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Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

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Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#221

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I am not getting this. Highly processed foods are the source of all problems and people cheer up for synthetic food!

People cheer while it's novel (like television, social media) but our children will hate it and feel cheated out of real nutrition by 'manufactured food'.

Most of the meat they eat now comes from factory farms, you can't get much closer yo manufactured food than that.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#222

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I'm more excited about where they go after they get passed the "uncanny valley of meat". If they can nail it, they'll get bored and move on to new and weirder flavors and textures. Hook it up to Watson and you don't just get new recipes, but they're combined with new meat! ( https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/ar... )

I wonder if they can somehow replicate the flavor in bones. I'd love to make stock or a stew, but so much of the "meaty" flavor comes from bones

With a combination of porcini powder (ground dried porcini mushrooms), nutritional yeast, MSG, miso, kombu, and something with hydrolyzed vegetable protein, you can make some almost-meaty tasting stocks that have as much richness/flavor/oomph as any bone broth. I'm not vegetarian, but I have friends and business partners who are, and I like a challenge. Any four of those six (careful with the yeast -- it gets overpowering quickly) can combine for a pretty powerful stock or sauce. I use most of them in my regular cooking, too.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#223
post #202
post #46

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Being born in India, I've had the privilege to eat vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal. While I welcome 'impossible' meat replacements, it is funny that the meat reduction movement is looking at such impractical and immature products instead of simpler solutions such as bringing veg friendly cuisines to the fore. I am opposed to advocating for cold-turkey veganism though. Milk products and e…

> vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal I like a few Indian dishes, so I can appreciate what can be done in the vegetarian space. Even so, I'd find it difficult to believe that any of them could match a properly cooked smoked BBQ beef brisket in flavor or texture. Though I'm sure more than a few would make good side dishes, or work well with the brisket as an ingredient.

In addition to breakfast tacos and cigarettes there are few things that inspire cravings as much as a good curry.

Not indian, didn't grow up with indian cuisine, love brisket, eat the best in the world couple times a month, and I am definitely a texture eater and not vegetarian.

Good curries with fresh spices have made me defacto vegetarian and nearly vegan for long stretches of time without any intentionality or effort on my part, they are hardly side dishes, they activate feelings of wellness and primal satisfaction in parts of my brain I thought only steak could provide, I'm glad I was introduced to good indian cuisine in my late 20s. Obviously the reductionist truism is correct "steak != not steak", but indian food relegated to side dishes? Pffft.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#224
post #94
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being born in India, I've had the privilege to eat vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal. While I welcome 'impossible' meat replacements, it is funny that the meat reduction movement is looking at such impractical and immature products instead of simpler solutions such as bringing veg friendly cuisines to the fore. I am opposed to advocating for cold-turkey veganism though. Milk products and e…

Being of Indian descent, I might be biased. But Indian cuisine is the only cuisine I'm aware of where being vegetarian isn't a compromise in the creativity, quality, and sheer flavors available to you. For other cuisines, where centuries of culinary creativity mostly went towards making meat, this is the only viable approach to weaning us off growing animals for meaty foods.

Look for falafel.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#225
They said 1.0 was "indistinguishable from meat" and yet when i was erroneously served it, i distinguished it quite easily. It had the texture of wet bread and the taste of stale wet bread soaked in rotting pig blood. Bring on the blind taste tests before claiming it tastes like meat.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#226

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I say whatever sells more non-meat burgers is good. Telling a die-hard meat eater to just eat a mushroom or some eggplant is not going to be effective.

I'm a die-hard meat eater and I'd eat a lot of a tasty veggie sandwich patty. I need more veggies in my diet but it's hard to get enough without cooking. It doesn't have to be a fake burger. Just something tasty for a healthy daily dose of vegetables. For me, soy doesn't qualify. It's one of the most common crops in the world and there's already enough of it in other things I eat.

I need more veggies in my diet but it's hard to get enough without cooking.

Even if you're unwilling or unable to cook, there are plenty of vegetables that are still delicious and nutritious raw. I suggest baby carrots, tomatoes, avocado, and peppers. If you're willing to microwave, there are a whole host of "microwave in bag" options as well...

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they can somehow replicate the flavor in bones. I'd love to make stock or a stew, but so much of the "meaty" flavor comes from bones

I eat plant-based and don't know what bone broth tastes like, but I assume very savory from the others descriptions When I want to cook savory foods, there's certain things you can look to: 1. Miso pastes. There's several kinds but in a regular American grocery with international sections you'll usually find a mild white miso and a slightly more pungent red one. Both are usually savory. I am sure Chinese and Japanese…

are you telling me all miso pastes aren't savory? I love cooking with miso and if there is a world of non-savory miso out there that I'm blind to I would be very excited.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#228
post #3

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat , most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

I agree it is really positive outcome. It suffers patent risk like a number of technologies that were slowed significantly in their early life (like encryption and digital cash).

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#229
post #48
post #3

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat , most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

When compared to meat there is almost no doubt that Impossible is better for the environment. Impossible has an environmental mission first. Checkout the sustainability report from 2017 http://www.ift.org/~/media/Food%20Technology/Weekly/IF_Susta... Or the update from 2018 https://impossiblefoods.com/if-pr/2018-Impact-Update/

Why "no doubt"? What's your basis for that?

I'm no expert, but I expect land is different in different places. There are different sources of feed. Someone changes a supplier or a farming practice, and it changes a number in a spreadsheet, and you'll get a different answer.

Accounting gets complicated enough with money. When you're doing science it's much more difficult.

This sounds like the sort of thing that scientists and economists can debate for decades. I'm certainly not going to trust some unsourced numbers in a press release.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#230

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So you are basically saying "if I had to make no effort at all and I could also save some money, I would switch". Yes, that's obvious, everyone would, it's redundant to state it. But what those 'vegan proselytizers' are asking you for, is to not be so selfish and make a bit of a sacrifice to spare the lives of others. But of course, you 'can't stomach' to be asked to not be selfish, and they are the ones to blame.

My values are not yours. I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights. This is a fundamental disagreement, the only possible peaceful solution is agree to disagree (I hope we don't come down to the non-peaceful ones)

I guess this depends on where we consider the line for "peaceful" to be. If the culture shifted enough where your views were in the minority, there's legislative action that can be taken criminalizing raising and harvesting of animals for food (in the US they just did this with dog and cats for example, with the latest farm bill).

Whether you agree or not, if your behavior is criminalized, the matter is settled (as a point of law at least).

To be fair, I don't know that violence against you (or others) would really convince you that these lives are valuable or not, just that you might value not being violently punished for acting on your beliefs.

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