Can’t remember the brand it was but I tried these vegan chicken nuggets once that did indeed taste like chicken. But they also had the texture of wadded up paper, so it was just weird. I’d get them again if I could remember the brand.
You should try Impossible’s chicken nuggets. I love them. I prefer them over real nuggets.
I wish vegan products did not try to recreate a meat product but instead just made naramd new products.
Making vegan chicken wings, forces you to compare them to real chicken wings.
If they instead were branded as something entirely unrelated to meat, they would have a decent chance at often being great products as they are!
I agree. I do miss chicken wings, not because I miss chicken, but because it was a fried vessel to deliver scrumptious sauces into my mouth. I love cauliflower bites covered with bbq sauce and hot sauce.
I eat soyrizo not because it mimics sausage, but because I love those spices.
I’m not a vegan, and I eat vegan meat alternatives when I have the chance. I don’t think these products are aimed at people who dislike real meat. They’re aimed at people who like meat but want a plant based alternative, and there are a lot of us.
This is my point though. Many of these plant based alternatives are pretty bad, if you already like the meat version that they are trying to imitate.
So if you like steak, the vegan steak will not live up to what you had imagined. If instead it was called Green bite, root rise, VerdeVibe, beanbliss or something else that had nothing to do with a meat dish, people would have nothing to compare it to and value it for what it is
With a steak, maybe, but with hamburger meat, the vegan options are better than the real thing. Same with processed chicken. I don’t want Green Bite, I want a vegan burger. One that tastes like a burger. And that’s an option, so I don’t see how that’s at all a bad thing.
The replicating meat product isn’t really for “veagan” it’s for people who try to eat less meat or go vegan/vegetarian. If you ate meat for 30+ years every day, people are really hard stuck. But seeing something in the store that says: tastes like chicken or replacement for beef is just a little helper so people know what even to buy.
That’s not really correct. It is a vegan thing too. I was a meat eater for 25 years and turned vegan because I wanted to respect the animals. But I always liked the taste. The life of the animals is just more important to me than my taste buds. But if the taste is easily replicated using plant based ingredients, I don’t see it as an animal whatsoever and would enjoy it as a vegan food.
So you mean vegetables? I eat vegan most of the time (but not “full vegan”) and I rarely eat the “alternatives” since there’s more than enough OG vegan food. I discovered Tempeh a few months ago and am now crazy about it - it has so much variety and I’ll be making it myself soon! No need to compare it with anything.
Also learning that tofu is already cooked has opened up a whole new culinary world for me. I love smoked tofu in a brine, but we also have “tofu rosso” which is marinated and has tomatoes and olives. Sorry for german, but check it out:
There’s more to a vegan diet than ultra-processed (not in a bad way) imitations. You can 100% eat only whole foods.
Only the first paragraph or so is readable, however the entire article is viewable from the source. https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/best-vegan-meat-brands-taste-test-nectar-almost-as-good-as-the-real-thing/
Four of those products performed so well they almost reached taste parity, which Nectar defines as there being no statistically significant difference in how participants scored the vegan product versus the animal one in terms of overall liking. Those four are Impossible Foods’ unbreaded chicken breast, chicken nuggets, and burger, as well as Morningstar Farms’ nuggets.
It isn’t about taste, it is about not being able to replace the nutritional value of the meat serving with the Vegan alternative. Vegan food is delicious, but it has issues getting everything you need into your body when replacing things found specifically in meats.
Isn’t Impossible burger meat virtually identical nutritionally as real meat? That’s why it’s not very good for you. Like, burgers aren’t healthy.
Isn’t Impossible burger meat virtually identical nutritionally as real meat? That’s why it’s not very good for you. Like, burgers aren’t healthy.
This has nothing at all to do with what I am saying.
My point is that articles pushing the flavour narrative are missing the point because it isn’t about taste. It is about the fact that being Vegan is expensive as it takes a lot of supplements outside of food consumption to replace what can only be found in meats that the human body requires to survive.
Junk food tastes great, but it isn’t good for you. Burgers aren’t inherently unhealthy, just like Vegan food isn’t automatically healthy.
Idk man, plenty of people survive just fine without eating meat. Multivitamins are incredibly cheap. I eat meat and I still take a multivitamin daily. It’s like $25 for a 6 month supply at Costco. Impossible burgers are about the same price as regular burgers there too. I can make an Impossible burger at home with all the fixings for less than the price of a Big Mac. Maybe you live in a place where these things are really expensive?
And I bet all of them are loaded with methylcellulose (a.k.a. nature’s laxative) just like every other bullshit fake meat product.
I follow a vegan diet now, but grew up in the southern US around legit BBQ. There is no point trying to replicate that, never going to come close and it’s just going to use shitty processed food techniques to accomplish it. If you’re going to go vegan, how about actually be vegan instead of chasing a life you decided to leave behind.
Yeah, but what if they’re not loaded with methylcellulose, or what if we do eventually come close to the real meats or what if this is a gateway product that could convert carnists?
Nope. Give me real plants, unprocessed. Just because a heavily processed compound that happens to be considered vegan might taste like meat has absolutely no bearing on whether or not someone is going to stop eating meat.
It’s kinda like a heroin addict. They’re not gonna stop just because you took their needle away or gave them a different drug. They have to want to stop on their own, otherwise anything you try is moot.
No one is making you eat these products. If you’re so addicted to meat that you can’t have even fake meat without risking falling off the bandwagon, then it’s probably better you don’t anyway.
There are plenty of people (me included) who enjoy the taste and experience of eating meat, but would rather eat a plant based alternative. That’s who these products are for. When I have a choice between a real burger and an Impossible burger, I’ll choose the Impossible burger every time. But when I don’t have that choice, I’m going to eat the real burger.
In your heroin example, when they do decide to break the addiction, giving them a different drug (Methadone) is exactly what you do.
Well that’s exactly what I did, so obviously it didn’t work for you, but substitutes absolutely did it for me. Don’t know why you’re so incredulous.
I’m able to make a false analogy too : It’s kinda like training wheels on a bike. It makes the experience of biking easier for the one learning and eventually you can remove them.
I’ve been eating Impossible burgers and nuggets for years, and it’s never had a laxative effect. I think you might be assuming there’s a high enough dose to produce the effect, when there probably isn’t.
What’s wrong with being vegan but wanting a meat substitute? Does it make someone a worse person than you if they do that?
I’m not vegan, and I eat Impossible meats, because I try to eat less meat and they taste really good. Would it be better if I ate real meat instead? Because the way you’re talking, it sounds like that’s what you’d prefer.
This. I’m not giving up BBQ, sorry. However, if I can replace my heavily processed meats like nuggies or hamburger patties with something that tastes more or less the same, has a vaguely similar or better texture, and doesn’t involve killing an animal, then fuck yeah I’ll try it.
Talking about how an ingredient is a laxative as if it’s going to immediately make everyone shit their brains out just pushes me and presumably others away from meat substitutes. Tbh it almost feels elitist or like meat propaganda. “The fake meat is gonna make you die from diarrhea!!!” or “Oooo… Look at me, I’m a real^tm vegan because I don’t eat that chemical filled, laxative laced fake meat”.
I’d rather people eat for their blood types than trying to force fuck themselves into what someone else suggests they eat.
https://www.webmd.com/diet/blood-type-diet
MC may not have the same effect on you as some other people, just like red meat may not have the same effect on you as it does others. Some blood types actually need meat, others require raw roots and less cooking.
So yes, eat the meat if your body and metabolism react to it in a healthy way. Just do yourself a favor and go to a local butcher, don’t buy the pre-packaged garbage from grocery stores or Boar’s Head.
Lastly, my point was that the fake meats are all heavily processed foods, as opposed to real meat which is considered a whole-food in most forms. Let your body break it down into what it needs, not some machine in another state run by a CEO who wants to make money off you.
In the years since D’Adamo introduced the Blood Type Diet, many studies have looked into whether the diet actually works, but none of them have shown a clear link between eating according to your blood type and better health.
I’ve seen how Impossible burger meat is made. It’s just ground up plants and oils. If that’s what you call “heavily processed”, I feel like I shouldn’t take your advice on diet.
- Source: https://youtu.be/6fGEggkj02g
These claims are not backed by WebMD.
Great source.
I’ve never seen anything credible that says any human “needs meat.” Every major health and dietetic organization in the world says that humans do not require meat for optimal health. However, the more meat you eat, the younger you die and the more debilitating diseases you experience. (You can scholar search “meat all cause mortality”.)
I get what you mean especially in comparison to the real southern BBQ. However things aren’t rational … I used to have cravings for meat all the time and a random veggie dog or burger would make it go away.
I don’t really chase the vegan lifestyle so there’s probably a market for those people like us that would try to eat vegan/veggie more often than they do.
These are not for vegans. Vegans alone couldn’t remotely pay back what has been invested in these products. These are for carnists looking for the moral license to continue eating shitty food. Like how when people order a diet pop, they allow themselves any amount of high-calorie food to go along with it. It’s a marketing gimmick for carnists, not a solution to any problem vegans have.
Fair enough, I can agree with that for sure. I just hate how taste is the driving factor in these kinds of articles / sentiments, and that most people focus solely on taste. It’s way better when it’s tasty, no doubt, but the purpose should be more on fueling the complex biological machine that carries you around and interacts with your friends and family.
To add to your point on the flipside, I know several vegans that think they are healthy just because they only eat things with a vegan label. High Fructose Corn Syrup is technically vegan, and can be included in products that have a label (in high amounts, even). Vegan != Healthy. It just means no animal products.
“Carnists” is an inappropriate slur. It’s the first time I have heard it but I just know I should probably be offended. I reserve the right to use it on other people.
The person you’re replying to is the kind of person that makes rednecks proud to eat meat. Personally, I don’t care if someone thinks I’m doing it to virtue signal; I’m going to eat meat alternatives when they taste as good as meat, and Impossible meat does taste as good as meat. Reducing our overall meat consumption as a society is a good thing.
I can tell you’re being funny but I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying. Taking your comment at face value (sorry about that), “carnist” was not intended as a slur, and certainly is not defined as one. Carnists are people with the (typically unconscious, unexamined) belief that sometimes it is acceptable or even good to be needlessly cruel and violent to animals. The word contrasts with vegans, who believe needless cruelty and violence are never acceptable or good. It was coined by Melanie Joy in their 2009 book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism.
I love the taste of meat, and I’m not going to stop eating meat unless there’s an alternative that tastes as good. Impossible meat is an alternative that tastes as good, so whenever Impossible is an option, I choose it. Whether you think that means I’m moral licensing or whatever doesn’t matter to me, but to some people, you may be pushing them away from making a better choice by talking down to them for trying to improve. Would you make fun of a fat person for going to the gym and working out? If someone is making better choices, you should be celebrating that.
