Also this posting - the story is more honest than the authorās link.
The story discusses one danger of monoculture farming (soy and hexane) - there are others. It is quite clear from this article that the agenda is one of morality not sustainability on the part of the fake food manufacturers. āThey never see the sunlight. They never touch the soil.ā treating animals this way sucks thatās certain, but the ideals these companies are pushing are moral ones not economic.
If they really wanted to encourage sustainability - it is pretty clear that the discussion is about Permaculture farms replacing industrial monoculture farming. Not doubling-down on eating foods that require the inherently unsustainable HaberāBosch process to grow monoculture fields of wheat, soy, rice, etcā¦
Iām a bit dubious of the whole project.
In my experience there is a very strong relationship between the quality of the food at a vegetarian restaurant and the absence of āmeatā in the menu.
A menu full of āchickenā ābeefā āporkā āetcā is going to be mediocre at best, youāll be wishing you ate some actual animals because their dishes rely on actual meat for texture and flavor and āmeatā just doesnāt cut it. If, however, a place isnāt coming at their food from a fake meat angle they will be pulling in great flavors and textures from vegetables, beans, fruits, mushrooms. nuts, and the many cultures around the world that are vegetarian or nearly vegetarian.
Exactly. Iāve never had fake āmeatā that didnāt suck rotten eggs on ice. In a world where you can easily identify between different qualities of meat when consumed, artificial vegetable based āmeatsā simply canāt hold a candle to the real thing in terms of flavor, texture, or really anything.
Now, if you avoid boosting peopleās expectations by telling their brains that theyāre going to be eating something that tastes and feels like meat, then you can produce some exceptional flavors, textures, etcā¦ that can truly stand on their own.
Iāve always though it odd how many vegetarian dishes try to pretend to be meat. People donāt become vegetarians because theyāre hankering for the taste of beef.
Huh?
Do you think vegetarians stop eating meat because they donāt like the taste?
I love meat, but was a vegetarian for ethical reasons (poor treatment of animals and unsustainable farming techniques). Let me tell you, I certainly did have a hankering for the taste of beef all the time.
Betteridgeās law of headlines.
Right. Iāve had many a good bean burger, and I actually prefer them now to regular burgers. After all, what we like for food is mostly what weāve come to like. We can certainly come to like other things, and when we do, what we used to like and have stopped eating often isnāt all that appealing anymore.
Not me. After awhile, I found the taste of beef pretty gross. Too strong, and . . . ugh. No thanks.
I never liked beef, but I can understand that there exist human beings who donāt share my exact tastes.
I do, however, miss eggs quite a bit. Iāve discovered black salt (aka Kala Namak), which imparts a pretty good eggy flavor to tofu scrambles and such, but if these folks can sustainably and ethically develop a closer match, Iād certainly give it a try.
It seems like these guys are addressing exactly the complaint you have: That thereās already plenty of good vegetarian food out there, but that vegetarian ersatz animal products are often disappointing and give non-vegetarians a bad impression of vegetarian cuisine.
That said, as a vegan, Iāve occasionally eaten at places where the ersatz meat was all right, and sometimes even the preferable choice. At a great Vietnamese restaurant I used to frequent, the āmock duckā (i.e. āwheat glutenā) was an infinitely preferable option to the textureless, flavorless cubes of soft tofu that were also on offer. (And then I found out about all the cats dying from tainted imported gluten in their cat food, and shied away from the whole mock duck thing - but that wasnāt due to the taste or texture ānote cutting itā). I typically use TVP in my cooking, which I find infinitely preferable to tofu, and which I discovered under the label āsojove masoā (āsoy meatā) in the supermarket.
The āthis is meat, honest!ā approach is a labeling strategy to entice non-veggies to give it a shot, or to provide an easy approximation of the flavor, texture and form factor for consumers. Perhaps its disingenuous, but so is a knee-jerk dismissal of foods that happen to use that labeling convention. (Does seitan magically taste better than mock duck just because one is labelled as ersatz meat?)
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