Meat alternatives are foodstuffs made to resemble animal flesh, but manufactured from other ingredients, that have become increasingly popular in British mainstream diets. These products are on the one hand appreciated as an opposition to animal products and their associated issues; on the other hand, they are often used to replace meat in an indistinguishable manner, thereby providing an alternative to this core constituent of British food culture. This thesis explores this apparent contradiction between challenging and reproducing hegemonic meat culture. To achieve this, this thesis assesses qualitatively (a) the history of meat alternatives in the United Kingdom,(b) their description in texts of producers and consumers, and (c) the cultural embeddedness of meat alternatives by their advocates in relation to meat.