One small step for ticks, one giant leap for smug vegans.


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Upwards of 100,000 Americans have developed an allergy to red meat since 2010 thanks to a tick-borne illness known as alpha-gal syndrome, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday.


Impacting an estimated 450,000 U.S. residents, a number that would shoot red meat to the 10th most common allergy in the nation, per the Associated Press, experts warn that cases of this condition are only rising, numbers that will inevitably lead to a whole lot of sad barbeques.



As omnivores preemptively mourned for their favorite foods — “the war on meat continues,” lamented @Whiskey_Hell — another group took this news in stride, heralding the impending golden era of Boca Burgers and lettuce wraps: The vegans of Reddit.


“Best thing I have read all day,” commented u/Lord_Tsuisek on a r/vegan post commemorating the CDC’s report.



“Nature is fighting back,” added u/Giubeltr, while u/SingeMoisi dubbed the news “an absolute win.”


But where several vegans saw cause for celebration, others saw a diabolical opportunity.


Though u/DerpyTheGrey suggested using these pests as a biological weapon in converting the masses to veganism — “even my meat-eating brother has said that it would probably be good for the environment to breed a bunch of lone star ticks and scatter them in urban centers,” they wrote — others speculated these plans had long been in motion.


“I have a hypothesis that some mad scientist from PETA in an underground secret lab manufactured this and then unleashed it into the wild as part of a master plan,” theorized u/quihgon.


But hey, whether alpha-gal was the work of a vegan mad scientist or simply nature taking its course, one thing is for sure — at least Beyond Meat is somewhat decent.