Beyond Meat, a plant-derived meat substitute known for its uncannily realistic flavor, is now available at Whole Foods, Sprouts and Publix stores.
The company offers chicken and beef substitutes that CEO Ethan Brown calls meat, Yahoo Tech reported.
"It's meat made out of plants," Brown described. "We have taken the constituent parts of meat proteins and sourced them from the plant kingdom--proteins, water, lipids, trace minerals, carbohydrates--and recreated animal meat."
The products, which have no trans fats, saturated fats or cholesterol, have received rather disbelieving praise from Slate and The New York Times, which both described the so-called meat as shockingly delicious.
"My first reaction was, if I was given this in a restaurant, I'd get the waiter to come over and ask if he'd accidentally given us real chicken," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, who is a Beyond Meat investor and a longtime vegan, told Slate in summer 2012. "This has a very realistic, meaty, delicious quality."
Beyond Meat's researchers have been working for 15 years on the company's system, which takes proteins, lipids, water from vegetables and puts them through a process that realigns the proteins until they resemble meat, Yahoo Tech reported.
"Everything tastes right," Yahoo Tech's Becky Worley wrote after a taste test. "Even more importantly, everything feels right, too. In these first few bites, I realize the texture of Beyond Meat chicken is, well, just like chicken."
Beyond Meat, which has a five-product lineup of chicken- and beef-like options, is scheduled to come to Safeway in May and Target in September.
According to the website, the Beyond Meat mission is "improving human health, positively impacting climate change, conserving natural resources and respecting animal welfare."
The company's goal is to reduce meat consumption while giving customers delicious options, and Brown believes the flavor will only improve.
"This is Beyond Meat 2.0. We can't wait to bring 3.0 and 4.0 to market, and that's what we're aiming for-indistinguishable chicken taste," he told Yahoo Tech.
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