What is Vegetable Meat?

Question

I have come across this food, but I am not sure what it is called. This is a totally vegetarian food but looks like non vegetarian. It is made up of soya(soya beans). Does any one knows whats its real name and whether such food exists or not? Also, how organic/non artificial free from chemical is it? How Hygienic is it? What are the famous restaurants in the world for it? I have heard some Chinese restaurants which offers vegetarian Chinese food, is that the same?

Asked by softy

Answer

I have never heard of Tofu being called "vegetable meat". There are some fake meat types based on different types of soya products (or also other plant proteins), like "fake duck". But the only product I have seen bearing the generic label "vegetable meat" is textured vegetable protein. It is made from soya beans whose fat has been extracted to be used for oil production.

As for "non artificial", I have no idea what your personal definition of "artificial" is. It doesn't grow on trees, but then neither does butter, and I have never heard people condemn butter as "artificial". It is a processed product, and it is not a traditional process, but I can't tell you if it is more or less processed than traditional heavily processed foods such as sugar. Also, the amount of chemicals involved is probably dependent on the manufacturer. I guess you have to trust the regulatory organs of your country to not allow the production of food containing something harmful. Organic? This depends on the manufacturer too. If he adhers to organic production guidelines, then it is organic. And hygienic? This is even harder to answer, it depends on not only the manufacturer's decisions about the process, but also on the day-to-day process quality measures his employees take.

There is no reason to say that "vegetarian meat" is the same as vegetarian Chinese food. A cup of rice served in a Chinese restaurant is vegetarian and Chinese, but does not include any kind of meat substitute. If I cook a French recipe and use textured soy protein as meat replacement, this makes it vegetarian, but not Chinese. There can be some overlap between the two, but I doubt that it is big. China has had social conditions leading to vegetarian lifestyles (poverty, religious restrictions) for long before production of such protein began.

I doubt that any restaurants in the world are famous for it, mainly because it is a poor meat analogue. Yes, it offers a high amount of protein. But it does not taste really like meat. World-famous restaurants are world-famous because they offer high-quality food, and no food using inferior substitutions is high-quality. Yes, there are good vegetarian restaurants, but they don't make poor imitations of meat dishes using fake meats, they offer vegetarian dishes made from good ingredients. Some of them can feature some of the more popular soy products like tofu, but they are probably not famous for their tofu, because the tofu is not the main star of all dishes.

This all assumes that what you refer to is actually the textured vegetable protein I linked, but that is far from clear from your question. Other possibilities exist, because people have long tried to find a suitable meat substitute for vegetarians and for people who can't afford real meat. Most are soy-based, like the mentioned tofu and tempeh, but there are also wheat-based ones like seitan, and I think that there was some kind of beans product used sometimes instead of meat. Without you giving us more information, we can't conclude for sure which one you mean. But the answers to the other questions is about the same, with the exception that some processing methods are older than others and so can be considered more traditional (in case this plays a role for your understanding of "artificial").

Answered by rumtscho

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