Just as a counter to this, while I agree such substitutes are a poor facsimile to real meat I'm incredibly grateful for them.
I'm vegetarian for moral reasons but my problem is I don't really like vegetables and have constant meat craving. Being able to cook dishes I've been eating for the first 27 years of my life and make them vegetarian (though not as good) is a life saver and I'm grateful for the increasing investment and development in this area.
Agree with you. Luckily, the similar look/feel/taste of meat substitutes isn't much geared to vegetarians, but to those stuck on meat who aren't willing to give up what they've been accustomed to.
It's pretty interesting - if you talk to a lifelong vegetarian, they have very little interest in the various meat substitutes. The taste and texture and nutrients of a balanced vegetarian diet are sufficient; why go through the extra trouble to make the food taste like something it isn't?
I expect that we'll gradually adjust to eating less meat and enjoying more vegetables, without resorting to made-in-a-factory meat substitutes. That scenario seems much healthier than some sort of fungus-meat-analogue dystopia, personally.
However, I do see a place for meat substitutes as an option for "veggie curious" consumers who want to move away from meat consumption. If you're used to grilling hamburgers with the family every Saturday afternoon, meat substitutes provide a 1-for-1 option that requires no more thought that grabbing a different package at the grocer.
The switch to actual vegetables (or even tofu) takes a bit more thought. Tofu isn't usually tasty on it's own (but is fantastic when cooked with other flavors). And for somebody reared on beef and pork, learning to cook vegetables as the main ingredient takes time and new recipes.
I never suggested that a manufactured meat replacement was a solution :).
Personally I think the fake meats are a needless crutch. Yes, creating an interesting vegetarian dish requires more effort than just throwing a fatty steak on a grill (the magic of heat, fat, and animal protein), but with just a bit of effort a vegetarian dish can be very satisfying and healthy at the same time.
I'm sure you'll appreciate the chance to adjust your own mental heuristics. ;)
I'm just pointing out there are vegetarian dishes I enjoy every bit as much as a fat juicy steak, but not anything created and marketed as a meat substitute. I mention it because reasonable people can come to the conclusion that products created as animal food product substitutes are the best way to ease into eating a more vegetarian diet. But as far as I can tell that's not true.
Completely agree with this. As a vegetarian I'd really prefer to eat meat over the synthetic meats. The reason being the texture, flavour and nutritional value isn't there. They're also expensive, covered in horrible packaging, don't keep very well and are difficult to cook.
99% of the important bits of a dish don't come from making something meat-like but cooking something that isn't bland and uninteresting. And you don't need fake meat to work around that.
As with some other comments I assume this is more aimed at the meat-eating market than vegetarians etc.
As somebody who hasn't eaten meat for years, I've long used "fake meat" substitutes because I originally missed normal meat, but the idea of eating actual meat (even lab-bred) triggers a disgust reflex now; I'll stick with the fake stuff.
"I cannot go more than a few days tops without animal protein, or I start to get weird cravings"
Have you tried many vegetarian meat substitutes?
When I talk to meat eaters about this, many of them haven't tried many at all, and if they had tried anything it's maybe one product ten years ago.
The world of vegetarian meat substitutes has exploded in recent years, and there is just so much variety these days, many of them are really incredibly delicious and I'd stack them up against most meat any day.
Ok, they might not be 100% accurate, and tend to lack the blood, veins, gristle, skin, fat and bones of authentic meat products, but I think most people can live without those, if not even actively want to avoid some of that.
Indian food is amazing, but I also don’t want to give up the experience that is a good burger. In an ideal world, taking up a vegetarian diet wouldn’t restrict me to traditionally vegetarian foods, but would also have close analogues to the meat dishes I enjoyed before. That’s where the substitutes come in.
I think it’s great that these substitutes are being seriously developed because even though they may not be good replications today, they eventually will be, and this will allow meat to stars to have their cake and eat it too when going vegetarian.
Ymmv, but as a lifelong flexitarian, meat substitutes help me adapt recipes I encounter in the wild. Just as there are nonvegetarians that enjoy new tastes and food and nonvegetarians that stick to what's vanilla, so too you can encounter diversity among vegetarians.
Besides, meat substitutes have a long tradition; where I live, mock meat has been in Buddhist cuisine and this has been a tradition prior to the Western trends towards vegetarianism.
Meat substitutes are becoming fashionable, but they are still expensive relative to factory meat, and while some are very good, many taste awful and are not a good substitute nutritionally.
I couldn't even finish the Impossible Whopper when I tried it - taste and consistent of rubber. We tried some substitute chicken recently - taste was good, consistency was good, but then we looked at the ingredients - was basically a ball of flour with some flavoring; not really what I want to serve my kids regularly.
Something I've noticed about the meat substitutes: My family likes them better when they don't try to be meat. As in - when they are flavorful and nutritious on their own rather than attempting to simulate meat, they tend to be better than the options that are trying too hard to pretend to be meat.
Yeah, from personal experience and a few friends who are vegetarian, meat replacements are more about texture and flavor than actual nutrition. It's often the case that people who are vegetarian/vegan aren't so out of dislike for meat so much as other reasons, and these products exist to serve that craving. That said, most people I know obtain their nutrition elsewhere, the meat substitutes are far more expensive than the real thing and mostly just an occasional treat.
My wife is vegetarian and I eat meat analogues typically one meal a day. For almost all applications Mock duck, seitan, soy-based chicken are all inferior substitutes for their meat counterparts. They're less flexible when cooking, don't absorb flavors as well, and are generally either chewier or stringier than real meat.
I have a lot of hope for lab-grown meat, but there's still a lot of progress to be made for meat analogues.
I'm a lifelong vegetarian who has very literal tolerance for the taste of meat. Can we give it up with these meat substitutes already? Even if they absolutely nail the taste of real meat, I don't want my food to taste like that.
I'm a meat eater and I really prefer no meat over fake meat. A good vegetable curry, ratatouille, stew, pasta or a portobello mushroom burger really beats all of the fake meat substitutes for me. If meat becomes too expensive, I'll just cut it out completely... Until lab grown meat becomes a viable alternative. All these fake meat substitutes are just awful, to me.
I think the whole idea behind "fake meat" components is due to the lack of vegetarian dishes in Western cuisine (speaking specifically for NL here, don't know much about the rest of Europe or US). That situation is changing very slowly, but ten to twenty years ago there was almost nothing.
Still, these imitation components strike me as tacky or cheap knockoffs. Even worse, for me they signal that even vegetarians can't go without the taste (or structure) of meat. I really wonder if their availability is a net positive for reducing meat consumption.
I consider myself quite a meat-eater, but I do enjoy properly thought-out vegetarian dishes (like Thai or Indian vegetable curry's), and I'm a big fan of main dish salads (usually with Feta cheese, walnuts or raisins). Still, when I do need to "replace" meat, I'd much rather go with nuts (mostly cashew, pine and almond) than any of the meat imitations.
I was a vegetarian for years, and I totally agree. People always recommended me these awful veggie/vegan alternatives to meat, and they were all disgusting. Fake bacon, fake meat, fake sausage, fake ham, baloney, all ended up being stomach turning.
Interestingly, only people who recommended me these still ate meat, never vegetarians. The thing is that there are many alternatives (falafel, all kinds of different cheese, beans, etc) that are delicious but not trying to replicate meat taste, and they are all great. I don't get the point of eating fake meats, just eat veggies, learn to cook, and enjoy.
I'm convinced that the push for these plant-based meat products are purely economical: if you can make a good enough vegan ground beef, bacon, cheese, it will be hard to copy so you can make a ton of money with that.
Recommending people to eat beans, carrots and zucchini? That's just good old vegetables sale, so you can't hype up your VC-backed company to billion dollars of estimated value with a handful of real consumers.
I'm vegetarian for moral reasons but my problem is I don't really like vegetables and have constant meat craving. Being able to cook dishes I've been eating for the first 27 years of my life and make them vegetarian (though not as good) is a life saver and I'm grateful for the increasing investment and development in this area.
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