High Adventures in the Great Outdoors
Vegetarians Do It Better
Animal rights and vegetarianism have been the subject of both underground and mainstream movies for the past five decades, the origin of which is fabled to go back to Lennon’s Bungalow Bill from the White Album.
Specifically within the confines of scenes like hardcore and straight edge, ditties advocating vegetarian- and veganism are manifold with themes ranging from speciesism (e.g. Gorilla Biscuits’ “Cats and Dogs”), ethics of eating seafood (NOFX’s “Clams have feelings too”), vegetarianism (Cro Mags’ “Death camps”), hypocrisy of ethical meat eating (Propagandhi “Human(e) meat”) and ant-bullfighting (Ataque 77’s “San fermin”).
The movement has grown to a stage where whole festivals are under the banner of veganism, e.g. Fluff Fest in the Czech Republic, and while I often found some tasty fare at such event, it is often hit and miss and overpriced.
Given the fact that animal agriculture is one of the main factors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of land, opting for a vegetarian diet has more than enough reasons going for it and I am always ecstatic when I find something that is not merely meant to resemble meat but tastes delicious as well.
Enter v2food, whose “plant to plate” mission is to design meat alternatives in that their products contain the same hit of protein, iron, zinc, phosphorus and vitamins B12, B3 and B6 as beef mince plus a healthy dose of dietary fibre without any cholesterol.
Having started in Australia, v2food is looking to scale its production and given that they have already established a relationship with Burger King New Zealand, and other burger chains down under it should not be too long until their delicious signature v2mince and v2burger patties will be available in the new world as well.
What makes v2food plant alternative burgers special is not only that they are affordable but the fact that they have expertly calibrated their patties to not just look but taste juicy and feel the part terms of texture without relying on the involvement of chickpeas.
With the ultimate aim the make their operations sustainable and have them result in a carbon negative footprint, it is something to get behind – the fact that their v2mince delivers not only on the flavour front but was fantastic as e.g. filling for dumplings for the recent Lunar New Year celebrations or pasta sauce, does not hurt either.
