Vegetarians, Are You Ready The Next “Tastes Just Like Chicken” Dinner?

From the department of This Does Not Make Me Hungry. As a society we have to address the effects of raising and eating animals has on the earth. This will be easier for younger folks—I can not imagine finding the same satisfaction I get from eating a thick juicy steak by eating a fake-meat product. It comes down to texture—no combination of soy, wheat gluten, oil, and water is going to taste like a bone-in rib-eye. Or chicken. Oh, wait.

Researchers at University of Missouri announced that “after more than a decade of research, they had created the first soy product that not only can be flavored to taste like chicken but also breaks apart in your mouth the way chicken does.” Hear Time magazine explain:

What has confounded fake-meat producers for years is the texture problem. Before an animal is killed, its flesh essentially marinates, for all the years that the animal lives, in the rich biological stew that we call blood: a fecund bath of oxygen, hormones, sugars and plasma. Vegan foods like tofu, tempeh (fermented soy) and seitan (wheat gluten) don’t have the benefit of sloshing around in something so complex as blood before they go onto your plate. So how do you create fleshy, muscley texture without blood?

You can read the details here. Hmm. Food Inc. made me feel guilty but I can’t help but feel there is a happy medium somewhere.  If we switch to  in vitro chicken or meat, what will we do with our teeth? What will we make our shoes out of? And what will happen to the Dallas restaurant business? We might as well say hello to this! Are you ready to make the switch?