Across two campuses nearly 800 miles apart, CFACT Collegians recently challenged one of the loudest cultural claims of the climate movement: that Americans must give up real meat for plant-based substitutes.
As part of CFACT’s Climate Realism Campaign, campus representatives at the University of Houston and the University of Tennessee Knoxville hosted Blind Meat Taste Tests, inviting students to sample chicken nuggets alongside plant-based “nuggets” and guess which was which. Instead of lecturing their peers about methane, lab-grown protein, or the questionable nutrition of ultra-processed meat substitutes, our students did something far more effective.
They let the taste buds decide.
University of Houston: Sidewalk Snacks
At the University of Houston, CFACT Collegian Sofia Syed set up her booth in a high-traffic area and invited passing students to take the snacking challenge. Sofia presented two plates of nuggets, neither labeled and their ingredients only known to her. Participants tasted the nuggets, made their guesses, and then found out if their taste buds were reliable or not.
Thankfully, almost all the students Sofia interacted with were quick to identify the real chicken nugget from its faux counterpart. Sofia used the opportunity to educate her fellow peers about nutritional food choices, the aggressive cultural push to demonize meat, and the way climate rhetoric is increasingly used to vilify American farmers and ranchers. Without preaching, Sofia created a space where students could learn and snag a tasty bite to eat.
University of Tennessee Knoxville: “Tastes Like Chicken!”
At the University of Tennessee Knoxville, CFACT Collegian Jude Abernathy brought the same blind taste test to a campus ministry meeting of around fifteen students. The room quickly turned lively as participants took their turns donning a blindfold and attempting to identify which nugget was real poultry and which was the plant-based imitation.
“Tastes like chicken!”, one student named Chad said as he bit into a real chicken nugget. Exactly the kind of reaction you get when real food is actually on the table. After the tasting, Jude kept the momentum going, handing out flyers, dishing out quick facts about the dangers of fake meat, and talking with the group about CFACT’s mission. What started as a fun icebreaker became a meaningful recruiting moment, illustrated perfectly by the students’ own palates.
Why This Matters
The Blind Meat Taste Test works because it doesn’t rely on slogans or slideshows—it relies on first-hand experience.
College students are constantly told what to think about agriculture, climate, and “sustainable diets.” CFACT Collegians are doing something rare: giving students a chance to test the narrative themselves so they can make up their own minds. Professors can lie, but your tastebuds don’t. From Texas to Tennessee and beyond, CFACT Collegians are proving that sometimes all you need to combat propaganda is… a nugget of truth.
