We Need New Names for Fake Meat

What’s in a name? Well when it comes to the vegan world, a whole lot! The names of certain plant-based foods and products matter a great deal, and that is why I am challenging the entire veg community to create inspired new names for the incredible modern-day culinary achievements that we call “Fake Meat”.

 In 1944, Donald Watson created the word “vegan”, because he felt that “vegetarian” did not correctly distinguish between people who ate animal products like milk and eggs and people who eliminated all animal-based foods from their diet. Now seventy years later, the time has again come for new words and definitions. We now need words to distinguish 21^st century plant-based meat alternatives from traditional animal-derived meats, because the current lexicon is wholly inadequate and unfair to the former.


                                                            Gardein "Chicken"

Thanks to the wonders of seitan, tempeh, and tofu, as well as innovative companies like Field Roast, Beyond Meat, and Gardein, we are now able to near-perfectly recreate the taste and texture of many popular meats like ground beef, chicken, pork and certain types of seafood.
But while the quality and sophistication of vegan meats has grown tremendously, the words for them have boringly stayed the same. 

Most of these terms – fake meat, meatless meat, mock meat, faux meat, beefless beef, chickenless chicken, textured vegetable protein, etc. the awkward list goes on –  or intentional misspellings of meat – beeef, chik’n, baykun, etc.- are horribly clunky, confusing and a major turn-off to meat-eaters who might otherwise try out and enjoy these foods. This a huge problem. 

We really shouldn’t keep calling things fake beef, fake chicken, fake bacon etc. because as long as we use words that compare plant-based food to meat, it will always remain under meat’s shadow; that is, meat will always be the dominant concept and substitutes with strange names will always be considered lesser and inferior.

While they emulate meat in taste, texture and function, plant-based meats sorely need their own identity, and the best way to do this is by giving them their own unique names.
What kind of names, you ask? Well, that’s where the challenge comes in! I am asking you to contribute your best ideas for names for:

Seitan 
Tempeh
Plant-based Beef
Plant-based Chicken
Plant-based Bacon and Pork

There are a number of approaches we can take, from borrowing words for these foods from other languages to organically forming our own.  But it is high time to move the vegan language out of the corny, awkward, tongue-twisting territory where it currently resides into a new world of creative terms, definitions and concepts. And it’s about time we gave magical foods like seitan and tempeh their due with more fitting names that better describe their amazingness!  

We have not yet begun to appreciate the power of veggie meat to help turn people on to plant-based protein. If more people replaced at least some animal meat with the plant-based version some of the time, it could go a very long way toward helping reduce the environmental damage and lessening the animal suffering caused by intensive meat production.  

There is untold, incredible world-changing potential in plant-based meat – but it cannot truly progress if it is stuck in the same old-fashioned, struggling language that defined vegetarian and vegan food in the past.

If we can create vegan Big Macs, award-winning cake shops and bakeries without a single egg or stick of butter, and culture real artisan cheese sans a drop of cow milk, then surely we can come up with some more fitting, fun, and catchy names for our favorite meat substitutes. Plant-based meats have come a hugely long way, and it’s not fair to thwart their popularity and success by continuing to label them with such clumsy, horrible names. No more faux/mock/fake chickenless chicken! No more fake/beefless beef! Down with fakin’ bacon!

These cheesy monikers belong in the dusty, embarrassing bins of hippie vegan history. Let’s dispose of them already, and introduce plant-based meat to the 21st century with new, fresh, interesting identities that are more appropriate to a modern evolving world.  

So what’s in a name? Seventy years ago, Donald Watson started a revolution when he coined the word “vegan” and founded the worlds’ first Vegan Society. I believe it is now our turn to once again re-define plant-based words, and who knows? It might just start another revolution.