Imagine using plants to make “meat”. One California-based company is doing just that.
Ethan Brown is the founder and CEO of Beyond Meat. It produces a 100% plant-based protein with the taste and texture of chicken and beef. Brown believes replicating animal meats with plants offers consumers a sustainable protein option while helping to address one of the most important environmental issues facing society today.
“If you look at our global food supply, we run an enormous amount of energy and resources through a really inefficient bottleneck, which is the animal,” explained Brown.
Ethan Brown: The future of protein
Ethan Brown, CEO and founder of Beyond Meat, discusses the future of plant-based protein.A vegetarian since he was 18, Brown is the first to acknowledge that we humans are wired to crave and enjoy meat. Instead of trying to fight this desire, he set out to satisfy it by mimicking the taste and texture of beef and chicken using plant-based protein.
“I don’t think you can build a great brand by saying don’t eat something you love,” Brown said. “It’s much better to say ‘I’m going to help you eat something you love,’ which, in this case, we’re not telling you not to eat meat, we’re saying we’re going to create a piece of meat directly from plants.”
Ethan Brown joined May Lee in our Los Angeles studio and shared how utilizing plant proteins can not only help solve the global food crisis, but can save the planet as well.