A massive blind taste test fed people real and vegan meats. It revealed something surprising.

Kenny Torrella | 17 April 2025

From 2017 to 2020, meat-free sausages and veggie burgers had a moment. Sales of plant-based meat doubled thanks to new startups — like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods — which collectively took billions of dollars in venture capital investment and invented much more meaty vegetarian products than their predecessors.

The emerging sector was hailed as a potential silver bullet solution to the ills of factory farming: animal suffering, climate change, deforestation, and more.

But in the years that followed, the sector’s sales flatlined and then tumbled. What killed plant-based meat’s growth spurt? According to consumer surveys, often the biggest reason people give for souring on plant-based meat is that the products don’t taste good enough. 

But the results of a surprising recent experiment casts some doubt on that explanation — and suggests some of the distaste for plant-based meat might just be in our heads.

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