Can Catholics eat the Impossible Burger during Lent? Sure — but it’s kind of missing the point, experts say.
Feb. 28, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. CST
washingtonpost.com
For as long as religious dietary guidelines have existed, somewhere there has likely been at least one moderately devoted practitioner desperately searching for loopholes.
But the advent of technology that enables non-meat products to taste more like meat than ever poses a fresh ethical question that’s particularly relevant this time of year: Can Catholics, in good conscience, eat plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger during Lent?
“I will be honest: when someone asked me that, my first thought was, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?! It’s genius!!' ” the Rev. Marlon Mendieta, of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Fayetteville, N.C., wrote in an email. “But then my conscience kicked in, and I just felt that I wouldn’t be okay with that.”
The Catholic Church instructs members to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent, a season of penitence and renewal leading up to Easter. The practice of forgoing meat dates to the early Church, when meat was considered a luxury, and is meant to be an act of self-discipline.
The question of whether plant-based burgers count as meat may sound silly, but it offers insight into how people of faith think about their dietary rules and traditions as food technology rapidly advances. Although plant-based meat is a much smaller industry than traditional meat, plant-based meat sales increased roughly 10 percent in the year leading up to April 2019, according to the Good Food Institute, which advocates for plant-based alternatives to animal products.
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