I'm really curious about the "fake meat" products that exist in other countries. In the Netherlands, there's been enormous growth both in the number of vegetarians and in the number of "fake meat" products that have become widely available, and the quality of the latter has improved dramatically. Before, these products were mostly useful for the non-vegetarians wanting to prepare a meal for vegetarians without having to relearn how to do it (with actual vegetarians preferably preparing vegetarian-first meals, e.g. with nuts and beans rather than fake meat). However, nowadays these products have become so good that they're actually of added value to a meal in terms of taste.
Interestingly, they do not appear to place as much focus on matching actual meat as much as the foreign products that are usually the subject of articles like these. Instead, they merely have to taste good and have good texture - it doesn't matter if it's still somewhat different from actual meat (sometimes they even taste better).
At the forefront of this has been the Vegetarian Butcher (that's a brand name). They've recently been acquired by Unilever and will likely expand internationally more aggressively. I have the feeling that the Netherlands is friendlier to vegetarians, on average, than other Western countries, and if that will give them an advantage. Time will tell!
In France I have seen a clear growth in the variety of products commonly available (which is great). Regarding taste it is still not clearly better than actual meat but I have tasted good supermarket-bought vegetarian burgers.
In Germany's supermarket, I found the kind of food I find in France's shops that specialize in healthy food.
There's been kind of a boom in vegetarian ready-made foods in Finland. I think it started with Pulled Oats (https://goldandgreenfoods.com ), but soon after that appeared in stores, several of the major food producers came out with their own vegetarian meat-substitutes, with varying degrees of emphasis on replacing meat and veganness etc. There's even a "healthier" ground pork that has carrots mixed in.
I'm not a huge fan of the new batch of products personally, although I see people buy them quite a lot. The products are usually roughly comparable to organic ground beef in price. Personally, I find cooking vegan from scratch is cheaper and tastier, but I guess it's not really a fair comparison - I also think homecooked meat is better than storebought patties.
Cool, that sounds rather similar to the situation in the Netherlands! It'll be interesting once all these local companies start going international which win out. With a few mergers and acquisitions, at a certain point the best products of each will probably be available in many countries, which would make this even more accessible. Good prospects!
Yves is really popular here in Canada. You can get it in just about every grocery store and some corner stores: http://yvesveggie.com/en/
That said, it's more traditional "fake meat", and probably not a close synthesis.
I'm actually more curious about the lab grown meat as an alternative. It almost seems like that could catch up by the time anyone gets a veggie burger actually tasting like meat.
Judging by just the packaging and product range, that looks to be a year or two behind what's available in the Netherlands - though I guess it's just different as well, since we don't have that many things that resemble the deli slices. Still, I'd love to give them a try.
And absolutely, I'm looking forward to see what lab-grown meats will become available, although I guess that taste will not be that surprising. If it's anything like regular chicken, then I'd still prefer the Vegetarian Butcher's chicken - it tastes differently, but better.
Well I'm definitely still a meat eater, and will be for the foreseeable future— but still would love to visit the Netherlands and if I do I'll keep an eye out for that veggie chicken.
If you do visit the Netherlands and actually want to try it, they've actually opened a restaurant (I haven't been there, but I assume it's the best way to try it) in the Hague: https://www.devegetarischeslager.nl/restaurant
That said, now that they've been acquired by Unilever, you might be able to try them in your own country before too long :)
I'm not sure at what point something is high in protein, but [1] lists 21.4g per 100g. No added iron and vitamin B12, though, unfortunately.
We have a few available in the US, my favorite is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn#Production which is not vegan as it contains some amount of egg. But the majority of the product is made from soil mold protein, which is what makes it unique among the options I have available.
Ah, you have Quorn as well? Back when there was not that much choice in the Netherlands, Quorn was one of the few brands that was available. It doesn't taste as good as most others in my opinion, though, and also has the disadvantage of not having added some nutrients that vegans and vegetarians often miss out on.
In the US, based on personal experience, I'd recommend Morningstar Farms for their variety, Beyond Meat if you can find it, and Field Roast Grain Meat.
Interestingly, they do not appear to place as much focus on matching actual meat as much as the foreign products that are usually the subject of articles like these. Instead, they merely have to taste good and have good texture - it doesn't matter if it's still somewhat different from actual meat (sometimes they even taste better).
At the forefront of this has been the Vegetarian Butcher (that's a brand name). They've recently been acquired by Unilever and will likely expand internationally more aggressively. I have the feeling that the Netherlands is friendlier to vegetarians, on average, than other Western countries, and if that will give them an advantage. Time will tell!