Talking about impossible and beyond meat, of course. I like their taste, so I’m not one of those burger fash who complains about not being able to taste the flesh wounds of their victims. Just need the skinny on how it compares in terms of it’s nutrient quality, health factors in terms of contaminants in production or as a result of (PFAS, lead), and the impact on the environment. I’m sure the production of fake borg is better than maintaining and slaughtering cows, but relative to other foods how much better is it?
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Dinner tonight was vegan bacon cheeseburgers with lightlife bacon and impossible burgers and they tasted pretty good.
I don’t prefer making (faux)meat-forward meals but I do occasionally and I don’t look down on them. I don’t think the meat substitutes are that unhealthy (almost certainly healthier than what they’re replacing) but they’re expensive and I genuinely enjoy cooking with veggies, beans, tofu, etc. more than just a burger or whatever. I never liked the concept of a chunk of meat being the centerpiece with some sides or vegetables scattered throughout when most food has so much potential flavor. I love that veganism really challenges that dynamic, forcing the chef to create meals that integrate ingredients rather than isolate them.
IMO beyond meat tastes more like junk food than actual burgers. What I really want is cheap, mass-produced, frozen bean burgers that I can buy in a big bag like chicken patties. We’ve long had the technology to do it. Sysco and other restaurant suppliers have it. But for some reason frozen bean burgers must remain a bougie luxury good. There’s gotta be some Boca-Beef conspiracy to keep the cheap shit off the shelves.
its a pain in the ass to set u on your own, but you might have a “buying coop” near you. generally, they (a member) has access to a commercial space with a loading dock that doesn’t require a liftgate. the really slick ones have freezer and cooler space, because otherwise its coolers with ice and members have to be more organized for pickuo on delivery days.
but the whole point is that you can get in on bulk/institutional/restaurant supply ordering, split bulk orders, and take advantage of pretty impressive discounts.
as youve experienced, institutional/wholesale (business to business) markets have access to a wider array of products than us retail suckers, and generally below per unit costs with higher quality options.
there lots of these among old school hippies in areas that don’t have one of those co-op grocers. frequently, those weird little co-op grocers are the mature version of a buying co-op.
Yeah my area has a very well developed co-op already with a stunning array of boutique veggie burgers. No big bag stuff.
You can make a decent high protein chickpea burger at home but sometimes it would be nice to be able to just buy the darn things, but for some reason it’s either Boca Flavorless Hockey Pucks or Dr. Kale’s Kale Discs, Now With Extra Kale; no we refuse to consider other ingredients now please pay $12
If I’m going to spend an afternoon cooking a bunch of food its going to be something better than frozen burgers. Like I’d rather make flafels than chickpea burgers. The point of a frozen burger is being lazy AF.
a decent high protein chickpea burger
Oh man i wanna make some flat falafel
I think Costco sells 12 packs of been burger patties in the $10 range.
Tastes okay, doesn’t hold up as well on the grill and sure doesn’t have the same browning and texture. I like a well made beef burger, but black bean burgers slap and grill up much better than the lab meat.
Nutrient quality: it’s a somewhat high protein junk food. Don’t eat it too often. It’s mostly pea protein and a high viscosity oil, fairly salty. It isn’t going to have hormones like the actual animal product.
Health factors: mostly just the salt and high fat content to think about. And maybe think about how much pea protein you’re in taking, as processed foods can amplify things like heavy metals in their concentrations. We aren’t privy to their internal processes.
Environment: much less impactful than the animal product. Not sure whether it’s more impactful than just eating the beans and oil in some other dish, mostly due to weight. If you buy your beans dry, beans probably win. If you buy your beans canned, then you have to compare impacts of transportating something concentrated and processed (fake borger) to something very un-concentrated and with lots of water (bean can). In my opinion this is where you should stop thinking about it because it leads to total process analysis in a system that is opaque and interdependent.
Fake burger is functionally the same nutrition of animal flesh burger… Maybe with fewer trans-fats at least? It shouldn’t be looked as a healthy option, although it is better morally. Like burgers, it is a sometimes food. Highly processed slop with kinda high protein, nutritionally speaking.
Compared to a fast food burger it tastes slightly worse than a quarter pounder, but way better than a normal McDonalds cheeseburger. Basing my opinion on the Burger King Impossible burger compared to my memory of McD which I don’t eat anymore for many reasons.
I like them on occasion, but I’ve mostly gone to this stuff for home cooking when I want something meaty.
*tips fedora*
i haven’t tried that but if you can get the beyond brand beef crumble that’s made it of protein, it has a real beefy flavor and the texture is good, it’d make great taco meat
This product might be similar enough though since it says gluten and soy free I imagine it’s also made out of pea protein
Yeah, primarily pea protein. I like the dehydrated stuff personally because it’s convenient to buy a lot and stick it in the pantry instead of dealing with meat-like shelf life. And there are all kinds of things you can do during rehydration to tweak what you’re making.
The stuff we use is basically just kept frozen until used but yeah if it’s a choice between dry or fridge storage i’d get the dry goods instead
That might even cook better since the beyond crumble seems to render out a lot of liquid when it’s cooked so it’s hard to get it to a browned or crisped consistency
Makes me shit fireballs, taste alright though
Really prefer if they’d actually commit to the bit of making veggie burgers their own distinct thing instead of chasing after the American burger experience. Like just imagine the rich flavor if they made the patty with dry sauted mushrooms, minced onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and whatever binders they use to help keep its form. And drizzle on top a nice spiced curry gravy made Kerisik style. And finish it off with some deep fried onion rings on the top and bottom of the patty for that nice crunch before you put them on the buns.
Seconded, veggie burgers are plenty good in their own right if we had any imagination, could open up a whole world of sandwiches.
Yeah like a well seasoned veggie burger with some of the texture tech from impossible/beyond would be awesome.
I haven’t had one in a while.
I like to have everything homemade, especially because it’s cheaper that way (also, see the other points about Impossible testing on rats and whatnot), but I just haven’t really thought to do any kind of burgers. If I were more financially stable and all that, I might be willing to order things like TVP and VWG in bulk to do so. Maybe later some day, but most of what I eat is stuff like beans and pasta.
Made these hot dogs out of tofu, though!
I kinda don’t vibe with the whole fake meat thing. Like just give me the vegetables. Something about eating like a fake version of something else just rubs me the wrong way. Like please don’t mash up all the vegetables and tofu and make them into something roughly resembling a chicken nugget. Just give em to me straight. I feel the same way about riced cauliflower. If I’m gonna eat cauliflower instead of rice that’s fine but I don’t want it like, turned into something that looks like rice to make me feel better. Idk. Maybe that’s just me
those seem like pretty different vibes. Grains don’t come off the stalk looking like bread, fun pasta shapes, or cinnamon toast crunch. there’s a bunch of 100-ish year old dishes that use riced (instead of mashed) potatoes. how do you feel about those? if the low-carb fad cauliflower is different you could try to figure out why.
how would you feel about imitation human meat, as judged for accuracy by some of those amputee self-cannibals who make the news every 5-10 years when the stars align and someone interested in that has a motorcycle accident?
I don’t want it like, turned into something that looks like rice to make me feel better
It’s just to have variations in texture
Like im literally thinking of doing like a riced cauliflower and shredded brussel sprout stir fry because I think it’d taste good and have an interesting texture and I want to cook new shit for people
Even with all the new shit i try to do these college kids still complain about the lack of variety apparently
Like please don’t mash up all the vegetables and tofu and make them into something roughly resembling a chicken nugget
Also this is basically what falafel is but with chickpeas
If I’m gonna eat cauliflower instead of rice that’s fine but I don’t want it like, turned into something that looks like rice to make me feel better.
Presumably your decision isn’t based on a hardline moral opposition that prevents you from ever eating rice.
Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.
Meat replacements feel very ::Baudrillard::
I like em both, sometimes they go on sale and are comparable to the price of actual meat so I stock up, but usually the only problem is that they’re too expensive.
I’ve tried a couple times to figure out how to replicate the taste and texture with bulk tvp, need to do more work on this cuz tvp is super cheap and I think I can beat the price of ground beef with it if I can just get it dialed in.
I get what you say about the taste. I’m not vegan or vegetarian (though I do keep my meat consumption pretty low over the whole month, just because it’s expensive and I can’t really afford it), but I do definitely really like veggie burgers and I think a lot of them actually taste better than meat burgers. Different, of course, they don’t taste like meat, but that’s not why I eat them, I eat them because I like the taste of a veggie burger. But then, I don’t go for the ones that try to mimic meat, I go for the ones that are upfront and in your face about being veggie burgers.
amen. vegan food should just be itself, not a substitute for meat that challenges us to tell the difference (it’s always obvious to someone who eats meat). then again, i guess i’m not the target audience. my vegan friends seem to love vegan burgers/wings/cheese/etc.
amen. vegan food should just be itself,
as a vegan chef i’mma tell you that vegan chicken stocks add 20x more flavor to everything that I’ve used them in, and vegan animal product imitation in general allows for a greatly increased variety of foods and flavors
I can’t stress enough how much better every single gravy I make with that vegan chicken stock is, attempting to add savory and umami flavors with onions and roasted veg stock and mushrooms/mushroom powder is just really insufficient.
Yeah. Maybe my perspective is different because I will eat meat, when I can get it, but I definitely like stuff that’s made of veggies and is just trying to be a yummy meal/foodstuff way more than veggie/vegan imitation animal products. Not to mention, fake animal products often cost more than real meat, and the main reason I don’t eat a lot of meat is because I’m cooking on a budget, a lot of veggie stuff that’s just trying to be appealing in its own right is more reasonably priced.
I haven’t tried any burger products but of the meat replacement products we’ve used at work
Gardein chicken/beef strips suck total ass. They’re like a soy/wheat gluten thing maybe trying to imitate seitan but the one time the sous chef tried to make seitan it seemed really different ( and also shitty tbh) and the texture and the taste is just ass. The beef ones are a little beefier, the chicken ones are really meh.
I HAVE however made them taste really good by steaming to soften them, chopping them up, marinating with a vegan chicken stock, and roasting. That with a root beer bbq sauce I make = the last time I made it these children on a school trip came in and ate all of it because they couldn’t tell it wasn’t meat and I was really mad because I had to make like 3x more of it then I expected to
The impossible meat we’ve only used as pre made sausages and it’s like, okay, it’s sausagey
the Beyond beef crumble made out of pea protein has slight texture differences from beef (it’s hard to get it to “brown” in the pan, too, like the way it renders out its moisture is weird) but it tastes very beefy, definitely the closest to meat of any meat imitation product I’ve tried, if I made a “beef chili” with it and didn’t tell you you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Also it doesn’t have any allergens unless you consider peas to be an allergen
The AI bubble deflated the Lab Grown Meat stock bubble, so the other day I was watching Canal Rural and a rancher porky was joyously saying “vegans failed, the price of meat is skyrocketing and all the fake meat startups are dead, vegan restaurants failed and the ideology is not so on vogue”
I hated so much their disgusting smile
Do they think that vegans are gonna be owned by the prices of something they’ll never buy skyrocketing?
vegan restaurants failed
(i know this doesn’t apply to everyone from that country but) does this person not know that Indian restaurants still exist and are basically everywhere?
