Does Plant-Based Meat Taste Like Meat?

Beyond Burger
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

In this day and age, they’ve got just about every different kind of food product you can think of. Even something as solid and seemingly timeless as meat—that too, companies have managed to adapt into something more acceptable for those who are vegetarian. Plant-based meat isn’t necessarily a new concept, but it’s certainly evolved leaps and bounds over the last decade. So much so, in fact, that people are swearing it tastes just like real meat. But is this true?

Let’s Talk Texture

There are certainly interesting aspects to consider when comparing regular meat and plant-based meat. One of them is texture, and we’d have to say that plant-based meat’s texture is pretty darn close to the real thing, at least with food brands such as Beyond Meat.

How About Taste?

Taste is where things get a little bit dicey. These companies have truly done an amazing job at constructing a flavor that somewhat mimics that of real meat. However, there’s definitely something missing from the equation. Not-so-spoiler spoiler alert—it’s meat. At the end of the day, there’s something truly unique about the taste of real meat, and plant-based alternatives simply don’t match it. There are other benefits to plant-based meat, but emulating the exact flavor of real meat isn’t one of them.