The Meat of the Matter

giving peas a chance

Investors and entrepreneurs are betting that, from here on out, we will be getting less and less of our protein from animal meat ~ and liking it. Soy products (like tofu and tempeh) and beans are already familiar products on store shelves, with wheat protein (like seitan) and, now, pea protein gaining adherents. "There's two ways to look at meat," says Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown. "One is, meat has to come from a chicken, a cow or pig, but you can also think about meat in a different way, which is, what is meat made of? ... Meat is really made of ... five constituent parts: the amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, and water. They're all actually present in plants. What we're doing is building a piece of meat directly from those plants." But they're not the only ones entering the "new meat" field (video): http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/411802/our-meatless-morrow/