‘Would taste awful!’

The reaction on social media to a recent post explaining the environmental benefits of blended burgers. These are burger patties in which 30 to 50% of the beef has been replaced with plant-based ingredients like soy or mushrooms.

‘I agree – can’t think of anything worse to eat’…‘No thanks’.. Other commentators add, quickly drifting into a stream of abuse… ‘you’re lost’... ‘ridiculous’… ‘shut the f*ck up’...

This is a strong response to the relatively uncontroversial idea of changing a recipe to improve it. Also, a somewhat bizarre one given that the food industry reformulates recipes all the time, from fat free yoghurts and sugar-free sodas to salt-reduced soups and ready meals.

All widely accepted changes that many see as facilitating their freedom of choice.

Why, then, does reformulation of meat attract such a distinctively negative response? And one that is apparently unwarranted given that blended meat-plant products, like burgers and tacos, have repeatedly been shown to taste just as good as their 100% meat counterparts with far lower greenhouse gas emission footprints.

Blends are also not new idea. Beef-mushroom burgers have been available to consumers for over half a decade now, while Spam – the world’s most iconic blended meat product (a mix of two types of pig and potato) – has been a market staple since 1937.

A further read of social media comments reveals more about the psychology behind why blended meats have failed to excite consumer imagination despite a growing addressable market of ‘flexitarian’ consumers.

It seem that many people remain skeptical about combining meat with ‘weird’ ingredients,........

© Psychology Today