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A Fresh Take On Fake Meat
JMarshall writes: Impossible Foods, a Silicon Valley food start-up started by a Stanford professor who quit his job, just raised $108 million to pursue a plant-based burger that truly tastes like meat. This ACS article explains how Impossible Foods and other startups and researchers are tackling the tricky chemical and engineering challenge of making fake meat that tastes real. "Meat flavors and aromas come from thousands of volatile small molecules released by muscle and fat cell destruction. Flavor precursors start with an animal’s diet, which influences the molecular composition of its cells. After slaughter, enzymes in an animal’s muscle cells begin breaking down biomolecules into simpler amino acids, sugars, and fatty acids. This means some flavor molecules develop even as the meat ages during its trip to the store. Other flavor and aroma components emerge from reactions between sugars, amino acids, or fatty acids as the meat is cooked."
Our bodies evolved over millions of years to eat meat. The fact that your senses crave the smells, taste, and texture of meat means... your body wants meat. Now, we all know that you should eat it in moderation because of the problems of overeating. But meat in reasonable portions is naturally good for you.
All of this biochemical engineering to come up with a meat substitute is reminiscent of all the chemical companies trying to come up with artificial sweeteners. The end result is probably as bad for you or worse than the original.
Eat your meat. That way you can have your pudding.
Because it's a veggie burger, not a veggie patty. They are expressly trying to simulate meat, because there are also people like me who quite like meat and quite dislike vegetables. I might move to a veggie burger but sure as hell am not going to move to a vegemite patty, a bean patty, or 90% of whatever ground-vegetable-matter-in-puck-form you're after.
Don't complain that a thing called a "burger" is trying to simulate a "real burger." Complain that they aren't making something some other thing that tastes way too much like a vegetable.
Cheaper is about the only justification I could see for it. As the FDA has been getting more and more of a clue lately, it's basically been found that red meat isn't actually bad for you after all. The original belief in that (as well as the belief that meat causes high cholesterol) originated from some poorly done studies in the early 60's and late 70's.
Are people who are concerned about what they eat going to embrace a chemical s**t storm just because it's meatless?
There's also "I don't want to kill animals for the sake of my dinner". Meat in moderation isn't bad for you, but there are plenty of other reasons why a lot of us don't eat it.
They will if they are the sort who abstain from meat due to ethical considerations (the "fish are friends, not food" crowd). Your chemic shitstorm isn't alive so there's no ethical debate about eating them.
Also normal people who don't give two shits will eat it. I eat normal meat but if this tasted like real meat, and wasn't substantially less healthy or more costly, I'd eat it for sure.
If it comes even close in price I can see restaurants choosing it because then they don't have to have separate vegetarian and vegan menu options.
Why even try to mimic meat? It struck me the first time I walked into a grocery in an Adventist community - there were multiple aisles of highly processed vegetable/fungus/grain matter trying to resemble meat.
I mean, especially if you're living a totally meatless lifestyle, why even kowtow to the omnivore food culture?
For example, look at Middle Eastern cuisine. Sure, they have kabobs, etc, but things like Falafel, Faul, Hummus, Baba Ghanouj, Tabouleh and Dolmas are all fantastic, and none of them are trying to mimic a hunk of beef or chicken.
Same with Asian food. There are fantastic meatless dishes that don't try to resemble an animal part.
Why do we do it in the West? Marketing?
I can see the fnords!
The original belief in that (as well as the belief that meat causes high cholesterol) originated from some poorly done studies in the early 60's and late 70's.
FWIW, there are many contradictory studies made in this area that correlate read-meat consumption with higher mortality. Earlier studies that blamed cholesterol and fat in meat were poor studies, but there are more modern studies that illustrate correlation. Some studies blame gut bacteria that converts Carnitine into TMAO. Some blame the nitrates in processed meat. Some studies show an increased link with certain cancers. Some studies blame poor dental hygiene causing a general inflammation response leading to heart disease.
We may not know the truth yet in this matter, except there is some correlation (but if there is actually causation is a bit of a mystery still).
Hello my Lactose Master Race brothers! Is this where the meeting is at?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
But it doesn't have to taste like meat. That part is pointless I feel. If they don't want to eat meat than that's fine. Veggie burgers are good too (not the tofu junk) and even meat eaters like them. It's just that the need to make faux meat seems strange to me. It's not like they're coming off of a lifetime of heroin and need something like methodone to keep themselves clean.
I know when I visit the veggie line for lunch the worst things they have are the meat substitutes, like seitan or tempeh.
You're being unfair and unnecessarily polarizing. Just because you've met people who have both beliefs doesn't mean they always go together. People aren't always either right about everything or wrong about everything.
I'm not convinced there's any correlation at all, though there could be. As anecdotal evidence, at the time of writing there are four responses to my post. Two of them are explicitly meat eaters who are making the "chemicals are bad" argument and both precluding any possibility they are wrong. Clearly none of them are vegans.
I've also met lots of vegetarians and vegans, and literally none of them have irrational fears of chemicals in foods (they have rational fears of things that actually cause food poisoning and such). The only time I've seen those two beliefs together are in stereotypes.
In fact, the person I know who is most irrational about food is almost a complete carnivore. He's all-in on his keto diet. He lost like 150 lbs when he switched to basically only ever eating sausages, and from that he's drawn the conclusion that a co-worker of ours could cure her Multiple Sclerosis by cutting the grains and veggies out of her diet. Second place goes to a vegetarian who was pretty convinced that ancient humans never hunted for meat.