Those nuggets are barely chicken anyways. If they can make a healthier, tastier nugget then that’s a win for everyone.
I’m not a vegan, but I’ve eaten at a few vegan restaurants that were highly rated. The delicious vegan food that you’re talking about already exists, but most people will never go to a vegan restaurant over a non-vegan one.
And if you can get a vegan meal at the Burger Barn or Grills R Us, which is just as good as corpse, then it’s a lot easier for vegans and vegan-curious carnists
It’s all about selling the idea that you can do away with meat if you’re a meat lover. For a lot of them, that’s not going to happen by just saying “hey eat vegan food!”
But if you say “yo, taste this burger - whadayathink? I know right?!! Can you believe it’s not made out of cow?!” Then maybe, maybe, the dude will say “you know what? For my next bbq Imma use impossi-burgers - damn tasty those thingies!”
This is true for people who already are vegans. My sister tries to use less meat, and when she wants to cook something where she used chicken before, she buts the “vegan chicken” and so on. I love trying new and maybe weird stuff, but people with 40 year old habits are not gonne buy cube shaped mystery things that are sometimes more expensive than the meaty counterpart.
we have evolved to enjoy the flavours of meat. and cooked meat. making a delicious product means copying some of these elements. it seems that these nuggets play on that and expand on that.
Umami is a solved problem though. Miso, soy sauce, shiitake mushrooms, kombu seaweed. All excellent vegan sources of umami.
The hardest part of making vegan meat substitutes is texture. How do you replicate the texture of steaks, ribs, brisket? These are very complex with muscle fibres, intramuscular fat, bones, connective tissues. Not easy!
Are they cheaper?
The panel of 1,150 American omnivores liked nuggets from Impossible Foods, MorningStar Farms, Quorn, Rebellyous Foods and Simulate the best
It wasn’t a single particular nugget, but an aggregate of vegan nuggets. And I can assure you, that Quorn and Morningstar are definitely cheaper than livestock chicken nuggets.
Srsly? Wow. I’ve seen immposible go for around ten dollars, gardien for like 5, and then morning star and quorn for around 3. I don’t buy any of them because baking my own tofu ones is easy and I enooy cooking.
This is on the west coast US
Yeah around me they are at least double. Usually like 2.5-3x more expensive. It’s the only thing that stops me from getting them like constantly
Probably has more to do with spices than the chicken vs non-chicken. There are some incredible vegan-meat stuff out there because the spice game is 10/10. And I’m down for it.
Chicken smells awful to me, especially what they use for typical nuggets, plus I never really enjoyed those gross gristle bits.
I eat meat but I go Qurorn nuggets when I buy frozen to eat less meat but also because they genuinely taste better than chicken goop.
I still think chicken tenders taste better and I have no real issue eating chicken goo but it comes down to three/four things. Price, taste, healthiness, less suffering.
There is ways to get people to eat less meat and it think it starts with some meals being vegan or having some meals that are 50% less meat and then 50% mushrooms/veggies.
There’s cauliflower “chicken” nuggets my girlfriend and I get often. They’re WAY better than chicken.
They do cauliflower Buffalo wings near my place. They’re fucking delicious and just taught me the chicken is merely a substrate for the hot sauce and dip to live on. Plus no bones
Yeah that’s something I learned too. While meats can and do have their own distinct flavor, seasoning does most of the heavy lifting.
I haven’t stopped eating meat entirely but just practicing seasoning use has opened my pantry up to do many more foods.
We were trying to figure out what to do with leftover dry lentils after using them for soup, so I looked up online and found people using them as mince replacement.
So we ended up whipping up some lentil bolognese. Taste & texture were the furthest thing away from beef. But damn it was tasty in its own right.
That sounds good. With meat-alternative products I find they are incredibly polarized. Like they are either incredibly amazing, or they are nearly inedible
Tried looking them up for you, sadly it seems they’re not carried anymore. But they were called “Buffalo-Style Wings” by Target’s brand: Good and Gather.
This is them.
