A couple of weeks ago, a story in the Chicago Tribune food section about “next-generation veggie burgers” annoyed me. My beef (excuse the pun) wasn’t with the reporting; Nick Kindelsperger did a thorough job of finding restaurants that serve great meatless burgers. It was with the premise that the best veggie burgers are the ones that taste most like meat.
New veggie burger options, Kindelsperger wrote, look and taste “astonishingly like ground beef . . . we’re talking eerily close, enough to trip up the most dedicated carnivore.”
Now, it may be that I’ve forgotten how good meat can taste, since I haven’t eaten it for 44 years. But I am quite fond of meatless burgers that don’t imitate anything — black bean burgers are a particular favorite.
The foods I eat that some people may call meat substitutes, I think of as protein sources. The tofu I buy comes in a watery block and isn’t shaped like a turkey. It doesn’t stand in for chicken in a stir-fry; it’s simply the source of protein, and it tastes like whatever it’s cooked with. My meals aren’t planned around meat replacements but as mixtures of vegetables, proteins, and grains.
I don’t care to eat something that pretends to be something else. When grocery shopping, I never buy the fake sausage patties, chik’n nuggets, hotdogs, buffalo wings, deli slices, and the other products made to not only taste like meat but to look like meat. In vegetarian restaurants, I never order anything with seitan, the wheat gluten that when cooked looks and tastes remarkably similar to meat.
“If I’m not to going to eat meat, why should I pretend I’m eating meat?” I’ve been known to sneer.
The post I sat down to write was going to go on in this vein. But I started to reconsider my scorn as I read about the increasing acceptance, and quality, of meat analogues. Not that I’ll change my diet preferences, but I realized that anything that would encourage carnivores to eat less meat would be a change for the good. And meat consumption might decline if faux meat tastes like the real thing.
I gave up meat just to try something different and never went back, but most vegetarians* I’ve discussed this with decided for one of two reasons. They objected to killing animals, or they wanted a healthier diet with less saturated fat. It’s rare that I’ve heard someone say he or she didn’t like the taste of meat.
Along with the arguments about ethics and health, proponents of a meatless diet in recent years have become more vocal about environmental and economic benefits. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculated that a widespread switch to a vegetarian diet could curb greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by two-thirds by 2050. Livestock production accounts for between 14.5 and 18 percent of global emissions, similar to auto emissions. Reduction in health and environmental costs would in turn have economic benefits.
The whole world isn’t going to become vegetarian by 2050. But moving in the direction of eating less meat would benefit both individuals and societies.
To all the researchers and companies that are trying hard to produce food products to fool carnivores, I now say more power to you. I’m not your main target market, so I’m going to stop turning my nose up.
I say this with one caveat, however: It may not be healthy to eat faux meat at every meal. Faux meat is processed, and much of it is high in sodium. Eating plants close to their natural state — plants that look and taste like plants — is still the healthiest way to go.
*Author’s note: I occasionally eat fish but don’t cook it, so I’m technically a pescatarian, not a vegetarian. The reason I didn’t give up fish completely is that my parents didn’t know what to feed me when I visited them. It also makes it easier for friends who invite me to dinner.
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