I follow some dairy-oriented blogs and twitter accounts, many of which are concerned about the rise of fake milk--plant-based milks. There's also concern about plant-based meat.
The increasing popularity of these "fake foods" (I'm using the term somewhat tongue in cheek) seems result from several things:
- newness, perhaps faddishness.
- health concerns. It's not clear any of the fake foods are better for you than their "real" competition, but they might be.
- environment. Animal agriculture, whether dairy or beef, takes a hit from concerns about methane production, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
- animal rights/welfare. You have to kill beef cattle and the male calves of dairy cattle, and we don't like that thought.
- pollution. CAFOs impact the air and water.
The saving grace for real foods is cost--centuries of development ensure that real foods are cheaper calorie for calorie, nutrient for nutrient, in today's markets.
I remember my mother kneading in the coloring package which came with the block of margarine (butter was scarce in WWII), very upset that she had to serve fake food to us when our cows were producing good milk. The last I checked margarine was cheaper than real butter, although the two products seem to be co-existing.
I see a similar outcome for today's fake foods: innovation will continue until they're able reasonably to compete with their real counterparts on price and taste, just as margarine does with butter. Whether real foods become just a high-end niche product for gourmets I'm less sure about.
[Update--part of this is relevant.]
