Hacker News Reader

Comment by KozmoNau7 | Hacker News Reader

So this guy has cracked the secret to mouthwatering meaty goodness, where others have failed?

Excuse me if I seem extremely skeptical. I'm sure his products are tasty, but they're not fooling anyone.

"Indistinguishable from the real thing!"? Yeah, no. Maybe for overly-processed charcuterie products that are mostly potato starch anyway. But absolutely not when it comes to actual cuts of meat.

It's basically all soy, and I'm sorry, but I've tried a ton of soy "meat substitutes", and they don't even come close.

View on HN

In the Netherlands, the pastry section in Albert Heijn features "sausage rolls", and I tell you, the meat-substitues ones taste good, and very close to the ones that contain actual animal protein.

It's not because their product is incredibly meat-like, it's because the meat product doesn't taste much like meat. If there's not much difference, why not opt for a more environmentally friendly option?

The veggie butcher's chicken nuggets, hot dog sausages and mince taste delicious. It's hard to tell the difference between actual meat based chilli beans and the ones based on meat substitute mince.

I can't vouch for other meat alternative products. Most of them taste like crap. Heavily spiced carbs that only slightly resemble the product they try to imitate. The veggie butcher's produce is nutritionally (at least macros) very close to meat. Around 20% of protein. Carb heavy meat substitutes is my pet peeve and if it's not high in protein, it's not entering my body.

Agree

Most people tend to overestimate the quality of the majority of meat consumed - it's not filet steak

It's ground beef, sausages, pressed shredded chicken, thin strips, etc, etc

I'm sure it's perfectly adequate for processed meat, where you're not really tasting the meat itself as much as the salt, sugar and other spices added to it.

If they can make a schawarma meat substitute that tastes the same as actual schawarma meat and has similar mouthfeel, I'm perfectly OK with that.

Sure, for processed meat products, substitutes can be just as satisfying and rather close in taste. I have to say that visually some of their products are pretty much indistinguishable, especially the chicken.

As a Texan with a long history of eating high quality steaks, and later a discerning consumer of many other forms of animal protein, I can attest to the very satisfying results that the Vegetarian Butcher gets.

I haven't tried most of their products, but I have used a few of them (many times). Some of their products are amazingly similar (indistinguishable in some cases) from the "real thing".

Keep in mind that animal meat quality and characteristics vary widely, especially if you unwisely choose factory farmed animals. There are some chickens that are chicken only in DNA, but otherwise are sad diseased balls of chemicals that end up as really untextured, nasty meat. Meanwhile, the veggie (dark meat) pulled chicken this company makes is really good! It cooks like chicken, has a nice flavor, absorbs seasonings the same, and has a texture that would fool most people.

Lately I've been enjoying their pre-made spicy tuna wraps. Lekker! And they don't contribute to the decline of tuna fish, nor do they give me more mercury than I've already consumed from years of loving my tuna sushi.

I'll moderate my attitude a bit. I'm sure these products are adequate substitutes for processed/minced products, especially generic products such as nuggets and strips.

But I like good quality chicken complete with skin and bone, I like pork chops, I like texture. I'm not sure how processed soy can replace that.

Hopefully lab grown meat will become viable soon, because then we can have the best of both worlds.

I think it's a long way off. We can grow proteins, but there's a long damn way from that to actual muscle. Current lab-grown "meat" is completely bland and textureless, because it was never an actual muscle.

You'd be wrong. The latest generation of veggie burgers are incredibly good. I actually got a taste of the Beyond Burger from a promotional Economist truck and it was really, really good. It's not perfect, but I'd say it's an 80-90% match in terms of flavor and texture to a real, grilled juicy hamburger. Instantly superior to generic fast-food burgers. Not yet competition for high-end stuff. And I'm not sure they have produced a credible steak. But veggie burgers are now a solved problem.

I'm perfectly OK with the idea of replacing processed/minced meats with plant-based products. You're mostly tasting the spices and cooking process at that point anyway.

And the impossible burger seems pretty awesome. I'm just a very skeptical and discerning person when it comes to food (of all kinds).

I got to try an Impossible burger when they had a giveaway event in SF last week and I'd mostly echo tootie's comments about his Beyond burger. It's good, both tastier and more realistic than any other veggie burger I've tried, but the texture is still a tiny bit off. Better than most fast food for sure, I'd say it tasted the most similar to an In n Out burger patty of all the burgers I could compare it to.

If you have a discerning palette, you'll probably notice the differences more than I did, but if someone were to hand me one of these after I'd had a couple beers at some concert/festival/sporting event, I probably wouldn't notice that it wasn't actually meat.

So why is 'just like ground up pig' the gold standard? There's a good chance they've upped the bar, and come up with something better than meat? Which sausage is by the way - better than meat for many folks, but not really meat (not all meat anyway). And we love our sausage.

Because a meat substitute is supposed to be like meat. And if it's not, sure, it can still be good - but that's irrelevant when crafting a meat substitute.

Your point about sausage is actually proof of this. Sausage is good and tasty - but not a substitute for a cut of meat. No one is going to have a sausage burger, and suggest they're equivalent.

I'd disagree on every point. Sausage burgers are very, very good, and a superior product to a regular one in every way.

Maybe agree on the 'market as meat substitute' part. Time for 'new foods' to quit bragging about being the same as anything.

> No one would have a sausage burger and suggest they're equivalent

> I'd disagree on every point. Sausage burgers are very, very good, and a superior product to a regular one in every way.

Alright, but that's my point. You enjoy a sausage burger, that's fine, my point wasn't that they're worse. It actually sounds quite tasty. But just not equivalent. Sausage tastes entirely different from ground beef. And the same goes for plant-based-pork-flavored-foods.

If they're going to be a substitute, they have to be a substitute, in the sense that they can be used in the same way, with a goal of limiting the difference you notice between them.

Totally in agreement.

We need a word other than 'substitute' that means 'can be used in cooking like'. Vs 'tastes exactly like'. That would help the dialog tremendously.

"Meat analog"? "Meat equivalent"?

I'm not sure those terms are palatable to customers, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com