Our Diet: Meat vs Plants

There are a whole lot people in the world, and a whole lot of different cultures in the world. Each culture acts differently from the others in various ways, from how they speak to how they interact with others. One of the biggest things is what we eat. People all around the world eat different things. However there is one thing constant that almost every culture around the world eats – meat.

I for one, greatly enjoy eating meat. A good hamburger or some good barbecue ribs taste amazing. I have nothing against eating vegetables or fruits, I just like eating meat. However, I was reading an article from a foodie that talked about meat substitutes. The article was from Paul Osborne, titled How this “Meat Patch” is helping us make the change to plant-based diets, from the article series, Paul’s Eats. In the article, Paul explains how eating vegetarian can be healthier for you, as well as helping out the environment, since the meat industry has a huge impact on the environment. However, he explains how it could be hard for some people to just stop eating meat all together, so he explains about a thing called a “meat patch” of sorts. The way he explains it, imagine if you had a vegetarian meal, some people wouldn’t like it due to the lack of meat. What the “meat patch” does is release a smell similar to bacon or other meats, so that your brain associates the vegetarian food with the smell of meat. This will make the dish seem to taste better, as smell is a large part of taste. The goal of this meat patch is to eventually get the person to slowly move away from meat products, and slowly move towards more plant products. While the technology for this isn’t perfect yet, Paul believes that this could lead to eventually switching to all plant based technology. He also says that we’re getting closer, with stuff like Burger King’s “Impossible Burger”, which has a plant based patty, and lab grown meat is getting closer to a viable alternative. Paul hopes that in the future, we can be environmentally friendly whilst eating only plant based foods.

I agree with some of what Paul says, but I also disagree with some of what he says. While I think that it is bad that the meat industry is polluting our environment, I think instead of just getting rid of meat products, we should be holding the meat industries more responsible for their actions. I would be willing to pay a little more to help out the environment if costs go up. Also, while I completely support and respect if someone decides to go vegan or vegetarian, I also hope they respect my right to decide to eat meat. If I want to eat meat, I should be able to. Although the plant substitutes and lab grown meat are interesting. If a plant substitute tastes enough like meat to the point where I can’t tell the difference, then I wholly support that endeavor. However, we aren’t quite at that point, and a lot of the plant based meat substitutes taste off, or aren’t that good. Lab grown meat is also an interesting thing. If we can “grow” meat without any animals being harmed or injured, and it’s healthy and the same as normal meat, I’m all for it. If a very good alternative for normal slaughterhouse meat, and it was good enough that I couldn’t tell the difference, then I would 100% switch over. However, until that day comes, I think I should be allowed to go out and buy a nice steak.