission of the company is to making the existing method for producing meat obsolete,” said Brown on the phone from California, several weeks before the factory’s ribbon-cutting. “That means we need to be competitive everywhere. And soon we will be.” Brown became convinced that, given enough time and resources, science could essentially solve that problem by engineering plant-based “meats” that look and taste like the original artifact. Since 2011, he has received more than $180 million in investments from the likes of Bill Gates and Google Ventures to pursue the project. David Chang's take on the Impossible Burger, which he serves at two of his Momofuku restaurants. (Impossible Foods) But even as the burger earned rave reviews from curious patrons, its central tenet has remained unproven. Namely, Brown still has to show that he can churn out burgers en masse -- and that red-blooded meat-eaters will buy them. That could

The Impossible Burger, which is made largely from potato and wheat proteins. (Impossible Foods)
Patrick Brown founded Impossible Foods with the goal of supplanting the meat industry. He believes America’s 230 million omnivores can be made to trade their hamburgers and steaks for a plant-based equivalent, scienced into being.
That vision may yet be a long way off -- even Brown admits as much. But next week the concept will get an important early test: Impossible Foods is opening its first large-scale facility in Oakland.
The Oakland plant, which will begin to produce burgers this summer, is the first concrete sign that Impossible Foods and flagship offering are anything more than utopic moonshots. The plant will prove whether or not the concept can scale, which has implications for public health and the environment.
It also has consequences for the emerging clean-meat industry, of which Impossible Foods is an early (and highly visible) player. Unlike Boca or Morningstar before them, which sought to corner the vegetarian market, these companies aim to appeal to hardcore meat-eaters by creating a meaty plant-based product. Beyond Meat, a popular vegetarian brand, has dipped a toe in those mainstream waters with its beet-juice "bleeding" Beyond Burger. And earlier this week, the start-up Memphis Meats announced that it had successfully created a lab-grown chicken strip -- at a whopping price per pound of $9,000.
But few of these companies have proved that they can commercialize yet, and even those that have, like the Beyond Burger, still only sell at Whole Foods. With this new facility, a spokesperson for Impossible Foods said, the company’s production capacity will increase 250-fold -- allowing it to supply 1,000 restaurants by the end of this year.
“The mission of the company is to making the existing method for producing meat obsolete,” said Brown on the phone from California, several weeks before the factory’s ribbon-cutting. “That means we need to be competitive everywhere. And soon we will be.”
Proclamations like this one have earned Brown and his six-year-old company constant attention almost since its founding. A former biochemistry professor at Stanford, Brown became interested in industrial meat production after learning that it’s a major contributor to climate change: livestock account for nearly 15 percent of all greenhouse gasses, according to the United Nations.
Brown became convinced that, given enough time and resources, science could essentially solve that problem by engineering plant-based “meats” that look and taste like the original artifact. Since 2011, he has received more than $180 million in investments from the likes of Bill Gates and Google Ventures to pursue the project.
His first offering is the Impossible Burger: a patty composed largely of wheat and potato proteins that -- thanks to a iron-containing molecule called heme -- looks, handles and (reportedly!) tastes quite a lot like ground beef. The burger has caught the eye of several high-end chefs, including New York's David Chang and San Francisco's Traci Des Jardins, who have put the burger on their respective menus for roughly $15 apiece.
David Chang's take on the Impossible Burger, which he serves at two of his Momofuku restaurants. (Impossible Foods)
But even as the burger earned rave reviews from curious patrons, its central tenet has remained unproven. Namely, Brown still has to show that he can churn out burgers en masse -- and that red-blooded meat-eaters will buy them.
That could prove difficult in two respects, say analysts and advocates who know the industry. First, Brown and his team will need to optimize their supply chain and manufacturing process to bring the price of the Impossible Burger on par with conventional beef.
Some of that will happen naturally, said Bruce Friedrich, the executive director of the Good Food Institute: all food startups, regardless of what they make, benefit from economies of scale as they standardize and mechanize the way they make their food. Prices will also come down once Impossible Foods has a reliable distribution network. And the company has another advantage, as well: Compared to conventional livestock slaughter, its methods are inherently more efficient.
But sourcing has still provided challenges -- such as the question of heme. The iron-containing molecule is what makes the Impossible Burger taste like meat. Brown initially extracted it from the root nodules of soybeans, but that process, at scale, costs a fortune and releases a lot of greenhouse gasses. Impossible Foods eventually skirted the issue by engineering yeast that produce heme, meaning that the company no longer needs to extract the molecule from soybeans. It can be produced in vats.
It's also not the only uncertainty that faces Impossible Foods. The company's biggest challenge may be getting it to catch on not only with the coastal Whole Foodies who have flocked to Manhattan or Los Angeles to try it thus far, but with average and middle-income Americans. Brown is adamant that his product is not designed to appeal to vegetarians; he's after the old-school meat-eater, who is motivated largely by price, taste and convenience.
John Coupland, a professor of food science at Penn State and the president of the Institute of Food Technologists, believes this type of consumer might prove difficult to convince, even if plant-based meats are priced on par with their conventional equivalents. Some focus-groups and studies have suggested that consumers aren't entirely comfortable with the idea of meat that doesn't technically have any animal in it.
“So much is going to play out in psychology, more even than in chemistry,” Coupland said. “Meat is an incredibly gendered thing to eat. How is that going to play out? Are you picking the light beer by having this stuff? It’s too early to tell if it’s really going to take off.”
The components of an Impossible Burger (Impossible Foods)
We may find out very shortly. While Impossible Foods is not releasing any details on the new plant’s exact capacity, cost or headcount until after the March 22 launch, it’s already clear that the facility represents a significant ramp-up from what the company has produced thus far.
By the end of the year, Brown said, the burger will be in multiple restaurants, including some chains like Bareburger, which debuted the Impossible Burger at its flagship location in February. Those restaurants won’t all be coastal hotspots, Brown added -- they’re pursuing deals in the heartland, as well. Brown has also reportedly been in talks with McDonald’s, though the company doesn’t have that capacity yet.
Such a coup could move the whole industry much closer to dinner tables across America. And other plant-based and clean meat companies are watching the experiences of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat closely, Friedrich said. Their success or failure in scaling could inform the whole market.
"This is brand-new for the plant-based meat industry," he said. "It's lifting the whole sector and inspiring other entrepreneurs and food scientists to get involved with it."
More from Wonkblog:
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Cutting down on meat? Be careful what you replace it with.

To add protein to a meatless diet, sprinkle chickpeas onto a salad. (Gil Guelfucci/GETTY IMAGES/FLICKR)
If you are trying to eat less meat, you have plenty of company. Our cultural tide is flowing steadily in that direction. Just look around — there are multiple best-selling books touting the benefits of plant-based eating; the Meatless Monday campaign has gone mainstream, with awareness and participation climbing rapidly over the past decade; and the word “flexitarian” is now in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (meaning “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish”).
Americans still eat about triple the global average of meat, but consumption trends show we are starting to back off. And people no longer consider beef-, pork- and poultry-free meals a fringe idea: 47 percent of those polled by the Vegetarian Resource Group said they eat at least one vegetarian meal each week, and the group reports one in four people says he or she is a “meat reducer,” actively trying to eat less of it. It’s a trend supported by our country’s top nutrition advisory committee which, in its recent report for the Dietary Guidelines update, recommended we cut back on meat for the sake of our health and the environment.
But simply eating less meat is not a solid plan in and of itself. What you decide to pile on your plate instead of that steak, chop or cutlet is equally, if not more, important. If less meat translates to more stuffed-crust pizza or boxed mac and cheese for dinner, you could be doing yourself more harm than good.
Even those committed to healthful vegetarian options often don’t strike the right balance. Many turn to dairy, particularly cheese, as their default protein, which can certainly make for nutrient-packed and delicious meals. But if you are eating meatlessly a lot, and dairy is your only go-to, you could be missing out on some important nutrients and getting more unhealthful fat than you realize.
Meat is more than just protein — it is incredibly rich in several essential minerals and vitamins, particularly B vitamins, zinc, iron and selenium. While dairy packs many B vitamins, selenium, and other nutrients in spades, it doesn’t have zinc, iron, or much B6. And while options such as low-fat yogurt and milk are lean, a piece of cheddar cheese the size of your thumb has about double the saturated fat of three ounces of lean beef.
To eat healthfully with less meat, it’s important to include more plant protein: nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, peas and whole grains. While these are incomplete proteins, lacking the full spectrum of essential amino acids in sufficient amounts on their own, the amino acids in grains complement those in the nuts and legumes, so together they are complete. You don’t have to eat them at the same time, as was once thought. Just getting a variety throughout the day will help cover you, not only for the protein you’d otherwise be getting from meat, but for iron, zinc, and B6 as well. Plus, they contain healthful fats, fiber and a spectrum of protective antioxidants.
Enjoying them is as easy as opening a can of chickpeas to sprinkle on your salad, tossing some frozen shelled edamame and/or almonds into a vegetable stir-fry to serve over brown rice, slapping together a peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread, making some lentil soup or buying a container of hummus. Thanks to the meatless trend’s popularity, there are more plant protein options than ever in restaurants and fast-casual spots, from bean burritos to salads with topping options like quinoa and sunflower seeds.
It would also be a step in the right direction if eating less meat got you hooked on more seafood. The average American gets less than half the recommended 8 ounces a week, an amount that studies show can reduce your risk of dying of a heart attack by about a third. That benefit is mostly due to protective omega-3 fats, but seafood is a total package with high-quality protein, many of the minerals and vitamins that meat has, and other nutrients.So toss some shrimp or a salmon fillet on the grill, flake some tuna on your salad, or toss some chopped sardines into your pasta.
Eggs can also be a stellar way to get some of the protein and nutrients meat would provide. For just 140 calories, two large eggs give you 8 percent of the daily value for zinc, iron and B6, plus choline, vitamin D and many other nutrients. It is worth keeping in mind, though, that those two eggs have about the same amount of saturated fat as a three-ounce serving of T-bone steak. Nonetheless, eggs are so easy and economical it’s not surprising they are the latest darling of the culinary world. Add an egg to just about anything from a salad to a rice pilaf and it becomes a main course. If you need inspiration, search #PutanEggonIt on Instagram and you will find 21,000 entries. Whatever protein you choose, the bottom line is don’t blindly take the meat off your plate: Think, instead, about the quality and variety of what to fill it with.
Krieger is a registered dietitian, nutritionist and author. She blogs and offers a biweekly newsletter at www.elliekrieger.com. She also writes weekly Nourish recipes in The Washington Post’s Food section.
Chat June 4 at 1 p.m.


Can’t do vegetarian? How about flexitarian?

Experiment with vegetarian meals by starting with Meatless Monday, since skipping meat one day a week is an easy transition. If you’re feeling inspired, try adding Black Bean Salad with Mango Sauce, available in the Washington Post Recipe Finder. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)
From black bean burgers on restaurant menus to eight varieties of hummus at the supermarket, the meatless movement shows no signs of slowing down.
The first real blip of vegetarianism in the United States started in 1971 when Frances Moore Lappé published “Diet for a Small Planet,” and explained that meat-based diets can be harmful for our planet and our health. Lappé wrote about ways to reduce food waste and enhance sustainability, but her ideas weren’t widely acted upon; she was ahead of her time.
Fast-forward 45 years, and these same issues routinely make headline news as worries about our food supply escalate. Lappé’s ideas are now being recycled as a new wave of concerned citizens, especially millennials, turn to meat-free eating for better health – both for ourselves and the planet. But this time, the momentum may be strong enough to make some changes.
Millennials on board
Lappé was only 27 when she wrote “Diet for a Small Planet.” If you’re 27 these days, you’re considered a millennial, the generation known for being socially aware, civic-minded and environmentally conscious. Their buying power is affecting what we see on restaurant menus and in supermarkets.
Sales are soaring for once-fringe items such as veggie burgers and almond milk. The number of new vegetarian product launches has doubled over the past five years.
The trend toward avoiding meat occurs at a time when the toll that meat production takes on the planet is becoming clearer. As people become aware that meat production requires unsustainable levels of water, land and energy use, more Americans are choosing to leave meat off their plates. Annual meat consumption per person has fallen 15 percent in the past 10 years, and when we do eat meat, it’s often environmentally friendly, organic, grass-fed, antibiotic-free and hormone-free (all areas in which sales have increased).
The flexitarian solution
But let’s face it. If you love perfectly seared steaks or covet your beer-can chicken, the idea of eating tofu hotdogs may not be all that appealing. What if you’re concerned about the environment but still want to eat a burger once in a while? Meat-free eating has expanded into something more flexible and inclusive, giving everyone a chance to choose healthful and sustainable meals without giving up meat entirely. It’s called the “flexitarian” diet.
While 7.3 million Americans are vegetarian, an additional 22.8 million are flexitarian, meaning they primarily eat a vegetarian diet, but enjoy meat occasionally. This part-time vegetarian diet has broader appeal because it helps us balance food cravings with health and global sustainability.
There are no rules for flexitarianism, which is part of the appeal. The basic idea is to eat more vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, while reducing intake of animal-based foods such as meat, poultry and dairy. And it’s easier to choose meatless meals when food tastes so good! Tasty dishes such as chickpea fritters and lentil soup add mass appeal to the semi-vegetarian lifestyle.
The health and environmental benefits of flexitarianism aren’t as pronounced as they are with strict vegetarian diets, but there is still merit in eating meatless meals more often.
A study published last month found that although a strict vegetarian diet can help reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 34 percent, a flexitarian diet is associated with a 20 percent reduced risk. Other studies show that a flexitarian diet can help reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, as well as the risk of becoming overweight or obese. Bottom line: You don’t need to eliminate meat entirely to reap the health benefits of a vegetarian diet.
Mixing the advantages of environmental and personal health is a big driver of the flexitarian movement. A recent study predicted that a flexitarian diet could reduce global mortality by up to 10 percent and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by up to 70 percent. And because this diet is more flexible, there’s a good chance that people can stick to it in the long run. So maybe the part-time vegetarian movement is here to stay.
Are you new to tempeh and falafel? Experiment with vegetarian meals by starting with Meatless Monday, because skipping meat one day a week is an easy transition. If you’re feeling inspired, try adding black bean salad with mango sauce and Korean-style tofu, vegetable and noodle stir-fry to your menu.
Registered dietitian Cara Rosenbloom is president of Words to Eat By, a nutrition communications company specializing in writing, nutrition education and recipe development. She is the co-author of “Nourish: Whole Food Recipes featuring Seeds, Nuts and Beans.”
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Stop eating so much meat, top U.S. nutritional panel says

(AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Kevin Clark) The country's foremost nutrition advisory panel is taking a stand against meat: Americans should eat less of it, top experts say, in order to protect the environment. The recommendation could have a significant impact on the amount of meat people eat --- as well as the environmental impact of a carnivorous nation. The panel's findings, which were released to the public in the form of a 571 page report this afternoon, specifically recommend that Americans be kinder to the environment by eating more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods. The panel is confident that the country can align both health goals and environmental aims, but warns that the U.S. diet, as currently constructed, could improve. "Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet," the report says. The group, which has been mulling a number of changes to the dietary guidelines, has traditionally advised the government about healthy eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the group views as a diet that is healthy for humans. The new recommendations mark a major break from the past, and offer a glimpse into what the guidelines might look like in the decades to come. "If we're thinking about the foods that are culturally appropriate, we need to start thinking about what's sustainable," said Nelson,. "Other countries have already started doing this—including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it too." The meat industry, for its part, vehemently objects to the notion that Americans should be eating less meat. The North American Meat Institute has repeatedly questioned whether the nutrition panel should be allowed to include sustainability concerns in its recommendations, and challenged the notion that meat negatively impacts the environment. "If our government believes Americans should factor sustainability into their choices, guidance should come from a panel of sustainability experts that understands the complexity of the issue," Barry Carpenter, the chief executive of The North American Meat Institute, said in a statement. The official dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years, won't be released until later this year, after the department of Health and Human Services mulls over the advisory committee's recommendations. The panel's

(AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Kevin Clark)
The country's foremost nutrition advisory panel is taking a stand against meat: Americans should eat less of it, top experts say, in order to protect the environment.
The recommendation could have a significant impact on the amount of meat people eat --- as well as the environmental impact of a carnivorous nation.
"We're not saying that people need to become vegans," said Miriam Nelson, a professor at Tufts University and one of the committee's members. "But we are saying that people need to eat less meat."
The panel's findings, which were released to the public in the form of a 571 page report this afternoon, specifically recommend that Americans be kinder to the environment by eating more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods. The panel is confident that the country can align both health goals and environmental aims, but warns that the U.S. diet, as currently constructed, could improve.
"Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet," the report says.
Americans, though they are eating less meat than they have in the past, are still eating too much. The problem, which the committee's findings reflect, is that all that meat eating is still having too much of an impact on the environment.
Meat eaters have  been linked to considerably larger carbon footprint than vegetarians. And the livestock industry has been associated with a considerably larger carbon footprint than any other food industry. The combination of those two realities, along with the committee's understanding that diets lower in meat consumption, especially red and processed meat consumption, tend to be more healthful, has forced the committee's hand.
The group, which has been mulling a number of changes to the dietary guidelines, has traditionally advised the government about healthy eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the group views as a diet that is healthy for humans. The new recommendations  mark a major break from the past, and offer a glimpse into what the guidelines might look like in the decades to come.
"If we're thinking about the foods that are culturally appropriate, we need to start thinking about what's sustainable," said Nelson,. "Other countries have already started doing this—including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it too."
The meat industry, for its part, vehemently objects to the notion that Americans should be eating less meat. The North American Meat Institute has repeatedly questioned whether the nutrition panel should be allowed to include sustainability concerns in its recommendations, and challenged the notion that meat negatively impacts the environment.
"If our government believes Americans should factor sustainability into their choices, guidance should come from a panel of sustainability experts that understands the complexity of the issue," Barry Carpenter, the chief executive of The North American Meat Institute, said in a statement.
The official dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years, won't be released until later this year, after the department of Health and Human Services mulls over the advisory committee's recommendations. The panel's suggestions are, ultimately, suggestions, which the government doesn't have to act upon. But historically, the government has incorporated the panel's suggestions, especially those that recommend changes and updates, into its guidance.
If the government acts upon the panel's recommendations to suggest lower meat intake, the impact on the meat industry will be significant. While Americans don't necessarily heed the dietary guidelines ahead of each meal, the guidelines do influence prevalent health narratives. They also help dictate what is on the menu of federal feeding programs, like the school lunch program.


The meat industry’s worst nightmare could soon become a reality

Less is more? (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg News)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to release the latest version of the government's influential dietary guidelines this year, and there could be a major change that accelerates the trend of Americans eating less meat.
The guidelines, which are updated every five years, have traditionally advised Americans about healthy eating choices, eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the government views as a diet that is healthy for humans. But the panel that advises the government is pushing for the recommendations to reflect what is healthy for the environment, too. Given the huge carbon footprint of meat production, making this change would almost certainly entail lowering the official, government-recommended intake of meat.
Americans, though they are eating less meat than they have in the past, are still fond of steaks, hamburgers, and chicken wings. And the environmental impact of that diet is significant. Carnivores contribute far more to environmental decay than do vegetarians. The livestock industry is responsible for an estimated 15 percent of total global carbon emissions, roughly two-thirds of which is the result of beef production. On a per kilogram basis, the carbon footprint of lamb and beef production is unparalleled.
Source: Environmental Working Group
Meat industry advocates have been battling the prospect of lowered meat intake recommendations for decades. But those battles have largely been waged on the nutritional health front, and the evidence is mixed on whether meat is actually harmful to your health. As a result, the government now recommends that people opt for leaner meat, instead of less meat.
Defending meat on environmental grounds, however, could be much tougher for the industry. Several international and government agencies, including the United Nations, have spelled out the meat industry's massive footprint. And now the USDA could be next with new, government-backed dietary guidelines.
For that reason, several industry players have responded critically to the consideration, both attacking the notion that meat production is environmentally unfriendly and discrediting the idea that environmental concerns should influence the dietary guidelines issued by the government. The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) and National Cattlemen's Beef Association have each issued statements insisting that lean meat should be part of healthy diets and denouncing any suggestion that environmental impact should dictate the recommendations.
"The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s focus on sustainability is objectionable because it is not within the committee’s expertise," NAMI said in a statement.
A draft of the government panel's advice, which was released last month, calls for the consumption of more plant-based foods and less animal-based ones, because it's "associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet." Specifically, the draft advises less "red meats" and "processed meats."
Just because the USDA's advisory committee is discussing such recommendations doesn't mean it will ultimately include them in its official findings, which are expected to be delivered to the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments later this month. Nor does a recommendation by the panel mean the departments will ultimately heed the advice in determining the final guidelines, which are expected to be released later this year. But the they might. And if they do, the impact would be significant.
"Americans don't necessarily heed dietary recommendations," said Janet Riley, the senior vice president of public affairs for the North American Meat Institute. "But where this could have a huge impact is on purchasing programs. The federal feeding programs are significantly impacted by the federal dietary guidelines."
Indeed, the immediate impacts would be substantial. Reducing the recommended amount of meat consumption would reduce, among other things, the amount of meat the industry provides as part of the school lunch program. And overnight, the diets of millions of Americans would have less meat.


Impossible Foods is finally making a new fake meat: Pork

LAS VEGAS — Trade tariffs and the specter of African Swine Fever made 2019 a harrowing year for pork producers. And there may be more bad news on the horizon: The makers of the Impossible Burger announced Monday they will launch two plant-based pork products, which they claim will taste authentic enough to woo some of the world’s billions of pork eaters.
Impossible Foods’ new faux ground pork and breakfast sausage will be the first products mimicking a non-beef protein that the company has sold since it launched its first burger in 2016. The Impossible Sausage will be available at 139 U.S. Burger King locations starting at the end of this month, where it will be served in the restaurant’s “Croissan’wich” breakfast sandwich. The Impossible Pork doesn’t yet have a release date.
Meatless replicas of the real thing have taken off in popularity in recent years, as more people choose vegetarian options due to environmental, ethical and health concerns. Tyson Foods recently announced it invested in a San Francisco-based company creating plant-based shellfish, while companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Burger have focused on recreating the texture and taste of meat with plant-based ingredients.
Pork could be a particularly good bet for Impossible Foods. It is the most consumed meat in the world and is particularly popular across Asia. The industry is also facing a crisis as the African Swine Fever epidemic has decimated pork supplies around the world, killing nearly a quarter of all pigs globally since August 2018.
While the California-based company wasn’t motivated by African Swine Fever specifically when it started working on the product last year, it was motivated in part by health concerns with how animals are raised for food in general, said Celeste Holz-Schietinger, Impossible Food’s director of research.
The primary ingredients in the Impossible pork products are mostly the same as what’s in the Impossible Burgers — water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil and natural flavors. The differences between the ground Impossible Burger and Impossible Pork and Sausage product are all in the details, like how the sausage has a bit of springiness to and the pork is fatty.
“The first things you would notice is the release of juices, the juiciness in the mouth, the coating on the palate, followed by the flavor,” said Holz-Schietinger. “You’re going to taste the fat and the umami.”
The company chose to reveal the faux pork in an unusual place: CES 2020 in Las Vegas, the massive consumer electronics show more known for robots, televisions and internet-connected everything, from doorknobs to littler boxes. At a press event Monday at Kumi Restaurant in the Mandalay Bay hotel, Impossible Foods cooked up a number of Asian dishes using the ground pork at its launch, including bahn mi, char siu buns, and Impossible Pork Katsu. At its booth on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center, sandwiched between car tech companies, the company planned to hand out bahn mi samples to conference attendees.
It wasn’t the only food company at the show touting a replacement for traditional animal products. Eclipse Foods was at the event promoting its plant-based ice cream alternative. Dutch start-up Meatable had a booth at CES to show off the progress it has made turning pig stem cells into fat and muscle cells for edible products. If successful, the company could make actual meat without entire living animals. It says it will have a testable product by next year.
Impossible Foods is sticking with plant-based products, and is already working on other replacements for fish, chicken, cheese and milk, according to the company. It has said its primary motivation is to decrease meat’s impact on the environment, which is why it started with beef products, and eliminate animal farming all together by 2035.
Laura Reiley contributed to this report.


How have plant-based foods been re-branded and positioned for mainstream grocery stores?

Schools in meat-loving rural Brazil went vegan. The community revolted.

SERRINHA, Brazil —
Squeezed into plastic chairs, hand fans going full tilt, hundreds of parents listened in the summer heat. The planet was in big trouble, they were told, and the time had come for their community in rural Brazil to do something about it.
The messenger wasn’t one of their own. She spoke with the hard r’s of the wealthier southeast, not the lilting cadence of Bahia, one of the poorest states in Brazil. But what Leticia Baird had to tell the parents was even more striking: Here in meat-producing, meat-eating, meat-loving Brazil, the schools were going vegan.
Baird, a prosecutor in the Bahia state public ministry, had persuaded four municipalities anchoring this dusty landscape of cactuses and farmland to swap out animal protein for plant protein at all public schools. By the end of 2019, only plant-based meals would be served to the area’s more than 33,000 students.
“To preserve the environment for the present and for future generations, we need to take additional measures,” she declared. “Including changing our own habits.”
It’s a surprising paradox of life here: Brazil, the world’s No. 1 exporter of beef — a country where cows outnumber people, and a party isn’t a party without a barbecue — also has one of the highest rates of vegetarianism.
In the past decade, amid mounting awareness of the repercussions of humanity’s meat addiction — from growing rates of obesity to the deforestation of the Amazon — the number of Brazilians who consider themselves vegetarian has nearly doubled, from 8 percent of the population to 14 percent in 2018, according to surveys. By some measures, only India, with its cultural and religious traditions of vegetarianism, has a higher rate.
The carnivores and the herbivores mostly coexist harmoniously, if discordantly. Near the churrascaria sits the vegan sushi shop. In Rio de Janeiro, Burger King rents billboards to tout its newest offering: A plant-based patty with the “flavor and texture of meat.”
But the meeting of meat and health food, conservative tradition and liberal environmentalism would play out differently here in the northeastern state of Bahia, where people eat meat because that’s what people have always eaten.
There would be threats. Furious parents. A battle over science. Eventually, the federal government would get involved.
But before all of that, there was Baird, trying to establish the consequences of inaction before hundreds of parents. The health of children was on the line. The planet was facing an ecological crisis.
“How are we going to resolve this?” she asked.
An exotic food had been set out on a table: Jars of organic peanut butter. Parents inspected it with suspicion.
There’s a question that Baird won’t stop asking.
“Why not? Why not try?” she asked. “The forest is burning, and the water is harder to get to, and the public health — these are very big things. So why not?”
Driving to a nut-butter producer offering an alternative protein source for schools, she shook her head.
In a rural environment, she asked, with little money and even less water, why not remove meat, a product that required a lot of both? In a region where kids suffered from high rates of obesity, why not help them become a bit healthier? Why not save the community some money in medical costs?
She stared out the window at the desolate expanse of endless brown and tan. She was from Mato Grosso do Sul in southern Brazil, which unfurled like a green blanket, but this was home now. After moving to Bahia in 2011, she met her husband, took a prosecutor job monitoring community health and discovered what she thought was the key to sustainable living.
She’d always eaten like a southern Brazilian — lots of breads, meats and cakes. But after coming to Bahia, where the culture was defined by descendants of West African slaves, she found a completely different cuisine, one based on roots such as yuca and yam. All the nutrients she’d ever need were right there, from vegetables — and she wanted to share the news with others.
“I’m now trying to cut out gluten, too,” she said.
While she navigated a personal journey to a healthier lifestyle, Brazil was in the midst of its own. By 2015 — even as obesity and diabetes surged — it had become the fifth-largest market for healthful food in the world. Surveys showed 3 out of 4 people not only wanted to reduce their animal-product consumption, they also admired those who did. That set Brazil apart from most Western countries, where, among groups that face prejudice, only drug addicts are liked less than vegans and vegetarians, according to at least one study.
“At first I couldn’t believe [the numbers] because there wasn’t any public policy promoting vegans,” said Mônica Buava, campaign manager at the Brazilian Vegetarian Society. “But this isn’t some fad. It’s happening.”
It’s happening in the business community: “There is still unmet demand,” the Good Food Institute reported recently.
It’s happening in the country’s urban enclaves: “There is a growing perception,” said Semiramis Domene, a professor of public policy and health at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, “that food choices are a political act — as in, ‘I can influence food product chains.’ ”
And it was happening in the rural northeast, where Baird was puttering down dusty roads outside Serrinha, closing in on the home-run operation of an organic peanut butter producer.
“Why not?” she repeated.
Ariane Souza Santiago Silva could think of a few reasons why not. An intense 32-year-old woman, she directs the Serrinha chapter of the Council of School Food, and from the start, Baird’s sustainable eating program had irritated her. To Santiago, it hadn’t been a choice, but “an imposition.”
There had been no public debate. No vote. Just an announcement: The old school menu — with its pastas and meats and margarine — would be replaced with one that featured oatmeal, vegan bread and meat-free kibbe.
It wasn’t that Santiago didn’t want children to eat more healthfully, or to save public money. It was a question of identity. What Serrinha is and what it is not. And this food, with its exotic ingredients and protein alternatives, wasn’t Serrinha.
“It’s a culture here,” Santiago said. “And this shows a lack of respect for our culture. [Baird] isn’t of Bahia. She’s not of the Northeast.”
Santiago started to investigate. As vegan food overtook the schools — first one, then two, then three days a week — she and four other women fanned out across the region. They visited 48 schools and day-care centers, she says, snapping photographs and interviewing 55 students, 25 parents and numerous lunchroom cooks.
They found school cooks churning out meals that were barely edible. Trash bins filled with uneaten vegan food. Children refusing to eat and going home hungry. Students bringing meat from their own kitchens. The menus being unilaterally altered back to traditional food.
“It’s an absurdity!” said Jucineide Santos, 42, a chicken and sheep farmer. She says her 12-year-old daughter often returned home from school hungry, having refused to eat.
“Most of the products are peanuts! They make milk with peanuts. What is that?”
Food wasted, kids hungry: An attempt to save public resources, Santiago said, seemed only to be wasting more of them. She typed out a report declaring the new food hadn’t been “accepted by the school community.”
By then, she’d alerted the local Regional Council of Nutritionists in the state capital of Salvador, which also came down hard on the program. “Risky,” it called the initiative. “Not compatible with the regional reality.”
The Federal Council of Nutritionists took it even further: “It could compromise the development of schoolchildren.”
Baird produced a lengthy rebuttal to the criticisms, enumerating the benefits of a vegan diet, listing the dozens of studies that she believed would prove her points. But it was too late. The National Fund for Educational Development, the agency that oversees school meals, was threatening to suspend funding if local mayors removed animal products every day of the week.
The battle of vegan food had reached a stalemate.
Was it too much, too soon? Was it the flavor of the food?
Baird drove deep into the countryside one recent day to inspect the quality of the vegan meals at a rural school. Until recently, the cafeteria had been serving vegan food three days a week. But it scaled back to two days after the federal threat.
On the menu were soy-based sloppy joes and oranges, and students were lining up to get their share. The children tore into the food, eating all of the sandwiches, laughing and joking. It wasn’t the hellish experience that the program’s critics described.
But it still wasn’t ideal, some young food critics said.
“It doesn’t have much flavor, soy,” said one student, Alan Delon.
“It’s good,” insisted Leticia Silva Santos, a schoolmate. “It’s healthy, and I eat everything. It’s better for nature, too.”
Baird walked past the throng of students eating, proud of what she saw. The teachers had told her they were on her side. So were the school’s administrators. And the mayors. Even the students seemed to be coming around.
People here — they wanted kids to be healthy. They wanted to do what they could to save nature. She just knew it.
Even if the rollout had been delayed, vegan food was the way forward. By the end of next year, she vowed, the students would be eating vegan food four out of five school days. She hoped that would keep the feds happy.
It wasn’t over yet.
“A good fight is a good one,” she said.
terrence.mccoy@washpost.com
Percentage of Brazilians who consider themselves vegetarian  in 2018, which has nearly doubled, from 8 percent, according to surveys


Who are you calling chicken? Tyson Foods is getting into the business of plant-based meat.

Tyson Foods entered the crowded fray of alt-meat Thursday, with the country’s largest meat producer announcing it will produce plant-based meat products under the Raised & Rooted brand. They intend to release nuggets to retailers this summer, with a blended burger product to follow in the fall.
The move shows traditional meat companies are eager to get in on plant-based alternatives heralded as the next big thing. The entry of these heavy hitters presents a challenge to start-ups and other fledgling companies that have centered their whole business on plant-based meat.
After the announcement, shares of Beyond Meat plummeted about 4 percent in premarket trading. Until recently, Tyson held a 6.52 percent share in the El Segundo, Calif.-based Beyond Meat, but Tyson sold its stake in April in anticipation of launching its own alternative-meat company.
As has been widely publicized, Beyond Meat had the strongest initial public offering of the year, with stocks soaring 468 percent and a market value of about $8.3 billion, but Thursday’s fall in share prices may indicate that the market perceives Tyson as a challenge to the younger, smaller company.
Tyson is not the only big player entering this heated market. Nestlé announced this month that it will launch a pea-protein-based burger this fall in the United States under the brand Sweet Earth. (Beyond Meat uses pea protein and canola oil, while major competitor Impossible Foods uses a soy-based protein and coconut oil.) Other meat giants such as Cargill have made investments in cell-cultured-meat companies such as Memphis Meats, which is said to be close to launching products.
While many of these companies are a rebuke to traditional animal agriculture, it makes sense that key players in traditional ag are angling for a slice of this new pie.
It’s a big pie.
This country dispatches 50 billion hamburgers annually, three every week for each American. But there is mounting evidence that a diet high in processed and red meat may be harmful.
A Lancet study of global diet and health this spring made waves when it called out processed and red meat as “unhealthy items,” along with sugary beverages and sodium. And a study in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal on the topic released Thursday said red meat was associated with increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer, including colorectal. Still other recent studies indicate that red meat is no worse than white meat in terms of cholesterol.
In light of this new research, many “flexitarians” and even die-hard carnivores are considering swapping in a plant-based burger occasionally.
Questions remain about whether plant-based burgers such as those from Beyond Meat or Impossible are healthier than animal-based burgers. While they have zero cholesterol, they are calorically similar, similar in saturated fat and frequently slightly higher in sodium. And in a recent study by the Detox Project, many commercial organic pea proteins tested positive for high levels of glyphosate, an herbicide that has been linked to cancer.
The research firm Euromonitor International expects that the market for meat alternatives will hit $22.9 billion globally by 2023. By comparison, traditional animal agriculture has a global worth of $1.4 trillion. What goliaths such as Tyson and Nestlé can bring to the table are deep pockets for research and development.
Miles from the veggie burgers of yore, these new alt-meats chew, sizzle and even bleed like traditionally farmed meat. Rather than aiming at a target audience of vegans and vegetarians, many of the companies marketing these new products see their customers as carnivores concerned about the sustainability of traditional animal agriculture.
Impossible and Beyond Meat recently reformulated their product to be “meatier,” and cell-cultured-meat companies plan to enter the arena with products that are nutritionally identical to traditionally raised meats. At least initially, alt-meat companies are aiming for verisimilitude to attract meat-eating consumers. Moving forward, according to Kristopher Gasteratos, founder of the Cellular Agriculture Society, nutrient density and nutritional improvements are a matter of formulation.


E.U. considering ban on veggie ‘burger’ and other meaty terms for plant-based food

Veggie burgers and vegetarian sausages could face an unappetizing rebranding in the European Union as discs and fingers, with the European Parliament set to vote Wednesday on a proposal that would keep meat labels off non-meat alternatives.
The potential ban on terms that suggest vegetarian alternatives to meat products has been pushed by Europe’s meat industry. Proponents have already won battles to curtail some vegetarian labels in the vast European market: Soy “milk” is illegal across the 27-nation bloc. Veggie “burgers” have been outlawed in France.
The measure has drawn an outcry from European environmentalists, who say that the rebranding could dissuade veggie-curious meat eaters from substituting a plant-based patty between their hamburger buns next time they fire up the grill. Proponents of the ban say that labels’ meanings should be clear and that consumers should not be lulled into thinking that processed veggie sausages are any more healthful than the porky originals. Some of them also say that people can accidentally buy vegetarian products while meaning to buy the meat-based ones when the packaging is unclear.
Similar bans have been enacted in several U.S. states
“Replacing meat with a cocktail of chemicals, an ultra-processed product, this is unacceptable,” said Pekka Pesonen, secretary general of COPA-COGECA, an industry group representing European farmers.
Opponents say that such a ban would actually cause more consumer confusion because the term “veggie burger” has been established for decades, and those who buy them actively seek them out. They fear that if meat alternatives are stripped of their cutlet-y labels, they could be exiled to the specialty diet sections of grocery stores, farther from the meat they aim to supplant. Further vegetarian innovation might be stifled, some say.
Veggie burger labels are “for consumers who like meat, who want to eat products that they can eat on a bun, that they can put on a barbecue,” said Alex Holst, policy manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, which has been fighting the ban. “For them, it’s important to have a name that indicates how they can use the product.”
The measure being considered by the European Parliament would ban terms such as “steak,” “escalope” and “hamburger” for products that aren’t made of meat. A separate measure would extend the ban to any term that likens vegetarian products such as plant-based milks, creams and cheeses to dairy ones, like “butter substitute” or “cream-style.”
“I think a sausage should be a sausage. Anything else is just sausage talk,” Pernille Weiss, a Danish center-right lawmaker and proponent of the ban, said during parliamentary debate Tuesday.
Advocates on both sides of the issue say that the 705-member Parliament appears closely split on the ban. Any decision would be subject to further negotiation with representatives of E.U. member states.
But environmentalists say it makes little sense for the European Parliament to start the month by approving a world-leading effort to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2030, only to turn around two weeks later to enact a ban on low-emissions alternatives to meat. Meat consumption is among the highest-emitting activities in industrialized countries at an individual level. The European Union, meanwhile, has prided itself in green-friendly environmental policies, devoting billions to fight climate change and reduce emissions. The bloc aims to be climate-neutral by 2050 and is racing to implement what it has called a “European Green Deal.”
“The meat and dairy sector are so scared that they are starting a fight on food denominations,” a Portuguese Green lawmaker, Francisco Guerreiro, said during parliamentary debate Tuesday. “But if we care about the environment, the animals and public health, we should facilitate the choice of European consumers.”
Meat alternatives have been gaining in popularity in recent years, with manufacturers of products such as the Impossible Burger boasting that they are far closer in taste and texture to meat than the taupe, tough veggie patties of years past.
“It’s easier to replace pork sausage on your plate with a plant-based sausage than to go from pork-based sausage to a bowl of lentils,” said Vinciane Patelou, director of the European Plant-Based Foods Association, an industry group for producers of dairy and meat alternatives.
The European Union has sometimes been subject to mockery for a perception that it is overly involved in food-labeling issues. Proponents of Britain’s split from the bloc mocked supposed rules about “bendy bananas” — a complaint that had little basis in reality. E.U. food producers cheerfully adhere to a system of food-labeling rules that sets strict rules about how and where delicacies such as Parmesan cheese and champagne can be produced.
But some of the terms on the do-not-label list seem a bit arbitrary, opponents say. Hamburgers are named not after a style of meat but after the German city of Hamburg, for example. And if steaks can be made of tuna, why can’t they be made of tofu? Nor is there dairy butter in peanut butter.
“There is part of the existing animal agricultural industry that just sees these plant-based products succeeding, and sees it as competition,” said Holst, himself a Hamburg native, or Hamburger.


Local food mogul’s PLNT Burger builds on success of Beyond Meat

Washington entrepreneur Seth Goldman took on the beverage industry with Honest Tea,  a low-sugar drink he created out of his home in 1998. Honest Tea put him on the food map, was purchased by Coca-Cola and made the Chevy Chase, Md., resident a millionaire.
Then he helped shake up the beef industry with Beyond Meat, the plant-based meat substitute that has upended taste buds and Americans’ food habits.
Beyond Meat’s success has made Goldman a food mogul. His family owns more than 1 million shares of the company, which as of Friday’s stock market close is worth about $100 million.
Now he is taking on the food service industry.
Goldman has teamed up with Washington restaurateur Spike Mendelsohn and others to launch a quick-serve concept at a Whole Foods Market in Maryland that offers food that is free of animal products. (Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, whose founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.)
The start-up, known as PLNT Burger, “is a bit of a blend of Honest Tea and Beyond Meat,” Goldman said. “We are incorporating organic ingredients, such as our mushrooms and drinks, along with Beyond Meat, into our recipes.”
The menu includes the Crispy Chik N’ Funguy sandwich, “made from the fruiting body of an organic oyster mushroom.” The sandwich was inspired by a visit to a mushroom farm, where Goldman noticed that parts of the mushroom were being thrown away.
“Instead of waste, we are turning it into food that people can consume,” he said.
Goldman is the lead investor in PLNT Burger along with his wife, Julie Farkas, and son Jonah Goldman. They have created a holding company called Eat the Change that will produce a broad line of similar, plant-based food that they hope to sell across the country.
PLNT Burger opened its first location at the Whole Foods in downtown Silver Spring in August. Goldman said the restaurant has been successful enough that he and his partners are planning to open more locations.
On a good day, “we are making as much as the previous concept was making in a week,” said Goldman, who kept the menu items below $10 to reach a wide audience. “We have our sights set on at least four more locations around Washington this year.”
Sales of plant-based foods have surged as more Americans move to reduce their meat intake on health and environmental grounds. Piper Sandler reported plant-based meat could be a $6 billion to $8 billion market by 2025, while Goldman Sachs estimates that the plant-based category will grow to $15 billion in the United States and $47 billion globally by 2029.
Driving Goldman’s business plan, in part, is an American Psychological Association study that cited a condition known as “ecoanxiety.”
“People are scared and unsure whether their choices are contributing to climate change,” he said. Beyond Meat and PLNT Burger are businesses designed to assuage that guilt by having minimal impact on the environment while also serving popular products.
“The climate crisis has broken through to people’s consciousness,” he said. “It is no longer a problem we will have to worry about 10 years from now, or when our kids grow up. This is more than ‘good business.’  It  is urgently needed business.”
thomas.heath@washpost.com


As the Impossible and Beyond burgers take off, will real veggie burgers go extinct?

There was a strange thrill in finding a veggie burger advertised on the menu of a beer bar in my hometown on Long Island. For years, I had to drive to far corners for explicitly vegetarian restaurants or pick up something frozen from the supermarket to enjoy what would usually be a blend of grains, beans and cheap vegetables. Here was a sign that times were truly changing, yet when it arrived and I took a bite, I immediately began to tear up, looking at my sister with terror: I was so sure I’d just eaten beef, for the first time in years. When the waitress returned, I asked, “Is this a veggie burger?” She replied, “Yes, it’s a Beyond burger.” I couldn’t finish it, so uncanny was its resemblance to actual ground beef. My appetite was lost, and I pined for the days of driving 20 miles for something recognizable as food — as vegetables.
That was my first experience with the new wave of tech burgers, which were brought into the world by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. The former has a base of pea protein, while the latter is soy based. Both have been engineered to resemble beef as closely as possible to entice carnivores to cut more beef from their diets because of its destructive impact on the environment. These were never food for vegetarians and vegans. The Impossible Burger launched itself through chefs such as David Chang, a previously vocal anti-vegetarian, and has now landed on menus at Burger Kings, White Castles and Little Caesars across the nation. These aren’t spaces known for a vegetarian-friendly ethos.
But the increasing ubiquity of these meat facsimiles on menus has created a strange moment for those of us who long ago chose to eschew the consumption of animal flesh: Where are the burgers for people who don’t want to eat anything that tastes like meat? What was once the most reliable menu item for non-meat-eaters has become almost overtaken by these tech options, appearing with trademark symbols on menus, and a fear pervades: Will true veggie burgers go extinct? For now, although many restaurants are choosing to put only tech burgers on their menus, others are sticking to their housemade versions or running them side by side.
For Ruth Tal, owner of the vegan chain Fresh — which has locations in Toronto and, soon, Los Angeles — their Beyond burger has been a smashing success, but it still hasn’t made sense to take their veggie burger off the menu. The latter is composed of almonds, tofu, millet, beets, carrots, parsley, spices and herbs. In June, they sold 6,500 Beyond burgers and 6,000 of their veggie.
“If sales of our original burger patty were cannibalized, we would have listened and stopped serving it,” Tal says. “But the good news is that they are just as strong as ever. I believe the Beyond stands apart because of the pea protein, the meaty texture, and our housemade ‘special’ sauce.” To her, the customers who opt for each are very different, and the options complement each other.
Honeybee’s, a new vegan barbecue restaurant in New York’s East Village, serves just the Impossible Burger, for reasons of consistency, ease and flavor. But chef Amira Gharib tries to make it her own. “I mix [the Impossible meat] with a couple things just to give it our own touch and to throw in a couple of classic flavors: shallots, vegan Worcestershire sauce,” Gharib says. “I think Impossible Burger did a great job with the base, now it’s up to chefs to create their own blends and burgers. Ours is made with beer-battered and caramelized onion, delicious Chao cheddar and our homemade barbecue sauce.”
Nitehawk Cinema, which has two locations in Brooklyn, also serves both a Beyond Meat patty and a traditional veggie burger. Michael Franey, executive chef at the Williamsburg location, says he likes having the option on the menu. “I know there are a lot of vegetarians and vegans who don’t like the texture of ground meat,” he says. “They’re both called a veggie burger, but they’re very different experiences,” adds Blessing Schuman-Strange, executive chef at the Prospect Park location.
Still more chefs are choosing to continue making veggie burgers in-house. In Nashville, at Hugh-Baby’s, run by pitmaster Pat Martin, they blend black beans, onions, cashews and smoked mushrooms to create a hearty patty with an umami essence.
“As much as I love meat, I personally love veggie burgers,” Martin says. “It’s hard to find a really good one, so I wanted to make one that I loved. As a society, we’re moving more towards plant-based eating, so it was important for me to have a veggie option on the menu.”
As for why he continues to make it in-house rather than outsource to Beyond or Impossible, it’s about having his fingerprint on everything he serves, and the financials bear that out. Tal says the only con about serving the premade patties is that the much slimmer margins drive up the cost for customers. At Bird and Cleaver in Fort Wayne, Ind., an omnivorous restaurant that heavily features vegan options, Lindsay Cheesebrew serves only a housemade veggie burger made from quinoa, walnuts, mushrooms and white beans. “I think it’s just not as special if you can get it everywhere,” she says of the tech burger patties. “At the end of the day, it’s still a processed burger.”
Amanda Cohen, chef at New York’s Dirt Candy, will be launching her own veggie burger restaurant — “the market demands it,” she says — come fall and will reach far back into history for her take: a 900-year-old recipe from the Ming Dynasty of China that uses 10 all-natural ingredients. She has resisted veggie burgers in the past, despite serving broccoli dogs and carrot sliders at her restaurant. While she recognizes that tech burgers fill a need for those who would like to eat less meat or were never able to eat a burger for religious reasons, they don’t appeal to her vegetable-forward sensibilities.
“If the idea is to make people healthier and change the way we look at food and how we eat, we should celebrate the things we have instead of making things in a lab,” she says, which calls to mind how forcefully Impossible and Beyond are targeting fast food over small, local restaurants. Cohen says that perhaps this isn’t the most sustainable way to get the population to consume less meat. “Let’s eat vegetables and put farmers to work,” she says, “and eat the things we already know are healthy.”
More from Voraciously:
5 recipes that will help change your mind about veggie burgers
Burger King’s Impossible Whopper tastes even better than the real thing
Beyond Meat’s latest plant-based burger is meatier, juicier and a big step closer to beef