I am so excited!
It’s easy to get depressed by the setbacks we’re currently seeing in our country and around the world. Our gloating President and his coalition of goons have a transparently sinister agenda, and it’s deeply frustrating to see their villainy reaping rewards for them. The enemies of progress appear to be winning. This is an ugly time.
I’m still convinced, by the way, that Trump is going to win in 2020. We progressives have a sick habit of underestimating him, and we’re doing it again.
It’s hard to find hope in all the gloom.
But a couple of days ago, something wonderful happened to me. Something that ignited hope. Something I’m utterly convinced is going to change the world.
I ate a veggie burger, and it was good.
More below the fold.
This was at a Cheesecake Factory. Now, I normally don’t order veggie burgers. Because they suck. But I didn’t feel like ordering my normal vegetarian entree, so I decided to try something on the menu called an Impossible Burger.
One bite and… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY MOUTH, WIZARD?
Hamburger is cruel to cows, terrible for the environment, and bad for your health. So why do people eat it? Because it tastes good.
Vegetarian activists have long tried to get people to stop eating it by appealing to their hearts and minds. That was always the wrong approach. We needed to appeal to their taste buds.
As I contemplated my Impossible Burger, it dawned on me…
As soon as fake meat tastes better than real meat, people will eat fake meat. It’s as simple as that.
But what if the meat industry tries to convince us that fake meat is unnatural and unhealthy?
It won’t work.
Why? Because people don’t care. If they cared about that, they wouldn’t be eating hamburger in the first place.
Consider that hamburger is itself a highly processed product comprised of disgusting things:
There’s pink slime, which believe it or not is the actual name for boneless lean beef trimmings that have been turned into a paste in a centrifuge and then exposed to ammonia gas. Sound nummy?
Hamburger meat can also contain E. Coli (yes, the deadly bacteria).
And let’s remember it comes from cows pumped full of antibiotics and fed chicken feces.
The Impossible Burger simulates beef fat using coconut oil. It simulates blood with heme, which is produced by genetically modified yeast.
Health wise, it’s comparable to hamburger. Lots of protein and lots of fat. Unlike hamburger it has zero cholesterol, which is good. But it has shocking levels of sodium. The take home: Don’t eat it every day, but it’s okay on occasion.
I’m convinced humankind will switch to a plant-based diet someday. (Or almost entirely plant-based, at least.) But I assumed it would take a long, long time, on the order of generations, and I wouldn’t live to see it. But who knows? Maybe this is the beginning of the end of meat, and the beginning of the beginning of what comes next.
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