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Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

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Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#61

Post by ergothus »

homero wrote: post #50
ergothus wrote: post #26

I've been a vegetarian for the last decade and change, and I simultaneously think that finding a cheaper, appealing alternative to meat is both a fantastic opportunity for the world and a really difficult thing. I used to love meat when I was a meat-eater, and I'm a fairly picky eater that dislikes many vegetable options. (Green peppers are nasty and food-destroying in my opinion, which immediately removes over half…

There's a good fungus based chicken nugget, do you know this one?

I'm assuming you mean Quorn, which is a mycoprotein (the history of that company is fascinating!). Those are the nuggets I mentioned that are quite similar to "real".

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#62

Post by saynsedit »

ethanbond wrote: post #24
collyw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any proper (peer reviewed) evidence that carbohydrates are bad?

Carbohydrates in excessive amounts, yes. Meats and cheeses are basically the last bastions of non carb-laden foods. Pretty much everything that's not "diet" or meat/cheese is jam packed with carbs for flavor/cost cutting/fat reduction. And there's plenty of evidence that this is a bad thing.

Probably good to stay away from processed food in general, and worry about carbs second.

Fruits and vegetables will take you far. If it doesn't taste good to you, put some salt on it.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#63

Post by rocky1138 »

andrewfong wrote: post #52

I've had the good fortune to try an Impossible Foods burger. It really does taste like meat. I'm not sure I would say it's indistinguishable from a beef burger. But I would definitely have a hard time telling it apart from a ground turkey burger. Or an ostrich burger from Fuddruckers.

If someone came to your house with it and cooked it on the BBQ, would you have been able to tell that it was an Impossible Foods burger?

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#64

Post by maerF0x0 »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #45
maerF0x0 wrote: post #16

IMO they need to not only replicate flavor, but also macro nutrient profiles and a few other things like omega3s and CLA found in grass fed beef. I think we're better off cleaning up the meat industry than trying to make plants into meat. Fixing things like CAFOs and our corn subsidies could go a long way to a more sustainable meat.

Out of the set of mean eaters who this market would target, I really think the subset that thinks about or considers omega 3 and CLA in their meat is minuscule. I'm a very health conscious omnivore and honestly didn't even know there were omega 3s in beef. Guess that's another excuse for me to eat hamburgers...

Omega3 - Omega 6 ratio in fats (more omega 3 is better) may be healthier. It seems that grass fed beef has better ratios http://www.mercola.com/beef/health_benefits.htm

I'm regularly surprised by how little the average person knows about the things that make/keep them healthy. If I really wanted a car to last I'd be sure I knew all about the gasoline and oil I was putting into it.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#65

Post by kafkaesq »

buckbova wrote: post #4

> "When I tried a mini burger slathered in vegan mayo, mashed avocado, caramelized onions and Dijon prepared by San Francisco chef Traci Des Jardin at the company's headquarters in Redwood City, I was floored." Honestly a good chef can make cardboard taste good. But as a daily meat eater I'd love a good ground beef alternative.

Honestly a good chef can make cardboard taste good.

Which is exactly the core operating principle upon which the fast food industry (including much of what is put on the shelves in larger grocery chains) basically works these days:

low-quality base ingredients + sugar, spices, MSG + gratuitous fats/oils + marketing == profit

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#66

Post by ChristianBundy »

sevenless wrote: post #42
ergothus wrote: post #26

I've been a vegetarian for the last decade and change, and I simultaneously think that finding a cheaper, appealing alternative to meat is both a fantastic opportunity for the world and a really difficult thing. I used to love meat when I was a meat-eater, and I'm a fairly picky eater that dislikes many vegetable options. (Green peppers are nasty and food-destroying in my opinion, which immediately removes over half…

One potential problem: the heme that they're claiming gives it flavor comes from a genetically modified yeast. It's a GMO, and people who're vegan on principle often don't like that.

> It's a GMO, and people who're vegan on principle often don't like that.

veganism != primitivism

I understand that there's an overlap between "I don't eat that, I'm vegan" and "I don't eat that, it's not natural", but when I think of vegan principles I think of animal rights -- not fallacious appeals to nature.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#67

Post by cbd1984 »

ethanbond wrote: post #24
collyw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any proper (peer reviewed) evidence that carbohydrates are bad?

Carbohydrates in excessive amounts, yes. Meats and cheeses are basically the last bastions of non carb-laden foods. Pretty much everything that's not "diet" or meat/cheese is jam packed with carbs for flavor/cost cutting/fat reduction. And there's plenty of evidence that this is a bad thing.

> Carbohydrates in excessive amounts, yes.

That's the definition of 'excessive', yes.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#68

Post by bradbeattie »

ergothus wrote: post #26

I've been a vegetarian for the last decade and change, and I simultaneously think that finding a cheaper, appealing alternative to meat is both a fantastic opportunity for the world and a really difficult thing. I used to love meat when I was a meat-eater, and I'm a fairly picky eater that dislikes many vegetable options. (Green peppers are nasty and food-destroying in my opinion, which immediately removes over half…

I'm in the same camp as you. Vegetarian since 1989, vegan since 1999. I can certainly say that the quality of fake meats has drastically improved in the past 10 years (see https://gardein.com/, http://fieldroast.com/, and http://beyondmeat.com/ as examples), but the stigma surrounding them persists.

Short anecdote: There's a donut shop in my town that sold vegan and regular donuts in adjacent but separate displays. In some instances, the donuts on the regular side were also vegan, identical in every way save for the label. They found that they sold far better without the word "vegan" attached to them, and eventually stopped labelling them altogether, providing a side-menu to help vegans identify which are which.

Point being, perception is surprisingly important when it comes to taste.

> And in america, at least, where meat-eating is tied to masculinity and bacon is worshipped, that's a tough stigma to shake.

I'd argue that it really doesn't matter how similar to meat these products get, if they're still seen as "fake". Even if delicious, people tend to gravitate towards "real". But hey, maybe they've found a market that wants this that I'm just not seeing.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#69

Post by ergothus »

sevenless wrote: post #42
ergothus wrote: post #26

I've been a vegetarian for the last decade and change, and I simultaneously think that finding a cheaper, appealing alternative to meat is both a fantastic opportunity for the world and a really difficult thing. I used to love meat when I was a meat-eater, and I'm a fairly picky eater that dislikes many vegetable options. (Green peppers are nasty and food-destroying in my opinion, which immediately removes over half…

One potential problem: the heme that they're claiming gives it flavor comes from a genetically modified yeast. It's a GMO, and people who're vegan on principle often don't like that.

That actually ties into an interesting problem: People who are vegetarian/vegan for ethical reasons and lab-grown meat.

One idea is, instead of trying to make plant-based food taste like meat, just make meat that doesn't involve raising and killing animals. Efforts thus far have had only mild success (IIRC, it's been done at great cost, and it reportedly tasted terrible).

Assuming these efforts succeed, where does that leave me? I have no objection to harming cells, but I'd be against the killing/harming of the various animals necessary to GET the initial stem cells to be able to grow that lab meat. But, if they perfect a method of growing "meat" that no longer involves that mistreatment, at what point is it morally acceptable to me to buy and eat that "meat"?

I imagine it's similar to anyone in a field that benefits from ethically questionable research. Military smallpox testing, that one king that raised "feral" children to see what their tabula rasa state was, the Milgram experiments...I suppose this falls in the same, um, vein.

Re: Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes and Sizzles Like Meat

#70

Post by kafkaesq »

Idontagree wrote: post #8
mgraczyk wrote: post #3

Interesting. As somebody who is not at all familiar with the "alternative meat" industry, my first question is, why not use real cow blood? You wouldn't need to kill the animal to use its blood and you could extract more blood from an animal than meat. Presumably the environmental impact of a blood only farm would be substantially lower than that of a meat farm. Or is that not the case?

I think draining an animal of blood over and over is also pretty cruel.

It's not much different from what we're doing to them already.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Indoor-or-outdoor-calf...

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