Lab-Grown Meat Will Soon Be Rebranded As 'Clean Food'

The concept of lab-grown meat has exploded in recent years. The idea has evolved from a veggie burger that doesn't actually taste like a veggie burger to the Impossible Foods burger — a meatless burger touted by David Chang that actually bleeds. But meatless meat is about to undergo a serious rebrand. Scientists are aware that lab-grown meat sounds a little too much like a scary Frankenfood, so The Good Food Institute is looking to rebrand the food of the future as "clean food" instead, according to Quartz.​

The Good Food Institute is a lobbying group that rallies on behalf of the evolving lab-grown meat industry. According to its lobbyists, clean food focuses more on the "ethos behind their products, rather than the actual processes," which would hopefully better appeal to the wider public. In 2014, a PEW Research Center study found that only one in five people would try lab-grown meat.

In other words, a rebrand would help the Impossible Burger sound more like something in your grocery cart and less like a Monsanto experiment.

The same concept worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture when it renamed vegetables in school cafeterias to make them sound more appealing:

"Why not call broccoli 'broccoli bites' or carrots 'X-ray vision carrots?' Renaming foods to make them sound more appealing resulted in an increase in the sale of vegetables in the school cafeteria by 27 percent," Brian Wansink, a former USDA official, said in a study.