Image by Getty / FuturismStudiesIn a blind taste test, thousands of self-professed "omnivores and flexitarians" were given meat substitutes alongside the real thing and asked to rate which was better — and their responses were pretty telling.As Vox reports, new results from a survey conducted by NECTAR, a nonprofit that researches "alternative protein" products, suggest that preferences for real or fake meat may be more in our minds than in our taste buds.When averaging out the results in sum, NECTAR found that their 2,684 subjects far preferred the animal "benchmark" products they were fed alongside fake meat products ranging from imitation bratwurst and burgers to ersatz pulled pork and deli slices.But accounting for the massive disparities in quality between brands — which anyone who suffered through the vegan pizza craze of the early 2010s can attest to — paints a very different picture.  When given unbreaded "chicken" cutlets from Impossible Foods, for instance, 60 percent of the survey's participants said it tasted as good or better than real chicken from Purdue — a wild finding for foods from an industry that has taken hit after hit in recent years amid meat industry disinformation campaigns.Experts who spoke to Vox iterated that when it comes to food, mind truly is over matter."People don’t just taste food in an objective way," Daniel Rosenfeld, a University of California Los Angeles behavioral scientist who specializes in plant-based food perceptions, told the website. He should know: in 2023, Rosenfeld co-wrote a study that found that so-called "carnists," or people who strongly believe eating animals is a human right, were more likely to expect vegan food to taste gross.When it comes to expectations regarding plant-based foods, societal norms play a big role in how people feel, the researcher noted. It's not hard to imagine, for instance, the average cisgender American man loudly ragging on fake meats and extolling the virtues of bacon. For those of us who've eaten stellar plant-based foods, it's also humorous to envision that same type of guy unwittingly enjoying a delicious fake meat burger without being told it's not from an animal."When social norms with a product get set in place, it's pretty hard to change that default," Rosenfeld said. "People like to just do whatever is a popular option. We’re very conformist by nature."Share This Article