Now ‘meat,’ apparently, doesn’t have to be meat

Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown is saying in interviews that, essentially, meat isn’t “meat” — that it doesn’t have to be derived from animals or any part of an animal. For example, a “lightly edited” version of an interview with a reporter from the Associated Press has been published in newspapers around the country. One exchange said:Q: You refer to the Impossible Burger as "meat" on your website.A: It is meat.Q: What's your response to the argument that ‘meat’ should come from cows?A: If you ask a hundred meat eaters, ‘Is the fact that your meat is made from the corpse of an animal part of what you value about it?’ Approximately zero of them will say yes. They love meat because of its flavor, its nutritional value, its convenience, its affordability — in spite of the fact that it's made from the corpse of an animal.Similarly, in an interview captured for a blog posted on the website of the Good Food Institute, Brown explained the importance of having the support of high-end chefs when the Impossible Burger first was rolled out for foodservice:“We started with top chefs who are uncompromising meat lovers … — chefs revered by meat lovers, whose reputations and livelihoods depend on serving uncompromisingly delicious meat to their customers — [who] were eager to put the Impossible Burger on their menus. Their support delivered the most important message we needed to send to our target customers: the Impossible Burger is meat, and it’s delicious meat.”Impossible Foods’ website promotes its products saying, “Love meat? Eat meat. Impossible meat delivers all the flavor, aroma and beefiness of meat from cows. But here’s the kicker: It’s just plants doing the Impossible.” Brown’s Impossible Burger is a combination of wheat protein and