I have celiac disease and a corn allergy and a relative who wanted to try to pass off impossible burger as ground beef to prove how good meat alternatives are.
I donât care about âgmoâ and I dont care about the fact that itâs âtextured proteinâ I care about âcornâ and âwheatâ and I care that people without food allergies rarely know how inescapable some of those allergens are.
âOh, I checked the ingredients, it doesnât have cornâ
Okay but does it have maltodextrin, modified food starch, xanthan gum, caramel coloring, dextrose, or glucose syrup?
If it does have any of those things do they specifically say âfrom potatoes,â âfrom tapioca,â âfrom cane sugarâ or âfrom riceâ?
If it didnât did you check the manufacturerâs website? If that didnât say did you call the manufacturer?
Sometimes Iâll use almond or coconut flour as a replacement for wheat flour when Iâm cooking. I do not try to pretend that my alternate flour chocolate chip cookies are wheat flour chocolate chip cookies because most people donât expect to run into coconut or almond when they pick up a chocolate chip cookie. I donât try to hand them to people, wait for them to eat a cookie, and say âhah, bet you didnât think gluten free cookies could taste good, huh?â because if I did that to someone with a severe allergy it could kill them, but also because people should have a say in what theyâre eating.
Iâve got no problem with beyond beef or impossible burger describing their products as meat alternatives, Iâve got no problem with GMOs or the fact that quorn is made out of a heavily engineered protein. Thatâs all very neat, actually.
But I do have a problem with people trying to sneakily serve meat alternatives without considering that doing so is shitty for a number of reasons.