You're talking mostly about the aesthetic part of fake meat, but there is another huge advantage over existing products which is health/environmental. Current vegan/vegetarian incarnations of fake meat (Boca, Morningstar etc.) are typically actually not that healthy in terms of protein/amino acid content and sort of end up being eating a cake made of grains.
The ability to create, cheaply, a high protein, high calorie, amino acid packed product, regardless of whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing, could have massive impacts on our ability to support the human population of this planet, in a way that existing meat and vegetarian solutions do not.
> Current vegan/vegetarian incarnations of fake meat (Boca, Morningstar etc.) are typically actually not that healthy in terms of protein/amino acid content and sort of end up being eating a cake made of grains.
This is why I've stopped trying to find a meat substitute, they all fail in some way or another (they either don't taste right, don't have the right texture, or are far worse nutritionally than what they try to replace). I'm not a vegitarian, but I've found I prefer the Morningstar Spicy Black Bean Burger to a traditional beef patty - I like spicy foods and it has a nice texture I enjoy without feeling the need to compare it to beef. Also, the first ingredient is just plain black beans, there's some brown rice in to help as a binder but overall it has a fairly low amount of carbohydrates compared to other similar products (13g total, 4g of that is fiber).
Right, which is why I'm more excited by "fake" meat vs meat alternatives. There are some trying to recreate literal meat (chemically indistinguishable) but without the animal. If you consider the stomach of a cow to simply be "input grass, output beef" it's obviously a vast oversimplification, but is sort of what is being aimed for, and where I see most of the potential in this market. Numbers I've seen have been close to 1/9 the caloric cost to create a calorie of "fake" meat as opposed to real meat (3:1 as opposed to 27:1).
When it comes to Morningstar's black bean burger, we agree it's not an adequate alternative in terms of taste, but I'd argue it's also not an adequate replacement in terms of health. I mentioned most existing meat alternatives do not provide enough protein. Black beans are generally fine and normally thought of as high protein, but they actually aren't a great source protein since they do not have complete amino acid profiles.
This was how I managed to find carob edible. I used to think "this is a chocolate substitute" when eating it, and it was awful and never measured up. But when you eat it on it's own merits and aren't "comparison-tasting", it's tolerable.
The ability to create, cheaply, a high protein, high calorie, amino acid packed product, regardless of whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing, could have massive impacts on our ability to support the human population of this planet, in a way that existing meat and vegetarian solutions do not.