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Presumably shifting market prices of protein sources will change consumption patterns. But if people are priced out of eating as much meat as they’re used to, it breaks the mental model of continuously improving living standards, which might have political knock on effects.

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Right, that's been going on in the US for the last 20 years but it's a frog-slowly-boiled situation. Nobody really knows why so many people are unhappy but they are.

Imagine if all that had happened over a year or two. The BLM protests would probably look quaint by comparison.

Hence why we've seen the popularisation of fake-meats in the USA.

Do you mean that as a counterpoint to the parent? These products seem to generally be targeting wealthier consumers. I wonder if China did face a shortage of animal protein, they could avoid some of the political unrest by marketing plant-based alternatives as being more desirable, like these US companies are trying to do (with reasonable success, it seems).

The meat substitutes are made out of soy and various other lately scarce ingredients.

Just, a lot less of them than would have been fed to the animal it replaces.

The latest generation of meat substitute products are largely a highly processed form of pea protein.

I thought this was more a result of increasing health/environmental awareness.

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