“Taste tests prove these vegan meat brands do not taste as good as the real thing.”
I don’t see the appeal. If I want vegan fried snack food / street food I’m going for falafel, pakora, tempura, or even beer-battered onion rings. Fried chickpeas, fried plantain chips, potato chips, fried tofu skins, vegan fried spring rolls, blooming onions, fried wonton nachos topped with vegan pulled pork (made with jackfruit), vegan empanadas, vegan pizza rolls, …
The list goes on and on and on. There is so much better stuff to eat than highly processed nuggets. Even if you aren’t vegan, there are much better things to eat than chicken nuggets.
But I see it. I want this.
I am happy for you if you don’t want chicken, but I like chicken and I want to eat it. If there is an alternative that tastes the same, I’m going to use that. If there’s falafel as an alternative, I’m going with the chicken.
I do want chicken. Just not chicken nuggets which are made from mechanically separated chicken aka pink slime. If I’m having fried chicken, it’s gotta be whole muscle meat.
Don’t even need to taste as good, I’ll gobble up most vegan nuggets alternatives regardless.
For things like frozen nuggets? It’s already just a breaded and deep fried protein paste at that point. Easy bar to clear and stay vegan.
the sheer amount of carnist misinformation in this thread is something else…
It really is something to behold. The animal agriculture propaganda did its work.
The secret is salt.
And fat. Vegan burger patties taste like heaven because of fat and salt.
I already like how they will cost the same as meat, even though they are much cheaper to produce. /s
That’s not how any of the products in the supermarket are priced though
“Almost”
Lol, Impossible burgers and nuggets taste better than the real thing to me. The burgers’ mouth feel isn’t as good as the real thing, but the taste is better. And the nuggets both taste and feel better than the real thing.
I like not feeling disgusted about the cruelty. Really adds to the experience.
There’s that too. After seeing the way chickens are factory farmed, even if real nuggets tasted better than Impossible nuggets, I’d still go with Impossible. Luckily, Impossible’s are better, so it’s the easiest choice ever.
Sure, if your definition of “meat” is frozen chicken nuggets or those sawdust & gristle pre-made burgers. I’ve tried all these meat alternatives and they’re nothing like actual meat, both in taste and texture, and they come with the added bonus of being ultra processed.
Let’s see the cloned meat. I’m really curious to see if that’s any good.
What does “ultra processed” mean, in this context?
That they are made from heavily refined products such as pea protein as compared to non-processed foods like whole vegetables or minimally-processed like salads.
That, however, does not make them bad by itself - they are generally still healthier than other ultra-processed (junk) foods since they are not made to be addictive with a lot of salt, sugar, and fat.
You should watch this video. This shows how Impossible burger meat is made.
Nothing in it is what I would describe as “heavily refined” like you said. The “heaviest” refinement process they use is fermentation, like sauerkraut, beer, yogurt, etc. I don’t think anyone would describe sauerkraut as “ultra processed”.
Here are the ingredients:
Ingredients: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, 2% Or Less Of: Natural Flavors, Methylcellulose, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Yeast Extract, Dextrose, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), L-Tryptophan, Soy Protein Isolate,
Vitamins and Minerals: Zinc, Vitamins (B3, B1, B6, B2, and B12)
Contains: Soy
I’m a hardcore meat eater, and TBH, I would rather eat a vegetable, than something ultra-processed and vegetable adjacent.
Given how tasteless real chicken from the broiler varieties taste, I’m not surprised that something with a similar texture and the same spices tastes similarly. I had the misfortune to grow up around and eat colorful chicken and my brain still can’t get over the taste of factory farmed poultry.
I found the same with beef, bland and flavourless, compared to moose my dad would hunt.
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!
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.
As a lifelong vegetarian I can’t stand these products. I can’t view meat as food and trying to make food look, smell, and taste like corpses is a sure fire way to make my stomach turn.
It’s disgusting.
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
Plant based meat alternatives are but a small part of the amazing vegan dishes that can be made.
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.
We are all different. I personally prefer the meat burgers to the vegan alternatives. If they had made a burger with “RootBites”, or whatever, that maybe even were the same as the ones they use for a veggie burger, i wouldn’t even compare them to a meat burger, and would not see them as an alternative to mean. Just a great option, like any other ingredient, but not compared to meat.
I understand what you’re saying though. I just feel that it is sad to compare veggie products to meat products. They are great for what they are, not for imitating meat
When I’m in the store looking for a burger, I’m not going to try to decipher what “RootBites” means. I’m going to buy the package that says “plant based burger alternative”. That’s why they market it that way. They’re marketing it to people like me.
I understand this. What i am trying to explain is, that I wish they marketed it to people like me too 🤷♂️
They do. There are plenty of vegan foods and snacks that aren’t marketed as meat alternatives.
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.
It’s not like that doesn’t happen too.
EDIT Fixed a typo
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.
Fake chicken > real chicken
every fake wing is a 🅱️oneless wing
🅱️oneless 🅱️ing.
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.
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.
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
Savage
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”.)
How many people even know their blood type? Certainly noone before types were even discovered.
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.
It’s such an easy trap to fall into. We all have the same brain, and we’re all wired for the same stupid tricks.
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.
“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.
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.
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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 completely agree with you. OP and people like them are actually slowing down the transition away from meat
I tend to think things like toxic masculinity and fear of empathy do far more to make rednecks proud of eating meat. Though, the mere presence of someone who does not eat meat for moral reasons is unbearably aggravating for many people.
Yeah, true. You shouldn’t let that make you feel jaded though. If someone is dipping their toes into meat alternatives, encouragement can really help them. :)
(Please don’t visualize that metaphor. I just did. 0/10, do not recommend.)
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.
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.
In your heroin example, when they do decide to break the addiction, giving them a different drug (Methadone) is exactly what you do.
Fair point, although the addicts are not actually interested or want to take the methadone as a replacement and is mainly for uncontrollable withdrawal symptoms.
It’s a larger difference gap than plant meat vs animal meat IMO. In other words, not taking methadone could be a life or death difference (or at least the difference between relapse and not).
In the meat debate, you could most definitely get a very close texture/taste without the fake meats if you use the right plants and spices. You don’t need the fake meats in order to replicate and satiate that meat-taste desire.
I don’t think the question should be whether or not it’s needed, but rather whether it’ll make things easier and encourage more people to make the switch.
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.
Falling off the bandwagon is not my point. I’m not trying to convert anyone to veganism here. All I’m saying is, just because something tastes like meat doesn’t mean it will pull someone away from eating meat. If they don’t actually want to stop eating meat, then they won’t.
Besides taste, there are very real changes in your body’s gut biome based on the content of what you digest. Your body knows that what you ate is not animal protein and adjusts the enzymes in your stomach as a result. This is why a lot of people complain for the first several weeks of going vegan, because they are gassy as all hell due to these changes.
However, if you keep a little meat mixed in with your new plant diet, that won’t be as strong of a change. Your body knows even if your taste buds don’t.
I can definitely tell you’re not trying to convert anyone to veganism. If anything, I’d say you’re trying to keep people from becoming vegan.
I just don’t see it as a religion to force down other people’s throats.
And from your other comment, oils are processed foods on top of the fake meats still containing preservatives.
I’m glad you don’t shit yourself, that means you don’t need to pay attention to my warning about MC in the fake meats. Some people have reactions to it, though. Are you also going to tell me that Lactose Intolerance is bullshit because you’ve never shit your pants from drinking milk?
I just don’t see it as a religion to force down other people’s throats.
Of course not. The moral imperative not to be needlessly cruel and violent is not religious in nature. It is philosophical. It is also something that most people feel deeply, even if they fail to be consistent with those feelings.
Do you think preventing child abuse is “a religion to force down people’s throats,” or do you see that children have a right not to be beaten, and moral people have a duty to protect them from it? Am I forcing my religion down your throat if I stay your hand from striking your child? Would you say, “It’s fine if you’re against child abuse. Don’t beat your children, but don’t try and tell me how to raise mine!”
If I added some olive oil to a recipe, I wouldn’t consider it processed. Here are the ingredients of Impossible burger meat:
Ingredients: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, 2% Or Less Of: Natural Flavors, Methylcellulose, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Yeast Extract, Dextrose, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), L-Tryptophan, Soy Protein Isolate,
Vitamins and Minerals: Zinc, Vitamins (B3, B1, B6, B2, and B12)
Contains: Soy
The only preservatives in there are cultured dextrose and vitamin E. Vitamin E occurs naturally in meat anyway, and cultured dextrose is just dextrose that’s been fermented. It’s used as a natural preservative in tons of foods, including deli meats.
Nothing in there is something I would consider “processed”, but I guess that depends on your definition of processed. If fermentation is “processed”, then tons of healthy natural foods are processed, including yogurt, cheese, kombucha, and sauerkraut.
if vegan is so fucking good, why are they trying to imitate meat all the time? If you want to taste meat, eat meat. If meat is offensive to you, then don’t try to fucking create a meat taste
Because we want to keep our favourite foods. So many people say they don’t want to go vegan until they realize there are vegan alternatives to almost everything.
The vegan alternatives do not have animal abuse and environmental degradation.
Have you considered that maybe meat tastes good, but I don’t want to kill and consume animals?
Many vegans were brought up in meat eating families before they started questioning it and going vegan because of moral reasons. It’s not weird to miss the taste while refraining from eating the meat because of the belief that the life of an animal is more important than taste buds. And that’s how this industry exists; to satisfy taste with respect for animals.
But continue hating if you want to.
Tastes good
