The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [61]
Today’s supermarkets and health-food stores are full of imitation meat, usually lower in fat and calories than the real thing (but often higher in salt, to make up for the savory taste of animal protein). In addition to an endless variety of burgers made from grains, nuts, or soybeans, you can find faux hot dogs that at least look right (one cleverly called a Not Dog), simulated breakfast sausage, and phony bacon complete with stripes.
Though the Archer Daniels Midland Harvest Burger is not quite as good as it looks, I managed with a little imagination to extract several satisfying meals from the product. You can apparently buy frozen preformed patties at some health-food stores, but I ordered a variety of its dry mixes direct from the company by dialing (800) 8-FLAVOR—Burger ’n Loaf (original or Italian), Chili Fixin’s, Sloppy Joe Fixin’s, and Taco Filling ’n Dip. All contain little granules of concentrated soy protein with various flavorings and lots of preservatives.
To make a Harvest Burger you empty a foil bag labeled “Burger ’n Loaf” into a bowl, add a cup and a quarter of water, wait fifteen minutes, and form the thick tan-and-gray mixture into patties (fewer patties than the label calls for if you want a mock hamburger that exceeds 3.2 ounces). I tried panfrying, microwaving, baking, and broiling. All the results resembled overdone hamburgers, edible, even tasty, but not juicy; the broiled version was best because it had a charred flavor reminiscent of grilled beef. In a hamburger bun with lots of ketchup and a pile of natural-flavor Wise potato chips washed down with a tall glass of diet Coke, the broiled Harvest Burger was good enough to eat. Harvest Burgers contain no cholesterol and very little saturated fat, but as with raw soybeans, nearly 30 percent of their calories come from fat.
All the other Archer Daniels Midland imitation-beef creations are fun to mix and eat. You add tomato sauce to the sloppy joe mix and tomato sauce and beans (canned) to the chili package; then you cook them for fifteen minutes. Despite the dried and artificial flavors evident in both products, the results were savory and quick and, because of the heavy spicing, quite like the ground-meat originals.
And then suddenly I thought, in a flash of blinding insight: Wait just one minute! Is this what I have been reduced to? What in the world am I doing, standing in my own kitchen, mixing up packets of microwavable, artificial Tex-Mex convenience food? Is this what being a strict vegetarian boils down to? And in large part, I’m afraid the answer is yes. Only as a vegan would I have been able to stomach more than 30 percent of what I have eaten over the past month. It was then that I decided to let my cholesterol test determine whether I would remain a vegetarian for another month.
I have come to the conclusion that Mother Nature never wanted us to become strict and unyielding vegetarians. There is nothing natural about it at all. Visit any vegan, and you will find his cabinet of vitamin supplements at least as well stocked as his larder. The truth is that humans were designed to be omnivores, complete with all-purpose dentition and digestive systems. Vegetarianism is not our natural diet. Anthropologists know that for most of the past million years of our evolution, humans have eaten meat, especially fish and low-fat wild game. The only source of plant protein that does not require cooking to become digestible is, I think, nuts. But cooking was invented only fifty thousand years ago, long after most of our physiology and genetic structure had evolved. I cannot think of a traditional, nonindustrial culture (we used to call them primitive cultures) that practices vegetarianism if it can help it. Vegetarianism