Quick and Easy Instant Pot Breakfast Recipes

Did you find an Instant Pot under your tree this holiday? The world of pressure cooking is storming the internet, one Instant Pot recipe at a time. From slow cooking options to yogurt-making functions, this appliance is a miracle machine that is taking over kitchens across the country. But just how versatile is this magical multicooker? Most of the popular recipes for the pot include easy weeknight dinners or chicken stock in a flash, but breakfast is one of the best ways to get the most out of your Instant Pot. From hard boiled eggs to creamy maple oats, a whole new world of pressure cooking has opened up for the first meal of the day.

Instant Pot Steel Cut Oatmeal

Veggie Chick

Steel cut oatmeal is a great option for breakfast, but the cooking time can deter anyone from whipping up a batch of this nutritious grain.The Instant Pot magically cuts the cooking time into a mere six minutes, leaving more time for sleeping in! Get the recipe.

Instant Pot Hard-Boiled Eggs

Skinny Taste

Working through your Whole30 plan? Hard-boiled eggs are a staple of healthy eating and the Instant Pot allows multiple eggs to cook to perfection in just a few short minutes. Adjust the cooking time depending on how you prefer your yolks! Get the recipe.

Ham and Pepper Frittata

Two Sleevers

The multi-cooker option that is the hallmark feature of the Instant Pot allows this frittata to cook the veggies on “saute” and then cook the egg mixture perfectly for a light and fluffy frittata. Mix up the vegetables depending on what’s in your fridge. Get the recipe.

Pressure Cooker Cranberry French Toast

Pressure Cooking Today

Bread pudding meets the flavors of French toast in this pressure cooker recipe! Chunks of bread are soaked in rich custard and cooked with a sweet and tangy cranberry sauce for a contrast of flavor. Serve this decadent casserole at your next brunch party. Get the recipe.

Pressure Cooker Yogurt

Tidbits

Some Instant Pots don’t have the “yogurt” function, but for those that do: Make your own at home. Top homemade yogurt with crunchy granola and fresh fruit for a complete breakfast. Get the recipe.

Instant Pot Creamy Maple Oats

Meaningful Eats

You can make a variety of creamed breakfast grains in the Instant Pot to serve a large group. Whip up a batch of Creamy Maple Oats and set the pot to “warm” to serve guests, or stash the leftovers in the fridge and heat as the week goes on for breakfast on the fly. Get the recipe.

Instant Pot Breakfast Egg Muffins

Letty’s Kitchen

Looking for a fast and portion-controlled breakfast idea? Fill silicone treat liners (or ceramic ramekins) with beaten eggs and fresh veggies and set cups on top of the rack included with your Instant Pot. After a quick round of pressure cooking, fresh eggs are cooked to perfection directly in their serving containers! Get the recipe.

Slow Cooker Granola

Amy’s Healthy Baking

Did you know you can make most Slow Cooker recipes in an Instant Pot? The multicooker option allows this granola to slow cook to perfection, developing flavor and texture. Top Instant Pot Yogurt with this homemade cereal! Get the recipe.

Instant Pot Quinoa Breakfast Bowls

Detoxinista

Are you avoiding gluten this New Year? Substitute oats for quinoa in this protein-packed breakfast bowl. Quinoa grains are pressure cooked for premium texture, ideal for swirling your favorite almond milk or topping with fresh raspberries. Get the recipe.

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Will You Be Able to Buy Dinner with Bitcoin?

Get excited. Rather than spending $30 on overpriced hamburgers at Rainforest Cafe, you may be able to spend the equivalent amount in Bitcoin instead. That’s right, the cryptocurrency that’s confusing the internet could be making its way to the restaurant industry. At least if Tilman Fertitta has his way.

You may not know his name, but Fertitta is the billionaire mogul behind Landry’s Inc. They’re the group responsible for a bunch of your favorite chain restaurant‘s including, Morton’s Steakhouse, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., and yes, the aforementioned Rainforest Cafe, as well as many others.

In an interview with Money, Fertitta had this to say when asked about the possibility of accepting the alternative currency: “We try to always be on the cutting edge […] If I’m a betting man, I’m expecting [Bitcoin] is here to stay.”

So far Bitcoin has endured a volatile rollercoaster ride in terms of its monetary value, soaring and falling within days. As of this week, it’s worth $10,000—down 50 percent from its all-time high. Given the instability, its future as a valid form of currency has been hotly debated by economists.

Considering that Landry’s one of the largest restaurant groups around, it could be interesting if this unlikely premonition comes to fruition and how that would bode for other casual dining establishments. It’d sure look weird to see Bitcoin prices, alongside dollar signs on menus outside the digital world.

However, on the off chance Bitcoin does stick around for the long run, it’s great to know we spent it on a night out in a chain restaurant with oversized aquariums and choreographed thunderstorms that take place on an hourly basis. Take your 8-year-old there for their birthday. They will thank you. And let them pay in Beanie Babies while you’re at it. It’s probably a safer investment.

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7 Easy, Healthy Risotto Recipes

The idea that making risotto requires hours of stirring over a hot stove is a total myth, as is the notion that there are no healthy risotto recipes. This creamy rice dish is as easy as boiling pasta, and can definitely be part of a balanced meal with vegetables or salad.

It requires occasional stirring, sure—30 minutes that you can spend sipping Sangiovese, snacking on cured meats, and chatting up friends around the stove, where everyone gravitates anyway. It’s made from simple, whole ingredients and is filling, so a little goes a long way, and you’ll definitely want leftovers to use in things like arancini and risotto cakes. Once you’ve mastered the basic method, try our six delicious variations—or develop your own!

Basic Risotto

Chowhound

Squash and Saffron Risotto

Chowhound

Brussels Sprouts and Lemon Risotto

Chowhound

Radicchio Risotto

Chowhound

Herbed Risotto

Chowhound

Seafood Risotto

Chowhound

Lobster Risotto

Chowhound

For more tips, tricks, and healthy recipes, check out our healthy living page.

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Where Are the Healthy Drive-Thrus Near Me?

Fast food tastes disgusting. It’s made from Z-grade ingredients and doled out by people who are paid slave wages by companies whose very existence poses a threat to the planet. Each meal we eat at BK or McDonald’s brings us one step closer to a heart attack and produces a pile of garbage that will be shoveled into a hole in the earth. And yet we eat it anyway. But why do drive-thrus unilaterally peddle such God-awful food? Pink-slime burgers, mystery chicken; there’s nothing mysterious about making a burger and fries out of real, healthy ingredients. Where are the healthy drive-thrus?

“I can only think of four or five in the whole country,” marvels Eric Brent, who runs the mammoth online vegetarian restaurants listings site HappyCow. “That’s not a lot. Funny, isn’t it?”

Yeah, it is. And so we wondered, why?

Maybe Healthy People Don’t Eat in the Car?
Healthier fast food is a burgeoning category in the restaurant biz, with chains like Chipotle (buyers of antibiotic- and hormone-free meat) leading the way for smaller minichains like EVOS in the southeast and Better Burger in New York City, which serve sustainable/organic meat.

Evolution Fast Food

And of the healthy fast-food restaurants that do have drive-thrus, like the Pacific Northwest’s Burgerville, and Nature’s Express—which has two locations ready to serve you cheddar lentil burgers, fries, and natural soda through your car window—business is good. Mitch Wallis of Evolution Fast Food in San Diego, and Dr. Carl Myers of Nature’s Express, affirm that vast chunks of their business come from their drive-thrus. It’s a solid 40 percent for Evolution, and almost half for Nature’s Express.

That’s a lot of healthy people eating in their cars, huh? So if the market is there, where’s the chain to serve it? Could it be that something else is going on?

Maybe Healthy Foods Are Slow Foods?
It can take upward of an hour to turn “things in the refrigerator” into “things on a plate,” so maybe healthy restaurants are just too slow for drive-thrus?

This is indeed an issue, says Orean C. Thomas, the founder of Orean’s the Health Express, which has been serving vegetarian fast food to the hungry people of Pasadena, California, since 1979. Though the mechanics of preparing a burger are largely the same whether you’re using a veggie or an industrial beef patty, many whole-food dishes are indeed slow to prepare. Thus, Orean’s limits the drive-thru menu to things that can be served superquickly.

Orean’s the Health Express

“If you have a sit-down place and someone hustles your food out to you in five minutes, you feel like it’s fast, but five minutes is an eternity when you’re waiting in a car,” says Thomas. “No pizzas on the drive-thru. Only stuff that’s fast. Nothing that has to go under a heat lamp.”

With toe-tapping customers in mind, healthier fast-food joints with drive-thrus are cooking as quickly as they can. At Evolution, management aims for its food to be ready four minutes or less after ordering; Nature’s Express tries for three and a half to four minutes. It’s not quite as fast as fast food. But it’s not too slow for someone sitting in a car, either.

There’s No NIMBY Like a Fast-Food NIMBY
Plenty of people are out there eating fast food. But nobody wants a new fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru opening up in their neighborhood, because of twin demons that Ruth Stroup, who specializes in restaurant insurance at Farmers Insurance Group in Oakland, California, sums up in three words: “traffic and trash.” This is amply illustrated by the tale of the Kwik Way on Lake Park Avenue in Oakland, California. Long ago, the Kwik Way was a neon-bedecked drive-in. Later, Kwik Way was a run-down hamburger shack with a drive-thru, housed in a vintage building in Oakland’s Lake Merritt neighborhood.

And then the Kwik Way closed. And it’s been empty ever since. McDonald’s tried moving in. Fatburger tried moving in. Other restaurants tried. Heck, Myers even looked into putting a Nature’s Express in the spot. Each one was shot down. And now, in a jewel of a bustling neighborhood that holds a retro movie palace and sparkling, twinkling Lake Merritt, the Kwik Way has sat silent and dead, with plastic bags blowing through the parking lot, for years.

“Oh, no zoning board’s going to let a new fast-food drive-thru open up,” says Stroup. “The feeling is that there are too many already! The only companies that could promise enough to the surrounding communities to make it worth their while are the McDonald’s of the world. Not your mom-and-pops.”

Nature’s Express in Yuma, Arizona

So if a restaurant wants a drive-thru, by golly, they have to find one that’s shuttered. Orean’s the Health Express is in an old Pup ‘n’ Taco. Nature’s Express’s Yuma, Arizona, drive-thru? It used to be a Chinese buffet.

The difficulty in finding locations is the one thing mentioned by every restaurateur we spoke to. There’s no critical mass yet, no one big chain that can swing a 400-pound gorilla stick and sit just about anywhere he wants to.

Maybe that day is coming. Evolution’s Wallis was one of the most enthusiastic about future plans: “We are currently planning to expand and open additional units and they will all be drive-thru units unless they are located inside of a shopping mall or airport or somewhere where there are no cars at all,” he writes in an email. “Also, we are designing a ‘pollution-free’ drive-thru which will be encased by plants that will absorb the emissions coming from the vehicles.”

Wallis and his cohorts are at work securing the capital to make those plans a reality; if that comes through, he doesn’t anticipate much push-back from the neighbors. “Yes, there is resistance to new drive-thrus but not as much if you use ‘green’ technology,” he writes.

Others think the idea of healthy drive-thru chains isn’t ready for the masses: “All that traffic on the road, all those mainstream Americans who are eating their Big Macs, they don’t want to eat at Veggie Grill,” reflects T. K. Pillan, co-founder and co-CEO of the chain of five vegetarian restaurants located in (you’ll never guess!) California. “Hopefully in 10 or 15 years they will be. But not yet.”

For more tips, tricks, and healthy recipes, check out our healthy living page.

McDonald’s image source: Flickr member jcorrius under Creative Commons

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10 Healthy Boosts for That Morning Smoothie

We all know we should be eating more fruits and vegetables, but most of us are lucky if we have enough time to make toast in the morning. Here are 10 ingredients you can drop into a cheap, healthy smoothie to give your body an almost effortless boost at breakfast time.

1. FLAX SEEDS
High in omega-3 fatty acids, they’re great for heart health. They are also easily ground—adding a teaspoon to, say, Taste Love & Nourish’s Blueberry Cobbler Smoothie won’t affect flavor or texture.

2. GREEK YOGURT
Not only filled with good bacteria for your gut but also chock-full of protein, so it’ll help keep you satisfied all morning long. Try it in The Road to Less Cake’s Cherry Bakewell Protein Smoothie.

3. BERRIES
Adding a punch of antioxidants and vitamin C from fresh berries to your breakfast smoothie is sure to give your immune system a boost. Start your day right with Kenko Kitchen’s Metabolism Boosting Berry Smoothie.

4. BANANA
The flavor of a banana can mask the non-breakfast-y flavor of grassy or vegetal smoothie additives like spinach and avocado, and banana carbs can yield a filling liquid meal. Check it out in Simple Healthy Kitchen’s “Stress Buster” Orange Smoothie.

5. HONEY
Sweeten naturally with honey instead of refined sugar—it’s better for you and you won’t feel that sugar crash halfway through the morning. Peanut Butter & Peppers’ Raspberry Orange Smoothie is a great four-ingredient breakfast that highlights this natural sweetener.

6. GINGER
Adding a thumbnail-size piece of fresh ginger is the perfect immune booster when you feel a cold coming on. Try it in My New Roots’ Tropical Groove Smoothies.

7. AVOCADO
Full of healthy, heart-promoting omega-3 fatty acids, avocado blends perfectly into the Mint Chocolate Green Smoothie from Food Faith Fitness.

8. LEAFY GREENS
Try adding a handful of spinach or kale to a smoothie for a boost of iron. Fresh fruit can mask the flavor, and you’ll reap the benefits of vegetables without having to face a plateful. The Green Drink from The First Mess is a good place to start.

9. APPLE
There’s a reason the adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” has stuck around for so long. Apples have been linked to prevention against numerous diseases. Try one in Pinch of Yum’s Holiday Detox Green Apple Smoothie.

10. CHIA SEEDS
They’re for more than making a childhood pet grow! Chia seeds are packed with fiber and protein so they help you feel full. Load up in Wallflower Girl’s Cranberry Spice Smoothie.

For more tips, tricks, and healthy recipes, check out our healthy living page.

Photo credits (top to bottom): Taste Love & Nourish; The Road to Less Cake; Kenko Kitchen; Simple Healthy Kitchen; Peanut Butter & Peppers; My New Roots; Food Faith Fitness; The First Mess; Pinch of Yum; Wallflower Girl

Shelly Westerhausen is the founder of Vegetarian Ventures, a food blog that focuses on planet-based recipes and healthy eating habits. In her free time, you can find her rocking a wolf T-shirt, sipping on hibiscus tea, and working on her magazine, Driftless.

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Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie

Get Recipe!

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It’s Time to Tailgate with This Super Bowl Chili from Chef Michael Mina

In our epicurean fantasy football league, we’re tailgating from a parking-lot corral of Escalades and Land Rovers, with Fred Flintstone ribs coming off a massive wagon smoker. In reality, we’re popping the back of our 5-year-old Chevy Aveo and heating chili on a propane burner. Not that there’s any shame in that: Good chili makes most things okay, even a January wind chill. “It’s one of those dishes that warms you from the inside out,” says Michael Mina, the San Francisco chef with a national league of restaurants, stretching from Miami to Seattle.

Mina is a serious San Francisco 49ers fan who’s logged over two decades of tailgates at Candlestick Park, the team’s recently retired home field. When the 49ers’ new Levi’s Stadium opens later this year in Silicon Valley, Mina will also launch a Bourbon Steak & Pub offshoot that’ll transform, on home-game days, into Michael Mina’s Tailgate. Season-ticket holders and suite owners will take in a scaled-up version of the chef’s Candlestick tailgates, including the appearance by a guest chef from the opposing team’s city, who’ll cook a dish from home.

The chili Mina’s team cooked for our own subcompact tailgate is a recipe from The Handle Bar, a stepped-up pub in the Four Seasons Hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s made with elk, though you can substitute beef chuck (full recipe for Michael Mina’s Rocky Mountain Chili here), and garnished with cheddar, sour cream, and Fritos (yeah, actual Fritos). It’s a chili with character, that doesn’t take itself too seriously. That should make it just about perfect for tempering Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey, a game so serious that Mina—who watched the Seattle Seahawks defeat his 49ers earlier this month in the NFC Championship—will not be tuning in.

At least he has chili and Fritos to warm himself with. And now, so do you.

Get the recipe for Michael Mina’s Rocky Mountain Chili. And browse Chowhound’s gallery of 11 different chili recipes. Stay warm and fired up, football fans.

For more tips, tricks, and recipes, check out our Super Bowl page. 

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How to Throw a Beautiful Valentine’s Day Party

Erin Gleeson is fanciful yet downright realistic when it comes to hosting a dinner or cocktail party for friends. For instance, Valentine’s Day: If you’re inviting friends over for eats and drinks, keep it basic, she says. This lovey-dovey holiday is on a Wednesday, after all. You’ll probably be rushing home from work that day and off to work the next morning.

“For weeknight dinners, don’t feel like you have to make everything from scratch; get prepared or catered foods from somewhere like Whole Foods — roasted vegetables, a salad, grains — and then make one thing, and have that be special,” says Gleeson, a food photographer, New York Times-best-selling cookbook author, and a home-cook who loves to entertain with her husband.

“Maybe just a cocktail party is easier,” Gleeson says. “Have finger foods, and people can come for an hour and go.” Gleeson is sensitive to the practical needs we all have as guests and as hosts, especially in the middle of a workweek.

Published last September, The Forest Feast Gatherings is Gleeson’s third cookbook. It’s an entertaining-focused book with menus for different occasions, accented by quick decorating ideas for flower arrangements, signage, and table settings.

But first, the food.

There are so many appetizing ruby-hued foods, it would be a shame to avoid the color just because it’s a Valentine’s Day cliché. If you’re doing a dinner, you could buy a Trader Joe’s blended soup in a box, like tomato or butternut squash, “and make it special with toppings like Greek yogurt and red pepper, or popcorn on top of the soup is kinda fun. Or scallions if you want some green,” Gleeson says. “Have all those toppings made ahead, the day before, and put into little bowls.” A reddish main course could be spaghetti squash you bake the day before, with store-bought marinara sauce on top and meatballs or vegetarian meatballs.

Another appetizer? “I’m a big fan of hummus deviled eggs with halved cherry tomatoes on top,” she says.

A full Valentine’s Day Party dinner menu  (on a weeknight) menu could look like this, using recipes from her latest book:

• Cocktail: Rosé spritzer, page 152
• Appetizer: Block of cheese and some fruit, page 207
• Side Dish: Kale salad with pomegranate seeds, page 138
• Entrée: (Make-ahead) lasagna, page 142
• Dessert: Strawberry balsamic sundaes, page 34.

For a cocktail party, she suggests:

Finger Foods:

• Radish butter crostini, page 26
• Apple and cheddar with honey and pepper, page 47
• Hummus tomato deviled eggs, page 72
• Strawberry kebabs, page 75
• Endive bar, page 156

Cocktails:

• Pomegranate punch, page 135
• Rosé spritzer, page 152

Desserts:

• Strawberry balsamic sundaes, page 34
• Spicy chocolate almonds, page 162

No plan to buy the book? No worries. You can still glean some cooking and entertaining tips from Gleeson.

The No. 1 rule: “I always have music, candles, and a bottle of wine on the table and I try to those have those set out before guests arrive — even before I blow-dry my hair,” Gleeson says.

For music, she streams from Amazon Prime, choosing something mid-tempo with no lyrics, such as flamenco guitar or old jazz. She always creates a signature cocktail, and it could be as simple as Prosecco with pomegranate seeds for a pop of magenta, or a mimosa using blood-oranges. Always also have wine, beer, and something nonalcoholic on hand, such as seltzer or juice.

The Forest Feast

For décor, start with a centerpiece on the the dining table using a platter filled with citrus dotted with flowers and a couple short candles. On a buffet table, try citrus sliced with a centimeter sliced off, open side up. Pierce the cut stems of red or pink carnations into the wet flesh of the fruit. You might want to slice a sliver off the bottom too so it doesn’t wobble or roll. Carnations aren’t the prettiest flowers, but they’ll last for hours outside of water. You can string garland over the bar area, just three or four feet, using pastry twine. Thread cranberries and short-stemmed flowers with a needle.

The Forest Feast

Also on the buffet or hors d’oeuvres table: Use a few stacks of cookbooks on the table to give dishes different heights. “Something to give your table some dimensions; it makes the whole table look not so flat, and it elevates some special dishes,” Gleeson says.

You can make clementines into display pieces for place cards or buffet signs. Fold over a notecard, write on one side, tape it onto a short kebab stick and push it into the clementine or inverted lemon, lime, or orange half.

Try these three recipes, which Gleeson let us borrow from her new book:

Crispy Kale with Paprika + Truffle Salt

Chowhound

This is a great side dish for entertaining because it doesn’t contain a lot of ingredients and it isn’t complicated, yet it will still stun with the crispy, slightly charred texture and flavors of bitter green, smoky paprika, and umami truffle. You can add some heat to it too, if you want, with cayenne or dried red pepper flakes. Get the Crispy Kale with Paprika and Truffle Salt recipe.

Polenta Pizzas

Chowhound

You don’t have to do everything from scratch, Gleeson says, and here’s an example. Buy those pre-made polenta tubes and a jar of marinated, dried red peppers. It’s OK. Combined with walnuts and caramelized red onions, these appetizers (or main dish) will be so delicious, no one will know or care. Get the Polenta Pizzas recipe.

Blistered Shishitos

Chowhound

Sometimes you don’t want to do a lot to a food besides toss on a little pepper to draw out the inherent flavor. Shishitos are one of those times. It’s a great nibble when you have a gathering with tapas or finger food. Get the Blistered Shishitos recipe.

— Head photo: The Forest Feast.

For more tips, tricks, and recipes, check out our Valentine’s Day page. 

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Beyond the Impossible: Can Meatless Burgers Satisfy Your Shame?

 The spicy aroma wafts through the air. A platter of glistening buffalo wings beckons me closer. Just one smell won’t hurt. I can’t resist the urge and pick one off of the tray. I stuff it in my mouth and pluck the bone clean with my teeth.  In one delicious bite, nearly a decade of vegetarianism goes down the drain.

And then I wake up. My heart’s racing and I’m covered in sweat. Just the victim of another meat dream. As I become more alert, the guilt subsides. I didn’t forsake some long-held personal ethos for a chicken wing. Okay, well technically I did, but it was literally all in my head. I shouldn’t feel bad about giving up a nine-year meatless streak in the name of a subconscious midnight snack.

And yet the shame remains. Not just because of a nightmare I had, but because I am a liar. I’m not really a vegetarian. I’m a pescatarian. And a pesky one at that. I limit my fish intake to once a month at most, usually in the name of a special occasion or if I’m somewhere with free shrimp cocktail. Often I opt for calamari (because the “Little Mermaid” taught me squid and their ilk are evil). I never eat lobster because I read that David Foster Wallace essay once and I was shook.

I write this not to justify my inexplicable preferences or absolve myself of animal-eating guilt, but in an attempt to engage with a newfound tolerance and acceptance toward flexitarianism. Our diets, much like sexuality or a rainbow, can be considered a spectrum. And spectrums are beautiful. Sure, militant vegans and hardcore carnivores will always exist, but our habits (as well as our identities) are no longer boxed in by these binaries. Gradients of meatless-ness are now the norm. And that should be celebrated.

Most people know the spiel. Whether it’s for health benefits, environmental reasons, compassion towards adorable baby animals, or a severe hatred of plants (EFF YOU, BROCCOLI!), there are a lot of good reasons to not eat meat. This knowledge has never been more widely available. With a click of a mouse you can discover the horrors of industrial farming, and over the course of a Tweet you can learn about the rampant food waste that results from it.

What we choose to do with this information as consumers, however, varies wildly. For some it means zero meat or animal products. For others it means practicing Meatless Mondays, while not forgoing the bacon completely. Or maybe it means only eating “ethically sourced” meat, whatever that nebulous term may mean.

While their impact may vary, all of these steps are valid and good. None are worthy of shame and derision, especially if you’re the one shaming yourself.

But where does all this guilt and existential despair leave you when you’re hungry?

Those looking for a shame-free meal have more meatless options then ever. But what’s weird about some of these options is that they actually taste like meat. And not in that sad black bean patty camouflaged in a bun way.

Beyond Meat

High-tech products like the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger actively aspire to be as lifelike (uhh dead-like?) in taste, texture, and appearance as possible. Using advances in plant protein far exceed my level of scientific understanding (don’t ask how I managed to pass AP Bio, okay?) these fleshy patties even bleed when you cut them!

At first these products were culinary novelties, a laboratory curiosity available at only select dining establishments. And yet somehow, they crept into Whole Foods freezers and TGI Friday menus. By 2018, they’ve gained a life outside of the lab and entered the mainstream.

Sure these burgers are gimmicky and overpriced, but their very existence represents a bigger paradox. Who are these dinner party parlor tricks even for?

Historically, veggie burgers were never supposed to mimic their beefy brethren. In fact it’s well-documented that Gregory Sams, the inventor of the first commercially available veggie burger, had actually never eaten a hamburger (he was raised vegetarian from the age of 10). Since the 80s, taste has almost always been secondary to mere existence, as vegetarians have had to search far and wide for widely available and nationally sold meal options.

Soy-based products like Boca burgers reigned supreme for decades as a faithful standby. But now that bleeding faux meat is a weirdly viable option, are vege/flexitarians buying them?  Do people avoiding animal slaughter really want to see pinky flesh when they bite into their latest meal?

Even if its derived from peas and potatoes, its raw appearance is still an unnerving sight to be confronted with. At least that’s how I felt the first time I tried a Beyond Burger. For a couple of moments I almost believed something died for the sake of my appetite (which is probably the highest compliment I could pay it).

The slight psychological distress I encountered soon dissipated within a few bites. I couldn’t tell you how closely the flavor mimicked a hamburger since, much like Gregory Sams’ experience, it’s been over a decade since I’ve had one. However, I could tell you that it tasted hearty and savory in all its char-broiled glory. It was also a salt bomb of epic proportions. The average Beyond Burger has five times as much sodium as a beef burger. I required an ocean of Diet Coke to wash it down. But somewhere between the salt grains was the taste of almost-animal death. And that was nearly enough for me.

It might not have been the buffalo wings of my dreams, but it did satisfy my meat craving in an oddly specific, if not complete way. I no longer felt the urge to eat something that had been killed just for me. But I still wanted something more alive.

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