It's a strange one for me, as I've been a vegetarian for twenty-five years - since I was a teenager - and I've never been one for meat substitutes. I've said this before on here, but I've just never had the appetite for meat. Even when I ate it I generally wasn't too keen on it. I couldn't quite escape the sense that I was eating an animal - unless the meat was very heavily disguised. Consequently, when I did make the decision to officially forgo it it was a smooth transition.
So the problem I had trying the beyond burger, ironically, was that it felt a little too much like meat. It's like spooky Halloween props. You know the severed head is just a model. You know the blood is just fake blood. Yet still, it can spook you out on some instinctive level. Especially if it looks realistic. So it kind of felt like I was cooking real meat as it sizzled in the pan.
On top of this there was also the mental apprehension about the ingredients. What is this I'm eating? Is it healthy? Is it natural?
So there was a multi-layered apprehension.
When I finally did sit down to eat it it was just like eating a regular beefburger as far as I could remember. (I bought the classic sesame seed burger buns in the end, I didn't go with wholemeal as I said I would.) It felt like when I was a kid and I had a burger from McDonald's or something.
It's that long since I ate meat that I can't really say how close to meat the taste actually was, but the vibe was the same. Again, I felt like I was eating meat, though my brain knew otherwise. So it was a little weird.
The only other meat substitute product I sometimes eat are Linda McCartney sausage rolls, lol. It's slightly different with them though. Firstly, because the pastry disguises the 'meat'. Then secondly I've been eating them intermittently for so long that I don't think of them as meat anyway. I just think of them as soya, which is what they are. So maybe it would be similar with the beyond burger after a few rounds of eating it.
Anyway, at least I can now say I've tried the product I've invested in.
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