Fake Chicken

Sunfed Chicken Free Chicken Plant Based Wild Meaty Chunks. Catchy name. Pea protein, olive oil, pea fibre, yeast extract and, surprisingly to me, pumpkin. And it was half price! So I tried it.

The contents of the pack did not fill me with confidence. The instructions say to pan fry for 3-4 minutes and avoid stirring the pan too much, so I started by heating up some oil and throwing some chillies, herbs and fish sauce in there before adding the fake chicken. Yeah, fish sauce may be going against the spirit of a vegetarian alternative, but I don't know where to buy MSG so I'll use what I've got.

I broke it up a little bit, because I wanted something more like diced chicken than huge slabs. It was already somewhat broken up in the pack; not sure if that had anything to do with why the price was reduced or if you should just expect that. It is quite crumbly. So I tried to strike a balance between too big, and so broken up it would just disintegrate.

The next step was the vegetables. Just cooked them with some olive oil, fish sauce, dark soy, herbs and salt.

Next added the fake chicken back in and carefully folded it through. Some of the chunks stayed quite whole, but a lot of it sort of disintegrated.

Now, what you really want to know is, how does it taste? It's not bad. It doesn't really taste like chicken, but it tastes like some sort of meat. The texture is chickeny, in a way. It's not like any particular part of the chicken, more like the average texture of chicken. It's quite convincing if you don't think about it.

The other factors to consider are nutrition and price. Energy-wise, they're about the same, but the fake chicken has more protein and less fat (particular relevant, less saturated fats), and less cholesterol. So as far as health goes, unless you're worried about sodium (which the fake has much more of) it's probably a little better for you. But it doesn't seem like there's enough difference to care about. Price is where it really shits the bed though. Even at half price it was still more expensive than chicken.Not by a lot, but that's at half price. At full price it's more than double the cost of chicken. And if you buy the cheapest chicken (hearts, for example) then it's more like three times the cost. For me buy it again, it would have to be significantly better one one of the three factors of taste, health, or price, and the other two would have to be at least on par. Unfortunately, although the taste and potential health benefits balance out, the price is just way too high. I might get it if I see it for half price, but not any time soon.