I really like Beyond Meat, though it's not as good as some of the other meat replacement options I can find at the grocery stores around here. I also think of a

I really like Beyond Meat, though it's not as good as some of the other meat replacement options I can find at the grocery stores around here. I also think of all of these meat replacement options as junk food and not replacement for actual whole vegetables. There's a fast food chain called "Max" that has veggie patties. When I tasted their burger for the first time I thought they might have messed up my order and given me real meat, the taste and texture seemed so realistic. But I hadn't eaten real red meat in around 20 years, and didn't trust my own taste, so I got my meat-eating boyfriend to try it. He was also confused and suspicious, so he went to the cashier to confirm that this was definitely not meat. I was pretty blown away! One thing I thought was cool was, a few years ago, seeing a plant-based patty + bacon burger. At that time these replacements were only really marketed for people not wanting to eat meat at all, so at first I was confused about whether the bacon is vegetarian, too. But no - the bacon was real. After the initial double take I realized how cool it is, and how these kinds of partial-options can help normalize eating _less_ meat even if you still want real bacon (for example). For the long term though, I'm hopeful for lab-grown meat becoming a more common and accessible option.