Taste

The flavors people love in meat come from plants

By WhyStopHarmingAnimals.com

Most of what people love about the taste of meat is put there in the kitchen, and all of it is vegan: salt, herbs, spices, sauces, smoke, garlic. Without those, meat is mostly bland[1]. The same seasonings work on tofu and seitan, foods that have stood in for meat for centuries (tofu for more than 2,000 years)[4][6], and in blind tests the best modern plant-based meats score as well as or better than the animal versions[8].

Seasoning does the flavor work

The Institute of Medicine’s 2010 report on reducing sodium intake found that added salt improves the sensory properties of virtually every food people eat, and that it lifts flavor even in foods that would otherwise taste bad[1]. Without it, food often tastes off[1]. Salt is the usual minimum seasoning on meat[1], and a cook can put it on anything.

The savory depth people associate with meat has plant sources as well[2]. A 2024 review of meat umami by Hossain and colleagues, in Food Science of Animal Resources, found that salt-curing and spices raise the savory compounds people think of as meaty[2]. The same review names tomatoes and mushrooms among the best plant sources of glutamate, the main umami molecule[2].

Wang and colleagues tested this in 2019 in the Journal of Food Science[3]. They added mushroom, tomato and yeast extracts to chicken soup, and each one boosted overall flavor, meaty flavor, saltiness and umami, the job salt and MSG usually do[3]. The ingredients that made the soup taste meatier came from plants and yeast[3]. It was one dish in a lab[3], but it shows where much of the “meaty” part of a meal can come from.

Two thousand years of plant meat

Cooks have been making meat substitutes from plants for a very long time[4][6]. A 2022 review of Asian meat analogues by Ishaq and colleagues reports that during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), China developed tofu as a standard meat analog, and people went on eating it widely through the Tang dynasty[4]. Legend credits Prince Liu An with the invention, and FoodUnfolded’s history of meat alternatives notes that Han-dynasty tomb art is read as showing tofu being made[5].

Tofu was one of three[6]. A 2021 review in Sustainability by He and colleagues names tofu, tempeh and wheat gluten as the first-generation meat analogues: tofu from China, tempeh (fermented whole soy) from Java, and seitan, known in Chinese as miànjīn, literally “wheat meat,” from Chinese Buddhist cooking[4][6]. Buddhism in China created demand for substitutes that copied meat’s flavors and textures[5], and CNN Travel, in a piece headlined “China’s vegetarian fake meat is 1,000 years old,” describes temple kitchens that have served mock duck, mock pork and mock fish made from tofu and gluten for centuries[7]. All of this came centuries to millennia before modern supermarket products[6].

Blind tests of plant meats

In 2025 Nectar ran blind restaurant tests in which omnivores tasted 122 plant-based meats across 14 categories[8]. A product counted as a winner if at least half the tasters scored it the same as or better than the animal version[8]. Impossible and Beyond dominated the winners, and several products were nearly indistinguishable from the animal original[8]. Sentient Media’s report on the work counted four vegan products with scores nearly indistinguishable from real meat, and found that products scoring better on taste also sold more[9].

Not every product matched meat[8]. The ones designed to match it often did[8], which means the gap is a matter of recipe and product design rather than something only an animal can supply. These were tasting panels in restaurants, not controlled laboratory trials[8], and results will differ from product to product[8].

The label changes the score

What people expect shapes what they taste[10]. A 2022 study in Food Quality and Preference by Grasso and colleagues had consumers rate 100% beef, 100% plant-based and hybrid burgers[10]. Knowing what they were eating shifted the scores[10]. Ratings often drop when people know a burger is plant-based, and tasters are less loyal to meat when they don’t know. Some of what people taste as beef is the word on the menu[10].

The whole plate

Plant-based versions now exist well beyond the burger[11]. A 2023 systematic review by Appiani and colleagues, in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, found analogues for meat, dairy, fish and eggs, covering the whole plate[11]. There are vegan versions of the sandwich, the pizza, the sushi, the ice cream and the scrambled egg. Whether people accept them tracks appearance, smell, taste and texture, and all four can be designed[11].

Nearly all the flavor people love comes from plant foods and seasonings, and a well-made vegan meal can carry it[1][2][3][8]. Leaving animals off the plate means giving up the habit of tying a flavor to an animal, and keeping the flavor.