In a twist of modern consumer psychology, we are now comfortable injecting synthetic substances into our faces, yet bristle at the thought of putting them in our mouths.
The cosmetics industry is booming. Dermal fillers and wrinkle-smoothing neurotoxins have become routine maintenance, with the injectables market set to more than double by 2030.
Jewellery, meanwhile, has undergone its own synthetic revolution. Lab-grown diamonds, once dismissed as tacky, now claim a growing market share, pushing natural gem sales into decline. Luxury consumers, it seems, are fine with “fake” as long as their sparkle is real.
But while we embrace synthetics when it comes to beauty, we continue to draw the line at our lunch. Alternative proteins, from plant-based fake meat to cultivated meat, struggle for public acceptance despite clear benefits: far lower greenhouse gas emissions, no animal welfare issues and potential reductions in antibiotic resistance.
One explanation for this is our peculiar reverence for “natural” as shorthand for purity, authenticity and safety. This preference is known as the “naturalness bias” in psychology and it underlies why we recoil from “synthetic meat” even when it is arguably less risky than industrial farming.
This preference isn’t irrational so much as archaic. For early humans, avoiding unfamiliar foods was a survival tool, as a strong disgust response protected us against ingesting contaminated food. But our instincts haven’t kept pace with innovation and what is now considered the “natural” choice may be the one carrying significant risk, from hormone-laced beef to the heavy environmental toll of animal agriculture.
Food, unlike gems or cosmetics, continues to trigger a visceral reaction, and this poses a real problem. If we are to meet the protein needs of a global population approaching 10 billion by mid-century, food innovation isn’t a choice, but a necessity. Livestock farming’s land, water and emissions footprint is unsustainable at scale. Cultivated meat and precision fermentation – bioengineering microbes like yeast to produce protein – are viable alternatives, but consumer scepticism, fuelled by outdated, naturalistic fallacies, is slowing their adoption.
This resistance isn’t about taste or health. Blind taste tests show plant-based proteins can match meat’s sensory profile, often with equal or better nutrition. Nor is it strictly economic: costs for alternative proteins, especially plant-based ones, are falling. The real obstacle is psychological – our fear of technology and the new.
One way forward is transparency: explaining alternative protein production processes to consumers and linking these to familiar ones like cheese-making or beer-brewing. Framing alternative proteins as evolutions of tradition, not radical departures, can help build trust.
Equally, we must be willing to puncture the myth that meat, as it is consumed today, is somehow “natural”. A typical supermarket pack of sausages is the result of a long process involving feed additives, pharmaceuticals, genetic selection and industrial slaughter. If we are squeamish about the word “synthetic”, we might do well to consider what conventional meat production actually entails.
Our bias towards the natural once kept us alive. Now it may be preventing us from embracing the very technologies that are essential to our long-term food security, environmental stability and even public health. After all, if we have welcomed synthetics into the intimacies of our lives and our bodies as anti-ageing injections, lip filler and lab-grown diamonds, perhaps it is time to extend that pragmatism to our plates.
Sophie Attwood is a behavioural science consulant at Behavior Global, UK
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