If you are a low/no meat eater, how do you feel about meat imitations?

I'm laughin' at ya, Bubba. There's no protest about it.

I'm not being touchy, I'm just disappointed in the shallowness this thread has produced.

Somebody posts a recipe, and you, without trying it, say you bet it tastes like spakel. While I certainly can believe that such a thing is unappealing to you, there's no point in going out of your way to put it down. If vegans go out of their way to open up commentary on the things someone eats, they become "in your face" vegans, and apparently some people here find that kind of behavior rude. However, if you do it to vegetarians and vegans, I guess it's different.

It's petty. We can discuss what's on the plate without a food fight.

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Funny you should bring that up. We here at the Farmemrman test kitchens had just today purchased some of this Morning Star "Chicken " . This was done because most of my comments and discussions in this thread began with Thomas. You had sorta wedged in (not that Im complaining) but Thomas was talking real data and we here at the Farmerman test kitchens had to try the stuff that was made ffrom some sort of formed soy material.

I read the ingredients (all 28 lines of em) . To call this stuff "unprocessed or natural " is a real stretch. NOW, when We sent our technicians to purchase the stuff, she looked over all the offerings and chose the chicken leglets and winglets cause they looked most "interesting"

Now, My previous statement that they probably WOULD taste like Spakel :spaq 'KEL') was a bit premature I must admit to you.

1Ive never really tasted spackle so I am without reference

2There was much salt on the Morning STar product and Im certqin that the producers of spqackle do not consider flavors and spices in their mix.

3The taste was not at all like Id imagie spackle to be. In fact it was more like relly bad cutlets made of some kind of dried meat and filler.

The flavor was not enjoyable and of the three individuals who actually tasted one, only the dog finished his and I dont usually use his opinions whenever I do a food review(cause Ive caught him in the barn trying to eat a horse turd already). My wife said it tasted "horrible" , I was not as definative in my selection of descriptors. I would just say that, should I ever be presented with the opportunity to eat one of these things again, I will opt to eat the box in which they were presented.


In summary though, How deep do you expect some of us to be when faced with such a topic that sort of asks us to describe experiences and taste preferences?

You Refered to the Seitan recipe as tasting like spakel, not the Morning Star products.


I didn't even need to add emphasis, you caps locked this yourself.

Then you moved the goalposts to these Morning Star products and start talking about chemicals ...

... that weren't even a part of the recipe that you were originally criticizing.

You do realize that once you've made seitan, it's ready to be cooked and it doesn't need to be formed into any recognizable shape. You going out of your way to mentally add all these chemicals and evaluate a completely different product is dishonest. Bayoneting some strawman about the Morning Star products being "unprocessed and natural," you completely bypass what the actual ingredients were in the recipe that was posted.

from the recipe:


A poster came in, and was excited about trying this recipe. They are not a name I'm familiar with. Given the warm welcome you provided with your spakel comment, I'm sure they will show great enthusiasm in the future to share more things on the site. Perhaps this thread could be a nice place for people to exchange recipes and products that they like (as it was in the beginning of the thread), and people wouldn't have to worry about getting flamed for it.

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You may have your thread back, youre no fun .

It's not even his thread . . . he's just yet another self-appointed thread nazi.

Was it you who, in the past, told someone that they were going to hell, and they came back with some very reasoned logic why they felt that theye were NOT going to hell.? Was that you?, maybe it was Blatham or the Timber but it was funny .

Now I must return to my bacon n eggs.

Isnt it curious that noone is making imitation Tofu out of meat.

That one cracked me up . . .

I'm sure that if there actually were anything to all that god bullshit, i'm goin' straight to Hell. I don't mind though, as i suspect with all of us who are going there, the hours will be short.

Im in management so I have an office on the corner of the fire pit. My punishment will be to be taking care of my plants so they dont dry out, FOREVER!

I never claimed this was my thread. I'm just saying that this thread might have at one point been actually useful. The topic is close to me, and so yes, I've taken offense to many things said here, but I'm not claiming the thread is mine.

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sorry, but as you can see, Im just havin fun with meat.

I've recently made my first batch of seitan, which recipe you just posted. I can now say it's an unqualified success: it's filling and has a pleasant texture; it's protein is complementary with soy products, and it can be used in many recipes. The only alteration I might make in the future is to reduce the soy sauce quantity to lower the salt content.

I thank you and Thomas for bringing this product to my attention; I've been looking for something like this for a long time.

I was listening to the all night radio and they had a researcher from U Wis who compiled some interesting factoids about our relationship with our foods. Some of the side data he reported are that there are 4 times as many EX vegetarians as there are vegetarians and the reason people quit being vegetarians are threefold

1they get a craving for meat sooner or later

2they have suffered a noticeable decline in health after several years of vegetarianism

3They find it a hassle to get vegetarian meals at the market or in reswtaurants, or when they are gusts in someone elses place.

Dont get mad at me, listen to IAn Punnet's topics on 10/10/10.

Definitely can't argue with the part about being a guest. That's hard. As for the accessibility in groceries/restaurants, it will really matter where you are. I think many cities are offering more and more options. My friend described her envy of me being out in DC saying "Missouri isn't a good state to not eat animals." I would face a lot more challenges if I wasn't in a city with a large vegetarian/vegan community.

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After the seitan is made cube it, coat it with flour, and fry it until brown-nearly crispy. It's good this way with cubed tofu and boca veggie patties in stir-fry vegetables. The key to seitan is to fry it enough to improve the texture.

I think the key is to make a big enough batch sos you can sell it to the plant eaters . The money you make will pay for a nice steak dinner.

Have you noticed that meat substitutes have a weird aftertaste? And often meat substitutes are made of tofu, I'm allergic to soy so I can't eat that. So I don't eat meat imitations very often, if at all.

The Chinese have a long, honored tradition of creating "meat" dishes from non-meat origins. Which include the use seitan & tofu and variety of traditional different traditional flavourings. You can order mock chicken, mock duck , mock beef dishes, etc, etc, etc ...
I've been to a couple of cafes in Melbourne which specialize in such dishes. It is not so much that I was looking for meat "substitutes", but I was very curious about the food on offer at such eateries. Which, I must say, was very tasty indeed!
I guess, if one was a vegetarian "meat craver" such offerings could be very attractive, but it was more the tried & true craft of the cooks which fascinated me. They're really incredibly clever & inventive, those Chinese chefs!

I know you're just trying to provoke, but on this point you're unfortunately right. Making Seitan from scratch is ridiculously cheap, and the labor to make it could mostly be done by machines. Yet healthfood stores sell ready-to-eat Seitan at pretty much the same price as meat. Some link in the supply chain must be making a fortune in this market.

Odds are, it's not the farmer.