Bellwether For The American Appetite
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Veggie burgers are better than ever.
And there’s good reason to think they’ll keep getting even better.
The New York Times just published an article that praises veggie burgers.
From the piece:
Across the country, chefs and restaurateurs have been taking on the erstwhile health-food punch line with a kind of experimental brio, using it as a noble excuse to fool around with flavor and texture and hue. As a result, veggie burgers haven’t merely become good. They have exploded into countless variations of good, and in doing so they’ve begun to look like a bellwether for the American appetite. If the growing passion for plant-based diets is here to stay, chefs — even in restaurants where you won’t find the slightest trace of spirulina — are paying attention.
“I just think it’s important to accommodate everybody,” said Josh Capon, who opened Burger & Barrel in SoHo last fall and quietly slipped a chickpea-based veggie burger onto a menu heady with pork chops, charcuterie and carpaccio. “And I don’t think somebody should feel like they’re eating an inferior burger. If you’re going to do a veggie burger, it should have that richness and mouth feel and overall texture. When you pick it up, it should eat like a burger.” […[
If there is a primary reason they are improving, it comes back to the force that drives just about anything in the marketplace: demand. According to Mintel, a market research firm, there was a 26 percent increase in menu items labeled vegetarian or vegan between the last quarter of 2008 and the same quarter in 2010.
Unfortunately, a lot of restaurant and grocery store veggie burgers contain eggs and/or dairy. Nine times out of ten, I can’t even eat the veggie burger on the menu at a typical, non-vegan-friendly restaurant.
Most veggi anything taste like crap and is way over priced!!
Soy is dirt cheap to grow but Agri-jerks make it seem like their mining diamonds!!
Mainstream meat eaters are not even going to try to switch until veggie foods come down in price and taste a lot better!!
I’ll stick to my P&J sandwiches and cereal!!