Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put "Meatless" Meat To the Test 466
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samzenpus
from the now-with-more-vitamin-M dept.
from the now-with-more-vitamin-M dept.
assertation (1255714) writes "Bill Gates and the founders of Twitter are betting millions that meat lovers will embrace a new plant-based product that mimics the taste of chicken and beef. Meat substitutes have had a hard time making it to the dinner tables of Americans over the years, but the tech giants believe these newest products will pass the "tastes like chicken" test. Gates has met several times with Ethan Brown, whose product, Beyond Meat, is a mash-up of proteins from peas and plants."
Watch Out for PETA (Score:4, Funny)
Prepare to be targeted by an angry mob from PETA...
The other PETA, that is... People Eating Tasty Animals.
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Re:Watch Out for PETA (Score:4, Insightful)
TL;DR good for environment, not so good for the billions of animals domesticated for meat.
Re:Watch Out for PETA (Score:5, Interesting)
If everyone in the world switched from eating meat to eating vegan substitutes (which is more environmentally friendly), you're going to end up with a massive animal welfare crisis on your hands. All those cows, pigs, sheep, chickens etc are no longer going to be wanted by mankind.
I think I see what you mean. But the words "animal welfare crisis" seem pretty adequate to describe the way our meat ends up on our plates right now.
Personally I am a meat lover of the hypocrite kind: if I had to slaughter my own, I'd be a vegetarian tomorrow. So I have this sort if compromise where I only eat meat maybe two or three days a week, and then I choose the more expensive kind which is supposed to be from animals which could be argued to have had a half decent life.
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*Pest control, as in farmyard pests, such as deer, foxes and rabbits (rabbit st
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Re:Watch Out for PETA (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realize that farm animals are bred and raised on... duh, farms and that this is done in response to a "market" where people demand food from these animals. Basic "market" principles apply here. If there is less demand then the farmers won't breed and raise more animals.
So... if the market goes away there won't be a lot of homeless animals.
Also, all of the breeding and natural and artificial selection of animals has only served to produce odd monocultures of animals and nothing would be lost. I'm sure that some people will keep some demand for these animals.
It would be good for the environment (and the animals) for people to switch to eating fewer of them.
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All those cows, pigs, sheep, chickens etc are no longer going to be wanted by mankind.
But if we get rid of them, where are we going to get all the sh*t for the organic veg?
Re:Watch Out for PETA (Score:4, Informative)
The same place we do now - from the animals eating the vegetables (in this case people)
We're already facing an impending fertilizer shortage, phosphorous in particular IIRC. Plants need it to grow, animals then eat the plants and incorporate it into their own flesh and waste, and humans eat the meat and do the same. Net result a continuous flow of valuable soil nutrients into sewage treatment facilities where it gets sequestered. Sooner or later we're going to have to go back to closing the loop.
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Seattle's already doing this. The water treatment plants compost solid waste and turn it back into, well, usable compost.
Are the human medicines removed from the compost?
Also, how about the persistant herbicides.? This isn't granola-speak, if your composting facility is accepting grass clippings, you're almost certainly getting herbicides.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletch... [ncsu.edu]
And our over-medicated society? Here's a post for King County
http://www.lhwmp.org/home/hhw/... [lhwmp.org]
Even when we don't dump old medicine down the toilet, we whizz out a lot of it.
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The compost is treated to a specific level on site, then passed along to a third party company that handles viral and chemical issues. It's actually the reason the waste water treatment plant cannot directly offer you the compost. That said, there's a ton of research going into this and a working system in place that currently opposites commercially. Your concerns are valid, but they are also taken into account.
Do you have the cites for that? Many places have simply taken to not accepting any grass clippings. The persistent herbicide problem will show up very quickly, because thhat rich brown compust will kill your plants.
People often use the citation please crutch - I just really want to know what process removes the medicines from the compost. Certainly the persistent herbicide issue is waiting 5 years - that one is easy if inconvenient. Medicine? a bit of a different problem.
User ground-up rock dust "remineralize" soil (Score:4, Informative)
http://remineralize.org/ [remineralize.org]
"Better soil, better food, better planet.... We see a future of thriving farms and gardens producing healthy, nutrient-dense food in great abundance. We see exuberant forests returned to a state of grandeur not seen in centuries, silently sequestering the carbon dioxide that so threatens our planet today. We see a stable climate and a cleaner, healthier environment. We see all of this being possible through the simple and effective process of soil remineralization."
You are right that much of today's organic industry has become co-dependent on conventional livestock farms to use the manure for fertilizer to make up for what is removed from the soil. And returning human waste back to the soil has not proven that workable in the USA because sewage sludge is often contaminated with heavy metals or prescription drugs.That is a big difference from the "Farmers Of Forty Centuries" in China with cleaner sewage back then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
Also related:
http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/... [epa.gov]
http://www.epa.gov/agriculture... [epa.gov]
http://www.globalecotechnics.c... [globalecotechnics.com]
http://www.oceanarksint.org/ [oceanarksint.org]
From: http://remineralize.org/histor... [remineralize.org]
----
Benefits of Remineralization
* Provides slow, natural release of elements and trace minerals.
* Increases the nutrient intake of plants.
* Increases yields and gives higher brix reading.
* Rebalances soil pH.
* Increases earthworm activity and the growth of microorganisms.
* Builds humus complex.
* Prevents soil erosion.
* Increases the storage capacity of the soil.
* Increases resistance to insects, disease, frost, and drought.
* Produces more nutritious crops.
* Enhances flavor in crops.
* Decreases dependence on fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
Soil Remineralization (SR) creates fertile soils by returning minerals to the soil in much the same way that the Earth does: during an Ice Age, glaciers crush rock onto the Earth's soil mantle, and winds blow the dust in the form of loess all over the globe. Volcanoes erupt, spewing forth minerals from deep within the Earth, and rushing rivers form mineral-rich alluvial deposits.
Within silicate rocks is a broad spectrum of up to one hundred minerals and trace elements necessary for the well-being of all life and the creation of fertile soils. Glacial moraine or mixtures of single rock types can be applied to soils to create a sustainable and superior alternative to the use of ultimately harmful chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.
SR has been shown in scientific studies to achieve fourfold increases in agricultural and forestry (wood volume) yields and to produce both immediate and long-term benefits from a single application.
Hundreds of thousands of tons of appropriate rock dust for soil and forest regeneration are stockpiled by the gravel and stone industry.
---
I hope more people learn about this.
On the topic of this article on meat alternatives, about seventeen years ago I wrote a letter to a person I had met who was trying to raise fund for some kind of recreational complex in Des Moines, Iowa. His family was a producer of equipment for meat grinding. Inspired by the work of Jon Robbins and "Diet for a New America" and EarthSave back then, I suggested in the letter he consider adapting the technology to make meat substitutes, which I told him was a growing industry. Never heard back from him. See also:
http://johnrobbins.info/ [johnrobbins.info]
Glad to see peop
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Re:Watch Out for PETA (Score:5, Interesting)
All those cows, pigs, sheep, chickens etc are no longer going to be wanted by mankind. What this means is many thousands of years worth of natural and artificial selection will be wasted, most animals domesticated for meat will die out
I suspect there will always be a market for real meat, in the situation you describe I image real meat will move to being a delicacy and a luxury, hopefully supplied by animals farmed in a more "humane" manner.
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https://www.pinterest.com/pin/... [pinterest.com]
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I recently switch to buying RSPCA endorsed chicken fillets, and i have to say, they are much TASTIER.
It seems to me that if the animal is looked after better, its much taster to eat when you eat it. It creates a bit of a catch22 for animal welfare groups, the more succesful they are the less vegetarians there will be.
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Could it be placebo? Your conclusion coincides with naive expectations.
In absence of double blind studies - do you know incidences of people who didn't know the animal was looked after better, before eating the animal, and remarked that this meat was tastier than average?
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I didnt have any consious expectations that it would taste better so it cant be a placebo.
But of course that doesnt make my experience objective either, im not aware of any studies that concure (or disagree) with my experience.
But the price? (Score:3)
Stuff like this tends to be prohibitively expensive. That seems to be the greatest obstacle to acceptance.
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It's available at Whole Foods today for a MSRP of $5.29 for a 12 oz package.
Re:But the price? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But the price? (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently I bought a 6 lb package of 88% ground beef at Costco for less than $18.
$5.27 for 12 oz is double what I'm paying for beef.
I'm all in favor of reducing meat consumption but not at the price of doubling my food budget.
Re:But the price? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is meat so cheap compared to vegetables when you need several times as much vegetables to feed the animals for the same abount of nutricion.
Logic would say that vegeatians would be a financial choice. It is the same in Europe.
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Wild guess: they don't feed cattle on asparagus and mangetout.
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It doesn't matter if it's cabbage.
The animals we eat are simply much better at deriving nutrition from plant matter. Much of what they eat isn't just inefficient for humans to try an eat, it's entirely undigestible.
The idea of feeding corn to a cow is a pretty new one borne out of the rise of industrial farming.
Re:But the price? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Transportation, packaging, and stocking costs are large for vegetables in cities. Usually, frozen, canned, or otherwise processed vegetables are cheaper than fresh vegetables in the supermarket because you have to take into account transportation and waste.
2. Subsidies for farm animals, corn, and soy.
3. Some of what is fed to farm animals is not considered fit for human consumption.
4. High concentration animal agriculture is quite an efficient machine.
5. People are picky with produce. You see a shelf of vegetables and you pick through it for the best piece, because it all costs the same anyways. With meat, it's a hunk of unidentifiable flesh in a package--it's all the same since you can't easily tell the difference.
Re:But the price? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is meat so cheap compared to vegetables
Tens of billions of dollars in farming subsidies every year and the animal feed subsidy is almost as large as all the others combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States
It's not that meat is so cheap compared to vegetables, it's that you pay the difference in other ways.
Re:But the price? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the fat that tastes good, not the meat. Go make a burger from fatless steak tartar and prepare to gag. No cheating with mayo or cheese.
Why do you think a filet mignon has bacon around it, or bleu cheese or a cream sauce on it? Bogue without...even flawlessly medium rare.
A veggie patty with some good animal fat substitute is the way to go.
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Within the last 6 weeks chicken has been for sale for 99 cents a pound twice. Breast meat filets have been on sale for $1 per pound once and for $1.99 several times.
Beef seems to be holding around $4 bucks but oddly- steak dips lower (as low as $3) periodically.
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Unless it's 80% injected water it doesn't actually change anything.
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To be fair one should compare the price of cooked chicken since they are precooked. Are the chicken breast both skinless and boneless? If not than one has to subtract the weigh to both of these to figure the true cost of the meat. I am sure that their product is much easier to prepare and serve. If one values their time than one would consider that too. I would think that one could microwave them and put them out with some sauce in no time at all. I would assume that they do not need to be refrigerate
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Whole Foods is a rip-off store. Everything there is overpriced because it has a good "story" that appeals to clueless tree-huggers.
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that's not actually true. the commodities/basic ingredients (apart from meat) are very competitively priced. i bought some excellent coffee there for $5.70/# which could easily have sold for $12/#.
canned beans, salsa, bread, etc., are very well-priced for the level of quality you get. even the cheese department usually has a few very good things on sale.
it's the meat, organic bullshit, and pre-packaged convenience items that get ridiculous fast.
AND?? (Score:4, Funny)
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Aren't peas the seed of a plant instead of the plant itself?
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Peas and plants. Because now peas aren't plants? Who wrote that?
Not all peas [wikipedia.org] are plants, and I would imagine these already taste a lot like chicken.
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Peas are seeds, a vegetable that comes from a pea plant. TFA is technically correct.
But following that logic ("a pea is not a plant because it is just part of a plant") the statement is still incorrect because I bet you could use the same argument to disqualify all the other ingredients as being plants.
The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:5, Insightful)
"The difficulty now comes in finding a way to convince carnivores to switch."
If it tastes like meat, smells like meat, and looks like meat, then I won't refuse it on principle. How do you get me to switch? Make it cheaper than real meat.
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I don't get the fixation people have with 'tastes like meat' (actually the texture is the tricky part, taste is rather easy). If you actually learn to cook reasonably well then meat dishes actually aren't the most fantastic things around. I find that not eating meat is pretty trivial and given the cost, health, sustainability, and ethical advantages of that choice why not do it? I have yet to meet a person who switched and didn't FEEL much better afterwards. Almost any garden variety restaurant in China can
Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get the fixation people have with 'tastes like meat' (actually the texture is the tricky part, taste is rather easy). If you actually learn to cook reasonably well then meat dishes actually aren't the most fantastic things around....Almost any garden variety restaurant in China can make you a dish that usually can't be distinguished from a meat dish, and if I wish I can make several of them myself. OTOH there are plenty of other ways to enjoy your vegetables more.
Show me a vegetable dish with the flavor and texture of a nice medium rare filet mignon, or a slab of prime rib medium with au jus, and I will switch. Until then, I am keeping my meat.
Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:5, Insightful)
A good steak really is an amazing thing, and no meat substitute is likely to replace it. A fake meat product that is made from "peas and plants" doesn't sound anywhere near as nice as a rare filet mignon, but it still sounds a lot better than mechanically separated pink slime and the mystery meats that fast food restaurants put in burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, etc.
It's still early days and I'm sure this Beyond Meat product will get cheaper, to the point where this could replace the low-grade meat that is so common in the food industry. This would be a massive win in terms of animal welfare, sustainability, nutrition and maybe even cost to consumers.
I suspect that a lot of people would prefer vegetables that have most of the taste, texture and protein of meat, rather than food that is grown in horrific conditions but technically meets the definition of meat despite being quite different nutritionally.
Not Filet Mignon. Meat Slurry (Score:4, Insightful)
Trust me on this, the bar is set pretty low for it to succeed.
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It is not hard to go without meat, certainly don't need it every day, and there are plenty of tasty veg dishes, as long as they are real veg dishes, not with crappy tofu or whatever mixed in to "r
I can't do it; I've tried before. (Score:5, Informative)
I find that not eating meat is pretty trivial ...
Good for you. I'm reminded of a quote from a comic I read when someone expressed shock and incredulity that another character had not seen Star Wars. Her response was simply, "Your life experiences are different from my own." What you are basically saying here is that you don't really like meat all that much and it was no big sacrifice to give it up. That's not the case for everyone.
I find the switch to a meatless diet extremely hard, and I become just absolutely ravenous when I go more than a few days without it. I've tried three times for all the good reasons that you mention, and I just get a craving that cannot be satisfied by anything else.
Almost any garden variety restaurant in China can make you a dish that usually can't be distinguished from a meat dish, and if I wish I can make several of them myself.
As someone who likes meat, I find that statement laughable. If the vegetables in the dish are the most interesting and delicious part to you, then that's probably true for you. However, while I do enjoy many vegetarian Chinese and Indian dishes, I will NEVER confuse them for those with meat. The taste of the meat is not found in the meat itself but also in the sauces.
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I know of a few authentic places, where they have the Chinese-only menu, but that's not the point. Meat has a distinctive flavor. Unless you do something absolutely horrifying to it to suppress it, you are simply never going to make a dish where it tastes the same with or without meat.
Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that veggie dishes can be tasty. I even thing that, because of my wife's belief that all "real" meals must contain meat, I personally eat way too much of it. I've had some vegetarian Indian dishes that blew me away.
But bacon is good. Steak is good. Burgers are good. No one needs these things, of course, but you can't deny that these things are delicious to a whole lot of people.
If we expand to animal products, you would destroy some of my very favorite meals - my absolute favorite breakfast is two eggs, sunny side up, home fries, side of bacon and rye toast with a coffee and OJ. Bacon, butter, and eggs.
Cost: Americans spend less on their food than just about any other country on the planet. Cost is not an issue.
Health: Most of us would probably get more bang for our buck by exercising, cutting out processed foods, and putting down the booze.
Sustainability: As an individual, any choice I make will affect everyone else - but not in the way you think. I cut out meat, it just gets slightly cheaper for those who do not. Perhaps if we had some kind of collective action it would be effective, but this individual stuff is just feel-good nonsense.
Ethical: I hear you guys. The arguments are sound and rational, but ultimately appeal to emotions. They just do nothing for me. I'm just not very empathetic of livestock. To me, eating a cow is no different emotionally than killing a house mouse. Maybe better, since I'm actually using the cow.
have yet to meet a person who switched and didn't FEEL much better afterwards.
I find this to be true of any choice people make. Otherwise their choice would be a poor one and they would feel stupid. Basic human nature.
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I would. "Carbs that taste like meat" is still carbs.
A few years back I tried eating low-carb out of curiosity (that is--high meat & fats). Best thing I ever did, and the regular medical checkups I get reflect that. It may not be what the AMA advises, but 5000 years of Eskimos trumps whatever the committee opinion is this year.
Besides, they could make the carb-meat "cheaper" just by placing a ridiculo
Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:4, Insightful)
For an 85g (3oz) serving of Beyond Meat "chicken" strips, the macros are: 3g fat, 20g protein, 6g carbs, 2g fiber.
For 85g of cooked chicken breast (grilled) the macros are: 2-3g fat, 19-21g protein, 1-2g carbs, 0g fiber.
So 4g net carbs vs 1g net carbs. Even on Keto I wouldn't worry too much about the difference. Overall the macro balance is quite close to chicken breast. They also appear to have more iron than real chicken by a lot (20% RDI vs 3-6%). More than steak, even (~15%).
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Because as a species we desperately need to reduce the rate at which we're drawing down the viability of the global ecosystem. We're currently consuming roughly 40% more natural resources than can be sustainably harvested, and the other 60% of the words population is undergoing rapid economic growth to the point that they can reasonably expected to be consuming at a comparable level to the west within the century - the idea of a "third world" will be an anachronism. Given that reality, and since raising t
Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, cereal grains are likewise a problem. But so is the stuff we call meat today. We evolved to eat wild game. Fatty, un-exercised, hormone-saturated domesticated meat is a *completely* different thing. Go have a few deer steaks, maybe a nice wild turkey, and then tell me that we evolved to eat the stuff they sell at the supermarket.
In that same vein, prior to agriculture we were nomadic hunter-*gatherers*, our diet was hardly mostly meat except when we colonized marginal grassland regions where the vegetation was mostly far less nutritious to us fruit, nut, and tuber-eaters, and we survived by preying on the more specialized plant-eaters. Probably the best sense of our "natural" diet is to look to our cousins among the apes - particularly our closest relatives the chimpanzees and bonobos, though they seem to have similar diets to most of the great apes. They certainly won't pass up a juicy animal that catches their eye, but plants don't run nearly as fast, and make up the majority of their diet.
Also, if you want to talk health, look at China, India, South America, etc. where non-impoverished individuals in their 80s or 90s are routinely in excellent health, with mental and physical vigor to make an American in their 50s jealous. What are they eating? Mostly plants. Some insects. A little higher meat here and there.
The War on Farmers (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not enough to industrialize agriculture, now they want to trick us with fake food.
Cows graze around boulders and on slopes, where tractors can't work. They cannot be effectively replaced. (Feeding cows corn & soybean meal is rather foolish, and is the real problem here.)
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Goats do a much better job of mowing lawns than cows do, and they are a lot easier to move from one yard to the next.
Americans (Score:2, Interesting)
This is really a regional problem (understandable in a country that has never had capacity issues raising cattle on enormous scale).
Outside the US, many countries have been eating significant quantities of meat substitutes for ages - my favourite, even as a meat eater, being Quorn, which is genuinely rather nice tasting and doesn't have to taste 'like' meat to appeal to me (though it's not a vegan product in any sense).
Within the US, Quorn received a seriously dubious monstering from CSPI, but even in the U
Re:Americans (Score:4, Funny)
...though it's not a vegan product in any sense
Sorry, but to us carnivores, vegan means any substitution of meat for hippy-dippy, new age fairy food. The only thing you should substitute meat with is other meat; chicken or steak burritos for example.
why copy meat? (Score:2, Informative)
As a long-term vegetarian, the main concession I make are vegetable patties. And that is for their form factor and ease of cook and not for a resemblance to a burger. Companies like Moningstar and traders Joes make patties out of all kinds of vegetables and spices- soy, bean corn, peas, garins, mixtures etc.
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I'll never understand. For some reason some people apparently don't want to eat meat, but they want to eat a bad imitation of it.
It's like diet coke. If you want to lose weight, drink some water. If you like the taste of diet coke better, you are a weirdo, but at least I can respect that.
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If you like the taste of diet coke better, you are a weirdo, but at least I can respect that.
At last! I have an explanation.
Actually, I refer the taste of Coke Zero slightly over diet Coke and both over sugared Coke. But what do I know? I am a weirdo.
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Coke Zero uses the standard Coke recipe and just replaces sugar with artificial sweetener. Diet Coke uses a different flavor profile, actually close to the disaster "New Coke" from the 80s.
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Maybe they like the taste of it, but don't want to eat meat for ethical, health, or other reasons? There's nothing strange here.
My version of ethical meat eating is eating all of it that I can. And by that I mean, when I eat meat, I try not to leave scraps. I generally eat everything except gristle, bone, etc. I realize that it came from a living animal, and to respect that I try to waste as little of it as I can.
Think of carob & chocolate (Score:3)
Because people like meat, and you aren't going to get some people to switch until they can get the experience of meat. The problem is that the primary consumers of vegetarian meat substitutes are people who don't like meat.
Imagine if we were talking about giving up chocolate. People could tell you that there's all sorts of yummy, fruit flavored alternatives out there that have "great flavors and textures all their own" and "can satisfy the appetite." But none of them are chocolate. They don't compare at
This will backfire (Score:2, Insightful)
Grand liberal vision:
We stop eating meat, everyone has more to eat.
Actuality:
We stop eating meat, people breed until the damage is equivalent to what we're doing now.
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Actuality: People in poor countries continue to be oblivious to the hipster "Beyond Meat" movement in western countries
FTFY
Not all vegetarians would like vegetarian meat. (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact I belong to one such group: south Indian lacto-vegetarian brahmin. My rational mind and my reading of scriptures tell me, it is just a cultural practice, Hinduism does not really ban meat. My reading of books in evolution and my rudimentary understanding of biology tells me Homo sapiens evolved to eat at least some meat. Our closes primate relatives bonobos and chimps both eat meat. Still my cultural training is so ingrained I would not be able to bring myself to bite a piece of chicken, or something that resembles chicken. I am sure bits and pieces of meat must have found their way into my plate by accident. Restaurant workers might not have changed gloves, or the pizza cutter might not have been wiped before cutting my pizza, or the soup might have had a chicken stock instead of vegetable stock. Even after knowing all this, I am not able to bring myself to eat meat or anything that resembles meat.
I know we form such a microscopic minority what we think or do would not have the slightest effect on the general population and trends. But still, I have no plans to change.
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Re:Not all vegetarians would like vegetarian meat. (Score:4, Insightful)
How it got that way is that meat is tasty and provides a lot of energy. People are so fervently against giving up meat because the substitutes that have been put forth (tofu, soy) generally suck in most forms people consume them in. Yes you can kind of make Tofu tasty with some work (though personally I've never had tofu elevated beyond "edible"), but you have to do nothing to a chicken breast to make it tasty other than cook it.
If this mean substitute is actually tasty and the texture is not horrifically awful (most of the supposed meat substitutes ignore that aspect) then in fact a lot of people probably would be OK using it.
Your main problem, as with so many other things in ilife. will be environmentalists since it's not "natural".
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It's A Price Thing (Score:2)
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Boca burgers are terrible hockey pucks from a factory with lots of added chemicals. Do not eat.
You can easily make good veggie burgers that are a lot cheaper, healthier and tastier than any store bought veggie burger.
Here's one good recipe:
http://www.seriouseats.com/rec... [seriouseats.com]
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
The cost of the alternatives: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal strip 3105 [smbc-comics.com].
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
missing the fat flavor (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried it. The texture and protein feel matches lean chicken or turkey reasonably well. But the fat flavor is missing. This is a general observation I have with all the faux meats. They simulate really lean cuts, but all the flavor comes from the fat, which is missing. It's probably the case that recreating the fat of meat is more difficult than creating the protein. This is a challenge to the manufacturers out there.
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I guess they could add margarine or some other vegetable fats, but this would cut down on their target group, that are people on diets that need to avoid such fats.
Re:missing the fat flavor (Score:4, Informative)
Try frying it in lard. I bet that will make it better.
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Finally getting this right. Maybe. (Score:4, Insightful)
After a long history of failures, from Hamburger Helper to VitaPro, this stuff apparently tastes more or less like processed chicken. It's sold at Whole Foods. It's not cheap. Chicken tends to be chopped up and extruded anyway. ("McNuggets"). Matching the taste of breaded chicken nuggets seems do-able.
Nutrition is an issue. The nutritional composition of this is entirely determined by the manufacturer. The mix of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals is a manufacturer choice. There are few standards on the required nutritional value for human food products. Most concerns about food safety involve excluding undesired or toxic components. It's quite possible to sell something that tastes like meat, is harmless, but has little nutritional value.
Dark-age style slaughterhouses (Score:2)
It's about time we moved away from dark-age style slaughterhouses to a tasty meat substitute. Bring it on.
Zombie Apocalypse is upon us! (Score:2)
I am sure this is going to create an zombie apocalypse due to some mysterious and unexpected side effects. I better get ready to build energy based weapons so that I can survive whatever is left once nature has taken its cut (vultures, dogs, cats and so on).
Simulating meat does seem bizarrely common (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK, Quorn is the main faux meat mycoprotein. I'm not a vegetarian but I have tried a few of their products and they are, without exception, all about simulating meat.
The simulated chicken pieces are probably the most realistic; so much like the real thing in terms of appearance, texture and taste it's uncanny. The steak strips aren't as good texture wise, nor is the lamb cutlet, but both are ok taste wise although to visual inspection the lamb one is obviously artificial. The sausages are good but since the meat content of real sausages is questionable anyway, I don't think there's much comparison to draw. The biggest fail is the Quorn bacon rashers. You have to wonder why they bothered trying. Nothing can compare with real bacon and we can't help vegetarians who chose to give that up.
A good visual why to move away from animal foods (Score:2, Informative)
http://xkcd.com/1338/ [xkcd.com]
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Re:A good visual why to move away from animal food (Score:4, Funny)
Similar thing with wool sheep that are past it. They're edible if you cook them by the brick method: put a quarter of animal in a pot with a brick, water and a bay leaf. Boil.
When you can stick a fork in the brick the meat's nearly ready.
from a Dedicated omnivore (Score:3)
If it is so good,STOP marketing it as a meat-substitute and market it on its' own merits and strengths. I am not looking to go vegan or vegetarian for that matter but I could always use a tasty new treat. You are only taking on years of fruitless arguing by trying to 'replace' meat.
Note : I love salads, tofu, and egg plant, but also cheese, eggs, ice cream, and BACON...
Miss the point - I don't want factory food (Score:5, Insightful)
This totally misses the point. I, and many people, do not want factory produced food. I want food I can replicate without high technology. I can grow plants, fruit, nuts and MEAT out in my fields. Meat is easy to produce. I have pastures. The sun shines on them. The rain falls. The forages grow. My pigs, chicken, ducks, sheep and geese eat the plants (and bugs). I eat the animals (and plants). It works. It's easy. It's reliable. It's sustainable.
My way does not require electricity, high technology, a laboratory or shipments of chemicals from distant locations.
What the factory farmed methods, be they CAFO or huge grain fields, does is to concentrate the power and wealth into the hands of the few resulting in a fragile, brittle system that can easily fail or be attacked and controlled by hostile forces.
Bill Gates Meatless Meat is a total fail.
I'll stick to real meat.
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What a tool. It is *not* meat. It *is* fake meat. Die in a fire.
What does it matter if it's not "real" meat if it looks, smells and tastes like it? I certainly simply do not care if it comes from disgusting-looking ooze growing in labs or whatnot, all I care is whether it's as cheap/expensive as real meat and tastes the same.
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Last time the food industry tried to replace some other 'noxious' existing product with a more 'healthy' alternative we got margarine and olestra. I would rather eat meat thanks.
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Raising livestock takes more water than growing plants, and water is certainly something one would like to conserve. Furthermore, livestock effluence (animal shit) tends to find its way into rivers and streams.
Animal welfare isn't the other ethical issue involved here. I see nothing objectionable in slaughtering an animal and eating it, but doing it on a mass scale presents a risk to the environment that has convinced me to limit m
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If on the other hand you believe in universal aesthetics (like I do), and must dip into the mere look of the presented food, then there's no reason we can't have a BETTER looking food put onto our plate than what stone-age meat has to offer.
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I was thinking about that after I posted and I completely agree. Fast food "meat" barely qualifies as it is, and fast food in general is a major part of the health crisis here in the United States.
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Good question, but did you realise it takes 6lbs of feed to raise 1 lb of meat?
And you do realize that most of that feed is grass, which is grown on land not suited to cultivation? The final few weeks of "finishing" uses more grain, but the cattle are raised on hay, pasture and range.
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I'm pretty sure McDonalds switched to a meat-substitute for most of it's low-end burgers years ago....
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Re:Irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
Our ancestors didn't eat meat.
Tell that to the American horse, the [wikipedia.org]Mammoth [wikipedia.org] and a number of other species that our ancestors ate into extinction.