ABSTRACT
This chapter starts from the premise that while the increasing diversity, accessibility, and popular appeal of plant-based meats, dairy products, and egg replacers can play a significant part in transitions towards more sustainable and humane diets, their impact should not be viewed with rose-coloured glasses. The central aim of this chapter is to assess two interrelated pitfalls associated with the nature of market growth and innovation in plant-based alternatives to animal foods. The first pitfall is that surging investment, product development, and retail availability are not only being driven by plant-based start-ups, but by some of the world’s largest food corporations, including both those that focus on livestock slaughter and processing and those that rely heavily on livestock inputs in their manufacture of processed foods. The second pitfall is that prioritising direct substitution could inadvertently serve to further normalise the centrality of animal foods in diets and obscure other problems in the dominant agro-food system. Together, these pitfalls have the potential to diminish the significance of plant-based alternatives in many people’s minds. By recognising these concerns, this chapter focuses attention on the keys to retaining and amplifying the critical associations that plant-based products can bear, with respect to the environmental impacts and interspecies relations bound up in food choices.
