Rant #3,186: Real Thing

Did you ever get into the “fake” meat fad?

I did for a short while, but I don’t even bother anymore.

While some of those plant-based meats really don’t taste that bad—with the Beyond Meat label featuring the best taste of the bunch, in my opinion—this was nothing but a fad, not a long-term thing.

We know that the constant eating of red meat is not that good for you, but if you don’t eat the real thing seven days a week, some actual beef once or twice a week isn’t going to kill you—and we do know that most people do need some real meat in their systems to have a balanced diet.

But ever cautious about what real meat can potentially do to you, companies seemingly sprang out of nowhere a few years ago touting their plant-based offerings—everything from hot dogs and hamburgers and sausage—and stating that this was the healthier way to go.

Even fast food restaurants started to offer non-beef-based offerings, and it looked like the plant-based option was not only here to stay but here to take a giant cut out of the sales of real meat-based foods.

Then for whatever reason, sales started to drop off about a year or so ago, and I think the reason was that people jumped on the bandwagon—as I did for a short while—sampled what was out there, and figured that if they could not have the real thing—or as close to it, with chicken and turkey knockoffs having been around for ages—then what was the sense of having the plant-based offerings?

I personally tried a number of plant-based company’s burgers, and some of them were pretty decent—the aforementioned Beyond Meat and, believe it or not, Wal-Mart’s own version of a plant-based burger—but most of the ones that I tried tasted like, well, plants.

The Beyond Meat version of a burger was actually pretty good, but I did wonder how they got the taste to where it replicated that of a regular red meat burger … and I think that I wasn’t the only one to have that question.

Sure, we were eating “healthier” with the plant-based burger—or at least we were told that by the companies producing them—but with all the chemicals in these offerings which were used to duplicate the taste of a real burger, were we really eating healthier, or was this just a ruse?

I think it was a ruse … and again it is not like we don’t have viable alternatives to red meat in our burger options such as those made with chicken and turkey.

Thus, why eat the plant-based burger, which was full of things we don’t really need to ingest, when we had other more traditional and viable alternatives to red meat?

Look, not everyone eats red meat.

There are vegetarians, there are vegans, and there are people—like my wife—who do not fit into either of those categories, but pretty much stays away from real meat and gravitates toward the turkey knockoffs.

Anyway, I guess the plant-based offerings simply give shoppers another option when they buy “meat” items, but I do think the fad is over.

In my house, I buy both red meat and turkey meat options in burgers, franks and chop meat, so my wife really mixes things up with the weekly dinner menu.

In fact, last night, we had fish, and we also eat pasta, too.

I happen to think that most families are like that now, and a company that puts out the plant-based offerings—like Beyond Meat—is going to have to recognize that it is simply a niche option—

And its ledger books—the real determinant of success—will tell them that too, as their stock price is down and thus, they don’t have the profits that they had for a short time when people were trying out their products.

I know that I, personally, gave them a real shot to be a regular part of my diet, but every time I bit into one of their burgers,, well, it was OK, but not the same experience I had with the real meat version of the burger—and I simply did not believe the hype that I was eating “healthier” with all the obvious processing done with these non-red meat offerings.

I liken what the plant-based industry is going through now with what the electric vehicle industry is currently going through.

Sure, you can drive an electric car, but why would you?

You are not saving the environment as the some would have you believe, you are inconveniencing yourself when you are running low on power, and there simply is nothing like riding a gas-powered car on the roads of America as opposed to the heavier and electricity-inefficient EVs.

So again, the plant-based offerings—as the EV offerings are—are simply another option, a fad, and really, nothing more.

So if you want partake of them, go right ahead.

Me, give me an All-American Hebrew National hot dog any time, and I will be happy as can be.