Did you see the Daily Mail article about the British woman who tried to fool her carnivore husband with meatless meals for a week to see if he would notice a difference?
Joanne Gould gave a day-by-day assessment of how well her meals satisfied her hubby carnivore’s cravings. I found it fascinating that only one meal (her Quorn Mince and ‘Bacon’ Lardon Spaghetti Bolognese) was found truly wanting, and that Richard thought most of the other meals were the real deal.
Joanne Gould had access to a number of Quorn products that I’ve never seen in the States, but which I’d love to try. She mentions Quorn Chef’s Selection Sausages and Quorn Mince and ‘Bacon’ Lardon, which I’ve never seen in my local markets. (Note to Quorn: please consider offering these in the US. In fact, the number and variety of offerings on your UK website is positively staggering!)
I’ve also never seen Dee’s Omega Burger or Secret Sausages (which go by the clever tag line, Vegetables in Disguise) in my Carolina grocery stores, so Joanne’s experiment opened my eyes to a whole line of products available in the UK that we can’t get in the US.
Perhaps the UK is more forward-thinking about the issue of plant-based protein, because a quick check of the Daily Mail’s archives reveal several interesting articles, as well as disturbing stats about the fact that the average Brit will eat 7000 animals in their lifetime, including 11 cows, 2400 chickens, and 30 sheep.
But before you get too smug, the US and UK are very close in terms of consumption of animal protein. According to National Geographic’s excellent article “The Carnivore’s Dilemma” in its 2014 series entitled “The Future of Food”, meat consumption measured in calories per capita per day is very similar in the US and the UK.
Since Joanne didn’t mention any products by Field Roast, Gardein, Upton’s Naturals, Beyond Meat, or LightLife (all of which I use in my recipes), it made me wonder whether those products are available in the UK. Most of them contain a lot more protein than several of the UK products I looked at, so that should be considered when looking at meat analogues or plant-based protein options.
Joanne’s efforts to fool her carnivore hubby echo what I’ve been doing for the past 7-8 years. I believe that if you take the time to think about what National Geographic calls “The Footprint of Meat”, you’ll see that the land, water, and food resources devoted to raising cattle are far beyond what we can continue to support as a planet with a rapidly growing world population.
Although many people casually dismiss the products I suggest using as “fake meat”, I think that whatever we can individually do to reduce our meat consumption makes a difference.
For those of you who are subscribers, you will soon receive my new version of Cottage Pie from Fool a Carnivore. If you would like to subscribe, please click on the button on the right for my free guide to The Good, The Bad, and the Not so Tasty, and then you will get all of my exclusive content that I don’t include on this website.
In honor of Joanne’s experiment, I chose a well-love British dish, and have changed up the recipe from Fool a Carnivore using Beyond Meat’s Beefy Crumbles as my meat analogue, adding sweet peas, and eliminating the cheese. My son Nick and I enjoyed it this evening. If you’d like to get the recipe, please subscribe to my blog.
Joanne, I hope you will consider trying my recipe. Please let me know if fools Richard.
And if you decide to fool the carnivores in your family a couple of times a week with good tasting food that is healthier for them and better for our planet, where’s the harm in a bit of well-meant deception?
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