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I married a vegan, and I eat a lot of vegetarian food. (I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day.) One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is
by gwbas1c 4y ago
I married a vegan, and I eat a lot of vegetarian food. (I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day.)
One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty."
The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. When I've had these products, I've always walked away feeling like they taste inferior to traditional vegetarian burgers / sausages that don't try to taste like meat.
> Some say the slowdown in sales is a product of food inflation, as consumers trade pricier plant-based meat for less-expensive animal meat.
Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat. It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! When you eat the vegetables directly instead of having the animal eat the vegetable for your, it's cheaper.
IMO, I think the "meat in a vat" system where animal tissue is grown in some kind of factory setting is a much better approach. When I want to eat meat, I want to eat meat.
- bena 4y agoYeah, I'm not a vegetarian, but I've ordered black-bean burgers and the like from restaurants, just because it's different. And it is. I think these things work better when they aren't trying to be meat.
- ncallaway 4y agoI mean, I think there’s room for both. I eat meat, but I’d replace all my meat consumption with plant based options if it was a similar substitute and matched the price. But I also want the black-bean burger option, because, as you said, it’s a different taste. So I think (I hope anyway) that there’s room for both the vegetarian options that are their own thing, and vegetarian options that aim to be a 1:1 replacement.
- nicpottier 4y agoI disagree. I much prefer a Beyond pattie to more traditional veggie options. It is quite literally a matter of taste though, so you aren't wrong, but your perspective is just your own.
- brettermeier 4y agoI agree with OP. Fake patties taste like... erm... But a nice veggie patty with peas, corn and stuff is great. Maybe I agree, that this modern crappy fake food is make by meat eaters for people who try to not eat so much meat, but they forgot that a normal veggie patty doesn't need to taste like meat.
- nathansherburn 4y agoI think I'm probably the target market. I don't want to eat meat but I also love cheese burgers, sausages and other processesed meats. Beyond is amazing for me because I get to enjoy something that's close enough to the food I love without eating any meat.
- futuretaint 4y agoI love Beyond Sausages for that very reason. they cook up like a sausage, they even have a sausage like skin. I think its pretty great, although highly processed and not suitable for staple food IMMO.
- cruano 4y ago> highly processed and not suitable for staple food IMMO Well, neither are regular sausages haha
- lelanthran 4y ago> a nice veggie patty with peas, corn and stuff is great. That's irrelevant - someone who is in the mood for a meat patty burger won't be happy with a veggie patty no matter how great it tastes, unless it tastes like meat. There's tons of comments here saying how nice veggie patties can be[1], but none of the posters saying this have the self-awareness to realise that the taste of veggie patties are irrelevant if they don't taste like meat to people who want a meaty taste. [1] I agree, they can be very nice, and when I'm in the mood for one, I choose it.
- tjpnz 4y ago>One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. This upsets me because as a vegetarian the last thing I want is to be reminded of what meat tastes like. Who exactly is this for? Because the last I heard it was being marketed primarily at meat eaters.
- jitl 4y agoI’m a meat eater and I would love to find a faux ground beef or faux ground pork that I can use in the kitchen exactly the way I use beef/pork in my recipes. I would prefer such a food if it was similarly priced to animal, but more sustainable, because I would rather be vegetarian but not to the degree that I need to give up my favorite recipes. I need it to provide essential umami, salt, fat, flavor. Often vegetarian recipes suggest minced mushrooms for this purpose but maillard browned pork bits hit different. My favorite recipe uses something like 80g of ground pork and 540g of soft tofu. Clearly I’m not eating the pork because I prefer meat protein! But making the dish without the pork leaves it tasting a bit hollow. Adding a bit more MSG helps sometimes but isn’t a general fix. (Note that beyond or impossible might fit the bill, but availability has been so inconsistent here for the more “raw” ground-X products versus patties/sausages that I haven’t gotten to try it. I don’t care much about burgers.)
- gwbas1c 4y agoTry tempah or mushrooms. (You might want to pan fry the mushroom first.) You could also try shelled edamame. They aren't a one-to-one replacement for meat, but even when I've tried the impossible or beyond meat replacements, I find they taste like tofu instead of real meat.
- bobthepanda 4y agoSeitan is also nice for a ground sausage type texture. It’s unfortunately not as appealing to many because seitan is wheat gluten. But it’s definitely worth trying; Chinese Buddhists haven’t been eating it since the sixth century on a whim.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoVeggie burgers can be quite delicious with all the traditional burger toppings, and I'm a pretty big traditional burger fan. The beyond ones always taste kind of dry to me.
- jitl 4y agoI much prefer a good black bean burger patty to a Beyond patty.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoBut what does your spouse think? I'm an omnivore and agree with you. But if I went a year without eating a real burger I'm sure I'd prefer a Beyond Meat burger over the nice black bean burger I'd currently prefer.
- gwbas1c 4y agoPretty much what I and the other vegetarians in this thread said. She doesn't like eating things that taste like meat.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoWe're not going to have many vegetarians if only people who don't like meat become vegetarian.
- bawolff 4y agoMaybe, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise that there is a correlation between people who don't really like meat and people who choose to become vegitarian.
- mumblemumble 4y agoI don't think the complaint is that, per se. I'm happy to have these products coexist. But Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers and suchlike have been actively displacing the existing options in restaurants and grocery stores. To my palate and that of nearly all my longtime vegetarian friends, those pre-existing options were much more palatable. My (pesca) kids won't even eat these meat analogue products; they think they're disgusting. I do appreciate that these products might be making it easier for other people to cut back on their meat consumption, but I also think it's fair to miss a reduction in the already meager selection of convenience foods that I liked.
- ASalazarMX 4y agoI can't understand why some entrepreneur saw vegetarian food existing, and decided to make a startup about ultraprocessed vegetarian food. It's as if they thought ideology was more important than health or environmental benefits.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> can't understand why some entrepreneur saw vegetarian food existing, and decided to make a startup about ultraprocessed vegetarian food I'm a fan of real meat. But isn't the environmental impact of Beyond Meat lower than that of meat meat? Sure, a vegetarian meal would be even lower. But that's not the competition. Those folks are already eating vegetarian, or so the thinking goes.
- sidibe 4y agoI think the complaint is that in restaurants often they're replacing the veggie option instead of the meat option.
- chrisdirkis 4y agoIt seems fairly apparent to me that vegetarian != minimally-processed. Definitely a lot of "junk-food vegans" who eat lots of chips and other heavily processed food. Processed also != bad for the environment or for health. Don't get me wrong -- I think there can totally be some questions around health and environmental impacts of vegetarian/vegan foods entering the market! But I think the mapping between "there are preservatives in it" and "it's bad" is, uhh, not necessarily strong.
- freitasm 4y agoThe thing is BM (and others) aren't trying to create vega/vegetarian meat. They are trying to make meat in a sustainable way, so it has to taste more like beef/pork than chickpeas or tofu if they want to get the main market. They are still not there.
- sokoloff 4y agoAs a pretty hardcore meat-lover (we had sous-vide filets tonight at home), I think Impossible is close enough on the taste and feel side for a lot of dishes that use beef (including hamburgers). They're comically far off on the price side, but if they could get price-competitive with bulk 80% ground beef, they would capture a large amount of that market, I think.
- Gare 4y agoSame experience as you. Quite tasty for a burger, but not affordable at 3x the price of a beef burger patty.
- zingar 4y agoI’m surprised by this… they’re possibly 20% more expensive in the grocery store here in the UK, but not 3x. More like on the order of what you’d pay for a meat product that was particularly high quality.
- Gare 4y agoYeah, I'm in Croatia. Our wages are way lower than yours. Local beef is adjusted for that, imported veggie patties are not.
- techno_tsar 4y agoEconomies of scale will push the cost down over time. Meanwhile, meat continues to receive significant government subsidies. If we had to pay the actual cost of meat (not even including a tax on the externalities from its environmental costs), it would be a lot less affordable to regular people.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI’m vegan, converted about four years ago so I ate meat for decades. I ate impossible burgers for a while after Burger King got them, because there is some nostalgia/novelty in going to a fast food joint. But I’ve realized that this weird food product leaves some kind of odd taste in my stomach, and not just from Burger King. I’m pretty over these fake beef burgers now, and would way rather have a black bean burger or a garden burger. Those taste light and yummy and don’t leave a weird feeling in my stomach.
- colordrops 4y agoI see you are being downvoted, but I know exactly what you mean. When I eat Impossible and especially Beyond burgers, my stomach feels slightly off. A bit of indigestion. I don't get this with typical veggie patties.
- dqv 4y agoYou might have a touch of legume allergy (if only have a touch is possible). Beyond has pea protein and Impossible has soy protein. What's in your veggie patties?
- dagmx 4y agoHmm not to say that’s not it (because people vary) but my wife and I both get this feeling with these Beyond/Impossible meats but we otherwise eat a lot of legumes which don’t give us that feeling
- steve_adams_86 4y agoI think they both contain methylcellulose, which is considered benign but not digestible. In my experience it doesn’t cause major discomfort, but a mildly off putting sensation in my GI tract for a few hours. It might be something else, but it seems likely after narrowing things down for a while.
- 4y ago
- bryan0 4y agoBut I don’t want a veggie patty. I want a hamburger that doesn’t involve killing animals. Beyond/Impossible is close enough.
- PankajGhosh 4y agoUnderstood that you dont; But before Beyond/Impossible came, there used to be veggie patty that vegetarians enjoyed. And many of them have never tasted meat, and don't want to eat something that tastes like meat. OP's point is that Beyond/Impossible replaced the veggie patty with a non-meat version of meat patty, instead of adding a new item in the menu.
- JohnFen 4y agoAnd, honestly, as a meat-eater I really enjoy certain veggie patties. It's not meat, but it shouldn't be. They're their own delicious thing. When I'm in the mood for a veggie burger, I don't want a hamburger. Restaurants shouldn't replace veggie patties with imitation meat -- they should have both.
- dkarl 4y agoHeck yeah. It's like pasta primavera and pasta bolognese. If you want one, you're not going to be happy with the other.
- peoplefromibiza 4y agoThe thing some vegetarians do not understand is that traditional cuisine from all over the World is basically 90% vegetarian, because poor people had to survive too. I'm Italian, I could eat vegetarian meals everyday for a month without ever eating the same thing twice. Same goes for all of Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa or South America. Vegetable dishes are the foundation of every established culinary tradition. There's absolutely no need for incredible|magical|impossible|whatever meat.
- valarauko 4y ago
- a2tech 4y agoI much prefer a good black bean patty to a Beyond/Incredible patty. They smell like cat food and never sit right in my stomach.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dqv 4y ago>One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty." Veggie burgers are in a weird position because it's hit or miss on whether they are made with eggs. So it alienates vegans. I don't even bother checking at restaurants if the veggie burgers are vegan anymore. But with Beyond and Impossible, the name recognition is there. Vegetarians and vegans alike know they can eat it. It alienates fewer people. That said, I want as many choices as possible when I go out to eat, so being able to choose a (vegan) veggie burger would be great.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoI used to go to Dos Toros once a month or so. They used to have a burrito option where the protein was replaced with a vegetable selection. I’m sure that it varied by region, but around me it was usually a roasted variety of squashes. When combined with all the other burrito toppings, it was hands-down the best thing on their menu. Then they replaced that with beyond/impossible at a higher price. I tried it once, and it basically killed the aura. Now it’s just another burrito shop, no different than any other.
- lock-the-spock 4y agoIt's very sad that so much veggie food is now with egg. A horrible rancid flavour that meat eaters and veggies alike don't like. But it's cheap and heavily subsidised so goes into everything as a filler.
- ouid 4y ago"Vegetables " are not cheaper than meat. Grains are cheaper than meat. Most vegetables are very expensive per calorie compared to meat. Chickens in particular are very efficient at turning feed corn into usable protein. 3000 calories of fully cooked chicken costs $5 at costco.
- Gigachad 4y agoJust add olive oil to any food you want more energy in. As long as the base food meets the nutritional needs, adding oil is a pretty good strategy.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoA lot of fat plus carbs with little protein? That's the exact opposite of what I'm going for when I eat a chicken breast.
- cyphereal 4y agoMost westerners are not calorie starved. You can get cheap calories everywhere (e.g. calorie-bombs of expiring chicken covered in oil and salt, roasted and sold super cheap to get rid of them ASAP). Reductio ad absurdum - just eat palm oil. I would argue it's not a good metric.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoFWIW, to each their own, but I have the complete opposite experience and opinion: 1. First off, the vast majority of restaurants that I've been to that offer Impossible or Beyond Burgers still offer at least one traditional veggie burger. In fact I don't know if I've ever seen a restaurant that will only offer a faux meat burger but not offer a veggie burger. 2. I love a good Impossible Burger, fundamentally because it satisfies my cravings for meat in a way veggie burgers never do. Faux meat burgers have very similar protein/fat/carb ratios to real meat, while veggie burgers are nearly always a ton of carbs. I can eat an Impossible Burger and feel full for hours. I eat a veggie burger and I'm hungry again really quickly.
- empyrrhicist 4y agoComplete opposite experience on both counts, anecdotally. I've been vegetarian for years, and the texture of meat (and substitutes) creeps me out. My town has like 10 restaurants that dropped their veggie burgers for beyond/impossible.
- Klonoar 4y agoI lean vegetarian/vegan these days and have echoed on this very forum that Beyond/Impossible have crowded out any form of unique approaches. It's led to everything at restaurants tasting way too similar.
- nicolas_t 4y agoI'm not a vegetarian but I used to sometimes enjoy eating the old style veggie burgers that didn't try to taste like meat. I can't find them anymore and I absolutely loath beyond meat and impossible.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoFake meat probably isn't for vegetarians. It's for meat eaters who are interested in "meatless mondays" or the like.
- empyrrhicist 4y ago
- cratermoon 4y agoI'm with you and a lot of people apparently. I became a vegetarian a few decades ago. I'm of the opinion that there are plenty of vegetarian dishes that feature the vegetables, and I don't seek out dishes that are vegetables pretending to be meat. Probably the most well-known example is ToFurkey. I mean, I've had it, it's OK, but it's a salty processed food product. Just give me something featuring vegetables, no faux meat.
- duxup 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. Isn’t that what BM wants to do though? I think that’s what they’re going for, not so much satisfy vegans as much as sell their product to non vegans, or everyone.
- thathndude 4y agoYour first point is spot on. I’ve had many many delicious black bean burgers. You see this all the time with “keto” junk foods. Keto brownies were definitely the worst. Point being, we waste a lot of resources trying to ape “unhealthy” food and do a disservice all around.
- jmkb 4y ago> aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus I've found a similar trend in the supermarket frozen aisles. I used to be able to reliably find "veggie crumbles" at most largeish stores, perfect for pizza, chili, or mapo tofu. My favorite brand was Quorn (not quite vegan, includes egg whites) but there were often several decent options. Now it's rare to find anything other than Beyond or Impossible, packaged to look and feel like ground meat, very fussy. They taste okay, but I prefer both the crumbles' flavors and form factors. I've gone back to using TVP. (I'm not vegetarian -- I'll happily brown my TVP in bacon grease.)
- bpye 4y agoI also quite like Quorn but it is non existent in North America unfortunately.
- philliphaydon 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. When I've had these products, I've always walked away feeling like they taste inferior to traditional vegetarian burgers / sausages that don't try to taste like meat. I love meat, and the best non-meat burgers I've eaten that I would absolute eat again and again, didn't try to be non-meat. They were just really tasty vegetable burgers.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoMe too (regarding the best veggie burgers) — the best I’ve had were nothing like meat burgers, but were awesome nonetheless. One is in a cookbook called “the vegan Korean”, and it’s a legitimately memorable food experience. I’d much rather find that at a restaurant than some kind of run-of-the-mill faux meat burger. https://thekoreanvegan.com/best-ever-black-bean-burger-with-slaw/ https://thekoreanvegan.com/best-ever-black-bean-burger-with-...
- gtowey 4y agoWhat's your favorite veggie burger patty recipe?
- princevegeta89 4y agoI'm not a vegan but a 5-day vegetarian and I've been enjoying all plant-based meat brands over the last few years. One problem I find with a lot of their products is that their marketing seems off - it is often hard for me to locate plant based nuggets or tenders or patties or just anything. They often say "Chickn", "Pork" or beef in large font with graphics but only write "plant-based" in small text at a location on the packaging which you really have to pay attention to notice. It's not hence, easy to distinguish these things from actual meat by simply glancing at the packaging through the glass. I don't know whether they want people looking for actual chicken to buy these and give up on returning them later, or whether they're reluctant to highlight the plant-based part of the label as they're often in a small corner in a store.
- orangepurple 4y agoAs a rule, the animals from which meat is derived do not eat vegetables. (...) livestock consume 6 billion tonnes of feed (dry matter) annually – including one third of global cereal production – of which 86% is made of materials that are currently not eaten by humans [1] In particular, much of meat consumed by us is that of ruminants, which depend on eating foods which must be fermented internally to be assimilated, such as grass. The global livestock sector ingested an estimated 6.0 billion tonnes of feed (DM) in 2010. The three major feed materials were grass and leaves (46% or 2.7 million tonnes, Fig. 2 and Table SI 2 in Supplementary Information), followed by crop residues such as straws, stover or sugar-cane tops (19% or 1.1 billion tonnes DM). At global level, human-edible feed materials represented about 14% of the global livestock feed ration. [1] [1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.01.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.01.001
- blacksmith_tb 4y agoLivestock eat quite a bit of corn / maize, which we think of as both a vegetable (fresh) and a grain (dried). I took the original comment to be tongue in cheek though, and to just mean that eating plants is more efficient than eating plant eaters.
- godmode2019 4y agoI think its important to note that animals don't get fed human quality vegetables. They get the cheapest possible bits that can't be sold for more to humans but are still enjoyed by animals. Animals tend to eat human waste products which is a form of recycling, turning essentially rubbish into bioavailable protein
- dehrmann 4y agoI always liked how Gardenburgers taste. They're not trying to be meat, and that was ok.
- henrikschroder 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. You are not the target group for these products! The whole point of these products is to replace meat for habitual meat eaters. If the companies can get their products to taste about the same as meat, and have about the same nutritional value, while being cheaper, we can eliminate enormous amounts of habitual meat consumption. That's the value. That's the target. This is about replacing the meat in gas station hot dogs and fast food burgers and food court lunches, and if these alternatives can be made good enough and cheap enough, we can reduce the total meat consumption in society to a fraction of what it is today, without having to ideologically convert people to vegetarianism. These products are for all the people who don't think vegetarian products are incredible, but actually don't care whether or not their burger is made of cow or plants, as long as it tastes the same. But the traditional veggie burgers that you prefer don't cut it, so these products are a step further on the way to a product that will. They're not there yet, though.
- randomdata 4y agoCheaper doesn't seem feasible, at least not without essentially duplicating the meat production process (maybe lab grown meat will get us there someday). Human grade food is more expensive, often considerably so. Animals essentially get the leftovers that we can't eat so they are afforded a huge price advantage and it is not clear how that is to be overcome sustainably. Circumstances – widespread disease, for example – could see the price of meat exceed these products for periods of time. At which point these products could become contenders on factors of price, but as soon as the market starts to shift the price of meat will fall on the decrease in demand, and you're back to square one. Especially as meat has lag time to market so the price will fall further than you might expect before meat producers are able to pull back on production. There is nothing to keep people eating these products if there is nothing to differentiate them in the market. The real value proposition is that it is different. A new food option to choose from. If it can be made great, where it is craved as much as meat, then they might have something. Until then, I can see why they are struggling.
- clomond 4y ago
- alostpuppy 4y agoCompletely agree, I hate it when products attempt simulate meat. There are so many delicious vegetarian recipes! I could eat Indian food everyday for the rest of my life.
- wlesieutre 4y agoI have had exactly one good veggie patty at a restaurant. The recurring problem is a complete lack of structure so that 90% of the patty squishes out the sides when you try to take a bite. And the restaurant with the good one closed last year, so I might never have a good veggie patty again. Veggie patties mostly taste fine, but the entire point of a sandwich is that I can pick it up with my hands and take a bite out of it. If the patty can’t stay on the sandwich, it’s not a good sandwich. Just put it on a plate and call it a veggie loaf or something that I can eat with a fork. Even the older products you get at the grocery store from Boca and Morningstar Farms could be structurally acceptable, but whenever a restaurant tries to make a veggie patty I swear they’re just sticking some vegetables in a blender, putting it in a round shape, and hoping it stays that way. I’ve eaten soups with more structure.
- charles_f 4y ago> One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus I'm not vegan, but I've grown to always take the veggie burgers, unless they're beyond meat or black beans-based. They tend to be better than that dry-tasting overcooked patty (in my opinion). Makes me sad when they replace their veggie options with beyond meat
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y agoTen years ago, I found that the good-tasting veggie burgers invariably consisted of mostly carbs. The rare high-protein soy burger wasn’t very pleasant. Most restaurants have plenty of tasty ways to deliver vegetarian carbs, but protein is harder to find. The Beyond and Impossible burgers aren’t perfect, but they do allow me to meet my macronutrient needs while satisfying a burger craving. Old-school veggie burgers don’t do the job.
- Gortal278 4y agoMy wife is a vegetarian, we have the same complaints about restaurants.
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. When I've had these products, I've always walked away feeling like they taste inferior to traditional vegetarian burgers / sausages that don't try to taste like meat. Sure, you are married to a vegan and learned to appreciate the taste. In the same way, I enjoy a level of Indian spices that would make an average American's eyes bulge out. But for habitual meat eaters there is nothing that really replaces the texture, the feeling of substantial satiety, reality of not being hungry again for 8 hours... To each their own? > Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat. It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! When you eat the vegetables directly instead of having the animal eat the vegetable for your, it's cheaper. We have herds of goats eating dry brush to prevent wildfires around here. I don't suppose you would enjoy THAT vegan dish? :-)
- l3uwin 4y agoAgreed, I haven't had meat in a few years now but the key to cooking vegan and vegetarian is to let it be its own thing and not try to make it taste like some specific 'meat' flavor. Unless the cook has a flame grill or knows their business very well I also find beyond/impossible 'meat' to taste worse than a decently prepared seitan or bean based patty.
- NovaVeles 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. This is something I always have to highlight to folks. In Australia, personally speaking, the best veggie burger is call the 'Not burger'. It doesn't taste like Meat, it just tastes good! There is a reason why they haven't changed it in almost 20 years I have known about it.
- yieldcrv 4y ago> IMO, I think the "meat in a vat" system where animal tissue is grown in some kind of factory setting is a much better approach. When I want to eat meat, I want to eat meat. for taste yes, for vegan and vegetarians it depends. that audience is so heavily diluted by a dozen different goals they want to represent or embody. some don't like the inflammation (according to their sources) that a meat diet causes within humans, in which case this wouldn't satisfy them some don't like harm to animals, in which case this would satisfy them some don't like the environment impact, in which case, who knows? sustainability study and audits needed others...?
- temp_praneshp 4y agoTotally agree; my wife and I have 100% stopped burger places now, since most of them have replaced veggie patties with impossible/beyond meat.
- SNosTrAnDbLe 4y agoI actually dont like meat because of the texture. If you give me meat which tastes like beans, I will eat it
- ls15 4y agoFake meat is a replacement for meat, not for existing vegetarian food. It is a common misconception that vegetarians want food that looks and taste like meat, but is vegetarian or vegan. Most vegetarians already know what to eat. Fake meat is for the carnivores who don't want to go cold turkey and have no idea what to eat otherwise.
- zingar 4y agoAnd omnivores who occasionally want something that tastes like meat without going backwards. For me, BM patties are spectacular at this.
- antihero 4y agoYeah but the comment was pointing out that in restaurants they are replacing the latter not the former.
- ls15 4y agoFrom that comment: > One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. Which to me shows that restaurants/BM assume that fake meat is what vegetarians want.
- drorco 4y ago> Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat. It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! When you eat the vegetables directly instead of having the animal eat the vegetable for your, it's cheaper. Actually, as far as I recall, a counter argument to this, is that fresh vegetables are more expensive since their shelf lives are a lot shorter. I can buy most types of meats (chicken, beef, etc.), freeze them for weeks and the taste would still be great, while fresh vegetables will normally only last for a few days. Of course you can go for frozen vegetables, but this is only limited to some vegetables, and in my opinion, don't taste as good as fresh vegetables.
- wizofaus 4y ago"fresh vegetables are more expensive since their shelf lives are a lot shorter" Certainly if you have sufficient storage, it's possible to buy meat in bulk quite cheaply, some of which might even be cheaper per kg (or per calorie?) than many vegetables, but if you stick to in-season vegies and cook them sensibly (into dishes that last a while), on average they're still going to be cheaper than meat. Plenty are in the order of $1-$2/kg in Aus. (potatoes, onions, pumpkin etc.) - I don't know any meat that cheap.
- drorco 4y agoI'm no dietitian but how much nutrition there actually is per 1kg of beef compared to 1kg of potatoes/pumpkin/onions, etc.? My sister is vegan, and whenever we have a vegan meal, I'm already hungry 2 hours after the meal. On the other hand, if I eat a burger for lunch, I might not be even hungry by dinner time. Again, I'm not a dietitian so I'm pretty ignorant about these things, but if it has to do with proteins, I think the ROI for meat proteins is going to be a lot higher compared to vegetables. I realize this gets complicated, but just another counter argument for ROI of meat compared to vegetables.
- wizofaus 4y agoCertainly meat tends to have much higher fat and protein density, and hence calorific density than vegetables, but the latter invariably have higher carbohydrate content (meat is essentially 0). Multigrain bread can have much the same calorific density as beef, and nuts are often considerably higher (admittedly, they're typically quite pricey per kg, though not more so than quality cuts of meat). I've personally not observed any significant difference in the quantity of food I eat between vegan/ vegetarian/meat-based meals, though I very rarely eat meals that meat makes up more than a small percentage of. It's actually the micronutrients you need to be more aware of if you're on a strictly vegan diet, which are unlikely to make a difference in food cost (e.g. B12 supplements are about $9 for a gram, but that can last you months).
- jimt1234 4y agoThis. I've been asking myself ever since this beyond/incredible/whatever fad got started: Why spend all the time and energy trying to make something taste like beef that isn't beef? Why not spend that same time and energy creating a new, appealing of its own (and then market that)?
- hadlock 4y agoI think the idea was to disrupt the... looks like $3 billion dollar a year[1] hamburger patty market. This is a market that already exists. Presumably there's room for two main competitors, so pretty decent market, plus vegetarian meat is a premium product which makes it a good investment vehicle. On paper it's a convincing argument. I think the pizza market is pretty well mined-out at this point and the major players are well entrenched since the mid-1990s with tombstone red barron and digornio. There is no national level alternative meat product yet and most americans who eat pizza will eat a cheeseburger. Like the article says though, it looks like they took the inital interest as tremendous growth, and it's mostly plateaued. I personally have zero interest in even trying the product as a novelty. [1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/packaged-burgers-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/packaged...
- tcfhgj 4y agodecrease the hurdle to transition to plant based food
- bl0rg 4y agoPerhaps to cater to people who love meat but won't eat it? What's hard to understand about that? There are plenty of great tasting vegetarian options, now there are plenty of faux meat options as well. The more the merrier in my opinion.
- Kiro 4y agoI don't like beans, peas and lentils. I do however love plant-based meat. There is a market for people like me but I don't know if it justifies the valuation of these companies.
- lofaszvanitt 4y agoMaybe they shouldn't just imitate meat. Go beyond or extend the traditional meat, meaning make it more tasteful with better texture. Create new flavors, play with chewiness etc.
- setr 4y agoMoreover, I dont think vegetables even need to replace meat in position — vegetables allow for other forms of food formats.. so utilize it. Every time I go to vegan restaurants I get the feeling they don’t actually like vegetables; everything is vegetable-replacements for meat-based dishes. And the tofu crafting is just baffling, with the whole chickin and bacin and whatnot
- petepete 4y agoIn the UK that's rarely the case. The veg options are usually the same price as the meat. In some places. At Gourmet Burger Kitchen the Beyond Meat cheeseburger costs 30% more than its beef counterpart. https://gbk.co.uk/menu https://gbk.co.uk/menu Clearly just one example but it's rare the veg option's cheaper.
- Normal_gaussian 4y agoThe point being made was that these fake meat patties are more expensive, whereas the old vegetarian options were cheaper or bottom priced. I've been a vegetarian for nine years. It becomes noticeable when your meal jumps 50% in price and goes from being the cheapest in a group to the most expensive.
- petepete 4y agoBut in the UK the burgers made of veg are at least as expensive as their meat counterparts. On the menu I posted the bean burger is 50p more expensive than beef.
- bowsamic 4y agoThe other very annoying trend is to remove the vegetarian option and only have a vegan one. My wife is a vegetarian and obviously the food can be far better if you can have butter, milk, cheese, and eggs, but they often insist on only having either meat options or vegan options
- OJFord 4y agoExactly, these things are all analogous to eatint something called 'meat pie' to me - Well ok but what is it? I make vegetarian burgers sometimes, either something grilled(broiled)/griddled stacked up like halloumi & aubergine, or a patty of shredded jackfruit or something. Why would I want to eat nondescript 'vegetarian patty'? It's not just burgers, 'vegetarian lasagne' etc. is (aside from not being good appealing marketing) a reliable negative signal for a menu.
- aussieshibe 4y ago> what is it? The meat pie is the (unofficial) national dish of Australia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_pie_(Australia_and_New_Zealand) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_pie_(Australia_and_New_...
- OJFord 4y agoI wasn't referring to that, so apologies if that sounded offensive, I thought I was making something up. Elsewhere though, unless presented as intending to be a specific thing from down under, 'meat pie' is a lot less appetising than 'steak and kidney pie' or whatever, because who wants mystery meat (implicitly perhaps the cheapest odds and ends available). Similarly though to be fair 'fish pie' in the UK & France at least is a slightly flexible mixed fish fare.
- aussieshibe 4y agoYou're good, I understood what you meant. Just trying to spread the joy that is the Aussie meat pie!
- noufalibrahim 4y agoI'm not a vegetarian and I eat meat almost daily. This resonates though. A lot of restaurants have vegetarian dishes prepared to taste sort of like meat (e.g. paneer tikka instead of chicken tikka etc.). It was telling that the reverse was never there. I never liked the trend but understood it since the vegetarians would like to enjoy the taste of the other food and this was a compromise. This seems to be next step in that evolution but from what I've read, the stuff is highly processed and has a ton of chemicals added for flavour, stability etc. There are several vegetarian dishes that I enjoy for the vegetarian taste and the last thing I want is for them to pushed aside for these highly processed products that try to approximate meat.
- Normal_gaussian 4y agoIve been a vegetarian for nine years. I very quickly learned that you can tell the quality of a restaurant by the type of vegetation dishes it has. 'meat substitution' is lazy and generally means a poor chef. As a note - many traditional curries are vegetarian, which isn't surprising as India has a long history of vegetarianism. Paneer curries have been around for at least a few hundred years with reasonable evidence for a few thousand. Whilst it may be a substitute for meat in a westernised 'x tikka masala', and half decent Indian restaurant should have some established dishes designed around the paneer.
- saagarjha 4y agoYep, most will have saag paneer or muttar paneer.
- thorin 4y agoInteresting you should mention that. I used to really like the spicy beanburger at McDonald's. There was no reason to make something that pretended to be meat with even more additives, except to drive the marketing of the non-meat meat industry. I'm happy to eat rice and beans, I don't need no pretend meat. Although I do eat meat about half the time. Interesting I'm reading Michel Pollan's book the Omnivore's Dilemma, about large scale agriculture, it's quite worrying, although I don't feel the UK is quite at the stage of the US yet. I see quite a lot of animals roaming and diversity when I'm out walking, but it's definitely going in that direction.
- StreamBright 4y agoExactly. Even if I was a vegan I would not touch heavily processed food like beyond meat. The distinction between processed vs non-processed is much more important to me than the vegan vs non-vegan.
- WalterBright 4y agoI tried being a vegan for several months. I developed all sorts of aches and pains. As an experiment, I ate a steak. It was the best tasting thing I ever ate. I even licked the plate. I felt great the next day. What can I say? My body needs meat.
- johnnymorgan 4y agoI'm not vegan or vegetarian however some of those veggie burgers were great because they didn't try and fake it as meat. This was an ideological value prop, not one based off customer pain points. Good post
- sfusato 4y agoI think what companies who want to cater to vegetarians and vegans should do is focus more on providing plant based foods that AREN'T pretending to be meat. I'm not a vegan, never have been, but I quite like a lot of vegetarian foods. But I tried a beyond burger once just out of curiosity and it just... smelled wrong. There was something about it that put me off immediately on a primal level. My guess is that sales surged initially as curious non-vegans tried the fake meat, only for most to realize that it wasn't nearly as tasty and go back to actual meat, leaving the main customer base as vegans trying their best to convince themselves that no it tastes good actually. Providing options such as grilled vegetables that are actually super tasty is a way better idea than just trying to mold weird processed plant matter into a vague approximation of "meat".
- canadianfella 4y ago
- gizmondo 4y ago> IMO, I think the "meat in a vat" system where animal tissue is grown in some kind of factory setting is a much better approach. It's a better approach if it's economically viable. And there are doubts it ever will be, see e.g. https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/ https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca...
- pharke 4y agoFor a vegetarian burger option, nothing beats a potato patty burger done to perfection. It's incredibly simple, essentially just mashed potatoes formed into a patty, breaded and fried. It can be seasoned to your liking with herbs, garlic, salt, etc. and the traditional burger toppings nicely compliment it. You can somewhat emulate it by replacing a burger patty with the fries that often come with an order but it's not the same as a purpose made one.
- logicallee 4y agoI'm not a vegetarian. I recently bought packaged sliced baloney for a sandwich, as well as sliced sharp cheddar. The baloney I accidentally bought was fake baloney. (No meat.) I didn't notice until I was making my sandwich. It tasted absolutely disgusting, like chemicals. I am not a picky eater and I think it is the only disgusting food item I've ever bought in a grocery store. As I tried to finish eating it, I kept thinking, how can my grocery store sell something that tastes so disgusting? I mean aren't there taste tests during product development? My sandwich literally tastes better without it. And not just because of the cheddar - I nearly bought hummus and it also would have tasted great. Hell, a single leaf of lettuce would taste better in my sandwich than that. It was horrible. The thing is, I think the only criteria it was judged by is that it has to look completely like baloney. It did, it had me fooled. But tasted disgusting.
- mindslight 4y ago> how can my grocery store sell something that tastes so disgusting? Earnestly answering your question, it's because every person perceives taste differently (eg to some people, cilantro tastes like soap!). The complexity of vegan substitutes is high, because they're trying to simulate a completely different flavor. So likely you're just sensitized to whatever happens to be in that particular product. If you tried a different fake baloney, you'd likely have a completely different experience (not saying a good experience necessarily, depending on your expectations, but at least different).
- deaddodo 4y ago> Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat. It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! When you eat the vegetables directly instead of having the animal eat the vegetable for your, it's cheaper. This is literally the whole point of the Food Chain and why species counts generally decrease as you go up the chain. Plants make up the vast majority of biomass on the planet. Animals that eat plants make up the next largest chunk. Animals that eat those animals make up the next largest. Etc. I eat meat, but it's undeniable that vegetation is far more economic than meat on sheer scale.
- oblio 4y agoA classic: https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo?t=26 https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo?t=26 "Ten pounds of grass make a pound of steak. And ten pounds of steak make a pound of tiger. But these have the same number of calories - so you might as well just eat the cow and save yourself a lot of work."
- pclmulqdq 4y agoMight as well eat the tiger and save yourself even more work.
- ceejayoz 4y agoUnlike the conversion from grass to cow, the conversion from cow to tiger doesn't improve the nutrition for the consumer.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoI was being sarcastic there :) I have eaten land-based predator meat before, and it's usually very oily and not good for you at all. I wouldn't recommend them. Fish that eat other fish, like Tuna, can be tasty but are still not very nutritious.
- m000 4y agoOr, let the tiger eat you, and never have to worry about food again.
- thom 4y agoAs a vegetarian since childhood in the 80s it’s incredibly sad to have seen all the progress made in both shops and restaurants thrown away. Even before meat alternatives, menus were getting blander with a focus on dairy-free options (to be clear, vegan food can and should be extremely tasty, decadent even, but it’s also the dumping ground for healthy options in most menus). That the main options are now explicitly meat flavoured is adding insult to injury.
- nottorp 4y ago> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. I'm not a vegan nor a vegetarian. I just sometimes think I eat too much meat and check out vegetarian restaurants. They all have 100 kinds of fake burgers and little else. There are thousands of good food recipes without meat. Why are you trying to sell me burgers?
- pbalau 4y agoBecause in the American society, food == burgers. If you don't want to eat meat, you need to replace the meat bit from a burger. In many other cuisines, there are naturally non meat dishes, just look at the Indian cuisine. Heck, even my own country cuisine, Romania, has plenty of meat free dishes that taste very good.
- mcv 4y agoIt doesn't even have to look like a burger patty. The best burger I've ever had was a portobello burger with blue cheese. Just the head of the portobello, blue cheese melted over it, in a bun with all the works.
- elsjaako 4y ago> Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat One of the reasons that the vegetian options are more expensive is because the margins are higher. People compare supermarkets based on meat prices, so they accept lower margins on meat to attract more customers. Another thing is that people don't typically buy brand name meat, which allows supermarkets to more aggressively negotiate on price. At least this is how it is in the Netherlands (according to a newspaper article I can't find right now).
- irthomasthomas 4y agoMeat is a lot more nutrient dense. You would have to eat 4x the veggies to get the same nutrition. Better to let the farm animals concentrate that energy for us. They also eat a lot of grass, which is great for carbon capture. So just eat a balanced meal and be done with it.
- sweetheart 4y agoAnimal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis, so I don’t think your point about carbon capture is valid.
- oxfordmale 4y agoBeyond the taste, most Beyond Meat meals also tend to contain more calories than the meat-based equivalent. I am better off to eat an occasional burger when I fancy it, and go for more healthy vegetarian dishes on other days.
- lupire 4y agoThat's simply false. Beyond has the same macros as a ground beed https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/a21566428/beyond-meat-burger-ingredients/ https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/a21566428/beyond-meat-b...
- oxfordmale 4y agoI am talking about meals. It may not be the fault of Beyond Meat, rather the restaurant adding more condiments on top of a Beyond Meat burger.
- oxfordmale 4y agoActually: One Beyond Burger has 260 calories. There are claims that these are healthier alternatives to beef, but to what end? Calories is certainly not it because this is compared to 230 calories in a same size beef patty. https://bluebirdprovisions.co/blogs/news/beyond-meat-vs-beef#:~:text=Beyond%20Burgers%20Calories,Let%27s%20break%20down%20the%20ingredients https://bluebirdprovisions.co/blogs/news/beyond-meat-vs-beef....
- irusensei 4y agoThat's also my experience. Not a vegan but (before covid and wfh) I used to like eating 1-2 times a week in certain vegan restaurants because the food was good and very well prepared and seasoned. The stuff that tries to imitate meat however is nasty at best. Not only it tastes horrible but what's the point of choosing a supposedly healthier diet if you eat that industrial sludge?
- mvdwoord 4y agoI eat and like to eat meat, lots of it, as well as other foods. I am completely stumped by this push for hyper-processed "substitutes". I regularly ordered vegetarian dishes, and often enjoyed a decent bean or beet based burger. Those things can be delicious. I can only hope this fad of beyond meat bull-crap goes bankrupt and dies, sooner rather than later.
- dlkf 4y ago> One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. . . The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. ”Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” > I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day The reason you don’t see the value prop of beyond burgers is that you’re eating the real thing regularly. As a pescitarian who loves meat, I would bet the farm that if you went vegetarian, you would think Beyond is a godsend. > IMO, I think the "meat in a vat" system where animal tissue is grown in some kind of factory setting is a much better approach. Similar to how nuclear fusion is better than fission, and self-driving cars are preferable to human-controlled, etc etc.
- newyankee 4y agoI am a vegetarian who loves Black bean burgers. Apparently I can't find good ones in India. It used to be a staple one for me back in US.
- dsabanin 4y agoI’ve been vegan for many years now, and I hate those bean burgers, to the point that I’d rather have nothing than them. I love impossible meat and have no problems with it. I eat it almost every day for years now. I’m almost 40 now and my blood work is better than when I was 30. It’s funny to hear how a person who eats meat thinks that I should be satisfied with a sausage made out of a carrot. I eat enough of veggies in their original form, but they do not make a great burger or sausages. I also really don’t think that meat alternatives are pushing out anything – it’s the consumers that prefer them. I know I am. I would like to clarify that for me eating healthy was not the reason I became vegan. We need to stop the torture and extermination of sentient beings for the sake of pleasing our tastebuds.
- phpisthebest 4y agoI see alot of Vegans / vegetarians responding in support but let me say as a carnivore that will never go Vegan / vegetarian I agree 100%, I have eaten vegan dishes that were excellent, I am not opposed to them at all. One of the best Tikka Masla's I have ever had was vegan. However I can not stand when they attempt to make be believe X is Y meat, no, it is not and no amount of marketing will get me to believe they taste the same. They do not. Just like Cauliflower Mash does not taste like potatoes, it tastes like puréed Cauliflower...
- lupire 4y agoWhat does "meat" taste like? Do beef, chicken, pork, and salmon taste the same?
- tlb 4y agoNot the same obviously, but they have a lot in common. It's not accidental, as those meats are all the muscles of vertebrates. Other organs like livers, brain, or lung from various vertebrates also taste similar, but different from muscle meats.
- UltraViolence 4y ago
- chadlavi 4y agoWait til you find out about Christians
- heather45879 4y agoHonestly, the best approach is not making “fake” anything—black bean burgers and other home-made options not only taste way better, but they are not highly processed. The more stages in processing a food undergoes, the worse it is for people. It’s really that simple. People are trying to over-science food in my opinion. Sticking to good, wholesome ingredients is the way to go. Support local farmers not some large conglomerate factory. Here’s a good recipe for example: https://minimalistbaker.com/smoky-bbq-black-bean-burger/ https://minimalistbaker.com/smoky-bbq-black-bean-burger/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- talldan 4y ago> black bean burgers and other home-made options not only taste way better A lot of people making this kind of point, but it's subjective and you have no idea if you're in a majority or not in your preferences.
- heather45879 4y agoIf you have a home-made option that is built-to-taste, how can anything else be better? It’s tailor made for each individual. Hence “… and other home-made options.” Whereas, a factory made thing is mass-produced and has to target the lowest-common-denominator.
- talldan 4y agoNot everyone is good at cooking.
- apohn 4y ago>One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. The homogenization of veggie burgers into one particular type of patty is the reason I don't even try Burger places anymore. It used to be that if you had 5 Burger places near you, you'd get 5 very different veggie burgers (e.g. black bean, quinoa, mixed veggies, all with a different mix of spices). Now you basically get the same veggie burger at every place, just with different dressings/sauces. I suspect it's better in big cities (e.g. NYC) where there's enough of a customer base for a veggie patty and a engineered meat patty on the menu. But in other places, I think the customers numbers are just too small. So I understand the logic from a business perspective, but for some customers it just sucks to have lost the veggie patty.
- happythebob 4y agoThank you for sharing your personal anecdotes and opinions. However true they may be, I'm kinda concerned that this sort of post is at the top of a highly commented Hacker News thread.
- JohnDoe124 4y ago>A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty." So much, this, I have been vegetarian my whole life and quite honestly the idea of eating something that tastes like meat is almost as unappealing as the idea of eating meat. I get that it helps people give up, but it's not for me.
- taylodl 4y agoBeen a vegetarian and enjoying veggie burgers for over 30 years now. The Beyond Meat patties taste too much like actual meat - that is, awful. The meat eaters don't like it because it's close, but not quite, like meat. The vegetarians don't like it because it tastes too much like meat and we have other, better tasting, options. They've kind of hit an uncanny valley of food. As such, I say good riddance!
- dwighttk 4y agoI’m an omnivore, but I enjoyed a garden burger or two in my college cafeteria… they were fine once I stopped pretending they were hamburgers.
- astannard 4y agoI've been vegetarian for 40years and prefer my food to not be like meat. I also know plenty of people that avoid if too like real meat. Not sure what market they go for. People that dont want meat but miss it I guess. The idea of the latest lab grown meat I also find disturbing
- JeremyNT 4y agoI don't eat much meat outside of the occasional fish but I did welcome the fake meat fad. It's not that I enjoy eating the product, it's that I need to find protein somehow when I'm at "American food" restaurants (fast food or otherwise). In most of these places there's no veggie protein options other than the "veggie burger" - and the fake meats have made these a little more ubiquitous.
- Terretta 4y agoExact opposite. I ask them to please not bring me a mashed vegetables patty and call it a burger. It is not. The idea of a lettuce tomato onion burger stack on a bun is that there's a taste and texture contrast between the stack of vegetables and something that's not another stack of vegetables but mashed. (Doesn't mean it has to be Beyond or Impossible, see last para.) I suspect displacement happened because folks paying $25 for a "burger" when out are less interested in the garden mash, want something a little edgier. FWIW, before Beyond and Impossible, at any restaurant or diner where I took time to explain the difference in alt-burger types, they were willing to try ones I mention below, and they reported customers preferred it. In many, someone had just told them "have a vegetarian burger" and they just got the mashed veggies patty or mashed beans cake since that's what most products are. Not being vegetarian themselves, they weren't aware of other availability. By contrast, Impossible and Beyond essentially went door to door "educating" them, so they switched. While Impossible and Beyond displaced the meat alternatives, that doesn't mean you have to go meat in a vat at home, you can do products such as Morningstar Farms Grillers Original, or maybe Boca All-American Flame-Grilled Burger. Those taste stack more reasonably with what goes on a burger than the mashed vegetables patties, without the weirdness (fake blood look, why?) of Impossible or Beyond. Your local diner will probably be happy to stock them as they're simple frozen goods.
- phreeza 4y agoI agree, another good meat alternative that has sufficient contrast in taste for me is fried Halloumi cheese.
- mattarm 4y ago> Exact opposite. I ask them to please not bring me a mashed vegetables patty and call it a burger. It is not. I can agree that "mashed vegetables" does not describe a good veggie patty. I don't agree that a good veggie patty fails in "burger" format. I can easily imagine that some people have simply never tasted a good veggie patty in "burger" format, because they are rare. This is the root of most "meat alternatives" in average restaurants -- much of the restaurant world hasn't figured out that providing vegetarian options isn't about finding equivalent "meat replacements" but instead about cooking up options that stand on their own and taste great. > While Impossible and Beyond displaced the meat alternatives In my experience the "meat alternative" patties have not displaced the good veggie patties in the restaurants that had good veggie patties to begin with. > ...that doesn't mean you have to go meat in a vat at home, you can do products such as Morningstar Farms Grillers Original, or maybe Boca All-American Flame-Grilled Burger. Those taste stack more reasonably with what goes on a burger than the mashed vegetables patties, without the weirdness (fake blood look, why?) of Impossible or Beyond. Your local diner will probably be happy to stock them as they're simple frozen goods. A beef burger patty has the wonderful property that it is simply made of meat -- a good beef patty has no ingredient lists because it isn't a packaged food. A good veggie patty is also made on site of simple whole foods, in the same way a good burger is and in the same way any other good meal is. Any frozen puck taken from a bag and slapped on a grill fails the test, be it comprised mostly of beef, soy, beans, "beyond beef", wheat, or whatever. Those things are about convenience, not taste.
- retrac 4y agoMy conclusion is that we are not the target audience for fake burgers, because we are not missing what it's presumably giving some people. I'm pretty sure these patties are meant to assuage meat cravings in psychologically-obligate carnivores. Because otherwise, you're right. Almost all meat substitute dishes are missing the point; just cook vegetarian cuisine from the start. There are all manners of unhealthy deep fried deliciousness with plants, that don't involve heavily processing the plants to look and vaguely taste meaty first. And most of them, frankly, taste better than fake meat. But if you're in burger withdrawal, no onion rings or curry will help. Only meat, or perhaps, fake-meat, will sate that desire.
- ilyt 4y agoSame. I ate plenty of vegetarian or vegan stuff that's just tasty food. I'm already picky for burger meat, I'd rather have plain sandwich than burger with mediocre meat, and at best those emulate that, mediocre burger meat, at cost of way more processing.
- quirk 4y ago> It's because the animals need to eat (surprise surprise) vegetables! Not exactly. In pastoral agriculture, animals eat grasses that humans cannot, on land that is not easily farmable (infertile, rocky, hilly, etc). A nice side effect of this is that the animals make the land more farmable by fertilizing it with their poops.
- elurg 4y agoI really don't understand why people want to simulate the taste of meat. It seems like a completely uninteresting problem to solve, plant foods are already perfectly fine. The availability of "perfect substitutes" for meat wouldn't affect my food choices at all and this is likely true for a lot of people.
- anikom15 4y agoAnimals eat really cheaply compared to the produce humans eat. The real reason meat is more expensive than vegetables is simple supply and demand.
- mywittyname 4y ago> "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty." I'm a meat lover and this annoys me too! One of my favorite sandwiches is a southwestern style black bean burger. I also flat out hate Impossible Burgers, they taste off, their texture is weird, and they leave me feeling icky after I eat one.
- martin82 4y agoThe animals eat the vegetables because they evolved to eat the vegetables. Humans did not.