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If you want to have meatless meat you can always try this

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/japanese-scientists-creates-meat-out-of-feces/


Recycled food, it's good for you!

My older brother and his family are strict vegetarian. I stayed with him a week to do some home improvement projects and ate his vegetarian diet the entire week. I have never farted so much in my life that week, I would bend over to pick something up and let out a huge fart. My body could not handle the amount of beans I ate that week and the amount of gas they produced.

 Ketara wrote:
The thing is, I'm generally quite the carnivore. Big meat eater. I don't intend to give that up fully ever (at least, not until they can make bacon that tastes like the real thing, dammit!)

I understand this, but I still think I could make you enjoy some meals without any “meat replacement” . Like, meat is good, this other meal is good, when you are having dinner with your girlfriend you eat the meatless meal and when you are on your own you eat meat . If you did live closer to me I'd cook you some of my lasagnas, never had any negative feedback on them!


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 welshhoppo wrote:
I can't replaces Burgers in my life however, that would be a fate worse than death.

I'm literally checking out as many restaurants with vegetarian burger as I can, so I can sympathize with this . Though the deal-killer for me would be no pasta, I guess.

I once decided to try some Quorn Mini Picnic Egg things.

I'm really not sure what to think. They tasted of something but it wasn't picnic egg, and it wasn't sausage meat, nor was it anything else I've ever encountered, and the texture was also incredibly... unique.

It was the most confusing thing I've ever eaten.

I've found meat replacement/alternative products to be hit and miss. Some are excellent, some are fricking horrible; either in taste or consistency.

Generally the closer to plain "quorn" you get, the worse the food. Quorn really needs a lot of flavour added to it from the rest of the dish or it is just tasteless rubbery stuff

Interesting to see your list and what you liked and didn't.

If you're in the Netherlands, get burgers in the supermarket from "de vegetarische slager", aka the vegetarian butcher.

They're absolutely delicious, and just like real burgers - I was delighted to find out about it's existence

I switched to eating Quorn for environmental reasons a couple of years ago. Less damaging to the environment than farming large livestock and I approve of growing our protein in big bioreactors rather than destroying habitats to do so.

It's pretty alright really, tastes okay and has a high protein content, better for you than most meat substitutes. Just wish I could get a better selection here in Germany!

 thenoobbomb wrote:
If you're in the Netherlands, get burgers in the supermarket from "de vegetarische slager", aka the vegetarian butcher.

They're absolutely delicious, and just like real burgers - I was delighted to find out about it's existence

Uh... I don't know how to, uh, tell you this. Jeez this is awkward. Hmmm.


They don't call him The Vegetarian Butcher because he doesn't serve meat.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
If you're in the Netherlands, get burgers in the supermarket from "de vegetarische slager", aka the vegetarian butcher.

They're absolutely delicious, and just like real burgers - I was delighted to find out about it's existence

Uh... I don't know how to, uh, tell you this. Jeez this is awkward. Hmmm.


They don't call him The Vegetarian Butcher because he doesn't serve meat.

Well played,

Been veggie for 24 years now, so tried pretty much every faux-meat out there. The one I really miss is the bacon flavoured stuff that the people who make "Burgamix" and "Sosmix" used to make - tasted nothing like bacon, texture nothing like bacon, but DID taste like smoky bacon flavoured crisps - gorgeous.

Currently very glad to see Fry's veggie range expanding in the UK - Holland and Barratt stock a lot (although very over-priced as is their way until their offers are on), but also now in Morrisons - their pies especially are well worth trying.

If one wants to go veggie then go veggie; stop trying to eat fake meat; embrace and accept your shame. ACCEPT IT.

I hear there is a seaweed that tastes and has the same texture as bacon when fried.

 Ahtman wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
A lot of the vegan and vegetarian stuff is great actually!

The problem is rarely the food, it is often the practitioners.

Hitler was a vegetarian, coincidence?

I think not!

If you are willing to murder a carrot, what else are you capable of?







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 Desubot wrote:
I hear there is a seaweed that tastes and has the same texture as bacon when fried.

There is seaweed by products in lots of foods you wouldnt expect, including milk!

I tried the seaweed bacon, whoever says its the same texture/taste is a liar or has a very different perception of what bacon tastes like then myself.

 Desubot wrote:
I hear there is a seaweed that tastes and has the same texture as bacon when fried.

http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a36643/seaweed-that-tastes-like-bacon/

Called dulse.

I'm a fairly strict carnivore. I grew up surrounded by lots of older people, who were born before WWII. The idea that people who could get hold of meat would choose not to eat it, or that people would willingly pay for skimmed milk (which to them was just the waste runoff from making cream)... they thought the world had gone bonkers. I absolutely loath vegetarian cooking, even the tasty stuff, just leaves me feeling bereft and unfulfilled. Not getting meat for dinner is liable to make me genuinely angry. Unless it's eggs, I can handle no meat if there are eggs.

I find meat substitutes to be the weirdest thing of all. I've never wanted meat to look and taste like a carrot. Why the obsession with getting vegetables to look and taste like chicken nuggets? You know what really looks and tastes exactly like chicken nuggets ... ?

I really don't trust things like Quorn either. It seems to be quite heavily processed, with little nutritional value, and they probably put something unspeakable in it that gives you cancer. Meat seems like the safer option.

Meat consumption is pretty devastating for the environment. It's far less efficient than eating plants or fungus, requiring a much larger amount of land use which leads to much more severe habitat destruction.

66% of rainforest destruction is land clearance for cattle grazing.

Additionally, cows contribute hugely to the greenhouse effect due to their digestion causing them to burp quite a large amount of methane into the atmosphere.

That said I do not think strict veganism or even strict vegetarianism is needed, but I think people should look to reduce their meat intake to a couple of times a week, and definitely cut down on beef as cows are by far the least efficient and most destructive commonly eaten animal. AFAIK, pigs and chickens are among the more efficient and less destructive sources of animal protein, with eggs being the least damaging option over all. From my research, Quorn is a pretty good option nutritionally as it has a high protein content (many meat substitutes actually have a pretty low protein content and are high in fat and carbohydrates), among the highest of any brand. Put a sauce on it and you won't notice the difference most of the time. I've completely adapted to it by now.

It's a shame that education about these issues is so poor and people rarely think about the impact of their food supply on the wider environment.

 Ahtman wrote:
If one wants to go veggie then go veggie; stop trying to eat fake meat; embrace and accept your shame. ACCEPT IT.

Why are you even in this thread?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
If one wants to go veggie then go veggie; stop trying to eat fake meat; embrace and accept your shame. ACCEPT IT.

Why are you even in this thread?

I believe it was intended as a joke that didn't necessarily translate well to everyone thanks of the wonders of text based communication. But now we've had our fun comments in this thread let's leave it there

 Smacks wrote:
II find meat substitutes to be the weirdest thing of all. I've never wanted meat to look and taste like a carrot. Why the obsession with getting vegetables to look and taste like chicken nuggets? You know what really looks and tastes exactly like chicken nuggets ... ?

Not sure if serious, especially with that chicken nugget comment, but okay, I'll bite.

Many vegetarians and vegans miss the recipes from their meat eating days that are difficult if not impossible to recreate without meat substitutes (or cheese substitutes if you are vegan). It really is as simple as that. You grow up eating chicken enchiladas, well, you'll crave chicken enchiladas even if you find the idea of eating chicken repugnant. And not wanting to eat a salad for every meal is another factor. It never fails to amuse me how many people think that if you are vegetarian you only eat salad.

For all the comments in here that vegetarians/vegans act like donkey-caves, there sure are a lot of questionable comments going on in this thread from the meat eaters. Is there something about people choosing to not eat meat that bothers you? And don't use the "rude vegetarian/vegan" trope as an excuse, because no one in this thread has been preaching about the virtues of a veggie diet, and yet there have been a few comments in this thread mocking vegetarians/vegans unnecessarily for their lifestyle choices.

Let it drop, and just report any other comments you believe to be provocative. Otherwise this is just going to turn into yet another gak-slinging hate-fest.

 Da Boss wrote:
Quorn is a pretty good option nutritionally as it has a high protein content.

It is high in protein, but there is a lot more to meat than just protein. Animal products are a good source of vitamins and minerals like B12 and Zinc. Quorn I believe contains egg whites anyway, so you might as well just eat an egg and get protein from that.

 Da Boss wrote:
It's a shame that education about these issues is so poor and people rarely think about the impact of their food supply on the wider environment.

Deforestation caused by meat farming was part of my curriculum at school. I care a great deal about the environment, and I care about animal cruelty. The problem is I'm fairly powerless to do anything about it. I could stop eating meat as a matter of principle, but I don't believe the multi-billion dollar meat industry would even notice, so I would just be playing the martyr, and I'm not really into that.

If someone comes up with a plan to save the environment, which will definitely work, and involves me living without meat, oil and electricity, than I'd probably be okay with it, but I'm not giving up those thing on my own, in the vain hope that the tail will wag the dog.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Many vegetarians and vegans miss the recipes from their meat eating days that are difficult if not impossible to recreate without meat substitutes (or cheese substitutes if you are vegan).

I'm sure they do, but that begs the question "why not just eat the thing you want?". There is an implication the meat is less healthy, which is highly debatable, or that it is immoral. I'd be fairly happy to dispute the moral integrity of a doctrine that says eating chicken enchiladas is repugnant, yet replaces it with something containing eggs.

I love mushrooms... maybe I should try this stuff. That said, I don't see the point of substituting meat... when you can combine them.

@Smacks: some Quorn products taste amazing, and do something that an egg won't...
for instance, i just had the "chicken" chunks with taco seasoning this weekend...
had i made eggs with taco seasoning, the taste and texture would have been all wrong for burritos...
i like a good breakfast burrito, but it isn't the same as a Quorn "chicken" burrito...
completely different experiences for the palette...

for me, it was about my body not liking meat, not a moral issue...
i grew up fishing, hunting, and trapping, as well as raising pigs and chickens...
i have no issue with killing animals for food...
my body does have an issue with that food, though...
there is no way that i am going to choose heartburn and indigestion just to have a burger, when i can get just as much pleasure out of eating a good veggie burger...

cheers
jah

 Smacks wrote:
]It is high in protein, but there is a lot more to meat than just protein. Animal products are a good source of vitamins and minerals like B12 and Zinc. Quorn I believe contains egg whites anyway, so you might as well just eat an egg and get protein from that.

Not gonna lie, I'd get bored of eating eggs for dinner every day. Variety is the spice of life, and all that. Cooking that many eggs would be a pain too.

The problem is I'm fairly powerless to do anything about it. I could stop eating meat as a matter of principle, but I don't believe the multi-billion dollar meat industry would even notice, so I would just be playing the martyr, and I'm not really into that.

If someone comes up with a plan to save the environment, which will definitely work, and involves me living without meat, oil and electricity, than I'd probably be okay with it, but I'm not giving up those thing on my own, in the vain hope that the tail will wag the dog.

Supply and demand. Everyone in the world isn't going to give up on those things which cause various ills in the world. But if enough of them do, the demand for those services is lowered, causing less of it to occur. Things like battery farming are deliberately run to extract maxmimum profit. If a town's population goes from eating 100% battery farmed chicken to 95% battery farmed chicken, less chickens will be battery farmed.

I'm not going to lie, I find your perspective to be very 'Oh well, my actions on their own won't do anything, so why bother'. That's the sort of perspective that says you shouldn't vote because your one vote doesn't affect the outcome, you shouldn't give to charity because your two quid in the Macmillan pot won't cure cancer, etc. Recognising that large scale trends are made up by the actions of individuals isn't martyrdom. It's making a conscious choice to act in a certain way, and hoping that enough others do the same thing to make it into a larger effect.

Me? I'm not massive on the whole vegetarian thing. I like meat, I morally see nothing necessarily wrong with eating it. But at the same time, given the choice between, 'You can eat two identical tasting things, but something has to die for one of them', I'll take the one without the fatality. Those quorn escalopes and chicken burgers were close enough to the battery farmed equivalent as to be indistinguishable. So I'll never eat the battery farmed equivalent again now. Simple as that.

I'm sure they do, but that begs the question "why not just eat the thing you want?". There is an implication the meat is less healthy, which is highly debatable, or that it is immoral. I'd be fairly happy to dispute the moral integrity of a doctrine that says eating chicken enchiladas is repugnant, yet replaces it with something containing eggs.

I'm not certain you can compare organic, free range eggs, say, with a battery farmed chicken. Morally speaking. You can believe it is morally alright to eat meat, but morally repugnant to be overly cruel to animals in their rearing.

 notprop wrote:
I hear something on the radio where they did a comparison between Hotdogs and Meat-free Hotdogs and there was either no discernible difference or a preference for the Meat-free ones.

Of course a meat-free Hotdog seems like an oxymoron to me but there you go...

I suspect it's down to the level of processing. Highly processed foods, like cheap chicken/pork are so intensively shredded, reformed, reflavoured, etc, that there's actually not really any original texture or flavour remaining. As such, a substitute like quorn can be made up to taste the same without any real issue. When it comes to comparing it to fresh meat however, it has a far more difficult challenge.

Certainly, I'm finding it's as good as most kinds of cheap processed meat. I'll see if I can find some hot dogs. Thanks for the suggestion.

 Ketara wrote:

I'm sure they do, but that begs the question "why not just eat the thing you want?". There is an implication the meat is less healthy, which is highly debatable, or that it is immoral. I'd be fairly happy to dispute the moral integrity of a doctrine that says eating chicken enchiladas is repugnant, yet replaces it with something containing eggs.

I'm not certain you can compare organic, free range eggs, say, with a battery farmed chicken. Morally speaking. You can believe it is morally alright to eat meat, but morally repugnant to be overly cruel to animals in their rearing.

Exactly right, thanks, Ketara.

Smacks: I think the methods that are used to produce most of the meat in our food supply are unethical. Culturally we are obsessed with consuming meat, and have turned what once was a luxury into a staple in our diets that must be consumed with every meal. The cost of which is having a profound impact on the health of our planet and our own bodies. However, I know that not eating meat is a choice that I have made for myself for reasons that are my own, and I don't bark at people who chose to live differently than I do.

What I still fail to understand is why it matters to you, Smacks. Why did you come into a thread about vegetarian-meat to pick a fight? Why does this bother you so much?

 jah-joshua wrote:
for me, it was about my body not liking meat, not a moral issue...
i grew up fishing, hunting, and trapping, as well as raising pigs and chickens...
i have no issue with killing animals for food...
my body does have an issue with that food, though...
there is no way that i am going to choose heartburn and indigestion just to have a burger, when i can get just as much pleasure out of eating a good veggie burger...

cheers
jah

Thanks Jah, that's perfectly understandable.

 Ketara wrote:
I'm not going to lie, I find your perspective to be very 'Oh well, my actions on their own won't do anything, so why bother'. That's the sort of perspective that says you shouldn't vote because your one vote doesn't affect the outcome, you shouldn't give to charity because your two quid in the Macmillan pot won't cure cancer, etc.

I think there is some distinction. Voting and giving small amounts to charity is something that you can do without making big changes to your lifestyle. However, you are correct in that I would be inclined to agree with the sentiment that those things have little impact.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
What I still fail to understand is why it matters to you, Smacks. Why did you come into a thread about vegetarian-meat to pick a fight? Why does this bother you so much?

I don't know why you are accusing me of picking a fight, I'm not bothered by what you do, I just like hanging out in the OT. I genuinely find it perplexing that people would got to all the trouble of cutting meat out of their diet, and then try to find something exactly like meat. And you claiming that it is having a profound effect on the health of our bodies is as I said, highly debatable, and possibly misinformed.

It is actually quite alarming how much misinformation there is about food, you don't have to look far to find so called "experts" telling people to avoid saturated fats, like butter, and recommending "low fat" options. Even though the relationship between saturated fats and poor health has been largely debunked, and "low fat" foods, tend to be highly processed and full of sugars, which are actually making people overweight and sick. All our milk is now pasteurised, skimmed and homogenised, in the name of health, yet this process has taken something that is probably very nutritious and made it indigestible for many people. Milk actually contains enzymes to help digest lactose, which are missing from processed milk, which has lead to an increase in lactose intolerance.

Meat is just one of those things that is often demonized by quack diets. I guess that kind of bothers me, because I think the claims are unsubstantiated.

I agree with you that food production could and should be more ethical.

richred_uk wrote:
Currently very glad to see Fry's veggie range expanding in the UK - Holland and Barratt stock a lot (although very over-priced as is their way until their offers are on), but also now in Morrisons - their pies especially are well worth trying.

You lucky Englishmen . There are a few products for vegetarians in France but I guess way less than in the UK because there are way more vegetarian in the UK than in France.

 easysauce wrote:
Hitler was a vegetarian, coincidence?

I think not!

Indeed. So was Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Maybe vegetarianism makes people better scientists and more charismatic politicians (though not necessarily for the best causes…) ?


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 Smacks wrote:
I genuinely find it perplexing that people would got to all the trouble of cutting meat out of their diet, and then try to find something exactly like meat.

I find it genuinely perplexing that you find this perplexing. Maybe let's rephrase it. If people find the way meat is produced unethical/unsustainable/…, why would they not replace meat with some available substitutes that takes just as good and do not have the same ethical/sustainability problems? I would be perplexed by people not taking that course of action…

 Smacks wrote:
I genuinely find it perplexing that people would got to all the trouble of cutting meat out of their diet, and then try to find something exactly like meat. And you claiming that it is having a profound effect on the health of our bodies is as I said, highly debatable, and possibly misinformed.

Which is rather ridiculous. People cut out meat from their diets for any number of reasons. They can be religiously motivated, health related (regardless if you agree with those reasons) or simply an individual's preference. So, you coming into a vegetarian-thread and posting

 Smacks wrote:
but that begs the question "why not just eat the thing you want?".

is as rude and obtuse as that bimbo that said "let them eat cake" in regards to people starving for lack of bread.

Honestly, it really seems that you are just trying to stir gak along with Ahtman and all the others who made derisive jokes about vegetarian/veganism.

 Da Boss wrote:
Meat consumption is pretty devastating for the environment. It's far less efficient than eating plants or fungus, requiring a much larger amount of land use which leads to much more severe habitat destruction.

Sort of.

The only real issue with meat is that lots of land which could be used for crops is used for grazing, or other crops are used to feed them.

However, cattle, goats, and other animals can be grazed on land which is 100% unsuitable for crops. And usually its only dairy cattle which are grazed on land suitable for crops, beef can be given range land which is far too rocky and dry to grow anything edible to humans.

Another inescapable fact is that as far as protein quality is concerned plants are terrible. Humans require protein, and meat is the best way to get it in the most digestible forms. We are omnivores, plain and simple.

Chicken, farmed fish, and pork are also very efficient converters of plant matter to protein.

Really, the only problem with meat is that people tend to eat too much. And beef is the least efficient meat source, but its also the most desirable. Eat more chicken, fish, and pork, less beef.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
why would they not replace meat with some available substitutes that takes just as good and do not have the same ethical/sustainability problems?

Since it is made with eggs, I imagine it does have many of the same ethical and sustainability problems.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I genuinely find it perplexing that people would got to all the trouble of cutting meat out of their diet, and then try to find something exactly like meat. And you claiming that it is having a profound effect on the health of our bodies is as I said, highly debatable, and possibly misinformed.

Which is rather ridiculous. People cut out meat from their diets for any number of reasons.

I wasn't talking about "people" though was I? I was talking about you, and you specifically said that it is impacting our health, which is an unsubstantiated claim.

I think it is actually you who is trying to pick a fight. I was perfectly content with Jah's explanation. He didn't feel the need to be so aggressively defensive about it. If my posting in your "vegetarian topic" bothers you so much, then I'm happy to leave you to it. Just stop quoting me, and I'll stop replying.