Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Fun with Fake Meat
My pal, Jake, doesn’t trust vegetarians. He always thinks they’re trying to get away with something, so he’s made up some rules. One of these is that vegetarians “shouldn’t want any meat substitutes.” No veggie burgers, no soy-protein breakfast links, no “mock” chicken or “not” dogs.
“If you want a meat substitute, you really want meat, so you should just eat meat,” he insists. “Vegetarians shouldn’t want anything that resembles meat.”
Okay, Jake’s a freak. I make no apologies for loving veggie "links" or veggie hot dogs. I’ll even go a step further and say these vegetarian alternatives are a huge improvement over the original meat versions.
Let’s start with the veggie links. Half the fat, no cholesterol, and no grease. And according to my father, the carnivore, they taste an awful lot like real sausage. I can eat a couple with a scrambled egg and feel as if I’ve had a genuine, big breakfast. In the process, I haven’t killed any pigs or mangled for life any meatpackers. By the way, if factory farming, with its brutal, unnatural treatment of animals doesn’t rouse any sympathy from you, perhaps you should research the average working conditions in the meatpacking industry. Mother Jones Magazine did a great expose' on this a few years ago. Things really haven’t changed much from the days of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”
But I digress. I really wanted to tell you about veggie hot dogs. The texture is a little different from meat hot dogs, but I find veggie dogs an extremely close alternative. With veggie hot dogs, the mix is consistent: no gristle, no grease, no little bits of things you can’t identify and wouldn’t if you could. Veggie dogs, or “not” dogs as they are also known, are made of textured soy protein and lots of other plant-based things such as garlic, onion, etc. One thing they don’t contain is nitrates, the really bad ingredient found in regular hot dogs. Nitrates, when consumed with abandon (for example, when a person goes on one of those horrible, high-protein diets) can really mess you up (see: How to Wreck Your Liver and Kidneys 101). “Not” dogs also don’t contain parts of an animal that one wouldn’t choose to eat if he/she were cognizant of them.
Sure, there’s always some redneck out there who doesn’t mind eating animal testicles. A Baptist church (God Bless those wacky Baptists) near my home used to sponsor a “Men’s Hunting Barbeque” every year. All the hunting men in the church were encouraged to bring some of their kill and cook it for a big, finger-licking meat-o-rama. The minister’s son, who was an acquaintance of mine, confessed to trying fried mystery-animal testicles. You’d think a group of people as homophobic as Southern Baptists wouldn’t go near a strange testicle! I guess that’s one of the great mysteries of the faith. However, I’m willing to bet that most people wouldn’t be so willing to chow down on ground-up internal and/or sex organs if they could just get a clear vision of what they are actually eating.
So Jake can bite me (metaphorically speaking). If the preacher’s son can eat some poor animal’s balls, I can order “mock” chicken in a Thai restaurant without feeling as if I’ve compromised myself.
“If you want a meat substitute, you really want meat, so you should just eat meat,” he insists. “Vegetarians shouldn’t want anything that resembles meat.”
Okay, Jake’s a freak. I make no apologies for loving veggie "links" or veggie hot dogs. I’ll even go a step further and say these vegetarian alternatives are a huge improvement over the original meat versions.
Let’s start with the veggie links. Half the fat, no cholesterol, and no grease. And according to my father, the carnivore, they taste an awful lot like real sausage. I can eat a couple with a scrambled egg and feel as if I’ve had a genuine, big breakfast. In the process, I haven’t killed any pigs or mangled for life any meatpackers. By the way, if factory farming, with its brutal, unnatural treatment of animals doesn’t rouse any sympathy from you, perhaps you should research the average working conditions in the meatpacking industry. Mother Jones Magazine did a great expose' on this a few years ago. Things really haven’t changed much from the days of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”
But I digress. I really wanted to tell you about veggie hot dogs. The texture is a little different from meat hot dogs, but I find veggie dogs an extremely close alternative. With veggie hot dogs, the mix is consistent: no gristle, no grease, no little bits of things you can’t identify and wouldn’t if you could. Veggie dogs, or “not” dogs as they are also known, are made of textured soy protein and lots of other plant-based things such as garlic, onion, etc. One thing they don’t contain is nitrates, the really bad ingredient found in regular hot dogs. Nitrates, when consumed with abandon (for example, when a person goes on one of those horrible, high-protein diets) can really mess you up (see: How to Wreck Your Liver and Kidneys 101). “Not” dogs also don’t contain parts of an animal that one wouldn’t choose to eat if he/she were cognizant of them.
Sure, there’s always some redneck out there who doesn’t mind eating animal testicles. A Baptist church (God Bless those wacky Baptists) near my home used to sponsor a “Men’s Hunting Barbeque” every year. All the hunting men in the church were encouraged to bring some of their kill and cook it for a big, finger-licking meat-o-rama. The minister’s son, who was an acquaintance of mine, confessed to trying fried mystery-animal testicles. You’d think a group of people as homophobic as Southern Baptists wouldn’t go near a strange testicle! I guess that’s one of the great mysteries of the faith. However, I’m willing to bet that most people wouldn’t be so willing to chow down on ground-up internal and/or sex organs if they could just get a clear vision of what they are actually eating.
So Jake can bite me (metaphorically speaking). If the preacher’s son can eat some poor animal’s balls, I can order “mock” chicken in a Thai restaurant without feeling as if I’ve compromised myself.
