Have been almost completly vegetarian for the last 4 and a half years and was pretty much a carnivore before that, so I feel this is as unbiased of an opinion as is possible.
The Beyond, Gardien, Impossible, etc fake chicken have more flavor, nearly indistinguishable texture, are just as juicy, and aren’t greasy. At this point, I consider them better than regular chicken with the sole exception of fried chicken which was never my favorite but I can see the appeal of it.
I’ll concede that the beef substitutes have a ways to go (I like them and they’re not bad but they’re not fooling anyone, either) but they’re not the subject of this opinion.
My brother in owning tastebuds… On all cooking shows/challenges/etc, they always do side by side comparisons - which is the best tomato sauce? Blindfolds, side by side comparisons… You know why? Because NO ONE would be able to compare a sauce from today to a sauce from when we filmed last week, much less FOUR YEARS AGO.
This is a pet peeve of mine as my irl community is filled with vegans/vegetarians and I hear shit like this ALL THE TIME.
“No trust me it tastes exactly like XXXX”
“When’s the last time you had XXXX?”
“Highscool”
long sigh
Yeah, not to rag on vegans or vegetarians, but their palates are fucked from not eating certain foods for years. We’ve had friends take us out to “the best places in town” and they were raving while eating and it was bland garbage, my wife and I could barely stomach it. When you eat tasteless food for years your body tricks you into thinking that it has the same flavor because you wouldn’t want to live otherwise.
Like, my MiL thinks that salt makes food taste bad. SALT. She hardly uses any in her cooking and only does because we complain that she doesn’t use salt.
No salt (unless for health reasons) is some crazy fucking work lol