ambitious_bonesThe people developing vegan meat alternatives must have eaten a lot of meat beforehand so they can replicate the taste and texture.
[deleted] in lemmyFrom trying a lot of vegan meat alternatives my assumption was they have no fucking idea what they are doing.
The time making fake meat would be better spent promoting vegan dishes that aren’t pretending to be something else, because those are fantastic.
Yes, but have you tried Beyond? It’s delicious. Now if we can just get get vegan cheese up to par…
I have tried Beyond and found it bland and tasteless.
Why is trying to pretend to be cheese worth the time when stuff like guacamole, white bean dip, hummus, corn dip, etc. exist?
Just no, hard no. Came off a kayaking trip starving for whatever. My vegan gf got us Beyond burgers. Absolutely revolting. I can’t put my finger on it, but it tasted like “chemicals”. LOL, I know, great description, but I couldn’t choke down half the thing.
It is 100% chemicals. ;)
Vegan cheese done with coconut oil is pretty decent, way better that the wet sponge texture that beyond has.
Iced RaktajinoI almost gave up on the dairy free cheese because Daiya was supposed to be the top-tier one. Tasted vaguely cheese-flavored plastic strips, and I was not a fan. Also refused to melt until it was just below the temperature of the surface of the sun, and when it did, it was like a pile of glue.
On a whim, I bought the Kroger store brand (Simple Truth I think?) and it’s pretty damn good. Tastes like cheese, doesn’t feel like a mouth full of plastic, melts at a reasonable temperature, the whole works.
I couldn’t stand Daiya. Fully agree.
I love the Field Roast veggie sausages. I don’t feel like they’re trying and failing to imitate meat, but rather that they’re trying to make something tasty that hits the form factor and general savoriness of meat. And they do that well, imo
Yeah, the sausage format is one of the better approaches because it is a form factor that already has a wide variety of textures and from the packaging it doesn’t look like they are trying to imitate specific meat flavors or textures. Can’t remember if I have tried that brand before, but I have had green plant based sausages and they were good as their own kind of thing. Like how sweet potato fries are the same shape as regular potato fries but you would never confuse the two.
CarbonIceDragonI’m not particularly fond of the field and roast brand sausages in particular because the texture seems too gummy for my taste, but yeah, my general experience has been that the more processed a meat is and the more it relies on being infused with spices or served with something else, the better the replacement works. Like, replacing a burger works great, replacing a steak is virtually a non starter. For something like ground and spiced taco meat, I actually started preferring the alternatives well before I stopped eating meat just because tvp doesn’t have gristle the way ground beef does.
𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍There’s one brand of spicy soy chorizo that straight up tastes like the Goya chorizos I grew up with. They even got the color down, chorizo is supposed to be bright red. Sadly I don’t remember what the brand is
I love vegetarian goose though. It doesn’t taste like goose at all but it still delicious.
I strongly dislike goose because it is so damn greasy, would probably prefer whatever vegetarian goose is unless they used Olestra in pursuit of authenticity.
addieAgreed. Got a huge amount of Indian and Asian cuisine that happens to be vegan, either incidentally or for religious reasons, and it’s all absolutely delicious; but no, ‘vegan food’ means deep-fried highly processed dinosaur shapes and cheese with a distinct aftertaste of sewage.
I feel bad for vegetarians. If pubs and restaurants have one meat-free item on the menu then it’s going to be vegan, and if it’s going to be vegan then it’s going to be some awful faux food where the main plant source is chemical plant. Vegetarian meals that celebrate the quality and freshness of the vegetables are the equal of any meat meal, but you’re not having those.
I think a lot of these kinds of products are for hosting vegans. I don’t find them tasting good enough to acquire over making something that’s actually delicious. But it is nice to eat some burgers with the family.
They’re also great for when you want something you miss. Like I havent eaten chicken in 4 years, the fake shit is close enough for the craving
da_cow (she/her)Or Dino Nuggets. They taste exactly the same.
Are Impossible meats vegan? Because Impossible stuff (ground “beef,” “chicken,” whatever) are delicious. They definitely got me into eating far, far less meat.
The ingredients are vegan. Apparently there was animal testing involving rats for an ingredient or something like that.
Thankfully/hopefully it is not an active process compared to farm to table.
RIP my little rats. Your service will not be in vain.