Real meat vs Beyond meat
Real meat vs Beyond meat
Round 1: grilled
214 comments
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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
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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.
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The meat alternatives will only get better as time goes on and market demand grows. A burger or nugget is really not an impossible (lol) to recreate item; most of the meat texture is lost by the processing involved.
A burger is obviously ground and a nugget is usually chicken that’s ground to almost a paste then shaped and breaded. At that point it’s finding something that can approximate the texture of the mushed up meat goo and then finding something that can convincingly flavor it. That’s why impossible was so adamant to get leghemoglobin cleared by the fda, it really is by far the best option. If not that your other options are basically trying to recreate a “meaty flavor” with spice blends and msg which is how the older meat alternatives worked
The much bigger challenge is finding something that can texturally approximate intact muscle (eg wings or steak). As you’ve said there are decent soy wings and there are steak strip things and such but these are generally passable. They taste good and are fine as a meal but they aren’t the same in the way an impossible burger is reallllly close to a burger. Lots of people trying though! Jackfruit, tvp, seitan, pea and soy protein, etc. but none of them come close to the mouth feel and texture of a wing or steak. Someday, maybe. I hope someone figures it out; I haven’t had meat in like 20 years or so but I do miss the texture of steak from time to time and wish I had something that could recreate that
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I upvoted your post 1/2 way through just for the sheer effort of information. (and did continue reading, I just have nothing of value to add)
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Seems like an absolute process. I'm not a vegan but it's nice you guys have options when you're craving a burger. I can't wait until that lab grown meat hits the markets.
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Honestly I think Beyond Meat/Impossible style burgers are aimed at meat eaters who want to reduce animal cruelty/their carbon footprint. It's actually kind of annoying they're so popular now, as restaurants that used to have creative vegan options now sell Beyond Meat as the only choice.
Vegans don't tend to care if a veggie burger is "realistic". Some find the idea of meat gross and don't want to roleplay eating it (my wife says they make her feel sick). Even if you don't mind, the longer you give up meat the less interesting it is as a flavor. I'd take one of those shitty frozen veggie burgers that are 90% potato over an Impossible burger.
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has over 5x the sodium of beef
I'm curious, I've never cooked with Impossible meat before, is the "meat" just already salted/seasoned well? When I make a burger I definitely add quite a bit of salt while cooking, wondering if that sodium is just it being pre-seasoned or if that's before a (needed) good pinch of salt
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It’s probably from the yeast extract which is part of the heme
To be clear tho it still doesn’t have all that much salt. It’s more that raw beef just barely has any. Both impossible meat and raw beef pale in comparison to the salt content of the final burger, where the sodium content skyrockets from things like ketchup, pickles, seasoning the patty during cooking, the salt content of the bun, etc
And imo you should still salt/pepper an impossible patty after formation. As mentioned, while the salt content is higher, it’s still not terribly high, and imo it benefits from a bit more. In my experience it’s not like meat and you can salt whenever you want (whereas with beef you generally want to salt patties absolutely last minute to avoid giving the meat a lightly cured texture)
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Oh yes it does have enough salt to stand on its own. I never add salt to either Beyond or Impossible brands. I might add other seasoning if I'm trying to hit a flavor profile (liquid smoke, cajun spices, curry, etc).
You can just plop it out as-is and it'll cook up nicely. Just don't squish all the liquid out of it. I've had some nasty versions because people get away with poor cooking skills with reql meat and these don't tolerate the same abuses.
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This was very fascinating. Do you work in the industry?
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I wanted to very badly but then life happened and now I have a whole other career!
I still cook a lot though and I have a lot of weird powders and additives and machinery for stuff. I have a whole ass refrigerated centrifuge that can spin 3 liters at a time so I can isolate my own pea and soy protein in quantity! It weighs like 350 pounds and it’s from the 80s but fuck it, it’s super cool and I was able to get it for $25 from a lab I interned at. I can’t make soy leghemoglobin at home though at there’s no commercial supplier I’ve found so far so I have to still buy impossible or beyond meat if I want it, bummer
Hopefully there will be more food nerds on lemmy. I am only an amateur food nerd, there are way better ones out there
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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.
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Methylcellulose is also used as an egg white substitute in vegan cocktails! It foams up in a very similar way to egg whites and has little.to no effect on the flavor. It's often prepared as a syrup to make portioning easier as you only need small amounts to achieve the foaming effect
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It’s an excellent foaming agent! Methocel f50 foams will last a lot longer than egg foams too
Just make sure you get the right kind though. Usually if you get “methylcellulose” it’s f50 but there are a lot of different types with different properties. The a4c variety I mentioned for hot ice cream will make foams but won’t work as well and is better for gel applications. But there are a lot of varieties of methocel and many are only subtly different from each other
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Thanks for the interesting write up.
Why are you required by law to say you don't eat meat?
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It was a bad joke
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I think it’s a joke based on the stereotype of vegans being very outspoken about it.
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That's pretty disgusting ultra processed shit.
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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
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unlike the not disgusting animal farming process: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23817808/pig-farm-investigation-feedback-immunity-feces-intestines
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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.
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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
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They still use the burger parts for burger. They’re not taking a ribeye and grinding it up and selling it at a loss.
Is it a dumb thing for dumb people? Maybe. You would think the extra fat would just cook off and it wouldn’t go very far vs uncooked weight.
I wouldn’t buy one but I wouldn’t want that meat to go to waste either.
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At Costco the ground wagyu is cheaper than the regular ground beef. I use it in cooking rice dishes and the fat does give it a nicer flavor. Also appreciate that wagyu is sold in 1lb packs vs. 1.33 lbs for the Kirkland brand.
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I personally think like the complete opposite - if there's anything that's a waste, it's a beyond meat burger, because veggie burgers are like, really fucking good. Why on earth would you settle for an inferior pretend product when you can instead have a really good thing that's not pretending to be something else?
Miss me with that fake meat stuff and bring back actual veggie burgers! I got a real nice sweet potato and refried black bean one I've been working on for a while now
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100% agree. The imitation methods used in all of the vegan "meat" products just are not near good enough. My ex made me try a bunch, they varied from a little off to just plain gross. Even though I approached each one with an open mind, not a single one was enjoyable. It was actually really hard to keep an open mind after a while, having been either disappointed or disgusted 100% of the time in the past.
However, chickpea patties? Delicious. Black bean burgers? They're usually pretty decent too. There was one veggie burger we tried that had portobello mushrooms as the main ingredient, and it was the most delicious veggie burger I've ever had, hands down. It was so savory and juicy, and the texture was excellent.
I just wish these companies would just focus on plant based products with great taste as their main goal rather than trying to imitate meat, because they're just so astonishingly terrible at it.
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Meh, I don't like mushrooms and really don't like the black bean burgers and haven't liked any other veggie burger I've tried, but the Impossible ones I can hardly tell the difference from cow, so ... why wouldn't I choose the impossible when given the opportunity?
So, for me, I guess the answer is that if I want a burger, I want a burger, why would I go for something that doesn't taste anything like a burger?
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I fucking hate those slabs of vegetables and shit. They're disgusting. I'll eat regular burgers but I like these ones a lot too
But mishmashes of veggies on a bun? No
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Real veggie burgers never left. Quinoa burgers are amazing. Still love Beyond Burgers but veggie burgers do add a nice variety.
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Why not both? :D Cause sometimes I feel like eating this and sometimes I feel like eating that
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Garden burgers are the worst. Portabella is good. Even boca burgers are okay. Impossible is far better than Boca though.
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I was with you until you mentioned Beyond Meat. BM is just nasty, and bears no taste or texture resemblance to meat at all. That might be ideal for vegans, but it won’t win over any omni or carnivores.
Impossible is a different story. I can make smash burgers with that stuff that are utterly indistinguishable from a real burger. It won’t trick anyone in a meatloaf but for a burger, it’s pretty impressive.
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When is the last time you had a Beyond Burger? For a while they were salty af and pretty gross. Just got more from Costco and I would say they are better than Impossible Burgers.
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I mostly agree. The impossible burgers are great, much better than I expected! I wanted to try the Beyond Meat burgers to compare… yeah they aren’t as good. I wouldn’t cal them nasty, but for sure inferior to the Impossible burgers.
Impossible burgers taste better, look better, and could easily be mistaken for real meat. I also really like the at they are meant to be cooked from frozen. Just 4min per side in the skillet and it’s about perfect. I cook it with some Worcestershire sauce and that kicks it up a notch!
The BM burgers say they need to be defrosted before cooking. I’m not about to do that because it’s a lot of time and planning. I cook them from frozen and they kinda turn out a bit mushy.
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Exactly.
Beyond is just a slightly better evolution of the old Boca burgers. Still meh and you know in one second it's not beef. If beef like was what you were going for, you're boned. If not meat and it doesn't matter, it's fine
My first impossible burger was in a real burger restaurant (that's all they cooked) and I had to verify that it wasn't a regular burger
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I'm genuinely baffled at the idea that beyond meat can be seen as remotely as good as a beef burger. It is VERY different. Albeit an okay replacement in a lot of senses, it just can never be as good as a traditional beef burger. Generally I wish I could be vegetarian but beef burgers would be by far the worst part for me if I had to give up meat...
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IMO how things taste varies wildly from person to person. To me Beyond burger has a weird flavor that I dislike that never goes away.
Impossible burgers are a much better meat replacement to my taste buds. They're still not 100%, there's always a bite or two at the start were they taste off, but after that they taste pretty much like a cheap hamburger.
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Yes, that's because it's not an Impossible burger. Now that one... comes really close.
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Makes me wonder why they didn’t start with beyond meat sausage. The seasoning would cover any difference in flavor and the texture would be a lot easier to disguise
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The difference is most certainly not small. It's very noticeable. I also love the veggie options, but your position is kind of like saying:
If there’s one dish where I feel it’s a waste to eat
animal meatfusilli, it’shamburgerspasta.Vegetarian alternativesSpaghetti has come a long way and in aburgerpasta dish, they’re often the superior option. -
At least this is a minority opinion. I rely on the availability of meat products to eat. I cannot process carbs or sugars and they make me incredibly sick even legumes and tubers, whole grains etc. Fruit also. It triggers insane inflammation that I can only hold at bay with benadryl and that's not safe to use habitually.
It's meat, low lactose dairy, fish, eggs, greens for me and when I do break my diet to have a delicious slice of my boyfriend's pepperoni pizza I am disabled for a day or more. I need to be able to work otherwise I wouldn't care if I were bedridden from including carbs and sugars in my diet. I personally don't believe there's anything wrong with eating meat as I was raised along side sheep eating lamb and baby birds. No question about it that any other predator on the planet wouldn't think twice about eating me ass first. I'm OK being part of the food chain.
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Lemmy has a different ides of what counts as food porn.
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Yeah this'd be like TastyFood in the old place. But I always thought FoodPorn was too unrealistic. Like, every bun had to have that glossy brown sheen or it was crap, etc.
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This is like real porn vs. AI porn.
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No, OP still made those burgers fuck after the pic
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I feel like a lot of you never had a good hamburger in your life
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The best hamburger I've ever had didn't look like it would be.
Just as a note, my stepfather had the best burger of his life right before his first case of food poisoning.
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I'm gonna need an explanation of your bun situation. From here that looks like you're using extra wide english muffins or something.
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Are we just glossing over the colour and plasticity of the cheese too?
Nothing is that orange and shiny
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It looks like Kerrygold pre sliced cheddar or the like. Usually it gets a bit sweaty as it melts.
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Pre-cut Cheddar definitely is
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Found the euro
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Melted cheese is, throwing cheese on the patty for the last part of cooking is what I do.
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It looks like pita bread
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Unlike most hamburger buns, that looks like bread.
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They forgot to cook the chips too.
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I hate to just shit on things but overall this is a pretty sad looking pile of food IMO.
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It could be home-baked buns, they are incredibly delicious.
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It could be, or it could be hard tack. We need answers!
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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?
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I personally think the flavour is off but the texture is good, I personally prefer impossible burger
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I don't think I've seen them around yet in my country, I'll have a look around to see if I can get them to try
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I've had them before. The flavor is a bit different and the texture is a little softer, but it's pretty close. All in all, they taste very good and they're filling like a normal burger; albeit a little expensive compared to meat.
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There was a period in 2020 and into 2021 beyond meat was cheaper than ground beef.
I am a vegetarian and do my best to avoid meat replacements, but I do miss meat balls and meatloaf. Beyond meat works well for both of those.
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They are better now that they are not salty. For like a year they loaded them with a ton of salt.
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Better than most fake burger patties but still a big ways back from Impossible
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More preservatives than a McDonald's Happy Meal. No thanks.
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They both look terrible tbh
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I'm not sure how I am supposed to judge food based on pictures. It could look like dwarf barf, if it tastes and feel good it's ok.
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I can't even tell which is which. Based on the beef patties I had last night, the right is the meat. But the left could be meat too - but cooked by a heathen on a very very low grill. But as you say, who cares if it tastes great? I don't even need Beyond meat to taste like meat if it tastes delicious.
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Wow. Can we please be more sensitive about little people? They are a small group that is usually overlooked. And just so you know, "dwarf barf" as you call it, looks the same as anyone else's barf. Tastes the same too. A little sweeter, actually, because of all the little cookies they eat.
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You had me in the first half, not gonna lie. It also made me notice that outside of rpg-based community what I said can be really out of place. Sorry about that :/
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"I think they mean like, fantasy dwarves" -is what I was typing when I read the last sentence of your comment
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Why are you on this community
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To see nice pic of food. And you?
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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.
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I really like fake chicken, but fake beef just isn't there for me yet.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We should make a “just alright food” community
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Could be a sister community of https://dimlylitmealsforone.tumblr.com/
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You seem to have accidently put the cheese on the bottom.
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Beyond, hands down. I got a distaste for real beef burger patties since I had my first vegan burger.
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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.
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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.
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Is it cake??
If the way food LOOKS is the main metric you use to judge it, then I feel bad for your taste buds.
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Pretty bad picture if you want to compare the protein of the hamburgers. For the next round don't put a bunch of things over the protein.
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Beyond burgers are okay or whatever but they are SO different and just do not taste as good as or that much like a beef burger. The number of people I have heard say they taste the same makes me think I'm a super taster or something.
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That's because beyond is disgusting. Impossible is very close
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I am a confirmed in genetically tested supertaster. It's pretty easy to get done so you don't have to wonder. One of the big identifiers is that usually beer, wine. Seltzer, sparkling water, and unsweetened tea is pretty bad to you along with dark chocolate and other bitter flavors.
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I'd take both. Looks good to me
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The one on the left looks like it's been flame grilled, and the one on the right looks like it's been baked in foil.
Which one is which?
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Gosh I love burgers. Meat, veggie, salmon...mmm
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Good job making them both look equally unappealing
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Mouth must be broken bro
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Sorry, the app I’m using only lets me view the post with my eyes, I can’t actually taste it with my mouth, so unfortunately even if it’s delicious all I can judge it on is how it looks.
A good photo of a burger: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Classic-Juicy-Hamburger-Recipe-Square.jpg
A bad photo of a burger: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0a/20/a7/39/gross-burgers.jpg
Hopefully this explains my comment in a way that is easier to understand. It could be my fault though, maybe the general agreement is that this community is for photos of things that taste good but look bad?
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Where's the beef? I see vegetables.
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One looks grey, the other red.
If they were cooked for the same amount of time, one of these is seriously "off".
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One of these two costs about 150% more than the other and it's not the hamburger.
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One of those is heavily subsidized by your taxes, the other is less so. Steak would be $35/lb without subsidies.
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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).
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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.
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Except the vegan option is equally or more unhealthy depending on what kind of ground beef you choose.
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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.
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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
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