Apparently they've already "succeeded." I have a niece who is vegan. During a visit about a month ago, she kept going on and on and on about a new vegan "hamburger" she had tried recently and how she couldn't tell the difference between it and a real hamburger. She said they even used beat juice so that when cooked rare or medium rare it looked "bloody." Clearly, she was hoping I'd go right out and buy some to serve instead of meat. (Note that when I have vegan or vegetarian guests, I make sure that there is plenty of vegan foods on my table that they can eat... but I refuse to take meat off the table while they're here!)

Anyway, apparently this new faux-burger is called the "Beyond Burger" and they're now selling it in the meat case at Whole Foods...apparently in hopes of getting carnivores to try it and shift over to faux-meat. In case anyone is wondering, I looked up the ingredients of the "Beyond Burger" on the manufaturer's website. IMHO, it's pretty typical highly-processed crap: Water, Pea Protein Isolate, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Cellulose from Bamboo, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Natural Flavor, Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Salt, Sunflower Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Dried Yeast, Gum Arabic, Citrus Extract (to protect quality), Ascorbic Acid (to maintain color), Beet Juice Extract (for color), Acetic Acid, Succinic Acid, Modified Food Starch, Annatto (for color)

Oh, and this whole thing about faux-hamburger reminds me, in reading thru a few of the many public comments sent to the USDA regarding the upcoming revisions to the Dietary Guidelines for America, I noticed that there is clearly an ongoing initiative in the vegan world to have the USDA get rid of any recommendations for "meat" or any other animal-kingdom sourced food. They want the DGA to refer only to "protein" and prominently display pictures of beans and other vegetable-sourced proteins INSTEAD of (or at least in addition to) pictures of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, etc.

Personally, I think their idea has about as much merit as - or maybe less merit than - suggesting that the recommendation for grains be changed to "starchy/sugary carbohydrates" and feature pictures of bags of white sugar instead of or in addition to images of loaves of bread!