Plant based > Flesh based

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Chili does seem like a good vehicle for plant based protein. There's alot of non meat options that I like, but almost none are "meat replacements."
Just let it be it's own thing FFS. What's terrible as a ""burger"" might be delicious in chili.
- 100% agree. There is tons of delicious vegetarian/vegan food, but vegetarian/vegan substitutions of traditionally meat based dishes range from terrible to just okay.
  Carb replacement dishes have the same problem. Spaghetti Squash is delicious when cooked as a vegetable, but throwing Ragu on it and pretending it is pasta is just sad.
- This is a good take. You can't replace a steak with plant based, but we eat a lot of meat in things where it doesn't matter as filler. Most ground beef recipes can be replaced easily with plant based alternatives with no difference. I know I feel less bloated after eating something with soy crumbles over ground beef.

I just want to take the pepsi challenge on this, if you think your meat-free chilli tastes better PM me that recipe. I'll give it a honest (omnivore) review.
- Just replace your ground beef with imitation meat ground, the texture works so much better, while not effecting the flavor, you just dont need to drain it like the normal meat.
  
  I'd rather just use more beans than imitation meat because beans are already plenty tasty. That said, I'm not likely to make a meatless chili unless I'm having to feed someone who doesn't eat meat.

I made the best pulled pork Sandwich last weekend using Chicken-of-the-woods mushroom in place of the pork.
I shredded the mushroom, dry sauteed until the tips began to brown. I added just a splash of oil, cumin, paprika, and oregano. Once the aromatics started smelling great I put in a light amount barbecue sauce for the last couple of moments. Then onto a toasted bun with some fried onions. Delicious!
- The government doesn't want you to know this but the food in the woods is free, you can just take it home.
  
  As long as you know what you're doing lmao
  (Or not if you don't care)

I'd buy that. I've had amazing vegan and vegetarian chilis from cans, but never anything of the same quality from something with meat.

You made vegetable soup.

INB4
Look at my teeth! I am a carnivorous HUNTER! I stalk the dangerous plains of... Albertsons... with a sharp knife I ~~forged?~~ bought! at Wal-Mart so I can ~~run~~ drive home and enjoy memes. Eating meat is my natural state!
- Humans are omnivores by default and we're not even that good apparently at digesting grains or beans. Tell me more about how veganism is your natural state.
  
  veganism is your natural state.
  Oh it's not. But I feel like you are missing my point by assuming I think it is? As a concept, "natural" overrated, meaningless and not worth striving for. Both of us wear shoes, most people wear glasses and the majority of us travel by car. None of that is "natural", but if you are gonna cite that as a reason to eat meat then why not also go walk through the woods barefoot and nearsighted as well? Nothing about our modern medicine system is natural (but it makes us live longer), traveling to the moon isn't natural, heck the two of us talking over the internet isn't natural (but a net connection brings us both radically more knowledge than we would've had generations ago). Very little of our lives are so, why should this be a metric to care about?
  Say whatever you like about digesting grains, not only do you definitely still eat beans and bread. But if you want to look at the science, there is strong evidence that veganism correlated to longer life, less disease and increased overall health while meat is a known carcinogen. And this totally ignored the environmental and ethical reasons for veganism, those exist.
  But at the end of the day everyone should be way more concerned about scientific data, reason and logic than something as nebulous as living "naturally".

Nobody is asking the really important questions here. What brand or what have you of meat crumbles are you using? I've experimented with Beef! Not or whatever but mostly for a cheap bulker for ground beef

Yeah right and meatball smoothies are better than veggies ones.

If you don't use extra lean ground beef for chili, and then don't drain it well during cooking, the fat and grease will tend to separate the rest of the sauce and give it a weird oily texture. The plant based stuff doesn't have that grease so it's harder to fuck up. If prepared right the real meat still tastes better. You also have to heavily season it during cooking.
Some of the best chili I ever had was actually made using seasoned ground turkey. Because that's naturally a lean meat.
Skill issue.
- Its not about the skill lmao, I've cooked shit tons or chili, with turkey, chicken thighs, ground beef from a local farm, ground beef fresh ground at the butcher daily extea lean. Before i went veg i was close to getting a meat grinder for my kitchen aid, but i started using imitation ground cause it was on sale and it blew all the other proteins out of the water. And I decided to cut meat out for a month to challenge my self as a home cook and haven't cooked with it in almost 8 months, just because i dont miss it. and if i do plant based chorizo or a plant based ground scratches that craving. Plant based nuggies are also fire.
  
  Cooking shit tons of chili doesnt mean youre skilled at making chili
  
  I am glad it works for your tastes, however, I also still reserve the right to say that everyone's tastes are different and your tastes do not inherently make you superior (as your post seems to feel like). All Im saying is that I have yet to find a "meat replacement" that I actually prefer, and that every bad meat dish I've had has only been a result of crap preparation.
- I've seen videos but never tried myself. But if you use something large and freezing (like a big thing of ice) you can skim the top with it and the grease grabs into the ice.
  
  Mmmh, I can see it. Solidifies the grease right onto the ice. That's smart.
  I usually just pull the crumbles out and pat them into a towel to get the excess.

I'm going to eat a burger tonight and think about this post the whole time.
If animals aren't meant to be eaten then why are they made out of food?
- Animals are delicious, but so are alot of vegetarian foods too. To try new things i made Saturday vegetarian food day, and ive made some fuckin' tasty veggies. Fuck veggie burgers or shit like that, but like a pizza with a fuck ton of different vegetables is amazing.
  
  But nutritionally, meat always wins.
- you're made out of food. how would you like it if someone slaughtered you and ate you?
  i'm just fuckin' with you, I eat meat. but this brings up another topic, if we eat the rich, is it carbon neutral?
- What if I told you you can both enjoy meat alternatives and meat, that they aren't mutually exclusive?
  
  You're right, the alternatives are stupid and even dangerous. 390mg of salt in a Beyond burger, compared to about 90 in a real hamburger. And the pretend chicken is even worse.
  Come for the fake meat, stay for the hypernatremia.
- You do you, hope it tastes delicious!
- If animals aren't meant to be eaten then why are they made out of food?
  We need to replace that reasoning with something more precise, abeit less funny:
  If animals aren't meant to be eaten, then why can my body digest their meat?
  
  Your body can digest human flesh. Does that infromation make canablism acceptable?
  Just because you can doesn't mean you nessecarily mean you should.
  
  Why can your body digest new born babies and dogs? Why can your body sexually violate them? Dumb take. You dont derive ethics from what your body is physically capable of doing.

Uh oh, you activated the fragile carnivores
- If only the majority of humans weren't omnivores.

Stop putting fake meat in your food. It's expensive, farming and processing it is environmentally disastrous, and everyone insists it's just as good as or better than real meat but they're always sobbing a little bit when they say it. Either eat meat or don't.
- Is it though? If you're referring to large scale farming of soybeans - you're correct. But we use soy as a feed for animals. There would be no need to produce that amount if we were to eat it directly.
  People switching to plant based nutrition is by far better environmentaly.
  
  Remember that processing soy into textured vegetable protein costs energy and generates waste. Switching to plant based meat subs is better for the environment. Switching to plants is best.
- I think the canned meat chili already is cut with tvp to save money. and everywhere i can find suggests that plant based food is cheaper.
  
  Oh yeah, the people who call vegans "soy boys" eat soy all the time and don't know it.

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