Thanks, Taomist and aruvqan, but I knew all that already: I have some vegetarian relatives and have had TVP in dishes made by them, and found that (in the right dishes, at least) it works just fine. I’m just wondering about the price, since ground beef (which also works just fine, for my purposes) can be had for 2 or 3 dollars per pound.
It’s been a long time since I bought TVP, but c. 2001 it was about a 1/lbs, dry. WAG: .30/lbs, hydrated?
Just googling around a little bit it looks like around $8-10/lb. That’s not very helpful though, as that’s dry weight and doesn’t say how many servings that would be.
Here’s some Beefish Bits, 3.5 lbs for $27.95.
Oh, that website answers my question in their Q&A section:
Do most other dopers share this experience? I have found McDonald’s to be just about the most consistent food, with the burgers tasting just like they did when I was a kid, and I am 46 now. Wendy’s and BK seem the same as they did back then too. I actually like the taste of taco bell too (ok, something’s wrong with me!), and the chemicals were the only listed item from above that scared me at all.
Most fast food places have changed a little bit over the past 40 years, but I have found that McDonald’s has stayed relatively consistent.
I love Taco Bell. However, it’s food quality has plummeted over the years. The ground beef, the cheese, the refried beans have significantly deteriorated in flavor and consistency. But the most significantly noticeable change in quality at Taco Bell has been the tortillas. Over the years, they have become very stretchy and doughy. They were never like that before.
Much cheaper. Around here, even in the expensive hippie stores, it’s about $2-3 for a pound, dry. I’m not entirely sure how much that reconstitutes to…about 3.5 pounds, I’d guess. I generally use about a cup of TVP in place of a pound of ground beef or diced chicken, and depending on the size and shape of the chunks/granules, there’s about 3 dinnersworth in there.
Ah, yes, these guys bear out my impressions, adjusted for my living in an expensive city for specialty food products:
I know this is from the first page, but:
Please note that the complaint Omniscient was responding to was that “It’s necessary to list all your ingredients because of allergens.” If you’re allergic, it does not matter how much of the allergen is in the food; you avoid it. And since according to your own quote the list of ingredients has a big ole honkin’ “CONTAINS SOYBEANS” at the end of the list, in capital letters, Omniscient is correct.
THAT particular complaint has nothing to do with the actual lawsuit that prompted the thread, which was about proportions.
The thing I find ridiculous and misleading (although not lawsuit worthy) is that “seasoning”, to me, connotes a much smaller volume in the dish than 30% by weight. In my sauce on the stove right now, oregano, basil, fennel and maybe even the garlic are “seasonings.” The tomatoes, onions and ground beef in my sauce are ingredients, but not seasonings.
And, while you’re right, Jenaroph, that people with allergies to food are best advised to avoid any amount of it, the same isn’t always true for food sensitivities. I’ve got a gluten free daughter who can handle the amount of wheat proteins in a serving of soy sauce. (She’s okay with Taco Bell Seasoned Beef, by the way, so the contamination, if any, of the oats must be pretty low.) And I *do *look at the position of wheat, rye and barley on the ingredient list to decide whether or not to risk feeding an item to her. A small amount is okay for her, a large amount is not.
I have no idea if the governing bodies have declared how much of something can be put into a dish and still call it “seasoning,” but it *feels *scumbaggy at 30%. Without numbers, but looking at the ingredient list, I’d probably assume that, were my daughter’s intolerance to soy instead of wheat, the amount in “seasoning” might not be a problem, which I now realize might not be the case.
Not gonna stop me from loving those Chalupas, though!
Taco Bell claims the final product has 3-5% spices, and 3-5% oats, starch, sugar, yeast, citric acid.
Where are you getting the 30% figure from?
ETA: And where do you pick up your TVP? I haven’t tried cooking with it yet, but my local store sells it for some ridiculous price (not in bulk, prepackaged, at something like $8/pound).
I’ve gotten so confuddled with numbers in this thread, to be honest. But yes, let’s use yours. Ok, that would be then, 6-10% “Seasoning”, if the only ingredients are, eliminating the brackets, Beef, Water, Seasoning, Salt, Sodium Phosphates. The “seasoning” is where the everything else is, in brackets.
10% of a dish, by weight, as “Seasoning” still feels high. Again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything legally wrong, it’s just far more of anything I’d consider seasoning.
Home Economist or JD Mills for TVP. Or, if I’m lucky and remember to look, Oakton Marketplace, but it’s hit or miss. ETA: I haven’t gotten any in over a year though, as it’s longer car trip than my grocery budget allows for for one item.
In other news:
Class action lawsuits filed across the country against “mom” upon finding out that "meat"loaf is mostly loaf and very little meat.
Sure. That’s also the post-cooking numbers. On the other hand, for something as heavily spiced as taco or chili, that’s not too out there. For example my 1.5 oz taco seasoning packet calls for 1 pound of beef. That’s almost 10% seasoning.
Consider that it’s not a percentage of the entire dish, it’s the a percentage of the beef filling, between 3% and 5% spices, that other 3% to 5% is going to have the oat fibre, plus onion powder, tomato powder, sugar, soy lecithin, yeast, starch, etc. ie, it’s meat in a seasoned sauce, which is what you’d generally expect in a taco or burrito.
The allegation is that Taco Bell is misrepresenting some other product as beef - that the meat you see in there was never acquainted with a cow, and this is not the case.
If you make tacos at home, you’re going to chop up onions and tomatoes and throw 'em in there to make a nice sauce for the meat. So the processed food version of that it to start with powders, add water, and some texturizers. No big surprise. ~4% total volume (dry) for these ingredients is pretty trivial.
This lawsuit focuses on the menu description just saying it’s made with “seasoned beef,” but omitting all these details, and equating this with packaging “beef” for sale with hidden adulterants. This is ridiculous, since there is no requirement or expectation that promotional or menu copy exhaustively list all constituents. Reading a menu would be pretty tiresome if there was.
I feel like I’m posting a bit too much in this thread, sorry… but…
I forgot that you made a distinction between spices and ingredients such as tomatoes and onions. I don’t think this is terribly misleading, because all of these ingredients together make a sauce, and it’s common usage to say that meat is “seasoned with a sauce…”
Anyone paying more than $3 per pound for dry TVP is paying too much. Any number of places will sell it bulk on the Internet.
Another Brit here and you’ve just expressed what I was thinking.
From the article:
Since this conclusion is also easily arrived at by internet forum users of median intelligence, I expect that the plaintiffs are in for a world of hurt when (and if) this ever actually goes to court. 