Some meat alternatives come close to the original

25-Jul-2024

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You don't necessarily need meat to make delicious bolognese, lasagne and the like. A Stiftung Warentest test of 15 veggie hack products shows that some vegan substitutes can keep up with the original. Just under half of the products tested scored well overall. Three actually taste like meat.

The 15 minced meat alternatives in the test include eight chilled and seven dried products. The products from the chiller cabinet are particularly similar to real minced meat. The Vegane Mühlen mince from Rügenwalder even scored a straight A in the sensory test, has a distinct roasted note and is slightly juicy. Five trained testers described the appearance, smell, taste and mouthfeel after preparation. "In contrast, the dry products in the test are not very similar to minced meat in terms of texture and mouthfeel, among other things," says project manager Jochen Wettach. In terms of taste, they all scored only satisfactorily. However, unlike the chilled products, they are almost always free from additives and flavorings.

The nutritional value check shows that veggie mince is better for the line than animal mince. It contains fewer calories and less fat and a similar amount of protein as the original. Unlike raw meat, germs are not a major issue in veggies. Only the dry product from Greenforce was found in the analysis to have an increased number of Bacillus cereus, a spore-forming bacterium. If the prepared mince is left at room temperature for a long time, a heat-stable toxin can form, which can lead to vomiting. In the pollutant analysis, the experts found high levels of cadmium in two granulates made from sunflower seeds. Too much of this heavy metal can damage the kidneys. On the positive side, unlike in previous veggie tests, none of the products showed critical levels of mineral oil components or fat pollutants.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1184039/some-meat-alternatives-come-close-to-the-original.html