Recently tried an Impossible burger and nuggets and thought that if nobody told me it wasn’t meat, I’d have thought the patty was made out of a weird kind of meat, rather than make a connection with the taste and texture of plants. Honestly, I might not complain if that was the only kind of “meat” I could have for the rest of my life.
Well, maybe I’d miss bacon.
I’ve yet to find the opportunity to try lab-grown meat, but I for sure would like to try it out and don’t see much wrong with it as long as it’s sustainable, reasonably priced, and doesn’t have anything you wouldn’t expect in a normal piece of meat.
Also, with imitation and lab-grown options, I’d no longer have to deal with the disgust factor of handling raw meat (esp. the juices) or biting into gristle. I’ll happily devour a hot dog, but something about an unexpected bit of cartilage gives me a lingering sense of revulsion.
I think the texture thing with impossible burgers has to do with cooking them a certain way. I’ve had them at restaurants where the texture was great and others where it was abysmal. I don’t bother with them at home.
I’m delighted for more options, though I’m mostly past the point of wanting a substitute for a certain type of meat; I just want more vegetarian options. For decades, the only vegetarian options most restaurants had were salad or pasta tossed with whatever vegetables they had left over in the kitchen, both of which you knew were quick and cheap options for the restaurant and which you’d have to pay close to the same amount as the meat dishes. There were more options for ethnic vegetarian food, but a lot of them don’t have much texture (seriously, what is with so much Indian food) or are either bland or over-spiced. The over-spiced thing goes to some of the frozen foods as well - looking at you, Amy’s.
Regardless, it’s nice to be able to go to a restaurant and have actual options, or go to a grocery store and not being reduced to looking at the tofu and beans again.
I assume it’s like normal ultra processed foods full of chemicals that kill us because it’s cheaper for the company and they profit more.
Imitation stuff made from pea protein and coconut oil is surprisingly good. It pan fries just fine. It’s chewy and meaty. It doesn’t have the exact taste and texture of beef but it makes a burger.
I tried some mycelium based bacon recently. It was interesting. I’ve since bought it like 3 more times. It scratches the bacon itch without tasting like death. I hear that there are more mycelium based products out there that are gaining traction and I submitted requests to my local grocery store to carry those products.
Quorn is awesome for chicken nuggets. Frankly I prefer them to the real thing.
Beyond as a brand needs to fucking die. Their products suck. Their markup is excessive and makes their products cost far more than the equivalent meat products. Their stock is teetering on the brink of oblivion and I say end it. I recall them pushing for beyond orange chicken at panda express and they wanted to charge a premium for it. Then they wondered “why didnt anyone want this?” Because you charged more for an inferior product you fuckheads. Price your products *below* the meat products you replace and you’ll see astronomical sales - especially when herds are culled because of sickness.
Their products suck. Their markup is excessive and makes their products cost far more than the equivalent meat products.
This seems overly harsh to me. I’ve bought plenty of Beyond products (and Impossible, and Morning Star, and many other plant-based meat alternative brands) over the years and I’ve found them to be fine in terms of quality. I haven’t bought them in a while, but I don’t recall them being particularly more expensive than the other plant-based meats in the grocery store. Though I virtually always wait for those to go on a good sale before I buy them.
Since plant-based alternatives are competing with the meat industry, which is heavily subsidized to keep meat costs artificially low, I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say Beyond’s products being more expensive than regular meat is why their business is failing. Other plant-based meats I’ve tried have generally always been more expensive than regular meat.
I’d rather eat a plain block of uncooked tofu than those beyond italian sausages
Do you happen to know the brand of mycelium bacon you had? I’d be interested to try it
Hmm I started ordering until I saw an ingredient listed as “natural flavor”, which feels like a red flag.
Any idea what that is?
Something like liquid smoke?
No, but I’m confident it isn’t a product derived from animals. They’re pretty clear on their mission statement that they are trying to replace animal products with mycelium/
I agree about their marketing strategies, but if I couldn’t buy Beyond Minced anymore I’d be seriously frustrated. It’s by far the best vegan minced meat on the market (at least here in Germany).
Cook’s Country, who as far as I’m concerned are the go-to for any kind of taste-tests, did a comparison of several nugget brands, and the winner (Impossible, I think) actually beat out real chicken nuggets. YMMV but nuggets are just a medium for breading and sauce.
The A&W veggie burger is just as good. It’s funny to order it with bacon, (not a vegetarian, just like to moderate beef.) I’ve had a Beyond Meat burger, but it was from a cafeteria that clearly didn’t know how to cook.
I’m not a good barometer for this since I pretty much like everything, but I like them. I just bought some vegetarian bacon and it was good. I’m not quite ready to stop eating meat, and I probably won’t ever fully stop, but I do plan on reducing it greatly over the next few years. I’m starting with pork since it’s the easiest one for me (bacon is about the only pork I eat regularly), cow is next, and then chicken which is the hardest one for me but it’s also the ones who suffer the most. I’m starting to buy cage free only eggs. I know the birds still live in bad conditions, but at least they are better conditions somewhat than overcrowded cages.
I am looking for ethical farmers near me and I think I might have found one but I need to visit to make sure.
I do wish lab grown meats become viable soon but in the US, these so called capitalists are already moving to impede progress and market adoption.
We are on a similar path. My first replacement was veggie crumbles and fake burgers instead of beef. I LOVE fake burgers like Beyond Beef and Impossible. I don’t see a point in buying ground beef now that I have these options at a lower price. I also use seitan chicken and beef for things like stir-fry, but it doesn’t work well in every recipe. Mostly, I switched to recipes heavy on vegetables and beans. Pork is hardest for me because it is cheap and slow cooking a shoulder fills more tacos than we can eat. Enchlidas and Burritos get well-seasoned beans. Egg-wise, I found a semi-local farm that treats their laying hens better than average (low density coops with perches, sun and air, but not free-range).
Morningstar for vegetarian bacon (you can just pop a few slices in the microwave for like 90 seconds), Lightlife for hot dogs.
As someone who does not eat meat because I don’t like it, these are useless foods to me. Why eat a highly processed version of something you don’t like in the first place, just because it’s plant based. I like veggie burgers that taste like veggies. That’s just me. These substitutes are really for people looking to reduce their meat consumption, or transition to a plant based diet. I will take tofu over any fake ‘meat’.
I used to unsure about the idea of lab grown meat … but now I think they would be fine. I haven’t seen any in my area yet.
Lab grown meats couldn’t be any worse than the horrendous things we feed and do to the animals (large animals, birds and fish) we eat already.
If the taste, texture, and price are good, I’ll eat it.
That goes for plant based stuff and meat replacements, too. I’ve tried the Impossible burger on a BK Whopper and thought it was plenty passable as a fast food burger patty… But it was a few bucks extra, so now that my curiosity is sated, I probably won’t buy another until it’s the same price as or cheaper than its animal-product counterpart.
Other people have already mentioned how it feels like in your mouth, but I’m going to address a different angle: Ethics and environmental impact.
Modern industrial meat production is incredibly cruel. If you wanted to do the same thing in a more ethical way, the final product would end up being much more expensive, even if you had the economies of scale working in your favor. Meat alternatives would solve that issue.
Producing meat results in a lot of CO2 emissions, so a plant based alternative should be more environmentally friendly. Don’t know about lab meat though. Keeping everything sterile is not cheap or easy, so I guess the LCA of the resulting product should be very interesting to read.
Meat alternatives would solve that issue.
For a price.
Can we all afford lab grown meat? The people making it are all trying to maximize profit by giving the least while charging the most. Keep in mind, that money has to come from somewhere.
As with any new business being built on “ethics,” they should be willing to put their money where their mouths are. If they care so much about stopping animal abuse, then they should be charging the lowest price they can tolerate, not the highest price for their customers.
I don’t expect most fake-meat companies to do this because they care more about maximizing profit than stopping animal abuse.
Fair enough. No doubt there’s some greed in it as well, but the immature production technology and small scale can easily explain most of the astronomical price. If they ever make it to large scale production, optimize every step along the way, you should be able to see the economies of scale reducing the price. Obviously, we’re nowhere near there just yet.
Also, the technology itself will always set a certain floor to the price nobody can change until you change the underlying production technology. For example, electricity, equipment, labor and materials will always cost something, but an optimized process will need less of each.
I enjoy most of them, will eat them if they’re cheap enough. Though I prefer tempeh, seitan, and frozen tofu over stuff that tries to be meat. Quality varies from mediocre to better than the real stuff
Calling tofu and tempeh “better than the real stuff” is the pure copium I come to Lemmy for.
hi ai
what’s wrong with you
There are some very good plant-based bacon alternatives. The problem is that they are priced like luxury products, rather than having common sense cheaper-than-meat pricing. Nearly all of bacon’s flavor comes smoke and seasonings, and the texture and crisp can be easily reproduced. Try Thrilling Bakon if you have the chance.
I would be more than willing to eat lab grown meat, though I’d prefer the creation of healthier plant-based alternatives. Even lab grown meat will have “bad” things like cholesterol, and plant-based alternatives should theoretically be able provide more nutritional value at lower prices than “real” or lab grown meat.
I’m an omnivore, so I will eat anything that tastes good. I just think we should be trying to make delicious, nutritious food affordable for normal people, whatever route that takes. I’m not convinced that lab-grown meat is a path to that goal. If reducing environmental and ethical harm is only for the rich, then fuck that approach, we need another.
Impossible meat is close enough to meat that I genuinely wouldn’t be able to tell the difference without a side-by-side comparison, and it would be virtually impossible for me to tell if it were mixed in with other flavors (eg in a burrito). I’ve heard it’s got high sodium though, so you’ll still have to beware that it’s not much healthier (if at all) than normal meat. I don’t get Impossible often, though I get regular meat even less. I’d say I like Impossible more than normal meat, I just wish it’s a bit cheaper.
Beyond meat simply doesn’t taste quite right, like soy trying to imitate meat. It hits an awkward uncanny valley, so I don’t like it.
IMO lab grown meat feels a bit like a waste of time. With how incredibly uncanny Impossible is to actual meat, I don’t really see the need to grow meat in the lab. And it’ll probably be more expensive than Impossible meat too, if my lab experience is any indication
I think lab-grown meat will be an interesting alternative, looking forward to try that out.
Couldn’t care less about the imitation products, they have been a massive letdown every time I tried. Pretty sure we’ll have lab-grown meat before these things ever come close.
Its good i guess though if you want to go vegan/vegiterian go away from these ultra processed foods as well! There are so many tasty dishes that are vegan/vegitarian without substitutes
