Deliciousness is always necessary. You think you’re going to spark change when that neo-Nazi gets a little milkshake in their mouth and doesn’t taste sweet, creamy, ice-cold goodness with a hint of pistachio – transporting them back to the tin roof sundae their parents got them from Ronnie’s to make their boo-boo all better after soccer practice? I don’t think so. Slacktivism like that won’t get you anywhere.

You didn’t elaborate, so I’ll do it for you.

Just Egg tested on rats for mung bean protein isolate, their main ingredient. The testing isn’t ongoing. While they didn’t have to per se (put a pin in that) for FDA approval, other countries like Canada have booted similar products for not using animal testing. And the FDA doesn’t technically require it, but GRAS gives you the options to 1) test on animals or 2) do something else to convince them (they never specify what this is, and from what I’ve heard, with no concrete steps, you’re effectively railroaded into animal testing). This is the same thing Impossible gets so much flak for (with people ironically suggesting switching to Beyond, who didn’t test on animals™ but who use real beef during ongoing taste tests). Impossible tried no-testing and got rejected by the FDA, and we’ll never know if Just Egg did too.

In the case of Field Roast in Canada, they chose to reformulate with other ingredients that had already been tested on animals before and thus met Canada’s requirements (not introducing new animal testing, but uhhhhhhh). Even if you ignore the previous animal testing because the company wasn’t the one to commit the original sin, it seems clear e.g. with Simply Eggless (which uses lupin beans rather than mung) that you want some kind of bean if you want a homogeneous, mass-market scrambled egg substitute. This was the core ingredient of Just Egg’s product. I’d argue – alongside e.g hard-boiled egg substitutes – such a product is essential to pulling consumers away from the egg industry and making plant-based dieting more convenient for the average person (and in a world where the average person cares much less than you and I, convenience is synonymous with viability).

PETA – who I’m not listing as a generic appeal to authority to supersede this discussion but as an organization I expect to hold companies to high standards – listed Just Egg as their 2025 company of the year. They note that as of 2025, 500 million eggs’ worth of Just Egg had been sold, which almost certainly wouldn’t have been possible if Just Egg had created some inferior substitute with existing animal-tested products.

You can cite “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” if you want (even then, it’s not perpetual suffering), but it seems like the animal testing was functionally if not strictly necessary, one-time, and opened up mung bean protein isolate for everyone. While Just Egg is practicable to avoid as a product, it’s totally dwarfed in the amount of animal exploitation and suffering created by other common, definitely vegan products (O(1)) is a hell of a drug).

TL;DR: I blame organizations like the FDA, not Just Egg (plus I made some other points idk).

Milkshaking is a real thing and does mean throwing milkshakes at people as a means of political protest.

it was a popular trend in the UK in 2019 to express political dissent against right-wing political figures and humiliate them publicly.