Why I’m not always over the moon for meatless meat
Few industries rival the devastation of industrial animal agriculture. It is a major driver of climate change, the leading cause of surface water pollution, and the basis of antibiotic resistance and food-borne illness. Its cruelty to workers and animals is unmatched and its impacts are disproportionately felt by Black and brown communities and lower income areas. This industry needs a cure that goes beyond addressing its symptoms, one that gets at the underlying disease: unchecked corporate control of the food system.
I’ve been in this field long enough to learn that there’s no silver bullet to curing the destructive industry that is animal agribusiness.
One potential solution in the sustainable food arena is all the rage: meatless/alternative/plant-based ‘meat.’ Its promise is to replace animal meat consumption and therefore reduce the harm caused by industrial animal agriculture. You may have had a taste of this solution yourself, in the form of a Beyond or Impossible burger.
Or maybe you’ve read about it recently in the New York Times in an op-ed penned by Ezra Klein: “Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat.” Surprisingly, Klein’s vision falls short of the moon, asserting that a small shift using the exploitative system we currently have will be enough. He has a false assumption about the cause of the problem: that people will always want to eat meat. So his answer is deceptively simple: “All we have to do is replace the animals.”
I understand the appeal of meatless meat. As a vegan myself, I appreciate having options. There’s nothing inherently wrong with imitation patties or sausages. But often, solutions touted as cure-alls have painful unintended consequences. Can alternative meats alone get us to the just and sustainable food system we need?
The problem with the food system isn’t that there are too many people who want to eat meat — it’s that corporations have so much unchecked power that they can produce meat however they want while harming whoever they want. Industrial production practices come at the expense of workers, the environment, neighboring communities, farmers themselves, and animals. In other words, the problem isn’t with consumers or what they’re consuming, but with the industry and how it’s producing food. As long as a few corporations dominate the food system, practices will continue to be just as extractive and exploitative as they are today.
And the corporations looking to dominate plant-based meats are companies we already know: agribusiness giants like Tyson Foods and JBS have been entering the plant-based meat space as Impossible and Beyond have become household names. These companies purposely operate in low-income and communities of color that they can generally pollute without consequence. They pay poverty wages, intimidate immigrant workers, allow sexual misconduct to run rampant, and force employees to come in even when they are sick — everyday practices that led to some of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks our country saw in 2020. Why should we assume they would operate any differently to produce fake meat?
We know what will likely happen when these kinds of companies produce meat alternatives. They will source the cheapest and most readily available ingredients (cheap precisely because they rely on exploitative practices). Soybeans, wheat, and peas will come from destructive monocultures, which pollute neighboring communities and waterways with fertilizer and pesticides. And smaller and independent farmers who are more likely to use ecological farming practices will be excluded from this market, increasing the power of Big Ag.
Without tackling the root of the problem and dismantling corporate control of the food system, meatless meats will perpetuate the same harms they supposedly prevent.
Some believe that it doesn’t matter if the alternative meat market is consolidated, so long as we solve climate change. Brian Kateman recently argued in Forbes that near-monopolies in plant-based ‘meat’ are not concerning if they can reduce emissions from the food system. But a consolidated alt-meat industry won’t solve the problem, because consolidation in the food system is the problem. Reducing climate impacts and animal cruelty in the food system are important goals — but they must come hand in hand with justice for workers, Black and brown communities, and farmers. If we sell out our commitments to environmental justice communities and workers to get a partial win somewhere else, we end up with more of the same food system that got us here in the first place.
Klein is right that in light of President Biden’s climate bill, solutions to industrial animal agriculture must be given priority to meet the reduction goals set by the administration. He is also right to say that federal subsidies for meat should be redistributed away from the existing industrial animal agriculture sector and towards more sustainable food producers. This can include plant-based meats, but must not exclude independent farmers. Alternative meats are one tool in the toolbox for creating a better food system — but won’t create the change we need if they come at the expense of our other goals.
This is especially true if fake meat isn’t displacing meat at all, and if companies continue expanding their meat operations while their plant-based brands cloak their products in a green- and humane-washed veneer. This is already happening: now that Tyson has launched its plant-based “nugget,” the company happily brands itself as green. This adds to Tyson’s power — and every other agribusiness entering the field — and removes the impetus for more systemic and just solutions.
Alternative meats are one tool in the toolbox for creating a better food system — but won’t create the change we need if they come at the expense of our other goals.
One remark we often hear in response to these critiques is that we should not let perfection be the enemy of the good — that we are diminishing our ability to win by insisting that plant-based meats produced by the same consolidated industry won’t lead to meaningful change. In fact, a lot of discussion in the aftermath of this article has been focused on the need to find a “middle ground” between proponents of corporatized meat replacement and food justice advocates, claiming that this fight is dividing us from our ability to “fight the Farm Bureau.”
But this reveals another false assumption about who or what our adversaries are. At the Food Project, we see ourselves as connectors and aligners, continually seeking middle ground to create a stronger movement for a better food system. We have been able to build deep relationships with groups that may not seem aligned at first glance because we share an important understanding. We know that whether your focus is animal welfare, pollution, food sovereignty, or worker justice, the root cause of the problem is the same: consolidated corporate power and its license to operate without accountability.
As the Food Project has caught up with our Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led sibling organizations, we have more and more understood that the system we fight is synonymous with white supremacy. So our fight isn’t necessarily with the Farm Bureau — and certainly not with fake meat — but the ways that white supremacy works through those institutions and is able to do more harm. Finding a middle ground would mean Klein and others like him recognizing the systems of oppression at work in their analysis, identifying solutions that instead empower people and communities, and acting in solidarity with the movement they now seek support from.
Without tackling the root of the problem and dismantling corporate control of the food system, meatless meats will perpetuate the same harms they supposedly prevent. Real solutions will heal deep wounds and center justice for those that have been most harmed by the industry — low-income, Black, brown, and rural communities. If we’re going to shoot for the moon, we might as well stick the landing.
