Connecticut College

Conn Alum Makes Best Fake Meat Ever

Here’s a selection of the accolades Ethan Brown ’94 has earned for his venture Beyond Meat:

 Slate: “The first time a vegetarian tastes Beyond Meat’s ersatz animal flesh, he’ll feel delighted and queasy at the same time. There’s something about the way these fake chicken strips break on your teeth, the way they initially resist and then yield to your chew, the faint fatty residue they leave on your palate and your tongue—something about the whole experience that feels a little too real.”

The New York Times: “ On its own, Brown’s ‘chicken’ — produced to mimic boneless, skinless breast — looks like a decent imitation, and the way it shreds is amazing. It doesn’t taste much like chicken, but since most white meat chicken doesn’t taste like much anyway, that’s hardly a problem; both are about texture, chew and the ingredients you put on them or combine with them. When you take Brown’s product, cut it up and combine it with, say, chopped tomato and lettuce and mayonnaise with some seasoning in it, and wrap it in a burrito, you won’t know the difference between that and chicken. I didn’t, at least, and this is the kind of thing I do for a living.”

HuffPo: “The Veggie Chicken Strips have already proved wildly popular, so much in fact that one San Francisco Whole Foods reportedly went through its entire inventory in just two days.”

As indicated by HuffPo, the Veggie Chicken Strips are being carried by Whole Foods–but only in their prepared food, and only in Northern California, Slate says. Beyond Meat is backed by the co-founders of Twitter. Hashtag: best fake meat ever.