By Michael J. Coren and Becky Krystal
The Washington Post
Savory, crispy, crunchy, fatty, smoky, salty.
Bacon embodies the pinnacle of meaty perfection for millions of people. It’s both highbrow and down-home: a star at fancy brunch spots and a staple on 68 percent of fast-food restaurants’ menus. Its aroma can recall childhood Sunday mornings, and enhance everything from salad to scallops.
Yet bacon is, shall we say, not the best for you — or the planet.
The World Health Organization classifies it, along with other processed meats, as a carcinogen. Most pork is produced in factorylike livestock farms generating roughly 15 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, and many of the farms have been known to subject pigs to extreme confinement and overcrowded conditions.
A pork-free version of bacon could change the game, unlocking methods to make all plant-based meats rival the real thing and put a much bigger dent in emissions. Ethan Brown, chief executive of Beyond Meat, which has pursued a plant-based version for years, has called it a “holy grail” for the company.
But few things are harder to replicate than a rasher of bacon.
Flavor is the easy part. It’s the anatomy of protein and marbled juicy, crispy fat that melts in your mouth that’s hard. It has been an experience nearly impossible to replicate with plants.
So we dug into a crucial question: Does today’s plant-based bacon stack up against the real thing?
Our taste test compared eight common varieties of plant-based bacon on supermarket shelves and one we made ourselves against the original. We sandwiched them in a classic BLT with slices of toasted sourdough bread, fresh beefsteak tomatoes and iceberg lettuce with a schmear of mayo.
Colleagues rated the samples from 1 to 10 based on taste, texture and their idea of the exemplar BLT, as much about memories as a sensory experience.
Here’s how they fared.
Mushroom-based bacon
We tested two brands made out of mushroom. These bacons weren’t trying hard to hide their fungi identity. Each listed mushroom — or mycelium, mushroom’s fine white filaments — as the first ingredient, with seasoning such as oil (olive or coconut), salt and sugar.
Some reviewers gave them middling ratings “Tastes like a salty mushroom,” or dismissed them altogether saying “it tastes nothing like bacon.”
But others thought they shone on their own: “It doesn’t taste like bacon but I would eat that nice mushroom texture,” one person described MyBacon. Another added “I like the flavor” of Schroomacon (a Shark Tank winner).
While worthy contenders, none came close to pork.
Scores
Shroomacon: 4
Soy-based bacon
We tested three brands made out of soy, including two made out of tempeh, a popular vegetarian protein made from a fermented mix of soybeans or other grains.
Tempeh, recast as pork, found few friends. “The texture is just completely wrong” said one taster of Tofurky’s product. Others described a “horrible super artificial smokiness” and declared “what little flavor is there is bad.”
LightLife’s entrant fared slightly better: “This isn’t bad, but doesn’t taste like bacon.” Another review was less kind: “It should be illegal to call this bacon.”
All was not lost for soy. MorningStar’s bacon shone bright, garnering the highest ranking besides pork bacon. While the ingredient list is long and not fully vegan — with water, soybean oil, modified cornstarch, egg whites, soy flour, wheat gluten leading off — the final result was an appetizing, crunchy piece of “bacon” that passed the childhood test for many.
“It tastes and feels like bacon,” wrote one taster. Two others said it was “reminiscent of the real thing” and “reminds me of childhood BLTs, a high crave factor.”
Scores
MorningStar Farms Veggie Bacon Strips: 7
LightLife Smoky Tempeh Strips: 4
Tofurky Smoky Maple Bacon Marinated Tempeh Strips: 2
Grain-based bacon (wheat, rice and others)
Wheat gluten, the protein that gives bread its structure and elasticity, has been a popular protein substitute for centuries in Asia. Yet it didn’t impress as a stand-in for bacon. LightLife’s version, mostly a mix of wheat gluten and soy protein, elicited harsh criticisms inviting comparisons to “dog treats” and something “fishy.”
Yves bacon, which shares the same ingredients, fared even worse: “It tastes like taking a bite out of those old-school pink erasers,” one taster wrote. “Terrible like baloney,” wrote another. “Gives fake meat a bad name.”
Rice paper bacon, which we prepared with a mix of tamari and savory spices, did slightly better. It earned higher marks for flavor, but ultimately lacked the fatty richness of real bacon.
Scores
Washington Post rice paper bacon: 4.2
Uptons Naturals Bacon Seitan: 3.1
Here are the full ratings of our test, from high to low:
Neiman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon (pork): 10MorningStar Farms Veggie Bacon Strips: 7MyForest Food’s MyBacon: 5The Washington Post rice paper bacon: 4.2LightLife Smart Bacon: 4.2LightLife Smoky Tempeh Strips: 4Shroomacon: 4Uptons Naturals Bacon Seitan: 3.1Yves Veggie Bacon Strips: 2.2Tofurky Smoky Maple Bacon Marinated Tempeh Strips: 2
The winner
Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon (pork), the only pork bacon we tested, earned close to a perfect score. Every single person correctly identified this as real bacon, raving about its “very high crave factor,” “spot-on” texture and generally “yummy yummy” taste.
It’s easy to see why: Placing a thin slice of pork into the forge of a hot frying pan transforms it into something new and delicious. Heat recombines bacon’s proteins, sugars and fats to create an estimated 150 compounds, aldehydes, ketones and more, producing rich, umami satisfaction and heady aromas.
Scientists have cooked up the flavor of bacon for years. What’s proved fiendishly difficult is creating the experience of that savory, crispy, crunchy, fatty, smoky, salty bite, says Marie Wright, the chief global flavorist at Archer Daniels Midland, a worldwide food and agriculture company.
The secret to bacon’s greatness, she argues, is the fat. Replicating how fat marbles and sticks to muscle protein at room temperature, and then melts in your mouth is the key to re-creating the real thing. It’s very, very hard, involving a chain of reactions we don’t yet fully understand.
“The fattiness is pretty unique,” Wright said. “It’s crispy but still juicy. Texture is the big challenge for all meats.”
But, Wright says, food scientists are now very close to the real thing. Her company’s plant version, only available in South America for now, is nearly there, she said.
Although bacon will never be a health food, plant-based meats could, theoretically, deliver the same indulgent deliciousness while cutting cholesterol, carcinogens and cost. And that could unleash a plant-based meat market for the millions of people not looking to become vegetarians, but interested in cutting back on meat.
“If we get to a place where plant-based meat is just as tasty and affordable and accessible as animal meat, it will catch on,” says Nikhita Kogar of the Good Food Institute. “I think we’ll get there.”
But for now, plant-based meat remains more expensive than traditional meat and the taste — as our testers confirmed, is not quite there.
About the test: We sought out the leading plant-based bacons. No clear winners existed: The fragmented $31 million plant-based bacon market has dozens and dozens of competitors, each pursuing wildly different strategies. We ultimately selected eight products most available in grocery stores today and made one ourselves.
Originally Published: