protein
Explanation
This comic contrasts science fiction with reality in two panels. The top panel, labeled "In Sci Fi," shows a spaceship crew receiving their rations: "Here are your protein cylinders, crew." One crew member grumbles: "Ugh. You know if this next job comes through, I'm gonna buy my first bite of REAL meat." The implication is that in the sci-fi future, real meat is a luxury and people subsist on bland synthetic protein.
The bottom panel, labeled "Reality," shows a person in a grocery store holding an expensive box of "Organic Blend of nature" while looking wistfully at the cheap "Beef Nugs" (priced at $4.00), thinking: "God I wish I could afford to be vegan."
The joke inverts a common science fiction trope. In countless sci-fi universes (from Blade Runner to Snowpiercer), the dystopian food situation is that the poor eat synthetic slop while the rich enjoy real meat. The comic points out that in actual reality, the economics are reversed: processed meat products like cheap beef nuggets are among the most affordable foods available, while plant-based, organic, and vegan alternatives are often significantly more expensive. The person who wants to eat "better" (in the ethical or health-conscious sense) can't afford to.
This creates a funny irony: science fiction imagines a future where capitalism makes meat a luxury, but present-day capitalism has made meat so cheap (through industrial farming and subsidies) that it's the ethical alternatives that are out of reach for ordinary people. The comic suggests that our actual dystopia is the mirror image of the one science fiction warned us about.