The Current - Where's the fake beef?

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

The McVeggie isn’t pretending to be meat. It’s a fried vegetable patty. A few years ago, imitation meat patties like Beyond and Impossible were all the rage. What happened? Food reporters Corey Mintz and Kim Severson dig into our shifting appetites when it comes to plant-based foods and why the North American love affair with beef continues.

Did you know that it was once illegal to shop on Sundays? That's true for when I was born. I remember this, and I'm not that old. I'm not, okay? Leave me alone. Anyway, I'm Phelan Johnson, and I host See You in Court, a new podcast about the cases that changed Canada and the ordinary people who drove that change. From the drugstore owner who defied the Lord's Day, to the migma man who defended his treaty right to fish, to the gay teacher who got fired and fought back. Find and follow, see you in court, wherever you get your. Podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast.

Not Terrible. That was how one of my colleagues described the new burger at McDonald's, the McVegie. Here is one customer in Brampton, Ontario, giving it a try. Mmm. It's a green inside, full of veggies. I already know I'm going to get spicy sauce because my ancestors are going to roll in their grave if not. The bun is really good.

Paddy is not bad for a veggie alternative. It's just kind of like plain and boring. If you're a vegetarian, not bad option, but fish filet for life. Not exactly a raving review. It wasn't not long ago that faux meat burgers were all the rage. Plant-based patties like Beyond and Impossible were taking over the veggie world, even even luring in meat eaters.

Well, now some of that sizzle has fizzled. Sales for plant-based meats are down, McDonald's in Canada added that vegetarian burger to its menu. It was an actual veggie burger, not a patty made from plants masquerading as meat. So is our fling with fake meat over? I'm joined by two food journalists to talk further about this. Corey Mintz is a food journalist and hospitality consultant in Winnipeg. And Kim Severson covers food culture for the New York Times out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Good morning to you both. Morning, Kim. Morning, Matt. Corey, let's start with the McDonald's thing. You have tried the McVegie. What is your verdict? I did. It's probably more like a pecorah than a traditional grain-based veggie burger or a plant-based faux-beef burger,

but it's also probably more like baby food than a pecorah. I think if you go with the option of, you know, it's kind of a halbernaero optional sauce, and obviously if you add some acidity and fatiness that it needs, it's a perfectly enjoyable snack inside a classic sugary McDonald's bun, but I, it certainly wouldn't make me one another. The baby food thing, I think, might stick in people's minds. I tried it too, and I, well, full disclosure, I might have been the person who said that it wasn't terrible, but I had the sauce on it. It was fine, I suppose. Why do you think McDonald's opted for this kind of veggie burger, an actual veggie burger rather than kind of the fake meat burger?

Well, it's a pivot. They discontinued their McPlant last year. I'm not sure of, Burger King still offers their impossible whopper, but when I tried to get an impossible wopper, just out of curiosity, because beyond meat had been very available here, and it impossible wasn't. I went through the drive-thru, and they took my order, and they said, oh, go wait in the parking lot for five minutes,

because it's actually not ready in the way that everything else is ready, which suggests that nobody's buying it. And they discontinued the McPlan, so they waited a year, let the ground go fallow, and then came back with what seems more like a rebrand than anything else. People aren't buying the plant-based burgers, and they're more interested in something branded as vegetables. Kim, let's talk about why people aren't buying those plant-based burgers. It was not so long ago that this was all the rage.

This was the future of food. We were going to get rid of meat, and we would be eating, as I said, ground beef that's not made of beef, meatballs that didn't actually have meat in them. The stocks of Beyond have plummeted. This is the company that made Beyond Burgers. Used to be called Beyond Meat. The CEO of that company told the Guardian newspaper, it's not our moment. You'd be crazy to think it is. Meat consumption is on the rise and the political

culture is different. We just need to get through this period. Is this a temporary setback for fake meat? You know, I think that it actually is not temporary. I think there's this movement, and this is what really hurt those burgers a lot. If you read the ingredient label, you know, it's kind of like a small novel, right? And there are things in there that people hadn't heard of. They used a certain kind of a a pea protein to make it seem like blood sort of seemed like red meat. But there's this movement toward, I mean, there's two things going on. Obviously, the politics of meat right now. Meat is absolutely having a moment, at least here in the United States, it is.

Part of it, I think, is the maha, the make America healthy movement. There's this sense that meat is kind of an all-American thing and that, you know, beef tallow is back, the Trump administration's health director Robert Kennedy Jr. loves beef tallow as a thing, which is kind of unrealistic to put in fast food fires because it's so expensive. But meat is coming back. Also, you know, the protein craze is happening and people are seeing that like a chicken breast or some kind of cleaner protein is better than a plant-based burger. But, you know, the big problem is people don't want to eat all those chemicals. There's this big movement toward cleaner labels to eat healthier whole foods, and those burgers just did not fit into that. And as you said,

the reviews on them is usually like, oh, it's not bad. So I don't think people want to eat. Oh, it's not bad, you know. I want to come back to the politics of that in a moment. Corey, Beyond CEO says, and they're not longer called Beyond Meat, it's just Beyond, that this is not their moment. Why is this not their moment? Well, what Kim refers to the, you know, not only the shift, away from people being suspicious of all the other things in those burgers, not just the pea protein, but this movement to reclaim, you know, what they believed was a previously better way of life, despite the fact that that's just a pendulum swing. You know, in the 80s,

McDonald's finally gave in the pressure and eliminated the tallow in their deep fryers for fries, followed by everybody else and replaced it with canola, which, you know, was done for public health reasons and then they added they added an element the the um the oil the tastes like beef because that's part of what we want you know it's in arguably more delicious to fry things in animal fat whether it's beef fat or or duck fat is even more delicious but we've just kind of gone crazy that that article you mentioned the guardian one had some i think a dietitian or researchers saying like everywhere in the grocery store we all see this everything is protein enhanced despite the fact that we're all already getting enough protein. And if I can, I really

want to ask Kim a question because I enjoyed Kim very much the article you wrote about this earlier this year. And you raised something that was news to me. I'd never heard of one of the many factors in addition to the politics and the sort of a meat-loving craze in America was also people consuming more meat to counterbalance the muscle mass as a result of weight loss drugs, like ozimic is there is there more you can tell us about that sorry matt to no no please jump in it's like co-host you can drive the bus too i just found it so fascinating i would love you to unpack that more yeah it is uh you know as you mentioned uh the protein craze is uh you know i was talking with some some folks who from mars who make snickers bars and they're trying to figure

out how to get make a protein forward snickers bars like you just cannot put enough protein in anything right now. But that idea that the GL-1s, absolutely there's this sense that, and I think you talk to anybody in food manufacturing, and that's a huge factor right now. Snack foods are down, all the things that make you not want to, you know, you don't want to eat when you have this, but the need for protein, particularly among older Americans, is huge. And so, you know, that's certainly driving, you know, driving protein. In fact, one of my pieces of reporting. It's like since 2019, so say

basically the last five, six years, the number of Americans who are trying to get more protein into their diets jumped 13%. And that's really significant in a food world because our diets generally don't change a ton. They will go up and down a little with trends, as you see. But 13% jump

is pretty big. So obviously they want protein and they see meat as the healthier choice. So, you know, meat has gotten a real I don't know, meat has had a good hype man here or something in America because everybody loves meat now. You know who the hype men are? And you talk about this in your piece. You can call them the carnibros? These are the folks...

The carnibros, right. Elon Musk. And I may be talking to two carnibros and I don't even know it. Who knows? No, I'll know. Joe Rogan, other influencers. And it's not just bros. This is a woman who calls herself steak and butter gal describing her typical lunch. Have a listen to this. My usual stick of cold butter straight out of fridge unsalted personal preference i've got seven fried eggs cooked in beef fat two burger patties that i fried up in its own beef fat 8020 and here we've got our liquid gold jiggly bone broth i have questions kim who are the influencers and what role do they have in this you know and you have to remember these diet fads they just roll through and now on social media it all just happens so much faster but

you know there was a paleo diet movement for a while there's the idea of eating towards your blood type this this notion that somehow um you know there's people uh eating and their health is better if they eat animal fat animal protein and it's sort of like the keto diet i don't know if you all remember that that was um you know you you eliminate carbohydrates uh your weight drops a lot of people's blood work got better um this idea that you just eat so much animal fat this is kind of a new version of that and it's got this kind of you know the sort of podcaster i did my own research i don't trust the health experts vibe to it uh so you know the idea that you eat only meat um you know steak night is a big thing there are are you know beef tallow has gotten to be so big there's face

products if you look on ticot there are young women who are rendering beef fat and turning it into facial moisturizers you know it's it's just a very very meaty moment um and again you know it's that people want to do something that is against uh the mainstream and right now of course um traditional kind of tired like eat a balanced diet eat a fair amount of grains try to eat more plants you know try to eat less saturated fat all i think is getting tossed out the window in the favor of this shiny new promise that meat and fat will save us all. What kind of person takes on the law? Can they ever really know what they're getting into?

A really tough-looking guy came up to us and said, are you part of this gay case? My family started getting death threats. I wasn't able to go outside alone anymore. I'm Phelan Johnson, host of See You in Court, a new podcast about the cases that changed Canada and the ordinary people who made history. This is David and Goliath we have here.

Find and follow. See you in court wherever you get your podcasts. Did a couple actually make their wedding cake out of ground beef? I did find a couple that did that, that were in the carnivore, Carnibro world, and somehow they found each other on a dating website as these things go. And it turns out I think he was much more into the meat-only world. world and then she joined him and they had a ground beef wedding cake and they used whipped tallow that was very white for the frosting although they did that for them they had a regular

wedding cake for the other guests just for the record for the record Corey what do you make just about protein I mean this I find the the the protein obsession fascinating is that Yeah, Corey, just what do you make of that? And where we get a lot of protein from other things? Presumably the bean burgers had protein in it too. So where is what is going on here? They did and we've been told for about 10 years we should be eating more pulses. And we are, right?

Global pulse production is supposed to increase 23% in the next 10 years. We're eating more of those things. We're just not eating them in those patties. We're eating them in all the protein supplemented things that we're going crazy for. I wanted to add on something to what Kim was saying, this cycle of food fads, because Kim will hopefully sympathize as a food writer. You watch this cycle of every two to three or to five years.

The press releases you get changed from one fad superfood to another, the promotion of whether pomegranate or nettles or whatever it is, the keto diet. It's always something, and none of them ever contradict the wisdom that we've been taught from every teacher, parent, a doctor all our lives. It's just like eat a balanced diet and get regular exercise. But usually all those things are kind of driven from these regional trade boards, you know, whether it's

quinoa or pomegranate. It's like it's someone growing something that it's paid for marketing that has snowballed into becoming a fad that's temporary. But it's always a little bit niche and it burns out. And now that cycle in addition to what Kim said, like the social media graphs onto it, makes things goes quicker, but it's also been grafted onto a product that is promoted by one of the largest trade and lobbying organizations in America. Meat. You know, this isn't someone who needs the product. Right. I mean, carrots need a better commission pushing them. You know, and I mean, the produce, it's very interesting because there's like sort of international produce, uh, organizations, but they are, are absolutely not as well funded as the meat packing plants. You're right.

And, you know, I always think about Michael Pollan's, you know, eat food, not too much, mostly plants, advice. Don't eat anything that your grandmother wouldn't recognize this food. And I think we all want something that's, you know, the solution. We're going to be better if we just tweak this, if we just eat a little bit more of that. And, you know, I'm reminded of a friend of mine who went to Weight Watchers for a long time and it used to be a point system. Each food would have points. And she'd be arguing, like, does this have point? And they were arguing over how many points an apple.

had. And the instructor, the coach said, you know, I don't think any of you are in here for eating too many apples. And I think that's the point here. Like, we're, you know, it's, we're not, people aren't, like, desperate to make themselves better because they're not eating the right number of really good nutrients. It's because of the, you know, you can buy candy bars at the hardware store. Our cars are designed to have, you know, you can put a cup in the car. Now, you, they're, you know, chip cans that are designed to fit into the cup hole. or in our car. I mean, everywhere we go, there's food, processed food, ultra-processed food, which is now really in the spotlight, that's just coming at us. And I think we can dance around

and try to eat more protein or eat, you know, more carbs or eat this kind of thing or eat clean. But it's not really the big issue with our health. You know, let's face it. It's really kind of the ultra-process food, the cereals, fast food. All of that is really the issue. But, you know, turning our back on that would be, I think, we're just, It would be un-American. Let me just tell you. You talked about a hype man. I mean, it's interesting that the health secretary, RFK Jr.,

has kind of inserted himself into this in a couple of different ways. Here he is speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News earlier this year at a fast food joint. And steak and shake just switched out, and people are raving about these French fries. You taste them. It's a completely different experience. And the customers are raving about it. Other companies, steak and shake has been great. We're very grateful.

for them for RFK, the French fries. They turned me into a verb. RFKing the French fries. Kim, what is the role of RFK in all of this? You know, he's seen certainly as a model of a certain kind of eating that pushes back against mainstream in corporate America. So he believes in, as we know, not a lot of vaccines. He believes in sunshine and hard work and exercise to make people healthy.

He's a big fan of raw milk. He's kind of in that place. There's a sort of funny place on the Venn diagram, right, where you have all the progressive organic food people like Dallas Waters. And then you have, you know, like, I don't know, the folks who, you know, try to take over the capital who are sharing a space in the wellness world. And it's kind of, it's really an unusual moment in food where you have these two really different political forces sharing the same spot about. wanting to have better food. And certainly organic and sustainable farmers have been talking about

the advantages of raw milk and of less processed things and certainly of good saturated fat, grass-fed beef. It's that, you know, theory, that way of eating has been popular among the progressive left. But now you have RFK Jr. And, you know, it's part of the people who are like, I did my own research. And so, you know, his whole clean eating, this idea of taking back the power, eating clean, there's a real appeal to that. But he's also a very, you know, he's not, he has some very fringe ideas about nutrition, right? So that RFK fry thing, steak, I mean, steak and shake was a chain, very big, MAGA chain, very big supporter of Trump. and they started putting beef tallow in it, and I will point out not all of their 300 or whatever restaurants they have in the U.S., some of them, but they got made a big deal of it. And RFK, who would never eat a cheeseburger in his life, went to the fast food place, said these fries are great.

So, you know, I love, I love, you know, thank you for RFKing the fries. It's a little duplicitous because he would never eat at a steak and shake. But nonetheless, here we are. Corey, what do you make of the push toward clean food? Again, this, you talked about food trends. and the fact that we seem impervious to, you know, battering them away. We can't, we can't avoid the fact that they are coming at us and we are influenced. This is one of them, right, Corey?

Yeah, but we're, I mean, we're a fragmented society. We're not a monolith. And I think there's a silver lining in some of what Kim pointed out in her piece. I mean, that guardian piece kind of posed this as the death of Fomey, which maybe, maybe it's fair to say that these companies, they dropped 90% of value were vastly overvalued. But over the same period that these companies boomed and bust, you know, Kim points out,

you know, instead of vegetarianism, I think we now talk more about people who've chosen to eat less meat, which is a really helpful sign. And while that is, as she points out, down to 22%, that jumped from 12% to 25%

from 2019 to 2022. It's a very short period of a lot of people saying, I just want to eat less meat. Over the same period, yeah, a bunch of other people said for other reasons, whether it's political or a Zempic, I want to eat so much more meat. But in the end, we're all driven, hopefully, back to the same universal knowledge. Oh, it turns out that latest piece of advice was bubkus. It was nonsense.

And let's all, like, revert back to the gravity of, you know, as you point out, pollen's advice, eat vegetables, eat a balanced diet and get regular exercise. eat food mostly plants not too much right and and just you know there are many americas eating in many different ways but i will say that there has been some enduring um impact of the move toward trying to find alternative meats and that is that you know in veganism any good restaurant in the united states now will have um likely one or two vegan uh menu items and certainly uh vegetarian items just sort of built in, not like separate it out. Like, here's our one vegan thing you can have, you know, or here a vegetarian, you can have your one, you know, mac and cheese. So the idea of eating

plants and eating more of them and eating more vegan and vegetarian dishes is really kind of soaked into food culture, at least at the higher end of restaurant culture in America. Like, you couldn't write a restaurant menu now without having those meals and not just to appeal to vegans and vegetarians, which that number doesn't really change that much. It's whatever it is 6, 7% of the population that eats vegan or vegetarian. But it's just because

all of us want to eat less meat, you know? I'm hungry, as I should be after a conversation like this. Good to talk to you both. Thank you very much. Hey, thank you. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Ken. Corey Mintz is a food journalist, hospitality consultant, and the author of The Next Supper, The End of Restaurants, as we knew them,

and what comes next? He was in Winnipeg. Kim Severson covers food culture for The New York Times. She was in Atlanta. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.