The Meat-Based Carrot

As a vegetarian (well, technically not entirely because I do eat fish) for almost 30 years, this New York Times headline really caught my eye:

Arby’s Has an Answer to Plant-Based Meat: A Meat-Based Carrot

Here is their promotional video on this new product. As Arby’s says, “If they can make meat from veggies (and other stuff), we can make veggies from meat.”

And so, it seems, they have. It looks rather unappetizing to me but you do have to appreciate the ingenuity that went into its development.

Of course, in the past year or so there have been a number of strictly vegetarian (vegan, in fact) hamburger-like products to hit the market, most notably the two from Impossible Goods (the Impossible Burger) and Beyond Meat (the Beyond Burger). I first wrote about the Impossible Burger back in May. The main ingredients (after water) in the two products are different: the Impossible Burger lists “soy protein concentrate,” while the Beyond Burger lists “pea protein isolate.” Both of these products now have kosher supervision, and we have finally located places to buy them and have been having a good time dredging up old recipes to try. All in all, they are faring quite well, although I readily admit that my memory of what some of these dishes tasted like with actual beef is probably a bit shaky at this point. I also appreciate that some vegetarians, our older daughter included, find the whole idea a bit distasteful, so to speak. They really do look and feel like actual meat, which takes a little getting used to, as does preparing lasagna with a “meat sauce.” It did come out pretty well, I must say.

Happy eating!

Love,

Rebecca