Bramblings: Faux meat

By BECKY NELSON
By Becky Nelson

My daughter is a vegetarian. She became so at 10 or 11 years old when she began refusing to consume meat products and instead only eating cheese, eggs and vegetables. She objects to the texture of meat, and eating a vegetarian menu made the most sense for her and for us as parents. I have no problem with folks opting to become vegetarians or vegans, but I do object to those who choose this path to try to influence the eating patterns of the rest of us.

I enjoy eating meat. I enjoy a nice steak cooked on the grill or at a restaurant, a pork chop and a slice of ham or bacon, a slice from a leg of lamb or a taste of chicken. I also raise meat, with cattle fat and happy in my pastures. Even if things change, like my doctors tell me I shouldn’t eat it, I will probably always be a meat eater as long as I travel the trails on this planet.

The hot new burgers in town, both the “Impossible Burger” and “Beyond Burger,” contains no meat. Who is eating them? If you are a vegan or a vegetarian, you are looking for a veggie burger that tastes like vegetables, not like burger. If you are a meat eater, the taste of beef or lamb in your burger is what you seek. If your doctor has ordered you to eat less meat, perhaps these concoctions will trick you into thinking you are eating a juicy meat burger, but I just don’t understand the attraction beyond this. Unless the country as a whole or those that make it run are trying to destroy the meat production and consumption and this is their subtle “in.”

For years, several groups have been plaguing farmers and ranchers, decrying the cruelty of killing animals to eat. My conspiracy theory is that they, vegetarians, are trying to work meat out of our diet.

But what is the advantage of doing so? For our health, meat is the best and easiest place to garner protein. Without a sufficient amount of protein in our diets, all sorts of health concerns will plague us. The list of ingredients in meat is pretty simple: meat. The list of ingredients in Impossible Burger, according to CNet (a division of CBS) includes all kinds of things I’m not sure I can even pronounce: “Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.”

According to the article, the vitamins are added because much of the edible value of the plant material is lost during processing and needs to be put back in to fortify the meatless creation to make it of any nutritional value. Some of the products in the meatless “meat” are just yucky.

Soy leghemoglobin is the protein source in the burger and it’s what makes the meatless “meat” appear to bleed. Like hemoglobin in our own blood, it carries iron.

Methylcellulose is primarily used as a laxative. It is sometimes added to foods to keep it fresher and keep its integrity when frozen. Cultured dextrose is a heavily processed fermented sugar compound used to enhance flavor and extend shelf life.

I’m just not understanding why a heavily processed vegetable burger is better for us than a burger made of pure meat. Sure, too much fat is bad. But processed food is worse.

Faux meat and faux food. Yuck.

Bring on my real-beef burger, please.

Becky is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. [email protected].