What's going on Canada?
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
Sorted alphabetically by city name.
🏒 Sports
Hockey
Football (NFL): incomplete
Football (CFL): incomplete
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer
💻 Schools / Universities
Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.
💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales
🗣️ Politics
🍁 Social / Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca
"Taste tests prove these vegan meat brands do not taste as good as the real thing."
I don’t see the appeal. If I want vegan fried snack food / street food I’m going for falafel, pakora, tempura, or even beer-battered onion rings. Fried chickpeas, fried plantain chips, potato chips, fried tofu skins, vegan fried spring rolls, blooming onions, fried wonton nachos topped with vegan pulled pork (made with jackfruit), vegan empanadas, vegan pizza rolls, …
The list goes on and on and on. There is so much better stuff to eat than highly processed nuggets. Even if you aren’t vegan, there are much better things to eat than chicken nuggets.
But I see it. I want this.
I am happy for you if you don't want chicken, but I like chicken and I want to eat it. If there is an alternative that tastes the same, I'm going to use that. If there's falafel as an alternative, I'm going with the chicken.
I do want chicken. Just not chicken nuggets which are made from mechanically separated chicken aka pink slime. If I’m having fried chicken, it’s gotta be whole muscle meat.
Don't even need to taste as good, I'll gobble up most vegan nuggets alternatives regardless.
the sheer amount of carnist misinformation in this thread is something else...
It really is something to behold. The animal agriculture propaganda did its work.
For things like frozen nuggets? It's already just a breaded and deep fried protein paste at that point. Easy bar to clear and stay vegan.
The secret is salt.
And fat. Vegan burger patties taste like heaven because of fat and salt.
I already like how they will cost the same as meat, even though they are much cheaper to produce. /s
That's not how any of the products in the supermarket are priced though
“Almost”
Lol, Impossible burgers and nuggets taste better than the real thing to me. The burgers’ mouth feel isn’t as good as the real thing, but the taste is better. And the nuggets both taste and feel better than the real thing.
I like not feeling disgusted about the cruelty. Really adds to the experience.
Given how tasteless real chicken from the broiler varieties taste, I'm not surprised that something with a similar texture and the same spices tastes similarly. I had the misfortune to grow up around and eat colorful chicken and my brain still can't get over the taste of factory farmed poultry.
I found the same with beef, bland and flavourless, compared to moose my dad would hunt.
Sure, if your definition of "meat" is frozen chicken nuggets or those sawdust & gristle pre-made burgers. I've tried all these meat alternatives and they're nothing like actual meat, both in taste and texture, and they come with the added bonus of being ultra processed.
Let's see the cloned meat. I'm really curious to see if that's any good.
What does “ultra processed” mean, in this context?
That they are made from heavily refined products such as pea protein as compared to non-processed foods like whole vegetables or minimally-processed like salads.
That, however, does not make them bad by itself - they are generally still healthier than other ultra-processed (junk) foods since they are not made to be addictive with a lot of salt, sugar, and fat.
You should watch this video. This shows how Impossible burger meat is made.
Nothing in it is what I would describe as “heavily refined” like you said. The “heaviest” refinement process they use is fermentation, like sauerkraut, beer, yogurt, etc. I don’t think anyone would describe sauerkraut as “ultra processed”.
Here are the ingredients:
Ingredients: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, 2% Or Less Of: Natural Flavors, Methylcellulose, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Yeast Extract, Dextrose, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), L-Tryptophan, Soy Protein Isolate,
Vitamins and Minerals: Zinc, Vitamins (B3, B1, B6, B2, and B12)
Contains: Soy
I'm a hardcore meat eater, and TBH, I would rather eat a vegetable, than something ultra-processed and vegetable adjacent.
I wish vegan products did not try to recreate a meat product but instead just made naramd new products.
Making vegan chicken wings, forces you to compare them to real chicken wings.
If they instead were branded as something entirely unrelated to meat, they would have a decent chance at often being great products as they are!
As a lifelong vegetarian I can’t stand these products. I can’t view meat as food and trying to make food look, smell, and taste like corpses is a sure fire way to make my stomach turn.
It’s disgusting.
So you mean vegetables? I eat vegan most of the time (but not "full vegan") and I rarely eat the "alternatives" since there's more than enough OG vegan food. I discovered Tempeh a few months ago and am now crazy about it - it has so much variety and I'll be making it myself soon! No need to compare it with anything.
Also learning that tofu is already cooked has opened up a whole new culinary world for me. I love smoked tofu in a brine, but we also have "tofu rosso" which is marinated and has tomatoes and olives. Sorry for german, but check it out:
There's more to a vegan diet than ultra-processed (not in a bad way) imitations. You can 100% eat only whole foods.
I’m not a vegan, and I eat vegan meat alternatives when I have the chance. I don’t think these products are aimed at people who dislike real meat. They’re aimed at people who like meat but want a plant based alternative, and there are a lot of us.