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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

#271
post #94
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…

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.

Ethiopia provides solid competition.

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

#272

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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)

> 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) So here is the kicker, exactly because vegan people see these animal lives as worth valuing, they don't consider your "agree to disagree" stance as a "peaceful solution", as it implies the death and suffering of these entities. It's one of those subjects where you can't h…

Eh. We exist in a society where people who perform abortions must live with people who believe a fetus is equivalent to a full human life. People who believe unbelievers go to hell must live with people who are atheists.

The tension between vegans and non-vegans is not unique or unprecedented. The only thing that's new is veganism's recent growth spurt, which has produced a lot of new converts that mainstream society is slowly learning to tolerate, and vice versa.

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

#273
Is the Impossible Burger much better than Beyond Meat? Because I've had the Beyond Meat patty (from a vegan chain called Lord of the Fries, their standard beef substitute is great) and it was awful - very obvious that it was made from plants (tasted like root vegetables with a weird chemical/metallic tang to me) and the texture was way off. It could have been prepared poorly though.

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

#274

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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

One trick I learned from one of Heston Blumenthal's videos is slowly caramellising onion together with star anise, it can add a lot of meaty flavour.

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

#275
post #244

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There's a really handy way to estimate the amount of resources that go into (and thus, the environmental impact of) making a product: Its price. When these are significantly cheaper than beef, then it'll be safe to state categorically that they are better for the environment. Until then, it's mostly a game of "pay attention to these metrics that favor my product and ignore the metrics which favor the competition".

The price of beef does not include the environmental impact so I'm not sure this is a good indicator of the impact of making a product. Beef/Milk in the USA is also subsidized...

Beef is expensive though! I don't think people are reading the grandparent post carefully enough. I think the point is correct.

Obviously at the margins there are costs to environmental impact that may or may not be realized in consumer pricing and there's lots to argue about on the regulatory side.

But in general, if you have to "equivalent" products shipped and produced in bulk, and one costs 4x as much as another (roughly where "beef vs. soy protein" lands for the consumer), it's a really good bet that the cheaper one involved less energy to produce.

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

#276

Is the Impossible Burger much better than Beyond Meat? Because I've had the Beyond Meat patty (from a vegan chain called Lord of the Fries, their standard beef substitute is great) and it was awful - very obvious that it was made from plants (tasted like root vegetables with a weird chemical/metallic tang to me) and the texture was way off. It could have been prepared poorly though.

I've only had beyond meat sausage but impossible burger at Umami Burger in Oakland is far and away the best meat substitute I've ever had. I'm looking forward to seeing impossible meat in supermarkets because it blows beyond meant out of the water.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the only kind of vegan proselytizing that I can stomach. If you can make food that tastes as good as meat, with nutrition similar to meat, and sell it at a lower price than meat, I will switch overnight, and never look back. And it would be nice if it came in bulk forms, rather than just as pre-formed patties. I eat ground beef a lot more often than I eat burgers. Until then, good luck with the test kit…

What if the 'proselytizing' was environmental instead? Switching away from meat would lessen your footprint considerably, and likely improve your health[1] even if you don't care about the moral arguments. 1: http://time.com/4266874/vegetarian-diet-climate-change/

You can reduce your carbon footprint by orders of magnitude more by not having children, or having fewer children, but I don't see as many people advocating for voluntary sterilization (or even just abstaining from childbearing). Most people believe it's their deity-given right (and often imperative) to keep reproducing, even if our environment suffers as a result.

I point this out to suggest that at the end of the day all of this is emotional and is largely driven by how we were socialized and raised from a very young age. It's often difficult to get people to agree with rational arguments when those arguments contradict a lifetime of programming.

Having said all that, I've found that the environmental argument is the only one that gives me pause around my meat consumption.

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

#278

The other thing I am not seeing in the comments is that most store bought meat from big chains like Vons, Krogers, Walmart, etc- doesn't really taste that good. When cooked, likely chewy, dry and tasting "off". When we think of the "good burger" bite, we arnet thinking of discount ground meat from the market, we are thinking of a good burger from some restaurant.

Here's one. I buy grocery store ground chuck, and I've never had a restaurant burger that surpasses my own. Now fries are another thing, since I don't have a deep fryer.

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

#279
BTW, the vegetarian products manufactured by Rügenwalder Mühle (available in most of EU) taste incredibly like their meat-based counterparts.

This vegetarian salami fooled many friends of mine in various double blind experiments: https://www.ruegenwalder.de/en/products/vegetarian-salami-cl...

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

#280

Is the Impossible Burger much better than Beyond Meat? Because I've had the Beyond Meat patty (from a vegan chain called Lord of the Fries, their standard beef substitute is great) and it was awful - very obvious that it was made from plants (tasted like root vegetables with a weird chemical/metallic tang to me) and the texture was way off. It could have been prepared poorly though.

My partner had an Impossible Burger a while back and I found just the smell across the table to be rather off putting. She enjoyed it.
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