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smell is not quite right, the distribution of “We are not telling
fats needs to be improved, and the color people not to eat meat
is too red. The research team at Beyond . . . we’re simply sug-
Meat is working on further innovations. gesting that they have a
The ingredients of Beyond Meat products new type of meat, just
are different from the Impossible Foods plant based.” 18
burger. They include plant foods such as — Ethan Brown, founder of Beyond
mung beans, rice, pea proteins, and beet Meat
juice to make the meatless foods seem to
bleed. Researchers are satisfi ed with the
basic ingredients but continue to tweak
which and how much of each is used.
Brown explains:

We are on this mission to build a perfect piece of meat.
. . . We have to prove that we can do this because the only
thing that I know with absolute certainty about the con-
sumer is that the consumer loves meat. You know most of
us do. Around 94 percent of the population here in United
States. . . . You know our hope and our dream is that
we’ll continue as a species to go on loving and consuming
meat. Maybe that’s plant based meat. 19

How About Insects?
Plant-based meat, however, may not be the only path toward pro-
tecting the planet and reducing the conventional meat consump-
tion of today. Maybe, suggest some researchers, insect farming
is the food innovation of the future. Some researchers and com-
panies are exploring and developing insects as meat substitutes.
Wild-caught insects already make up part of the diets of some 2
billion people around the world. Alan-Javier Hernandez-Alvarez
of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom says, “Edible
insects could be the solution to the problem of how to meet the
growing global demand for food in a sustainable way. [But] the

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