Beyond Meat: Beef-Free Crumbles

I'm sure a lot of you saw Beyond Meat on NBC's Today's Show last Friday - Here's the link to it if you haven't: ‘Meatless’ meat: Is it the future?. Beyond Meat is a California-based company whose mission is "to create mass-market solutions that perfectly replace animal protein with plant protein." With meat prices going up and the sustainability of certain meats in question, Beyond Meat has received backing from people like Bill Gates and the founders of Twitter and was named by Fast Company, a magazine on business and innovation, as the World’s Most Innovative Company in Food for 2014.

Ok, well, enough with the company bio. What struck me as interesting about the company was that the founders seemed to really take a big interest in making sure that their "meat" tasted like meat. I mean, any company can make a plant-based meat substitute, but people can always tell. On the Today's Show, it seemed like several of the hosts couldn't tell the plant-based meat from actual meat, and that was very impressive. I knew I had to track down the nearest Beyond Meat carrying store and get me some!

So I actually went to several supermarkets carrying Beyond Meat, and for both, I only saw the Beef-Free Crumble. I really wanted to try the grilled chicken pieces because that would be mighty impressive if they got the texture right on that. However, none was to be found, and I opted for Beef-Free Crumble "Fiesty."

Beef-Free Crumble Fiesty

I really just heated it up over the stove as the product was already cooked. The seasoning was already in the "beef" and I used it in tacos like I normally would. What I found really convenient was that it came in a re-sealable pouch, which is perfect for maybe students or people who can't finish the whole bag all at once. I think it would be a nice option to even keep at the office refrigerator and use a little bit of it each day for lunch.

How did it taste, you ask? Great. I definitely couldn't tell that it wasn't meat if you didn't tell me. Now I know that it's a bit easier to impersonate meat when it's seasoned and in ground form, but I still thought it did a nice job. The beef crumbles didn't taste dry like some of the soy proteins I've had in the past. I really can't wait until I can get my hands on some of the chicken strips and I'll definitely give my review on those!