You Assert Moral Superiority When You Feel Morally Inadequate
When Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods shared a moment in the sun a couple of years back, I noticed something bizarre about their marketing.
Both product lines consist entirely of imitation meat that contains no animal-derived ingredients. And yet, the advertising buzz seemed to mostly avoid the word “vegan.” When Burger King announced its Impossible-brand veggie burger, it even told the press that non-vegetarians were the target market. But what does it even mean to claim that a piece of vegetarian food is somehow actually especially for meat-eaters?
Before 2019, I’d only ever heard “plant-based” in a niche context. A few positivity-minded vegans used it to subvert people’s expectations by emphasizing what they did eat, not what they didn’t. But Beyond and Impossible set themselves apart from other vegan-food businesses by making “plant-based” the focus of their entire branding strategy.
It’s not hard to imagine why they might fear the V-word. I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my life. Although I’m not currently vegan, I’ve been vegan in the past. I’ve learned that some people get viscerally uncomfortable when they find out you don’t eat meat. While part of it is that veganism might signal a broader commitment to left-wing, countercultural values, in my experience it’s not usually about…