One for the Vegetarians...

Ever since I watched part of Food Inc. I've been increasingly interested in eating less meat or hopefully meat that is prepared with some humanity. I don't think that I could ever give up meat entirely because I just need a burger every now and then, but my dad is a vegetarian so a lot of times we have meatless meals in my house. Over the years my family has tried quite a number of "fake meat products" and although we've run into a few not so hot ones, there are actually a great number of imitation meats out there.

I pretty much exclusively eat veggie hot dogs because hot dogs kind of creep me out on principle. I don't really have a problem with taste but somehow their legend of horror got to me and I can only remember eating two real ones over the last ten or so years. I've encountered some purple bouncy fake meat hotdogs in my time but the brand we buy exclusively is Tofu Pups. I won't say they taste like a hot dog is supposed to (whatever that is exactly) but I've gotten used to the taste of them smothered in mustard and I like them a lot. As far as burgers go, Boca burger is really the only way to go if you wan't an experience that is anything like meat.

My family is also pretty into our fake breakfast meats like bacon and sausage. I'm a lot happier eating fake sausage than real sausage ( again something about the ground up bits of meat just creeps me out), but I find real bacon hard to resist. It's really the only pig product I will eat without serious coercion. My college roomates were entertained by my my Morningstar Farms Facon. J said the taste was alright but she didn't understand why it was attempting to look like real bacon in color. S also said it tasted alright after being coerced into eating some by my parents, but he didn't particularly seem thrilled by it. I think it has a pretty smokey taste and isn't too bad a substitute for bacon, although nothing will ever replace real bacon.
I decided to branch out into new types of fake meats last week by purchasing Smart Deli "Bologna" by Lite Life. I have to say I was pretty impressed. The serving size said it was 4 slices but I found each to be rather thick and have lots of flavor so I only used two and it really had the right taste to it! New awesome food found!

And lastly, my dad bought Lite Life's Italian style sausages, which surprised me by being incredible. They don't even need anything on them or with them to taste authentic. All the right spicing is there and all the flavors. I cooked them up with some onions and peppers the other day to make Italian Sausage and peppers on a sub/ grinder/ hoagie. ( Side note... the name for such a sandwich will have to be another blog post for another day because there is much debate between North and South Jersey as well as the rest of the country). Certainly going to keep these around.