Peter's Memo: I Can't Believe It's Not Meat

They say you can gauge the success of your efforts by how vehemently your opponents react. By that criterion, alternative meats are on a roll.

A fledgling sector that has morphed into an $800-million-a-year darling of Wall Street, the alternative-meat industry is now on the receiving end of some serious pushback from cattle ranchers and others.

Some of the dustup is about naming rights: Can plant-based meats—especially the breakout stars Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger—call themselves “meat”?

The cattle ranchers want to confine “meat” to foods derived from actual animals. (Meat made from cells in a lab raises another set of questions about naming... and safety.)

The fuss over names is playing out in Congress, the states, the courts, and the all-important court of public opinion.

The Real MEAT Act of 2019—which has been introduced in both the House and Senate—would require alt-meats to carry the moniker “imitation.” The bills are currently languishing in their respective committees.

Under the guise of protecting consumers from deceptive labeling, a number of state legislatures have introduced or passed similar bills.

But it’s not a slam dunk for the meat industry. A federal judge blocked one state law when she ruled that Arkansas cannot ban the term “meat” or similar terms on Tofurky products.

In her preliminary ruling, Judge Kristine Baker reasoned that consumers will understand that Tofurky products are not derived from animals because labels prominently feature words like “vegetarian,” “vegan,” or “plant based” on the front of the package.

We agree.

While CSPI supports legitimate efforts to protect consumers from deceptive labels and ads, these bills are designed to protect the meat industry from competitors.

Into the fracas has waded the ill-named Center for Consumer Freedom, which cut its teeth running interference for the tobacco industry but has diversified to support restaurant, alcohol, and food company interests.

In October, the center took out a full-page ad in the New York Times asking menacingly, “What’s hiding in your plant-based meat?”

That’s rich, coming from a group whose earlier forays into chemicals in food included pooh-poohing the risks of mercury in fish.

The industry front group is fear mongering, not raising legitimate safety questions. And what about the risks red meat poses to our health and to the planet we leave to our children?

CSPI is working to make sure that both meat and meat alternatives are safe. Meanwhile, consumers are voting with their pocketbooks, and even giants like Burger King and McDonald’s are adding meat-free menu items.

How’s that for consumer freedom?

Peter G. Lurie, MD, MPH, President

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Photo (burger): Beyond Meat.