So, vegan products are being 'blended' with actual meat and dairy now? 

I also should have mentioned that Smug Dairy and Quorn have essentially done the same thing but for completely opposite reasons. The reason Smug Dairy exists is to try and get people who have stopped consuming dairy to start consuming more dairy again. However, Quorn are saying that the reason the mycoprotein blend will exist is to get people to eat less meat. So one company thinks blended products will increase animal product consumption and one thinks it will decrease animal product consumption. Thank you to Brilliant for sponsoring, check them out for free here: brilliant.org/earthlinged

Myself and my partner own a vegan shop in Spain. We have a couple of Quorn products but after hearing about this we will not be stocking Quorn again. We try our best with sourcing ethical brands. Quorn has always been in my mind as a vegetarian company, and the fact that it' been around 40 years and had added more vegan products over the last few years gave me hope that one day their products would be completely vegan...now with adding actual animal flesh to products feels like a huge betrayal. They can fuck off.

Smug dairy, a milk vegans can’t drink, and anti-vegans will avoid. What a brilliant business idea!

It's like they've run out of ideas, so they just throw whatever to see what sticks. Literally no one asked for this.

no such thing as a 'blended' product. it's either vegan or it ain't! these corporations will learn the hard way.

My worries are that unwitting friends and family members think they're buying the right product for their vegan/veggy guests but end up feeding them to the guests without their knowledge

My guess is they want reduce the cost per unit by using plants whilst still getting Government subsides by adding a little dairy.

Blended milk/oat and meat/vegetable protein products were introduced a few years ago here in Denmark. As far as I know, they were wildly unsuccessful and have pretty much disappeared from the supermarket at this point. Those products got marketed very aggressively in the beginning, but little did it work. It should be obvious that nobody wants to buy them. Either you want "real" products or, if you're more sensible, you want to avoid animal products. In practice, there isn't much of a grey area between those two groups of customers when they go shopping.

So I recently spent 12 days in hospital with a badly broken ankle. I told them I was vegan and got sent things that had a lot of animal products in them. I got on with it at first as it was supposed to be an alternative because they didn't have my choice but I got quite angry around half way through my visit. I ended up asking why they serve things that cause cancer and they just laughed it off as me being stupid. In the end I told them that I am vegetarian and am allergic to eggs and dairy. So my advice to anyone who is vegan is to say that. It helps, although they might try and mug you off with a salad. The biggest thing for me was trying to serve me with tuna and mayo and things like that.

I'm Japanese and I live in Japan. I stopped eating meat like 6 years ago, and became vegan 3 years ago. We have similar problems here except we don't have vegan certification and MOST "plant based" products are not vegan at all, and sometimes they even contain meat/fish products. the problem in Japan about veganism is that people have no idea what it is. we are so behind when it comes to animal rights and veganism. I don't know anybody who is vegan except for my husband, though my mother, who is 76 years old has stopped eating meat about a year ago after leaning animal cruelty in meat industry. It's quite challenging to be vegan in Japan but not impossible. our inconvenience is nothing compare to animal sufferings. I really hate the term "flexitarian" because it means nothing. in my opinion, it's for virtue signaling people.

I'm totally committed to being vegan, full stop. So if I need to start making my own burgers and chicken nugget type things, then I will. Fuck them.

I just spent a stint in NHS hospital for a few days. The provided food is either ultra processed meat, or vegetarian with lots of dairy and little plant protein. Instead I went to the local m&s (when I was capable) and got myself plant based premade food there. The staff acted like I was being ridiculous. I think nutrition & prevention as a whole are just not current NHS priorities. I hope that changes, but for now I would recommend having a safety plan in place of what your going to eat if you should ever need to go to hospital (bring from home,get loved ones to support or get your own locally). ❤

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

I'm going to let Quorn know I expected them to move to more vegan/less veggie, but if they introduce meat blended products, they will lose my custom. I have no idea who would buy the blended stuff.

'smug dairy' that really says it all doesn't it.

People who want to eat plant based are not interested in eating meat at all, people who want to eat meat are not interested in eating less meat. So who is this crap for?

Smug Dairy? Was the company founded by people who mention they're gonna eat a steak everytime they run into a vegan.....

I live in Sweden. "Arla" - the biggest dairy company here - tried the same thing: to sell cows milk cut 50/50 with oats. It didn't sell very well. Now they've started to sell real oat milk. We are victorious!!! 😁👌👍

Why would they call THEMSELVES smug dairy? English is not my first language but smug is a negative word isn't it?

I think there is an actual and legitimate concern about consumers accidentally purchase the wrong thing as these lines get blended. Currently it's already hard enough to be a vegan having to read all the labels even on "plant-based" food to make sure eggs and dairy are sneaking in. But now we are also going to have these in-between products as a whole layer of "plant-based adjacent" food? What a headache.

i love my soy milk and all... but man do i miss that sublte flavor of animal cruelty. Thanks Smug Diary, now I can have my both! 🙄

It's so frustrating when you have companies like Quorn who could so easily commit to being vegan but don't. Same with Linda McCartney's. I can already imagine the news articles being written about this claiming it's a sign of the 'failure' of veganism -_-

My farmer friend told me today that farms are really struggling for the first time in at least 30 years. Farms are taking out hundreds of thousands worth of loans just to pay off debts and keep afloat, and apparently any new farmer wanting to start up a new farm has no chance of success. (UK) I am so hopeful for change!!

I agree with you 100%. I'm vegan and find this repulsive and worrisome that I might accidentally buy something that is a "blend". 🤢

I had a motorcycle accident with life threatening internal bleeding. In the hospital, the food was very processed. Thankfully I had simple Vegan meals brought to me from friends. Recovery was super fast!

That's why I make everything myself at home from scratch. The more people acting as middleman between you and what you consume, are that much higher chances that you're going to be screwed over somewhere.

Thank you for making me vegan Ed

My analogy is with cigarettes. It's obviously a good marketing gimmick for tobacco companies to market a "light" option, to keep customers. "Lights" acknowledge a problem with the core product but they steer reasonable people away from quitting.

They tried the oat+milk trick in Denmark. Disappeared quickly.

I already avoid Quorn simply because I find it annoying to have to check that it's vegan or vegetarian each time I see a product, when I can easily choose another companies product that will definitely be vegan. Adding meat to the mix just solidifies this avoidance of there products in my mind. If they are put in the plant based section I will be making a complaint to the supermarket involved as false advertising. And they think 'plant milk' is confusing for consumers! 😅

This makes me think of the "whats trashy if you're poor but classy if you're rich" trend. Blended tvp and beef burritos are found in gas stations because it's cheaper that only putting beef in them. They're cheap and considered kinda gross. For some reason quorn will display it on their packaging and charge more instead of lessm

From the US and yes, they are some products that we're 100% vegan and now have added ingredients derived from dairy and/or meats. Honestly annoyed and feel betrayed. It only makes me lean in more with whole foods vs buying prepared foods.

I'm glad you made a video on this, i accidentally bought that exact product in the thumbnail while in a rush at the supermarket. The taste was terrible.. I decided to check the ingredients and turns out there was egg in the product

🥺 Trader Joe's did this stupid 💩 to me. Had "almond cheese" I bought that container dairy and I didn't read the ingredients correctly the first time as I was fairly sure it was safe. I think it is funny how they want to tell vegans they shouldn't be able to call vegan cheese "cheese" because it "could be confusing for consumers" then turn around and make "plant based cheeses" that aren't plant based. Who's tryna confuse who now?

I remember when Quorn pledged to go vegan all in, on their products ,I knew they were chatting shit🙄.

Dairy is dying, they are in panic mode and it shows!

I can't imagine how gross that blended milk must be 🤮

Here in the United States the only reason for anything is capitalism nothing else. There is not any competitive company choosing ingredients based on health. The United States has another big business in the pharmaceutical industry. This is how we here in the United States combat illnesses caused by our diets, we sell drugs. My theory among the two I've already mentioned. But another is companies get big tax breaks if they add animal products to their products. This is why some products in the US uses dairy in potato chips, and the same company in other countries doesn't. I don't think it can be more obvious.

Please can we all make a stand against labelling with the word Plant Based. It helps literally noone and noone asked for it. Why cant we stick to vegan and vegetarian. If we want to start including lab grown meat in the future it should be labelled Lab Grown. Plant based is an irrelevant label. Meat eaters will avoid it, vegans cant trust it and vegetarians still have to read the ingredients to check if it contains animal derived ingredients.

I was going to say, the padding of meat with soy has been going on in the U.S. for a while, since it's cheaper.

NHS catering is outsourced, and has been since 1980. They go to companies that don't really care about the health of what they serve so much as they care about profits. This isn't a balanced meal served up by nutritionists.

Jack in the box has been doing it for decades in their tacos(US). It's a soy and cow blend. Blending is pretty gross. I wouldn't want animal flesh or secretions in my plant products. 🌱💪🏽✌🏽

Never bought a quorn product in my life, always hated how they end up in plant based aisles when they're just the same junk but blended with cheaper ingredients to save some money and appeal to oblivious people trying to make better choices.

One of my favorite breakfasts is vegan granola with vanilla Silk yogurt and blueberries. 🤗

I totally agree with you with these blended products. But I will say I started to eat mockmeats with Qourn schotch eggs so at the time I was still eating egg products. But these scotch eggs made me realise that eating mockmeats made me feel better ethically. I’m now an ethical vegan so of corse don’t eat these quorn scotch eggs now. But if those scotch eggs were blended quorn with animal flesh then maybe I would have took longer to start educating myself on veganism. So yes it’s a really bad thing.

Smart boy, Ed. It is exactually that. These companies know very well their consumers. The worst thing that they created was the term "flexitarian" which is an excelent excuse for people who think that stoping animal cruelty is radical or extreme but feel bad for doing it, to be part of the "cause" without quitting their ways of consumption.

This is the start of the end of dairy. Eventually the blend will be 100 percent plants. The percentages will change when they realize how much cheap plants are

Will be interesting to see how non-vegan consumers react to the Smug blend and how it could possibly affect the transformation of the dairy aisle. Quorn can eat my farts.

Smug Dairy really did a self report.

This has been happening forever. Bet you most meat eaters thought those conventional bacon bits vegans love were bacon until they either read the label or caught vegans eating them.

Man .... I'm going to have to be super careful buying plant-based products now??? This is soooo frustrating...

We’re having to visit a hospital a lot at the moment, there are hardly any healthy foods on sale and the so called healthier snacks vending machine is unbelievably unhealthy. Plant based options are virtually non existent.

We have to prove that there aren't "necessary" vitamins in meat, that's what so many think and from my experience on my fitness journey its not true at all.

POV: I was a flexeterian for many years, not because I didn’t want to commit to something, but because I hated the idea that animals were being killed so I could eat meat. But at the same time I believed humans needed meat to get all the nutrients necessary. So I was eating predominantly vegetarian diet and had meat sometimes once a week sometimes once a month. I thought at the time that being vegan was extremely unhealthy. During those years I would have happily replaced meat with products like those Ed is talking about because I would have been of the opinion that eating animal products mixed with plant based products was still better than eating just animal products. There are people who will think that eating half meat half plant based products is better for the environment and the animals or some even for their health. I became vegan 5 yrs ago when I watched a documentary and realised how animals were suffering and seeing that with my own eyes was so heartbreaking, that I decided to stop eating animals even if it meant my own life would be shorter because I would miss important nutrients in my diet. That was my thinking then. Later on I realised animal products are not necessary at all and i love what I eat so much that I don’t miss meat at all and wouldn’t eat it even if it was produced in a lab without animal suffering. But all those years ago I would have welcomed products like those mentioned in the video. I also believe that because I was eating predominantly vegetarian diet before I became vegan the change was incredibly easy for me and I know I am vegan for life. Being vegetarian or flexeterian is not necessary about not being able or willing to commit, it maybe about not knowing what is truly going on in animal farming and having wrong beliefs like I used to have. So I can totally imagine market for these products. Will I be buying them? Of course not but I know people who probably would, it may be a gateway for meat eaters transitioning to a more plant based diet and perhaps a step on their way to completely eliminating all animal products from their diet one day.

That has nothing to do with awareness but with tricking customers that thas is vegan. Because they don't write i.e.the word dairy milk "blended" with oats. Once or twice i was tricked myself and bought a plant milk (other company not these) and when i got home realised that it was not vegan. I was so angry not just for the money but because I hate throwing away food.

It has always annoyed me that Quorn's soy mince was never vegan.

I don't understand people. Soy milk is delicious and high-protein!

Several years someone recommended to me Quorn. I went food shopping to a Whole Foods in Boston and bought a bag. When I got home, I read the ingredients and went back to return the product. Since then, I read the ingredients list carefully before buying a new product.

We have something like that in the US called Nurish where it’s (allegedly) not made with animals or their secretions, but it has whey in it. I grabbed it thinking it was fully dairy free, (since it was in the vegan section) but when i read it to check for soy, since my 3yo has a soy allergy, i saw that it has whey in it. I tried it, just to see if it was comparable to cows milk dairy, and it was. I was doubled over from pain in my stomach and patchy with hives and eczema flareups within a few minutes. My cousin has deadly allergies to milk (bad enough that just touching dairy to skin he will go anaphylactic), and he shops in the vegan section. Adding cows milk ingredients, even artificial manufactured ones, is irresponsible at best.

I feel like this idea of mixing animal products in with what should be a vegan product is creepy and gross

That's why it's important to read the ingredients list I can't tell you how many times I bought something because it said plant based then checked the label and found out that it had milk or eggs, companies are getting tricky always good to double check!

Perhaps I represent an insignificant sector of the population, but as a small child (well over fifty years ago) and I had this vague notion that the farm animals that lived happy lives on old McDonald’s farm before they died and ended up on my plate; I had to force myself to eat that as I found it to taste quite awful. So when turned sixteen and became aware of what really went on in the animal factories, it became easy to just not eat it anymore but an added bonus was that my physical health, mental clarity, my grades, all improved significantly. It was not till many years later that I had been enlightened about the dairy industry and I gave up dairy even though I liked many products made from dairy. But then after being off dairy, other symptoms of discomfort had vanished. I’ve been told that I am young for my age but I can’t say as I can attribute it to eating a lot of fruits and vegetables but I have always had a distaste for processed foods. Perhaps it has been my discriminating taste that has kept me healthy. And I have to say just the thought of these “blended”foods you speak of makes me sick.

Agreed! Iv always had to read packaging because I'm sensitive to certain spices and now I have to make sure there are no animal products too. I hate that " plant based" labels don't mean as much as it should.

We already have enough stepping stones to veganism. Vegetarianism stalls people in its bubble of ignorant bliss for years. We already have hundreds of plant based alternatives to animal products in our shelves. What we need is people to shift from their own selfish needs and focus on the victims.

It's possible that these flexitarians will replace the days that they'd eat meat with Quorn products too. I agree plant based is better, but *if* is how it turns out, then it would be a net good.

Reminds me of the popular "eggs from vegetarian chickens!" marketing gimmick, as if the mere instance of plants touching the animal's body magically negates all the cruelty they endured.

It reminds me of Low Tar Cigarettes.

the problem with the dairy industry in the uk and Ireland is not the amount of milk sold its the price payed for it ny the supermarkets. Local farms in my area are now selling products direct to consumer and doing great

I personally don't see how this is going to help (apart from financially to the food companies), if these product are not targeted towards omnivores. It also freaks me out to think that supermarkets might place these items in the vegan/vegetarian section and we end up accidentally buying them as there was a similar product before which was vegan by the same brand (not that I don't check every time, as it has happened before that recipes were changed and something accidentally vegan was suddenly no longer)... But seriously makes me want to reduce processed foods even more than I already do...

Here in Spain I've also seen a brand blend cow's milk and oat milk, as well as meat burgers that include spinach and other veggies. Honestly, I hear a lot of people say they want to reduce the amount of meat they eat, but they're not looking for products like Quorn, they're buying animal flesh directly from the butcher. I just don't see the point of these products. It is hilarious that Smug's campaign is basically agreeing with us. I didn't see that coming.

Ikea has meat-veggie mix meatballs that are cheaper than purely-meat meatballs. Financial incentives are paramount

I completely agree with you. In my perspective, it's ineffective, and the reasons are valid. I find myself educating myself with more knowledge to become an articulate activist in the hopes of educating others. It's where my heart is, and I won't stop until these sentient beings are free. Much love and respect to you for doin'. The damn. Thing.

Quorn started out only selling vegetarian products but have also been selling vegan products for years now. And I had, perhaps somewhat naively, hoped they would continue moving in the right direction and eventually stop making vegetarian products altogether. So it’s really disappointing that they’re now taking a big step backwards by creating another brand for blended animal flesh products (they said in a reply to a comment on their official facebook page that it’s the same company but wont be under the Quorn brand). As for trying to find a possible positive reason, I doubt there is one. I’d prefer not to be so pessimistic but I can’t help but think this is just more of the same typical BS to be expected in this Malthusian Social-Darwinian Global Capitalist Monetary Market System we were all born into and conditioned upon. Sadly. But I too would love to be proven wrong about their fanciful claims and motives.

They've done it because plant products (raw materials) are actually cheaper yet their price point will remain the same - kerching! Profit is the only motive for these sorts of companies.

Thank you Ed for your informative information❤

I feel like this could appeal to the people "trying to eat more ethically", like the people who say they only eat animal products from local, sustainable, or "happy" farms. I could see someone thinking they were doing their part and being part of the solution. Hopefully, these products will fail.

I've only recently become vegan (in my third year now) and my first reason was health, not ethics (you, Ed, were my first, best influence for understanding the ethics of it) but this mixing of animals into plant-based stuff is icky to me. And makes things even more complicated. Good thing I've been a strong label reader since having a child with multiple food allergies in 2003. I think it might not make a huge difference either way but it's definitely annoying and feels unnecessary.

I don't eat processed crap, vegan or not (I've been vegan for 18 years). Once you get used to WFPB it's hard to appreciate anything that isn't and even harder to go back. No thanks.

this is me being a biased vegan i guess but whats the point in a blended product? its either you eat meat or you dont. like you said ed dont give out cigs in hospitals but if they put a medicine in a cig they'd still be smoking a cigarette. this just doesnt make any sense.

This blending sounds absolutely ludicrous.

I totally agree with your thoughts Ed, you're not wrong. Quorn should be fully vegan by now, they've had years to transition, it's pathetic. And the same goes for Linda McCartney products, I often think if she were alive the range would be fully vegan

0:58 I’m from denmark and we have been having this kind of thing for a while with companies like the completely shameless gaslighting dairy company Arla. Some years ago they made a big marketing campaign where they smeared plant milk for not being ‘milk’ (basically big posters posing as a unbranded plantmilk with the letters “0% milk” or “not milk” and simultaneously implying all the nutritions and semi-made up health benefits attributed to “real” milk were not there) I guess after the EU lawsuits about the call for a ban on calling plant based products milk which the dairy industry won. Guess that backfired as when they started adding plant milk .. oh sorry, i mean plantdrink .. into the actual milk and even started branding 100 % plant..drink. They kinda whined about the fact that had to call it ‘havredrik’ or oat-drink instead of oatmilk as the EU law (that they helped cheer on ) now required them to do so. Bohoo😭🤣

Thank you for sharing this info

Goodness, the only way I would ever support these products is if the animal based parts of the products were grown ethically and safely in a lab.

Great analysis, Ed. Thanks for all you do

Thank you so much for calling this out. Sometime last year I got meat free meatballs to show off to my family about how good vegan food can be. When we had all eaten it I checked to see what they had used to make the balls. Discovered there was egg in the ingredients. I know I should have checked but I felt betrayed by how it had seemlessly been advertised as plant based by quorn. I learned my lesson

how abhorrent :(

As long as they don't mix my oat milk with dairy, I remain unaffected.

I mean it's a step in the right direction? less meat consumption means less death.

People calling themselves flexitarians - it's ridiculous! They're just omnivores who like to give themselves a tag of "me too, I am a conscious eater" because sometimes they eat vegetarian or vegan meals. But every person who has once snacked on nuts or eaten an apple on its own (99% of omnivores out there) is also a flexitarian because they've chosen a vegan meal. Ridiculous! But somehow these people feel the need not just be called omnivores. The term flexitarian just suits their ego

earflin ed

I am not convinced that meat eaters will choose a “blend” which is seen as processed instead of their usual choice of meat seen as “natural”. This is why I also don’t believe that lab grown meat will make meat eaters stop or reduce their meat consumption. So I don’t see how these blended products are in any way beneficial to either vegan or non vegans. Vegans will stop eating them and non vegans will not replace their “natural” steak with a blend.

he looking more girly by the year

My understanding is that the NHS is introducing the blended Quorn products to reduce their carbon emissions and hope they will be accepted by patients who expect to eat meat and may refuse 100% plant based products. Animal welfare is not a consideration.😢

Hey Ed, I don't usually comment on your videos and I don't know if you will ever read this but I've been seing a change in your content for the last 2 or 3 moths and I'm sorry to say that but I don't think it hasn't been for the better, here's why: 1. Maybe it's just a coincidence but lately you've been specially fixated in (mostly famous) ex-vegans and even ex vegetarians (Miley Cyrus, Martin Freeman, Hanah Einbinder) and also famous personalities who are just not vegan (Eddie Abbew, Elisabeth Olsen *and now Dua Lipa*) 2. In the last 3 months, from 8 videos, 3 of them were titled "we need to talk about the demise of veganism", "My struggles with veganism" and "I never Imagined this would happen" respectively. I understand that videos must have attractive titles and minuatures but, honestly, I feel this is too much selling. (This also applies to this videos miniature "the end of 100% vegan products?") I understand that these changes (and some others, much more subtle to be considered) have been a consequence of the desire to spread the message to as much people as possible, using the algorithm and views as a means to that end. But I believe that, slowly but surely, this desire is erosing the honesty and general quality of your message. We don't need their power, we can empower ourselves without famous celebrities or tricky titles. The online world is becoming more toxically commertial and if we don't step out of the wheel and reflect upon that we well be eaten by them. I hope that I'm not the only one who thinks this and that you take this as a constructive criticism. Best regards, Victor Edit: this was a comment made in the last video but because it still applies to this video I will be commenting until I get a response or I feel a change (or until I get tired).

If a meal has animal body parts in it that meal is not vegan. Geeze, why must folks try to smuggle animal body parts or milks into every meal?

7th! #GoVegan

It’s sad to see Quorn changing a lot of their vegan products to vegetarian, many vegans are boycotting them. They could’ve transitioned to fully vegan now but they’re just another company that cares about money and will pander to their biggest customer, flexitarians

It’s not even a question. We need that “3rd choice” to make the transition smoother. This will take a lot of time.

Getting into making my own seitan really levelled up my cooking. Vegan 16 years but only started making seitan a couple of years ago, after my dad was already doing it (he's veggie). If anyone has any good seitan recipes or tips, please share them!