Round 1: grilled
I’m a fan of Beyond meat but this doesn’t qualify as food porn. They look ok I guess but definitely not porn level.
Years ago I spent a handful of months in Japan. It was wonderful, as always. But a couple months in I was really jonesing for some tasty Mexican food. I was told of a Mexican restaurant that was close enough. I went and ordered a chicken burrito and something else (I don’t remember). It showed up and looked exactly what I would have gotten from one of the hundreds of Mexican restaurants around where I lived in SoCal. I took a bite and…not a single flavor was right. It looked wonderful, but tasted like a joke.
I agree looks can be deceiving. My go to example is a wedding cake that’s 90% fondant, blech. I stand by my statement though, even if the meal was good, that photo of it is not.
Had Beyond a few times, it’s really impressive. I’m not a vegetarian (sorry) but rather a meat reducer. Keep making stuff like this available and I and many people like me will have no more excuses.
I really like fake chicken, but fake beef just isn’t there for me yet.
IMO:
Fake chicken - almost indistinguishable in many cases
MOST fake beef (especially the likes of Quorn which I quite dislike) is nowhere near yet, I agree. Beyond though? I’m really impressed, I can hardly tell.
Fake pork i.e. veggie sausages - long way to go. Oddly enough Richmond seem about the best. Most are way too dense and heavy for my liking.
Every day is progress though
No prob. Veggie here, we’re all just glad people are open to trying.
If there’s one hard rule I and others believe in, don’t waste your food, especially the meat.
Oh agreed, that’s well ingrained in me and seems quite ingrained in British culture in general (I think it has wartime origins, but more because meat was expensive). I and everyone else I know, if we’re out at a meal and getting full the first thing anyone does is start fishing around for the bits of meat to make sure they don’t go to waste.
Dammmnnn that’s crazy how similar they look. I used to work at a butcher, but after the horrors I went through, I couldn’t stay. The bloodshed, the moos they made. The owner would invite me to fuck the cows sometimes. Whenever I finished with him, I was always reminded of the slaughters I helped commit. That’s why I’m so happy to see imitation meat come such a long way. Finally, we can be the makers of our own meat.
Jesus christ Lemmy
What a rollercoaster
Sooo… rape then murder or the other way around?
A cow has to “artificial impregnated” every year so they lactate for
their babysomeones cornflakes and obviously to have a baby for the next burger.
Beyond, hands down. I got a distaste for real beef burger patties since I had my first vegan burger.
For me Impossible tastes better than beyond. I’m happy to eat either over beef even though I think beef has the potential to be the tastiest.
I’m a carnivore, and I do like both impossible and beyond better than beef burgers. The mouth feels and flavor are both better than beef burgers.
They both look terrible tbh
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What the!
What kind of Real Meat ™ is that?
The one on the right does look more appealing though…
I feel like a lot of you never had a good hamburger in your life
Imo impossible meat is superior to beyond although nutritionally it’s a mixed bag. It introduces a decent amount of carbs (9g per 4oz) and has over 5x the sodium of beef. But it also has a bit of fiber and a either comparable or more vitamin/mineral content than beef. Protein is comparable to 80% ground with 20% less caloric content
Beyond is similar.
They’re both basically vegetable proteins with binders and fats and some flavorings. The big game changer flavoring is leghemoglobin which both use. It’s a protein isolated from soy that is very similar to certain enzymes from bovine muscle. Impossible got the fda to approve it in 2019 and it was challenged; there are some concerns on whether it is safe to eat. I’m not super well read on the issue but from what I’ve perused the issue is one of a lack of long term testing and not of any direct concern.
The textural difference between the two is because beyond uses isolated pea protein, which gives it a texture that’s a bit chunkier and imo more sausage like, and impossible uses soy protein, which imo is more like a cheap burger patty you’d get at McDonald’s.
The fats are typical fats like coconut oil or sunflower oil to recreate the fatty part of beef and this is the current weakness of the products imo. Coconut oil is used because it tends to stay solidified at room temp so when you’re making patties it feels like there are chunks of beef fat. In practice this is weird because they are far too hard and aren’t dispersed enough throughout the product; I believe this is why these fake meats tend to stick to the pan much easier than actual burgers cooked in a skillet.
The binders are big scary words like methylcellulose which is also a source of fiber and can be used as a laxative so people latch onto that and freak out. But it’s only used as a binder to help it hold everything together here so it’s like a tiny amount that just provides a bit of fiber that you probably desperately need if you’re having burgers for dinner. Fun fact: Certain preparations of methylcellulose (a4c) turn into gels when heated so you can use them to make hot ice cream! It’s pretty weird to eat, like a normal ice cream base that solidifies when you put it into boiling water
The other ingredients are stuff like beet juice for coloring
Final fun fact: technically impossible meat is not vegan because animal testing was done during its development.
Thanks for reading my unprompted essay on the composition of modern vegan meat substitutes. This was brought to you by my failed interest in becoming a food scientist. Also you may note I don’t really discuss how they compare to meat and that’s because I don’t eat meat which by law I am required to mention in all posts about food
How do you know someone is a vegetarian? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Just kidding, most vegetarians I know are really cool and non-judgmental about others’ eating habits. I’ve actually reduced my meat intake just by hanging out with a vegetarian friend that always went out of their way to make me something with meat when we ate together, and to return the favor I would always make vegetarian dishes when they ate at my place. And then I just sort of got into the challenge of making tasty veggie dishes! I would say I’ve halved my meat consumption over the last year because of it.
That’s pretty disgusting ultra processed shit.
What defines ultra processed? Are chicken nuggets ultra processed if I simply purée a chicken breast, add salt, shape, bread, and fry? I’ve turned it into something that is completely irrelevant to its original form. Is sausage ultra processed because I added nitrates? Is nitrate free sausage not ultra processed because I used the loophole where I added celery juice for its natural nitrate content instead of adding them directly?
When exactly does it become ultra processed? When a chemist gets involved and gives things proper names that freak you out?
Are you one of the kooky types that freak out when they see “sodium stearoyl lactylate” on the label of their sandwich bread even though it’s safe to eat and objectively makes your bread better and last longer? If so I’m sorry that you insist on eating bread that is not as soft and goes stale in 2 days
unlike the not disgusting animal farming process: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23817808/pig-farm-investigation-feedback-immunity-feces-intestines
That’s US. Everything is shit there.
Yeah, unlike the totally non-disgusting way meat is processed
It’s not processed.
What? You dumb?
Absolutely, I am a complete idiot. I pointed out to you that a simple & obvious search results in multiple definitions & examples of how meat is processed. I thought that would result in you understanding that meat is, in fact, processed. In hindsight, that was extremely stupid of me and I feel very dumb.
Wut? Do you even read, bro?
I do eat meat, quite frequently.
Impossible is the only meat substitute I’ve had that I couldn’t immediately tell the difference with, in either flavor or texture. If the price is ever on-par with hamburger (ideally cheaper), I will switch without hesitation. I will highly recommend it to anyone that’s vegan (yes, yes, I know) or vegetarian.
I’ve also had some soy wings that are very, very good, better than real wings. Then again, I don’t actually like real chicken wings that much.
You can see the difference even visually. WTF are you talking about?
Since I don’t usually eat steak tartare, the raw appearance isn’t relevant to me. The cooked appearance is close enough to not be noted.
(I like tartare, but finding a butcher that is fully trustworthy is difficult where I live.)
The photo in the post shows a huge difference in appearance.
I really enjoy BM’s burger personally. Taste is good but the real kicker is the texture and how it really has some body to it. What’s the consensus on them?
I personally think the flavour is off but the texture is good, I personally prefer impossible burger
Impossible taste is nearly a replica of beef. And when you surround it in burger toppings, it could trick me
It’s not a replica. Have you people ever tried proper burgers at all?
Lemmy has a different ides of what counts as food porn.
Except the vegan option is equally or more unhealthy depending on what kind of ground beef you choose.
But much healthier for the cow, which I think is the reason a lot of folks are interested. Those eating plant-based for health alone are probably more likely to go for a lentil or black bean patty than Beyond/Impossible Meat.
Oreos and Doritos are also vegan, just because somethings vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy, pretty sure most people with a little bit of sense understand this already
They are not marketed as a healthy alternative. They are significantly better for the environment.
They’re not.
If there’s one dish where I feel it’s a waste to eat animal meat, it’s hamburgers. Vegetarian alternatives have come a long way and in a burger they’re often the superior option.
There’s a small difference for sure, but the BM patties are far from inferior. And much of the difference is masked by condiments anyway.
Nothing pisses me off more than seeing “wagyu beef burger” on a menu. What’s the fucking point if you’re gonna grind it up and shape it into a patty
One of these two costs about 150% more than the other and it’s not the hamburger.
One of those is heavily subsidized by your taxes, the other is less so. Steak would be $35/lb without subsidies.
One of these probably contains about 3 ingredients, the other, has 20 (and beyondmeat is one of the less bad meat alternatives with regards to this).
Water, pea protein*, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], calcium pantothenate).
Really tame list of ingredients tbph. All the scary sounding ones are vitamins. Burgers on the other hand loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat, and might have all kinds of shit like antibiotics to boot. Just because “beef” is “one ingredient” doesn’t mean it’s not full of toxic chemicals.
That’s ultra processed shit. You shouldn’t eat that.
shit. You shouldn’t eat that.
All food in the US is shit.
We should make a “just alright food” community
