If they tasted the same and had identical textures I'd still eat the single ingredient food and if given the chance toss the fake meat in the trash where it probably should be.
Steak: Ingredients: Cow
Fake plant-based steak: Ingredients: Just use the periodic table as a dart board.
The problem is that to be called "plant-based" they don't really need a lot of plant in them, or really any actual plant, just something that originated from a plant. A lot of the plant matter in these foods is extruded from plants using other chemicals in the process. Many plant-based ingredients are also bleached so they can be re-dyed in a more visually pleasing color.
In order to make them taste anything like meat, they pump them full of chemicals like estrogen (enjoy growing man tits), erythrosine (red #3 used in industrial paint, banned in cosmetics, but not in fake meat yet), propylene glycol (used in e-cigs and antifreeze), ferric orthophosphate (used in commercial pesticides), magnesium carbonate (used in flooring), tertiary butylhydroquinone (tied to cancer), Yellow die #6 (known carcinogen, used in industrial paint), Monocalcium Phosphate (used in commercial fertilizers), methylcellulose (laxative), dipotassium phosphate (used in commercial fertilizer), potassium chloride (used in commercial fertilizer), titanium dioxide (hiding agent for white paint), hexane (a recognized neuro-toxin), lots and lots of sodium and lots of processed sugars. Even "natural flavors" only means they extracted naturally occurring chemicals for flavoring, and many naturally occurring chemicals are toxic.
A lot of the ingredients in many of the plant-based foods I see all the time on products I use at work for painting and paint stripping. Basically every single product I use at work is a carcinogen but the law requires my workplace provides me with appropriate PPE including heavy rubber gloves, full-face carbon filtered masks or a positive pressure hood with an outside air source and a polyester paint suit. I don't even want these chemicals touching my skin but people are now eating shit made almost entirely of them because "it's just like the real thing" and some people feel bad about being an omnivore.
Do I want to eat a steak, or do I want to eat a pile of shit that will likely cause cancer? After watching my Dad wither and die from it, it's a future I'm actively trying to avoid and I would like others to avoid too, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'd much rather just die a quick death from a heart attack sitting on the toilet (he died peacefully in his sleep) like people used to.
Read through some of the items on
cleanfoodfacts. The site lists ingredients for many plant-based items with descriptions of what the chemicals used actually are and other uses for them.
Obviously it's impossible to avoid a lot of these questionable ingredients as they're in almost everything in some fashion along with hormones and preservatives, but single ingredient foods will have much, much less of them. It's easy to buy single ingredient foods over processed if given the choice and even easier to find over plant-based meat substitutes. Grocers always have actual meat, actual fruits and actual vegetables. The big problem now is what people eat is now a political thing, with pressure being put on sensitive people to abandon natural foods in favor of hyper-processed substitutes. I just don't like the idea of eating the same thing I just sprayed on structural steel to protect it for 50 years, that can't be good for me.
m.jpost.com
