As some of you may know, I’ve been cutting down on meat over the past few months.
My goal isn’t necessarily to be vegetarian or vegan; just to be more conscious of what I eat and avoid unsustainable and unethical foods/products where I can. I’m really interested in finding alternatives to the things we normally eat as more of these will hopefully make it easier for other people to make swaps and eat less meat too.
So this week we’ve been trying out some products from Hooba Foods, a UK-based company who are making ’50/50′ and totally ‘meat-free’ products targeted at meat-eaters to encourage people to eat less meat (with emphasis on LESS meat, not NO meat). They use mushrooms as the foundation in their products and add in other tasty spices and ingredients, and their whole ethos is generally awesome!
Now I don’t particularly struggle with cutting out chicken and beef, but for me, pork is quite difficult. My favourite foods have always involved sausages, bacon and pulled pork, so I was excited to try the meat-free sausages (suitable for vegans) that Hooba offer!
At just £2.56 for an 8-pack, they’re pretty great value, and they really look like sausages straight out of the pack too. We cooked and paired them with potato wedges (seasoned with salt, pepper, Italian herbs and paprika) and a homemade ‘apple slaw’ for a totally meat-free meal.
To make the apple slaw I combined red cabbage, grated carrot and shredded apple and mixed in apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, wholeseed mustard, salt, pepper and Vegenase (my new fave thing)!
The texture of the sausages was spot-on; it was hard to believe I wasn’t eating pork! Whilst the flavour was less strong than I was used to (N reminded me that we normally buy sausages with extra pepper and herbs) it worked really well with my apple slaw.
Cooking them again, I’d probably add a barbecue or herby glaze and cook them for longer (I like my sausages a little charred and crispy!) and I think they’d work perfectly as hot dog/bbq sausages as the texture, like I said, is exactly right for that.
They also sent us a pack of meat-free burgers that I’ll be trying out this week, and some sausage rolls too. N’s fave food happens to be sausage rolls, and his verdict was 100% positive! I tried them too, and they honestly tasted just like normal sausage rolls; they’d got the spice mix just right in them.
Could you switch over from meat products to the mushroom life?
* This post is in collaboration with Hooba Foods who kindly sent me these items to review, but this is all my honest opinion :)
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I reckon it’s becoming so much more common that people realise even just having one or two meat free days a week can make a huge difference, and the more tasty products that make being a veggie or vegan so much easier come to light, the better! You seriously would not be able to tell the difference with these sausages! Make them gluten free too and I’ve covered all family bases from a coeliac, veggie and vegan perspective! Alice xx
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I hope so – I read an amazing statistic the other day about how many trees/how much carbon we could save if everyone had just 2 meat free meals a week. Can’t remember the exact number but it was mind blowing! X
I’m not much of a meat eater, so love hearing about foods like this! Sounds good and I want to try the sausage rolls now!
P.S. The apple slaw looks INSANE
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Nath can’t vouch for the sausage rolls, and he is a sausage roll connossieur so that says something!
Haha it was pretty tasty – my red cabbage was defrosted from frozen though so I’m sure it would be even better with fresh! Xx
*can
If someone would have asked me that 2 years ago my answer would have been “Me? No meat? No way!”. But now… I haven’t been eating meat since June, last year. And almost no dairy at all. And I can say I feel great, I have no more health problems and I lost a lot of weight. I don’t feel like I’m missing something and I cook delicious vegan meals together with my husband. People ask me what I did to lose weight and they act surprised when I tell them.