Meat analogue

Categories: Meat substitutes | Animal liberation movement

A meat analogue (or the similar analogues for dairy or eggs) is a food made primarily from one species but which uses flavouring to imitate the taste and texture of a different species. It is usually made:

  • from non-meats, and often without dairy as well, either for health-conscious non-vegetarians, lactose-intolerant people, or people allergic to dairy or eggs (who might eat, most commonly, non-trans-fat margarine instead of butter, soy ice cream, imitation bacon bits, a tofu-scrambler instead of eggs, or a vege-burger occasionally instead of a hamburger), or to address ethical issues for vegetarians (including its use in Buddhist cuisine, which is the oldest known use of meat analogues);

or

  • from lower-fat meats and/or less-expensive meats than the meat they are replacing (to address concerns by health-conscious non-vegetarians or those who can't afford some types of expensive seafood, such as surimis).

Note: The terms synthetic meat and artificial meat are ambiguous, as they may refer to either meat analogues, or laboratory-grown meat.

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Vegetarian meat, dairy, and egg analogues

Some of the more-traditional vegetarian meat analogues are based on centuries-old recipes for seitan (gluten), other grains such as rice, mushrooms, legumes, tempeh, and/or pressed-tofu, with flavouring to make the finished product taste like chicken, beef, lamb, ham, sausage, seafood, etc. Some of the more-recent meat analogues include textured vegetable protein (TVP, which is a dry bulk commodity derived from soy), soy concentrate, Quorn, and modified defatted peanut flour to replace meat. TVP is produced more than any other meat analogue in most Western nations.

Examples of dairy analogues include those based primarily on processed rice, soy (tofu, soymilk, soy protein isolate), almond, cashew, gluten (such as with the first non-dairy creamers), nutritional yeast, or a combination of these, plus flavouring to make it taste like milk, cheeses, yogurt, mayonnaise, ice cream, cream cheese, sour cream, whipped cream, buttermilk, rarebit, or butter. Many dairy analogues contain casein, which is extracted dried milk proteins, when combined with soy and gluten, and are therefore not suitable for vegans.

Examples of egg substitutes include tofu-scramblers, egg whites, or -- for baking -- Ener-G or similar products which recreate the leavening and binding effects of eggs in baked goods).

Vegetarian meat-analogues have become a multi-billion dollar per year business, ever since they were created by vegetarian Buddhists over 1000 years ago. For a graphical table showing vegetarian meat, dairy, and egg substitutes, click here.

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Surimi and other meat-based meat analogues

Many common products such as 'imitation crab meat' are called surimi, or a processed hash of fish plus flavorings to make it taste more like a shellfish. In some regions, 'Surimi' refers to the finished product or only to products made from fish, but the same process is also used with turkey in North America (e.g. turkey-dogs), and thus also called "surimi" often.

Examples of surimi include:

  • Surimi from fish, such as imitation crab, imitation shrimp, or imitation lobster
  • Surimi from turkey, such as hot dogs, brats, sausage, salami, lunch meats, loafs, burgers, bacon, ham, or ground
  • Other processed poultry products, such as emu, in the same forms described above for turkey.

Non-meat (vegetarian) products and Surimi products are both marketed often as "imitation" meats, rather than "meat analogues" (e.g. imitation crab or imitation shrimp).

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See also

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External links

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Some manufacturers of imitation meats, dairy, or eggs