These vegan meat brands taste almost as good as the real thing. Taste tests prove it.

“Almost”

Lol, Impossible burgers and nuggets taste better than the real thing to me. The burgers’ mouth feel isn’t as good as the real thing, but the taste is better. And the nuggets both taste and feel better than the real thing.

I like not feeling disgusted about the cruelty. Really adds to the experience.
- There’s that too. After seeing the way chickens are factory farmed, even if real nuggets tasted better than Impossible nuggets, I’d still go with Impossible. Luckily, Impossible’s are better, so it’s the easiest choice ever.

I wish vegan products did not try to recreate a meat product but instead just made naramd new products.

Making vegan chicken wings, forces you to compare them to real chicken wings.

If they instead were branded as something entirely unrelated to meat, they would have a decent chance at often being great products as they are!

I’m not a vegan, and I eat vegan meat alternatives when I have the chance. I don’t think these products are aimed at people who dislike real meat. They’re aimed at people who like meat but want a plant based alternative, and there are a lot of us.
- This is my point though. Many of these plant based alternatives are pretty bad, if you already like the meat version that they are trying to imitate.
  So if you like steak, the vegan steak will not live up to what you had imagined. If instead it was called Green bite, root rise, VerdeVibe, beanbliss or something else that had nothing to do with a meat dish, people would have nothing to compare it to and value it for what it is
I agree. I do miss chicken wings, not because I miss chicken, but because it was a fried vessel to deliver scrumptious sauces into my mouth. I love cauliflower bites covered with bbq sauce and hot sauce.
I eat soyrizo not because it mimics sausage, but because I love those spices.
It's not like that doesn't happen too.
EDIT Fixed a typo
So you mean vegetables? I eat vegan most of the time (but not "full vegan") and I rarely eat the "alternatives" since there's more than enough OG vegan food. I discovered Tempeh a few months ago and am now crazy about it - it has so much variety and I'll be making it myself soon! No need to compare it with anything.
Also learning that tofu is already cooked has opened up a whole new culinary world for me. I love smoked tofu in a brine, but we also have "tofu rosso" which is marinated and has tomatoes and olives. Sorry for german, but check it out:
There's more to a vegan diet than ultra-processed (not in a bad way) imitations. You can 100% eat only whole foods.
The replicating meat product isn't really for "veagan" it's for people who try to eat less meat or go vegan/vegetarian. If you ate meat for 30+ years every day, people are really hard stuck. But seeing something in the store that says: tastes like chicken or replacement for beef is just a little helper so people know what even to buy.
- That's not really correct. It is a vegan thing too. I was a meat eater for 25 years and turned vegan because I wanted to respect the animals. But I always liked the taste. The life of the animals is just more important to me than my taste buds. But if the taste is easily replicated using plant based ingredients, I don't see it as an animal whatsoever and would enjoy it as a vegan food.
As a lifelong vegetarian I can’t stand these products. I can’t view meat as food and trying to make food look, smell, and taste like corpses is a sure fire way to make my stomach turn.
It’s disgusting.

For things like frozen nuggets? It's already just a breaded and deep fried protein paste at that point. Easy bar to clear and stay vegan.

Fake chicken > real chicken

every fake wing is a 🅱️oneless wing
- 🅱️oneless 🅱️ing.

Given how tasteless real chicken from the broiler varieties taste, I'm not surprised that something with a similar texture and the same spices tastes similarly. I had the misfortune to grow up around and eat colorful chicken and my brain still can't get over the taste of factory farmed poultry.

I found the same with beef, bland and flavourless, compared to moose my dad would hunt.

Don't even need to taste as good, I'll gobble up most vegan nuggets alternatives regardless.

Only the first paragraph or so is readable, however the entire article is viewable from the source. https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/best-vegan-meat-brands-taste-test-nectar-almost-as-good-as-the-real-thing/

Four of those products performed so well they almost reached taste parity, which Nectar defines as there being no statistically significant difference in how participants scored the vegan product versus the animal one in terms of overall liking. Those four are Impossible Foods’ unbreaded chicken breast, chicken nuggets, and burger, as well as Morningstar Farms’ nuggets.

The secret is salt.

And fat. Vegan burger patties taste like heaven because of fat and salt.

I don’t see the appeal. If I want vegan fried snack food / street food I’m going for falafel, pakora, tempura, or even beer-battered onion rings. Fried chickpeas, fried plantain chips, potato chips, fried tofu skins, vegan fried spring rolls, blooming onions, fried wonton nachos topped with vegan pulled pork (made with jackfruit), vegan empanadas, vegan pizza rolls, …

The list goes on and on and on. There is so much better stuff to eat than highly processed nuggets. Even if you aren’t vegan, there are much better things to eat than chicken nuggets.

But I see it. I want this.
I am happy for you if you don't want chicken, but I like chicken and I want to eat it. If there is an alternative that tastes the same, I'm going to use that. If there's falafel as an alternative, I'm going with the chicken.
- I do want chicken. Just not chicken nuggets which are made from mechanically separated chicken aka pink slime. If I’m having fried chicken, it’s gotta be whole muscle meat.

And I bet all of them are loaded with methylcellulose (a.k.a. nature's laxative) just like every other bullshit fake meat product.

I follow a vegan diet now, but grew up in the southern US around legit BBQ. There is no point trying to replicate that, never going to come close and it's just going to use shitty processed food techniques to accomplish it. If you're going to go vegan, how about actually be vegan instead of chasing a life you decided to leave behind.

I’ve been eating Impossible burgers and nuggets for years, and it’s never had a laxative effect. I think you might be assuming there’s a high enough dose to produce the effect, when there probably isn’t.
What’s wrong with being vegan but wanting a meat substitute? Does it make someone a worse person than you if they do that?
I’m not vegan, and I eat Impossible meats, because I try to eat less meat and they taste really good. Would it be better if I ate real meat instead? Because the way you’re talking, it sounds like that’s what you’d prefer.
- This. I'm not giving up BBQ, sorry. However, if I can replace my heavily processed meats like nuggies or hamburger patties with something that tastes more or less the same, has a vaguely similar or better texture, and doesn't involve killing an animal, then fuck yeah I'll try it.
  Talking about how an ingredient is a laxative as if it's going to immediately make everyone shit their brains out just pushes me and presumably others away from meat substitutes. Tbh it almost feels elitist or like meat propaganda. "The fake meat is gonna make you die from diarrhea!!!!" or "Oooo... Look at me, I'm a real^tm vegan because I don't eat that chemical filled, laxative laced fake meat".
- I'd rather people eat for their blood types than trying to force fuck themselves into what someone else suggests they eat.
  https://www.webmd.com/diet/blood-type-diet
  MC may not have the same effect on you as some other people, just like red meat may not have the same effect on you as it does others. Some blood types actually need meat, others require raw roots and less cooking.
  So yes, eat the meat if your body and metabolism react to it in a healthy way. Just do yourself a favor and go to a local butcher, don't buy the pre-packaged garbage from grocery stores or Boar's Head.
  Lastly, my point was that the fake meats are all heavily processed foods, as opposed to real meat which is considered a whole-food in most forms. Let your body break it down into what it needs, not some machine in another state run by a CEO who wants to make money off you.
These are not for vegans. Vegans alone couldn't remotely pay back what has been invested in these products. These are for carnists looking for the moral license to continue eating shitty food. Like how when people order a diet pop, they allow themselves any amount of high-calorie food to go along with it. It's a marketing gimmick for carnists, not a solution to any problem vegans have.
- Fair enough, I can agree with that for sure. I just hate how taste is the driving factor in these kinds of articles / sentiments, and that most people focus solely on taste. It's way better when it's tasty, no doubt, but the purpose should be more on fueling the complex biological machine that carries you around and interacts with your friends and family.
  To add to your point on the flipside, I know several vegans that think they are healthy just because they only eat things with a vegan label. High Fructose Corn Syrup is technically vegan, and can be included in products that have a label (in high amounts, even). Vegan != Healthy. It just means no animal products.
- I love the taste of meat, and I’m not going to stop eating meat unless there’s an alternative that tastes as good. Impossible meat is an alternative that tastes as good, so whenever Impossible is an option, I choose it. Whether you think that means I’m moral licensing or whatever doesn’t matter to me, but to some people, you may be pushing them away from making a better choice by talking down to them for trying to improve. Would you make fun of a fat person for going to the gym and working out? If someone is making better choices, you should be celebrating that.
- "Carnists" is an inappropriate slur. It's the first time I have heard it but I just know I should probably be offended. I reserve the right to use it on other people.
Yeah, but what if they're not loaded with methylcellulose, or what if we do eventually come close to the real meats or what if this is a gateway product that could convert carnists?
- Nope. Give me real plants, unprocessed. Just because a heavily processed compound that happens to be considered vegan might taste like meat has absolutely no bearing on whether or not someone is going to stop eating meat.
  It's kinda like a heroin addict. They're not gonna stop just because you took their needle away or gave them a different drug. They have to want to stop on their own, otherwise anything you try is moot.
I get what you mean especially in comparison to the real southern BBQ. However things aren't rational ... I used to have cravings for meat all the time and a random veggie dog or burger would make it go away.
I don't really chase the vegan lifestyle so there's probably a market for those people like us that would try to eat vegan/veggie more often than they do.

"Taste tests prove these vegan meat brands do not taste as good as the real thing."

Sure, if your definition of "meat" is frozen chicken nuggets or those sawdust & gristle pre-made burgers. I've tried all these meat alternatives and they're nothing like actual meat, both in taste and texture, and they come with the added bonus of being ultra processed.

Let's see the cloned meat. I'm really curious to see if that's any good.

What does “ultra processed” mean, in this context?
- That they are made from heavily refined products such as pea protein as compared to non-processed foods like whole vegetables or minimally-processed like salads.
  That, however, does not make them bad by itself - they are generally still healthier than other ultra-processed (junk) foods since they are not made to be addictive with a lot of salt, sugar, and fat.

Can't remember the brand it was but I tried these vegan chicken nuggets once that did indeed taste like chicken. But they also had the texture of wadded up paper, so it was just weird. I'd get them again if I could remember the brand.

Daring?
- Actually, I think that might be it.
Every brand is different. That's the cool thing about having so many plant based alternatives to make it with. Some are awesome, some are wadded up paper.
You should try Impossible’s chicken nuggets. I love them. I prefer them over real nuggets.
- I'm a sucker for the gardien breaded veggie tenders. Stick em on a bun with onion, lettuce, jalapeños, veg mayo, and sriracha, and you've got some serious deliciousness. It ain't particularly healthy, but man does it hit that fast-food craving.

I'll wait for lab grown meat to hit stores

I already like how they will cost the same as meat, even though they are much cheaper to produce. /s

That's not how any of the products in the supermarket are priced though

the sheer amount of carnist misinformation in this thread is something else...

It really is something to behold. The animal agriculture propaganda did its work.

It isn't about taste, it is about not being able to replace the nutritional value of the meat serving with the Vegan alternative. Vegan food is delicious, but it has issues getting everything you need into your body when replacing things found specifically in meats.

Isn’t Impossible burger meat virtually identical nutritionally as real meat? That’s why it’s not very good for you. Like, burgers aren’t healthy.
- Isn’t Impossible burger meat virtually identical nutritionally as real meat? That’s why it’s not very good for you. Like, burgers aren’t healthy.
  This has nothing at all to do with what I am saying.
  My point is that articles pushing the flavour narrative are missing the point because it isn't about taste. It is about the fact that being Vegan is expensive as it takes a lot of supplements outside of food consumption to replace what can only be found in meats that the human body requires to survive.
  Junk food tastes great, but it isn't good for you. Burgers aren't inherently unhealthy, just like Vegan food isn't automatically healthy.

I'm going to be pedantic here, because it's sometimes my favourite thing to be. But "Vegan Meat" is an oxymoron.

Meat is specifically defined as the flesh or edible parts of animals.

These aren't Vegan Meat brands, they're Meat Substitute brands.

Meat also refers to the edible nut part. Like the meat of a wallnut is inside the shell
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meat
Meat is only specifically animals when in that context. Example: "let's get to the meat of the issue" is not referring to animal flesh, but the details of an issue. Not even food related.
No, vegan meat exists, because I use it in that way.

Vegan meat is a fools errand, you end up making something that tastes like a processed mcnugget and has 10x the ingredients compared to just using animal meat. I would rather see (less processed) meat alternative foods that stand up on their own rather than trying to emulate the flavour and texture of meat :/

Believe or not people want the same taste without sacrificing animals and the environment.
- You missed my point, vegan meat products don't mimic meat, they mimic unhealthy crap that already does not taste like meat. Time and resources would be much better spent manufacturing and marketing traditional vegan foods (literally everything other than meat analog) it a way that makes them easy and appealing as an alternative to meat not as a 1:1 replacement.
These exist and you not knowing shows you never cared to wander into that isle of the supermarket

if vegan is so fucking good, why are they trying to imitate meat all the time? If you want to taste meat, eat meat. If meat is offensive to you, then don't try to fucking create a meat taste

Many vegans were brought up in meat eating families before they started questioning it and going vegan because of moral reasons. It's not weird to miss the taste while refraining from eating the meat because of the belief that the life of an animal is more important than taste buds. And that's how this industry exists; to satisfy taste with respect for animals.
But continue hating if you want to.
Have you considered that maybe meat tastes good, but I don't want to kill and consume animals?
Tastes good
Because we want to keep our favourite foods. So many people say they don’t want to go vegan until they realize there are vegan alternatives to almost everything.
The vegan alternatives do not have animal abuse and environmental degradation.