Remember fake meat? For a while, the ultra-processed, over-brined slurry of extracts and concentrates marketed as a healthier alternative to the consumption of animal proteins was everywhere. Today, not so much.

“Sales of plant-based meats are in decline,” The Economist reported this week. Investors who once flocked to alternative meat producers are pulling back in response to reduced consumer demand. “Even as the cost of meat has soared,” the report added, “it remains cheaper than plant-based imitations” due, in part, to federal subsidies for meat producers.

But cost alone does not explain fake meat’s retreat from the market. Another factor, The Economist concedes, ...

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