How to get people to eat more veggies? Add meat
Brian Kateman | 27 May 2025
Blended meat-veggie products could be the thing that make even meat lovers reduce their consumption.
The hottest thing in meat, these days? Apparently, it’s vegetables.
Nectar, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to advancing alternative proteins, released findings last week from a large-scale blind taste test comparing hybrid meat-veggie products with traditional meat. The blended products, which they’re calling “balanced proteins,” are a hit with omnivores—so much so that testers actually preferred some of them to their all-meat counterparts.
“The irony is that a burger is a blended product,” says Andrew Arentowicz, CEO & Co-Founder of Both, one of the brands that taste testers in the Nectar survey rated as on-par with comparable all-meat products. “You got lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, pickles, that’s a burger. So this isn’t some like oh-my-god what a revolutionary concept; it’s actually very obvious, the whole thing.”
Perhaps Arentowicz is right that this is a no-brainer, but I do think the study results are impressive, and maybe even a little surprising, given that we aren’t exactly a nation of veggie lovers. Only about one in ten Americans eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables. That gap matters—not just for personal health, but for the planet and animals, too. Issues of access, cost, and culture are, of course, factors here, but it can’t be denied that taste is also a concern. No matter how convenient or inexpensive, if people don’t find the healthier and more eco-friendly option to be tasty, they’re going to have a hard time choosing it.
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