Plant Based Meats- a mini rant

It's coming... not plant based imitations but artificially grown "real" meat (at the cellular level) known as cultured meat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

 

I changed to a mostly-pescatarian diet a few years ago, but still hanker for a hotdog or hamburger sometimes. I eat real steak on my anniversary, turkey on Thanksgiving, and ham on Christmas. The only thing I really have craved in between is fried chicken, but alas nothing tastes as good as when I was growing up…and my body doesn't digest it well now, so I've given up on real chicken.

However, I do like

- Impossible burgers (not Burger King unless you want the flavor of BK)
- Impossible spicy Italian sausage was really good in a tortellini soup
- Beyond sausage patties & links
- Field Roast hot dogs (I like to pan-fry hot dogs, not microwave)
- Quorn breaded "chicken" nuggets & patties are the kids favorites
- Chilli Man chili with beans is awesome
- If I'm eating cereal (rarely), I prefer Rice Dream to cow milk
- Recently I found Take Two Barley Milk at Sprouts. Doesn't taste like cow milk, but I like the flavor
(I use cow milk in tea, and prefer heavy cream in coffee, and that's pretty much it from the cow)

One of the keys to cooking the veg-meats is to add some oil; for pan frying or high heat I use avocado oil spray, lower temp cooking is olive oil for flavor or coconut oil. Vegetable products don't have the fats that meat naturally does, so I'll spray the pan and the top of the meats with avocado oil before cooking.

When I first quit meat, I went full-on vegetarian for 3 months, and I was pretty astounded at how much flavor fresh vegetables had. I guess eating meat was somehow masking that for my tastebuds. Also I find that I'm salting my food at the table fairly often, something I didn't do when I was regularly eating meat. The meat just has enough salt in it already I suppose, and I'm no longer getting that.

I eat eggs pretty often. We live in a suburb near rural areas, so we have friends with farms that we get fresh eggs from (i.e., "lain yesterday").

Don't get me started on mass-market bread. That stuff sucks. I've been making our bread ~weekly for 5 years now. (This week it's been hazelnut pumpernickel. Next I'm making a white sourdough.)

Cheers!

 

I bother with the Impossible burger because I occasionally miss the flavor of burgers. But I choose not to eat beef. I like'em. My family likes'em (they say I make the best burger of all…with Impossible "meat").

I'm not disagreeing…I say "eat what you like!" What I like has just changed over time. I used to hate chickpeas in any form. Now I love good hummus and felafel, and have made both at home even. I have a bag of dried chickpeas from the Indian market in the pantry.

And I do eat a lot of raw & cooked fruits & vegetables…but the OP was asking for recommendations for alts that people like.

 

I poop a lot with fake meat than real meat. So I prefer real meat.

 

So I take it you like being full of shit?

 

Not my toilet. Also just had Hit Pot....yeah

 

I tried the Impossible Burger at Burger King (at least I think their fake burger is Impossible Burger), and couldn’t really make any definitive comparison to a real beef patty because of everything else on the burger. So… I gave it another try and compared with a real Whopper - this time with no sauces.

I thought the fake burger tasted OK, but it wasn’t as flavorful as the real meat and the texture was kinda squishy. It wasn’t gross, and was an adequate substitute for folks that won’t/can’t eat beef, I suppose.

If I’m making my own burgers at home, I’d never consider using beef substitute. I prefer to buy decent ground chuck. Maybe if I knew more about what was inside the fake stuff I’d serve it up as an option/novelty - unless my family objected to its use for one reason or another.

Nice to have an alternative, but I think folks that don’t/can’t eat meat would rather eat veggies, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and good bread than eat a fake meat burger. That may be why sales/demand isn’t on some hoped-for hockey stick trajectory. <shrugs>

 

So, sue me. Yeah, I’m a Rando still… but I cannot resist (as a gourmet who loves ALL foods, in all combo’s - vegetarian or not - as long as I can pick the wine)

but, TL;DR summary of this thread?

“Soylent Green is People”