The Meatless Revolution Is Here

By now we’ve all seen the ads from Burger King for the plant-based burgers that the fast-food chain is offering to its customers.

For anyone who has not tried these “burgers,” we can assure you that you’re in for a surprise because they are delicious and taste just like the real thing.

Burger King’s meatless burger was developed in a partnership with Impossible Foods, which is one of the two companies (the other being Beyond Meat) that has brought the concept of what used to be known as a “veggie burger” to a whole new level.

Wall Street, the ultimate (though not always correct) arbiter of the worth of new ideas, has given both companies high valuations in the belief that Americans will embrace these new foods and reduce their consumption of red meat.

We can only hope that will be true.

When Sen. Ed Markey and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced their Green New Deal proposal, one of the stated goals was to reduce the the consumption of red meat by American consumers.

Not only would that benefit Americans’ health (because consumption of red meat is linked to a number of serious diseases, most notably cancer and heart disease), but it also would reduce one of the primary causes of man-made damage to the environment.

The production of meat by the so-called factory farms is a disaster for our environment, fouling our air, water, and land.

In addition, with the widespread use of antibiotics in these animals — which in turn are ingested by us — the potential for the development of bacteria that are antibiotic-resistant increases dramatically, potentially paving the way for a world-wide epidemic spread by drug-resistant bacterial bugs.

We applaud Burger King for introducing its plant-based burgers. With all of the the largest meat-producing food companies, Tyson, Hormel, Smithfield, Perdue, and Nestle, jumping on the bandwagon and offering plant-based products, it would seem that the meatless revolution at last has arrived.