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As someone who's been strictly keto for over a decade, it would be difficult for me to maintain my macros without meat, or a close substitute. (I would mirror n
by buu700 4y ago
As someone who's been strictly keto for over a decade, it would be difficult for me to maintain my macros without meat, or a close substitute. (I would mirror nu11ptr's comments[1] as well.) As someone who finds mass murder and exploitation of other animals distasteful, I'm also constantly on the lookout for realistic alternatives.
For a while, I really tried to make Beyond Meat work. I wasn't thrilled about introducing a highly processed food filled with low-quality fat (canola oil) as a daily staple, but the macros weren't terrible (although far from ideal).
It worked for a few months, but one day it was like a switch had suddenly flipped in my head, and even the smell of cooking it was enough to make me gag. I haven't been able to stomach it ever since. Impossible is probably more workable in that regard, but the macros are even worse, it's also highly processed (arguably more so), and I'd be skeptical of using soy as my majority protein source due to the phytoestrogens.
All that being said, I recently got a chance to try a "chicken cutlet" from Meati[2]. I would highly recommend it to anyone who isn't allergic. Summary:
* Rather than imitating ground meats, they sell fake steaks and chicken cutlets.
* Rather than a highly processed blend of ingredients, it's a whole food — just a particular species of mycelium (what they're branding as "mushroom root"), grown in molds to fit certain shapes then flavored and pressed to remove water.
* Complete protein, 0g net carbs, good variety of (naturally occurring) micronutrients. If this matters to you, it's also low-fat.
If I hadn't known otherwise, I would've assumed it was just a lean cut of chicken that had been marinated in some sort of mushroom sauce, and I'm saying this as someone who eats actual meat on a daily basis.
From my perspective, Meati seems like the holy grail. It's good enough to convince me that cultured meat may turn out to be redundant. The current supply is too limited to use as a daily staple, but it's going to become my go-to protein as soon as they finish scaling up production.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32964029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32964029
2: https://meati.com https://meati.com
- Klonoar 4y agoThe estrogen concern with soy is fairly overblown and not really an issue. Anyway, another one to look out for is Juicy Marbles. Cannot wait to see these things get wider distribution.
- buu700 4y agoI like soy. I use soybeans in my cooking often. I agree that it's probably fine, but I still wouldn't go out of my way to use soy as my primary protein source given the existence of lower-risk alternatives.
- Klonoar 4y agoYou would, again, have to define "lower-risk" in this case, given that the typical meme-esque risk placed on soy is not actually a proven issue. That said, yes, even if you're not eating meat you should opt to get protein from a variety of sources.
- tomcam 4y agoDo you ever consider getting meat from a humane farm? To me that's as fair a solution as I can find. Especially understanding that during plant harvests thousands of small animals can be killed or greviously wounded.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoWhat makes a farm humane? I think a lot of people would consider butchering animals inhumane, regardless of how nice you treat them prior to doing so.
- tomcam 4y agoWell I live on a farm. Imagine what it looks like when a raccoon tears the heads off your chickens just for sport. Being shot in the head with a 44 after a great life on a bucolic farm is about as humane as it gets.
- buu700 4y agoI have bought meat at farmers markets, and make more humane choices in the grocery store where available (e.g. pasture-raised eggs and grass-fed beef), but I wouldn't pretend to think that killing animals is a good thing per se. I'm not convinced that "humane" farming is a real answer to this problem. Unless it's theoretically scalable enough to feed the entire planet, I don't see how it would threaten the existence of less humane alternatives. I agree that "humane" meat is the most practical option today, but Meati claims that they'll have scaled up production by the end of next year. Once it's available in grocery stores year-round at an affordable price, I see no reason not to prefer it over meat in general.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoYou may be falling for the sophistry around seed oils: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-to-seed-oil-sophistry https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-... For example, canola oil improves health outcomes which goes against your hypothesis that it’s bad fat.
- buu700 4y agoCanola oil is basically fine, but it wouldn't be my first choice. As I said, I was willing to tolerate ingesting significant quantities of it on a daily basis. When I refer to it as low-quality, I mean by comparison to my preferred fats (olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, animal fats). I think it gets an undeservedly bad reputation due to conflation with Mazola (corn oil), which is 59% PUFA. Canola is 28% PUFA. It's not a high-quality fat, but it's far from the worst.
- puffoflogic 4y agoFrankly this is misinformation; when people say "seed oils" they don't mean canola oil. Yes, it's a seed oil. Words sometimes have complex connotations.