More kitchen adventures

This week we tried yet another meat substitute, Beyond Meat’s “Beyond Burger”. It’s made from pea protein, rather than soy, as most vegetarian and vegan burgers have been, which may be important to some people. It was okay.

This product is new to New Zealand. Earlier this month, premier NZ burger chain Burger Fuel began selling burgers with Beyond Burger patties, and it’s available at some supermarkets, which is how we happened to have it: I ordered in our groceries and ordered the Minced product I’ve been using since December of last year. However, they were out of stock, so they rang me and wanted to know if I wanted them to substitute the Beyond Meat patties instead (I always put “no substitutes” after the Quorn disaster). I said yes.

This week I finally had a chance to make the burgers, and they really were okay: The texture (“mouth feel”) was like meat, it had a pleasant enough taste. The patties didn’t shrink much (if at all), which is good because they appeared small. We liked it well enough to have again, however, we didn’t like it as much as the homemade burgers we made from Minced.

One thing about the Beyond Meat patties is that they’re expensive: The 224 gram pack we had costs $14 (today US$9.17), and a 400g pack of Minced is $10.00 (US$6.55), which means Minced is much less expensive. Clearly the convenience of buying pre-made patties has a price.

We learned that, so far, Minced is—for us—the best beef mince substitute available in New Zealand, but Beyond Meat’s burger patties are an acceptable substitute when Minced isn't available (and Countdown is frequently out of stock on it). I think one day we may find some other “okay” substitutes, and, if so, I’ll talk about them, too.

Meanwhile, the company that makes the chicken substitute we tried is supposedly working on a beef substitute, and it uses the same protein source as Beyond Meat does, so that may be an option eventually.

On the other hand, this week I also read a story arguing that “Plant patties may not be any healthier than beef burgers”, and although I haven’t checked the sources for objectivity, the point that highly-processed foods aren’t as good for us as less-processed foods is a simple fact: Whole foods, simply prepared, are better for our health. But many of us don’t eat that well, or not all the time, and there’s a huge class difference: The better off one is, the easier it is to eat in the ways best for our health. We mustn’t judge people because they can’t choose the supposedly "best" food products available—especially when what’s considered “best” changes all the time.

Still, eating red meat has health consequences—this is beyond argument. I have particular reasons to try and minimise the risks associated with eating red meat, which is one of the reasons I’m trying meat alternatives. Going easier on the planet is another motivation, but that’s a bit mixed at the moment—at the moment. That will change. But even now, before the gap in the environmental benefits closes and meat alternatives pull clearly and unequivocally ahead of animal farming, there are still health benefits to reducing meat consumption. Right now, that’s enough for me.

Footnote: Tonight we had real-beef burger patties. They were highest-quality beef, and cost about the same as Minced, maybe somewhat less, and the patties were about the same size/weight as the Beyond Meat patties. They shrank very little (top quality beef mince is lean), but, to me, they didn’t taste dramatically better than the Beyond Meat patties. That was surprising; it was also probably my last serving of beef for this month.

The products listed and their names are all registered trademarks, and are used here for purposes of description and clarity. No person, company, or entity provided any support or payment for this blog post, and all products were purchased by me at normal retail prices. So, the opinions I expressed are my own genuinely held opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturers, any retailer, or any known human being, alive or dead, real or corporate. Just so we’re clear.