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Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat – red meat, poultry, seafood and the flesh of any other animal; it may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter, such as animal-derived rennet and gelatin.

Is test tube burger animal flesh? Would you, the vegetarian, eat this?

Layers of grey matter grilled!

Eric

That brings up an interesting point. Also, I know 2 vegetarians and they both eat fish.

Only if it's grass fed.

I was a pesco vegetarian, Francis, until about a year ago--now I'm just good old fashioned ovo-lacto vegetarian. It almost doesn't sound so hypocritical when you add the clarifiers, does it? ;p Anyway, maybe you should ask them to read Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran-Foer. The fishing industry is in many ways more destructive than modern agriculture.

As an environmental vegetarian (I'm not opposed to eating animals in principle, or I'd have to give up the two little carnivores in my house) I couldn't continue to countenance habits that were denuding the seas. Eating fish for so long after I'd given up other meats had really just been a compromise. A lot of restaurants don't have vegetarian options, or they consider a fish dish a vegetarian option. You'd be surprised how many restaurants in my area don't even offer salad without bacon or chicken breast. But whatever, I usually only go out with my boyfriend or our immediate families anyway, and they're considerate of my choices. (Even if I think it's ridiculous that we had to add chicken to vegan paella to get them to eat it. It's already delicious for God's sake!)

So where does that leave me on lab grown meat? It all depends on two things--what's the environmental impact, and how is the texture? Because seitan does a marvelous job of feeling exactly like chicken between my teeth, so I'm not that hard up for a replacement. They also make really great meat substitutes from mushrooms--I had the best sesame "chicken" of my life at a vegan Chinese restaurant in LA.

This discussion reminds me of Isaac Asimov scifi future stories in which all food -- meat, vegetable, or mushroom -- is derived from engineered yeast.... What if being a "farmer" meant growing yeast in specially designed vats?

...I think I'll go eat another REAL tomato while I have the chance...

I've been a vegetarian since the 1970's. In the early years, I did still eat fish. In recent years, not.

I agree with cola, whether I would eat lab grown "meat" would depend on finding out about the environmental impacts of it. But I wouldn't be in any big rush, since I am happy the way I am and since this idea seems kind of creepy.

Here's the article in the NYTimes about the taste test.

The article had some inconsistencies.

According to the three people who ate it, the burger, which contained no fat or salt, was dry and a bit lacking in flavor.

Maybe the meat itself contained no fat or salt, but the hamburger that was eaten did because of the way it was prepared:

About 20,000 strips were used to make the 5-ounce burger, which contained breadcrumbs, salt, and some natural colorings as well.

The hamburger was fried — in a pan with copious amounts of butter

Enviromental impact is always a concern, but I wasn't thinking in those terms.

I'm wondering, what are they really producing in the lab. Is it "meat". It never was a thinking, breathing entity.

Eric

Roger,

Your post brings up another thought, from my wee little brain.

Why do vegetarian dishes have to mimic. Why macerate a perfectly good mushroom to look like a ground beef patty. Tofu to look like chicken. Seems a little hypocritical.

Eric

Doubledog, most vegetarian and vegan fare doesn't have "meat substitutes" in it. Something isn't a meat substitute just because Westerners don't usually eat it unless it's out of dietary consideration. Tofu has nothing to do with mimicking meat 90% of the time. I will grant you there are some baffling meat substitutes out there, like tofu dogs, which are bland and soft and I hate them, but they've mostly been foisted on me by well meaning non-vegetarians who think that's what I eat. For the record, you can get these really great veggie sausages made from potatoes and eggplant that have an amazing texture. Basically imagine eating sausage and never hitting a tiny bit of bone. No one ever said the texture of chicken or sausage was bad.

For instance, the vegan paella I mentioned above is made with wheatberries and chickpeas--it did not need chicken, real or fake. I also made vegetarian lasagne once until I realized it was basically just eggplant parmesan with pasta in it and now I just make eggplant parmesan, because eggplant is amazing. My boyfriend and I also make a lot of curries with potatoes, carrots, zucchini, lentils, and/or yams. We also make a lot of pasta with squash. We also use a lot of quinoa, rice, and orzo. I have cooked with tofu a grand total of twice in the last two years, but it looked like a block of tofu, because tofu is its own thing.

You can't make tofu feel like chicken the way you can with seitan, because tofu is made from soybeans and seitan is made from strands of gluten. I like seitan for the texture, which you can't get from a portobello mushroom, which isn't to say I don't order portobello sandwiches when I go out to eat, because I do. Tempeh is really, really good, too, and you should try it sometime, but the Indonesians didn't come up with it to replace chicken, beef, or fish. And again, I've eaten seitan a total of twice ever. Here's a link to the wikipedia page about seitan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)

If you really want to see how most vegetarians eat, here's a link to the Vegetarian Times. You'll see a lot of whole fruits, vegetables, and assorted legumes, nuts, and grains.

As for the mushrooms turned into sesame "chicken," the reason it was better than real sesame chicken was that it was nothing like chicken. The chunks of "meat" had a crisp, chewy outer shell with the thick sesame sauce slathered on it, and a slightly stringy but not at all gamey interior. It was heaven.

DDF.....Would I eat that burger? NO. If it was not a living ( at one time) beef, forget it. Who knows what's

in it.


Cola82------Can you please help me out here, with the vegetarian food.

My husband has celiac's, and I would like to try some of the vegetarian foods for him, would they work?

Or do they have a lot of grains in them? He can eat rice.

Any ideas you have would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Well plain tofu and some brands of tempeh should be fine, but obviously seitan is out of the question, since is literally pure gluten.

Since he can eat rice, I would definitely look into curry dishes, because curry is delicious and you can basically put anything in it. This recipe substitutes Golden Mountain Sauce (which is pretty tasty) for fish sauce, but I would use a gluten-free naturally brewed soy sauce. Certain ingredients like galangal and kaffir leaves can be hard to come by, but while you'd probably want to hit up an Asian grocery store for the galangal, a lot of natural foods stores will carry jarred kaffir leaves. Galangal is also a key ingredient in Tom Kah, which is also great.

Of course, there's also Indian food, which is usually vegetarian to begin with.

Typing in "gluten-free" to the Vegetarian Times website will also net you results like gluten free blueberry muffins, zucchini-quinoa lasagne, tempeh stroganoff, and gluten-free pizza.

I get a lot of my recipes from Epicurious, too, like this Persian inspired stuffed squash recipe. They have a good selection of vegetarian recipes.

Most of the time, though, I just cruise around bookmarking anything that looks good and then I creatively think of substitutions I can make, like putting veggie sausage in apple stuffed acorn squash, or veggie bacon and Swanson's vegetable broth in a zuppa toscana (no one could tell the difference). I'm sure you can do the same with gluten-free flour or even white rice flour. Some vegetarian cooks also substitute stuff like almond milk for cow's milk in baking and get really flavorful results, but I haven't tried it yet.

Cola82-----Thank you. Unfortunately he's a meat and potatoes type of guy, loves the odd hamburger ( with

bun) He's just not into asian type foods, at all.

We are sort of looking for foods that can be prepared quickly. Not a huge all day cooking session, all the

time. But something that is different. Does all vegetarian food have gluten in it?

It's so hard to cook for him. Would be nice to have a few things that can be put in the oven quickly.

I included information about gluten-free vegetarian food--including several suggested recipes that are not Asian at all--if you look over my response again. Most of it is not an all day affair, any more than anything else is. In my experience, it takes longer to prepare a cut of steak or chicken, especially because you have to isolate the raw meat from everything else and clean up more carefully.

I'm the girl who cooked an entire pound of bacon one night in college, for no real reason. I've cooked venison my step-dad actually shot. I've also made chicken piccata and roasted a whole chicken with butter and herbs. I know my way around meat, I just don't eat it anymore. ;p

ETA: I also do 100% of my prep work before I start cooking because I don't like having to take my eyes off the pan once I start, so you'd think we never ate before midnight, but I can start cooking at 5:30 and be done by 6. I'm comparatively slow.