mmmm exactly what i want in my burger "Antibiotic-resistant bacteria were found in 40% of the beef patties tested. One contained genuinely pathogenic bacteria. The vegan patties? Zero contaminants."
^where was this quote from? I didn't see that in this article.
Thanks!
I just want fat and off putting smell in my burger
Zero contaminants in a highly processed food tells me that the processing facility is maintained better, unrelated to flavor
Great news for vegan community. I hope other countries will do the same.
"Some beef patties, meanwhile, showed up with off-putting smells, flat flavors, and shelf-life issues."
Hmm, I really wonder why 💁
A better shelf life is cool but has absolutely nothing to do with actually tasting better
Was it a head to head comparison? The article looks a bit out of context
Generally, how these Stiftung Warentest tests work is that they a pick a product category, like here patties, then they come up with disciplines to rate them in and then they grade each product accordingly.
Some of the disciplines here were (translated by me):
I would assume that they did a blind taste test and all that jazz, too. It is their business model to sell the data to industry, investors etc., so if their methodology wasn't up to snuff, they'd be out of business pretty quickly.
The article is totally unsupported by the test then as it says it is only about taste.
I am very confused. Are we seeing same article? @Captain_Buddha@lemmy.world below also seemed to not see a direct quote from the article.
Here's the part of the article describing the results that I see:
The result
Vegan patties came out on top, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Overall rating
Seven out of ten plant-based patties rated “good.” Only three out of ten beef patties did.
The three top-scoring burgers came from Aldi MyVay, Garden Gourmet, and Beyond — and they were all vegan.
This is a dramatic reversal from the last time this test was run in 2021, when meat still held the edge. The improvement in plant-based products over just a few years has been remarkable.
Fats
Vegan patties averaged 43% less fat and 20% fewer calories than their beef counterparts — and the fat they do contain skews toward the healthy, unsaturated kind, while beef patties lean heavily on saturated fat.
Taste
Plant-based options scored better on average for seasoning, juiciness, and overall cooking results. Some beef patties, meanwhile, showed up with off-putting smells, flat flavors, and shelf-life issues.
Food safety
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria were found in 40% of the beef patties tested. One contained genuinely pathogenic bacteria. The vegan patties? Zero contaminants.
Price
The vegan patties were, on average, 20% cheaper than beef. And that’s before accounting for the massive government subsidies that artificially deflate the price of conventional meat. Without those subsidies, the gap would be even wider.
So would have completely lost in a test based on "what tastes best".
There might be an issue with not everyone seeing the same article text. Here's what it says for taste:
Plant-based options scored better on average for seasoning, juiciness, and overall cooking results. Some beef patties, meanwhile, showed up with off-putting smells, flat flavors, and shelf-life issues.
The original source lists more rating categories and the source we're getting it from is biased, so maybe some taste categories with opposite results are left out here.
But it can't be too biased either, though, because the original publication from Stiftung Warentest is also titled "Vegan beats Beef" ("Vegan schlägt Rindfleisch"). They would not write that, if it misrepresented their data.
That definitely sounds like a rigged test. Lol. "Vegan burger is better than beef... Made with rancid meat"
From the original source:
Wir untersuchten gekühlte Pattys am Mindesthaltbarkeits- oder Verbrauchsdatum oder bis zu zwei Tage davor, die tiefgekühlten Produkte im Laufe der Prüfphase.
Which translates as:
We evaluated cooled patties on the Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum (legally required at-least-good-until-date, like a shelf-life-date) or on the use-by-date, or up to two days before that. The frozen products were tested at any point throughout the evaluation phase.
If the product has started rotting at that point, that is entirely the fault of the producer, since they specify those dates.
You can find more information on the Stiftung Warentest site itself.
The big thing to consider is that this is comparing the vegan burgers against the pre-made frozen patties, which is probably the only way to do it. I have always considered those pre-made patties pretty "meh" so it doesn't surprise me at all that impossible or beyond can beat them. My daughter is a vegetarian so we buy the impossible beef fairly often, and it is the only brand I've tried that is actually very close to actual beef. I've made chili and "meat" sauce with it and it comes out quite fine.
I had always said that if they could get the price lower than actual beef they'd likely so really well. I just hadn't anticipated that happening because beef prices went through the roof.
IMO none of the vegan brands are as good tasting as higher quality fresh ground beef from a meat department or butcher, but some are easily a match for any of the boxed frozen patties.
That's an unfair comparison. Here's how to make it fair: The department stores and local stores could easily use peas instead of meat and it would improve the taste. Since vegan burger patties already have the edge when frozen, they surely would be even better when fresh. The stores just have to up their game and learn how to do it.
Mmm, beet beef
(I read it as Vegan Burgers Are Just Beet Beef at first glance lol)
The beef in burgers is never really important to the taste, other than the fact that it's savoury. Mushrooms could just as easily fill the role (texture aside).
Dead wrong
Murder is wrong.
Correct, but completely unrelated to the claims presented here
At what point do these ultra processed foods become worse for our health than meat though? I love impossible burgers, they taste impossibly delicious so much so that I'm suspicious it's really bad for me.
The Impossible burger isn’t trying to be healthier than beans and rice, but even as a processed food it’s healthier than a meat burger.
As reported in this study, the plant-based options had less fat and fewer calories. They would also have no cholesterol, which is only found in animals foods, and they may contain some fiber, which is only found in plant foods. A number of processed meats have been food to be carcinogenic while I don’t think any plant-based burgers have.
The book How Not To Die reviews scientific studies of food choices if you want a deeper dive.. finding animal-based protein is correlated with a range of diseases.
So no, I don’t expect veggie burgers will be less healthy than meat patties.
Dr Gregor has a good series on this, basically yes, these mock meats are not "healthy", but they are healthier than animal meat. On nutrition facts, search for "ultraprocessed".
Here is a good one about this:
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/do-the-health-impacts-of-ultra-processed-foods-apply-to-plant-based-meat-alternatives/?queryID=72e5918e6e7116a506973f670a82c4c6
Completely unsurprising that they beat the frozen cow anuses they try to pass as burgers tbh
Why are they trying to be fake meat anyway? Vegan substitutes rarely compare quite as well but honestly they'd be way better if they stopped trying to imitate something they're not and did more to stand up on their own. All the good vegan food I've had was just being its own thing.
I imagine, they mainly don't want to compete with the plethora of cheap+good vegan protein options: lentils, beans, chickpeas, nuts, tofu, tempeh, seitan, TVP, hummus, falafel etc.
Faking meat works as a market, because folks often just want what they're used to, and then you're primarily competing against real meat, which is much more expensive, so you can excuse quite a large profit margin.
An online space for the vegans of Lemmy.
Rules and miscellaneous: