Would you eat a fake burger?
They bought all the McDonald’s hamburgers they could carry. Then using cocktail sticks, Sasha and Cedrique created a delightful selection of canapes, which they presented at the organic food convention in Houton, Holland.
The tasty snacks were gobbled up.
“It tastes like fish, reminds me of cod and rolls around the tongue nicely”, one expert declared. “If it were wine, I’d say it’s fine”.
It’s difficult not to find this funny.
Unfortunately, this man wasn’t the first to fall for it. They proceeded to fool some of the biggest food experts in the Benelux region. And, if you want to see it, watch the YouTube video below.
Jokes aside, this is serious. There’s so much misinformation in the food industry that it’s difficult to tell what is fact and fiction. The biggest issue I have is being told that one type of food is better than the other.
I’ve fallen for it. Once upon a time… please don’t laugh… I decided to be a vegetarian.
It lasted about a year.
When I say a year, I mean more like six months.
Actually, it was probably three months.
That’s not the point. I thought it would be healthier, but I put on weight.
Yes, it was a bit of a disaster.
Nonetheless, I still would sometimes chuck in a bag of Quorn mincemeat into my meat-free bolognese afterwards. I’d also buy a packet of vegetarian Cauldron sausages on occasion.
These products weren’t actually healthier. They just tasted good.
Interestingly, I’m not alone. There’s a non-meat revolution taking place and it’s being driven by meat-eaters like me.
It’s big business and many companies are trying to get a foothold Tesco – the UK’s largest supermarket chain – started offering plant-based steaks in 2018 form Netherlands-based vegan fast-food company Vivera. Within a week, 40,000 steaks had been sold.
Then Unilever acquired Dutch meat-substitute company The Vegetarian Butcher, which makes plant-based burgers, nuggets and hotdogs.
And now there’s a US company called Beyond Meat, which has taken Europe by storm.
Are they really healthy?
What I find fascinating is how these products are marketed. They’re presented as healthier. Let’s look at Beyond Meat’s burger.
The main ingredients are mung beans, peas and brown rice. They also use beets for colour and coconut oil and potato starch for juiciness.
It sounds healthy. On the package is says no soy, no gluten and 20 grams of protein per patty. But beef burgers are also soy-free, gluten-free and have lots of protein. And, there’s also significantly more salt in the Beyond Meat burgers because of the preservation and flavouring process required.
It does taste really good though.
Last week I went to my favourite burger joint in Zurich, the Helvti Diner.
I saw the Beyond Meat burger on the menu and asked half-jokingly: “I’ll have the fake burger please”.
I wanted to try something new. And, I was seriously impressed. However, these burgers aren’t necessarily healthier for you despite the packaging. They are just a substitute for meat.
So what’s the benefit from eating them?
The environment
Let’s go to the US where Beyond Meat burgers are made. Here, nine percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. One-third of that comes from the methane emitted by American cows.
Yes, cow farts are helping warm up the planet.
It might shock you, but livestock are responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions versus transport, which is closer to 14%. It’s also an inefficient way to make food: one kilo of beef requires 25 kilos of grain to feed the animal, plus 15,000 litres of water, which equate to a fairly sizeable carbon footprint.
However, there might be a solution.
Lab grown meat
There are a number of start-up doing this.
Mosa Meat in the Netherlands made the first real meat burger from animal cells and has raised $8.8 million from drug maker Merck and meat processor Bell Foods.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley-based Memphis Meats, has developed fried chicken, meatballs, and duck from animal cells. They’ve raised $20.1 from investors, which include food giant Tyson Fonds and Virgin.
Then there’s the Israeli start-up Aleph Farms, which last year revealed the first ever lab-grown steak.
But you know what’s even cooler. 3D printed meat. And, I’m not talking about fake meat printed in a lab using vegetables. Spanish bio engineering start-up NovaMeat has already done that.
No in the future, we’ll have the technology to print real meat. We know it’s coming because the medical industry has already invested significantly into printed human organs, which are far more complex.
However, perhaps we won’t even care if meat taste real or not in the future because our diets will have evolved so much.
Why would we want to eat meat? We might even consider it disgusting to eat an animal.
I don’t care. I still love meat.
