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One of the best (by taste) and most successful industrial manufactures in Germany for meat alternatives is “Rügenwalder Mühle”, a quite big traditional family owned meat corp. And they are doing their job this good, because alot of the food technicians responsible for the products could rely on the knowledge of the long time working butchers in company. Like getting the texture and seasong right or reducing the ingredients to make the product more “natural”.
So yeah, its a thing, imho. If you want to develop something meat like for industrial production, its helpfull to know a thing or two about industrial meat production.
It is possible that they work with what they do not to make vegan meat, but to reduce the amount of horrible lives lived by live cattle.
Or they are doing it to make money.
I’ll take what I can get.
From 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.
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
Agreed. 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 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.
There’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’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.
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.
Yes, but have you tried Beyond? It’s delicious. Now if we can just get get vegan cheese up to par…
Vegan cheese done with coconut oil is pretty decent, way better that the wet sponge texture that beyond has.
I have tried Beyond and found it bland and tasteless. The texture was ok.
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. ;)
Sometimes they probably have long forgotten how meat tastes and feels like, judging from some of the products.
Honestly they should just make something that tastes good
Alternative: instead of trying to imitate meat with questionable high-processed foods and chemicals, how about cooking a real vegan or vegetarian meal? There are so many delicious, simple, and more healthy alternatives.
There are people who eat both. I’m not a big meat eater and prefer the veggie versions of things, but will eat the occasional meat (mainly chicken and sausage).
I don’t think a lot of meat alternatives are trying to perfectly replicate their meat counterpart but rather work as an alternative in dishes. Tempeh bacon for instance will never match the taste or texture of real bacon, but tempeh is delicious on its own so I will never complain about smoked tempeh. It’s easier to imitate processed meat like sausage or nuggets.
Though I will say I used to get a lemongrass seitan “chicken” from a pho place that was better than any real chicken I’ve ever had
Can’t they hire other people to do the taste testing?
Or they don’t even have to be vegan in order to develop the products. People making medicines don’t need to be sick.
There is a surprising amount of debate over that in vegan circles. Beyond Meat taste test their burgers against cow burgers to compare the flavour and some vegans will say you can’t consider those burgers vegan while others would say it’s a very small amount of animal consumption to allow for a vegan burger that might help convert more people and so the benefit outweights the harm massively. I’m vegan and I don’t really know what side to lean towards, but there’s debate over everything from honey to almonds, and debate on whether it’s acceptable to order vegan food from non-vegan restaurants, just as examples.
That’s hilarious. What if someone who gets their calories from eating meat cooks up a vegan meal? That meal couldn’t have been made without killing an animal.
That’s a fair point. I suppose like any movement there’s a wide spectrum of people and one end of the spectrum would be those who are as strict as that. I don’t think it’s very productive to be that strict though, certainly where I live and with the health conditions I have it would be impossible to live life so strictly compared to someone in top health living in a major city.
I’d advocate for long-term harm reduction, myself.
While obviously it would be better for the cow to have been able to live a full life, but in (I think) 15 years or so that cow would be dead either way.
Something that can be helping new cows regularly, like a Beyond Burger that can appeal to those that would otherwise just pick a normal burger, I basically consider it to be harm-neutral after the lifespan of the animals they’re using for those taste tests is up.
Honestly, this is the trolley problem. On the main lane, we have a bunch of cows about to be run over by our “Meat Industry” trolley. Pull the lever to redirect the trolley and butcher some cows for beyond burger development. I would pull the lever, but it’s not a clear moral win.
It feels like perfect is not just the enemy of good enough, it’s slaughtering its family and salting its crops.
By that logic all oxygen consuming animals are climate change monsters.
They make it harder than it needs to be.
Most people aren’t born vegan :)
That’s a good point. Are animal products vegan if they’re willingly given by a being with enough sapience to consent? Is breastmilk vegan? I’d assume so, but I feel like it’s worth asking. I’m asking based on the idea that all people are animals, but not all animals are people. I know that’s something not everyone’s on board with, but I thought it would be good to include this disclaimer.
Most people agree that foods given with consent count as vegan, so breast milk would count. A lot of vegans eat honey, for example, because bees aren’t harmed in the harvesting process.
TIL. I didn’t know honey could be vegan. I would have assumed all animal husbandry wasn’t vegan because of the artificial selection process at least.
The argument is that bees overproduce naturally and you barely disturb them to take the combs that are done before they rot (the combs not the honey, honey basically never rots), so you are not harming them in any meaningful way.
Bees found in nature still overproduce, so bees in “captivity” are just given free range in a field of flowers. Technically the queen bee and all the colony could fly away but they don’t because why would they.
That sounds like a rational take. I could accept it, for what that’s worth.
I do like to ask if artificial selection is harmful. Is it possible that generations of queens/hives adapt and evolve to conform to human demands while becoming increasingly dependent on human support?
I don’t think so, artificial beehives are barely a protected box with compartments queen bees are put in, but there’s plenty beehives in the widl too. The reason I quoted captivity in that comment is that those bees go out as far as several kilometres to gather and polinize the flora around them. They could very much find some tree to use as a beehive and keep going out as much.
The reason against the veganism of honey is that it’s technically not consensual, and that the smoke they are thrown to calm themselves so that the humans can take the combs is mistreatment. I mean, I guess? But that’s such a low bar that I don’t subscribe to that, you do you.
In any case I’m not expert, you should do your research to get the most accurate info.
The reason against the veganism of honey is
it’s an animal product
By any strict definition of the term it’s not considered vegan, that said there are people out there who attempt to debate the matter.
Most people agree
got any studies to support this?
According to the vegan society’s definition of the term veganism, which is generally considered the go to definition, human breast milk when given with consent is vegan.
On the other hand while some attempt to debate the matter Honey is not considered vegan according to that definition.
can you link that?
Honey is questionably vegan because the book that establishes the basic principles of veganism specifically said its people’s choice whether to consider it as acceptable or not because of the lack of harm. If I recall correctly he said something like the debate is worth having but not worth fighting over, because everyone who is even having the debate is trying to do the right thing.
Sure do.
just saying it isn’t very convincing.
This is anecdotal. This entire conversation is anecdotal.
then I’ll anecdotally let you know you’re wrong
Are animal products vegan
no
What about poop?
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of … animals …
a forest can be exploited or a water source can be exploited. the definition of exploitation is not dependent on harm, nor sentience, nor consent. veganism seeks to end all animal exploitation.
So can I eat the poop and still be vegan or what?
no
Off the wall question: does that make exploitation of people incompatible with veganism, even with their consent? If so, can vegans own companies or even shares in publicly traded ones?
Even breastmilk from parent to child? If not, is veganism a moral position? If so, is it immoral to be a human baby?
Not trying to throw stones here, just trying to clarify for the purpose of interpretation. I’m probably splitting hairs here, but it’s interesting to know where the line in the sand is. Obviously, the biggest opportunities are reducing industrial dairy and meat, which are definitely not consensual.
If I willingly breastfeed my child, what moral issue would you or any other person have with it?
If we are forcing a woman to breastfeed or be milked against her will; then that is a different question and a valid moral issue.
Consent matters
Can we say any woman can consent to breastfeeding her child if she lives in a patriarchy?
Well yes because we have been doing it before patriarchy and we will do it long after patriarchy is dead.
But I will grant you that some women choose to not have children or to breastfeed them (formula exists, as does donated human breast milk and some women who enjoy the experience will breastfeed other women’s babies).
Me personally? None at all, and I shouldn’t have a say in it either. Other people? I have no idea. It still floors me that enough people object to public breastfeeding for it to be raised as an issue at all. The idea that potentially seeing a breast is more offensive (or offensive at all) than increasing the difficulty of raising a child is a bizarre and unconscionable one in my mind.
Agreed, but dear lord, I hope that’s never happened.
Agreed.
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
You can develop vegan meat alternatives without being a vegan.
I’m fairly certain most of the big name alternative meat products on the market were developed by capitalists and not vegans.
“I prefer to do both”
I would agree.
The old traditional ones like satan or such likely not. The modern corpo ones I doubt the flavor analysts specifically eat more meat than normal but they likely did a fair amount of side by sides.
South Indians seem to have done just fine without eating meat
