The culture war pitting plant-based meat against its animal-based counterpart rages on, it seems. Plant-based alternatives are called “ultra-processed,” “fake” and “synthetic” — juxtaposed against factory farmed animal meat that’s touted as “all natural” and “single ingredient.” How did we get here?

One recent source of this conflict — and the subsequent backlash to plant-based meat — can be traced back to meat industry manipulation. A Super Bowl commercial and a New York Times ad, paid for by a public relations firm used by the meat industry, planted seeds of doubt about “scary” ingredients in plant-based meat back in 2020.

Sales of Beyond and Impossible burgers went on to plateau — for a number of reasons that food industry media continues to hash out. But even as the debate over “unnatural” and high-tech plant-based products persists, the assumed naturalness of animal products appears to be flying under the radar. It shouldn’t.

Ultimately, there is nothing natural about modern meat, dairy and eggs. Their environmental toll on nature is indisputable — wild ecosystems that are essential for keeping climate pollution and pandemics in check are being destroyed by industrial meat. It’s modern meat that’s the threat to nature, not plant-based burgers. Yet somehow, that’s not what we’re talking about.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here