Vegan Beef

Vegan beef isn’t all just beef patties and burgers, either! You can find all sorts of plant-based beef products like strips, links, and meatballs. At PlantX, we’ve got you covered. You get all kinds of beef alternatives that are ready to be fried, grilled, baked, and heated. All of the products you’ll see there taste awesome.

As you read along, you’ll learn why plant-based beef is good for both you and the environment. From nutritional content to environmental impact, we talk about all their benefits on this page. Eventually, we hope that it could convince you to make the mindful choice if you haven't already done so!

If you’re already well familiar with meatless beef, then you’ll feel right at home. You’ll see familiar brands and some even new ones!

Is There Really a Need for Meatless Beef?

If you love the planet as much as we do, then yes! There is absolutely a need for plant-based beef. If you think about how much time, land, resources, and manpower it takes to humanely care for our cow friends, it’s actually quite astonishing!

Cows are also responsible for the most animal greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Pork and poultry don’t even come close! While it might not be the top contributor to greenhouse gases overall (burning fossil fuels, sadly, is still number one on the list), every bit of adjustment helps. In fact, making vegan beef actually produces 90% less than its counterparts.

Let’s put the spotlight on water for a bit. How much of it do you think you’ll need to produce a pound of beef? You’ll need roughly 2,000 and 8,000 gallons of water!  That number’s insane! In order to produce the same amount of tofu, you’ll only need 300 gallons of water. While that number is still high, we can at least rest easy knowing that crops produce oxygen and don’t take up way more land than caring for cows does. 

Plant-based beef is super tasty as well. It has to be in order for it to be a good beef alternative. You can get vegan beef in similar varieties, too. What we mean is that vegan beef can come in mince, patty, deli slices, strips, and even steak forms. You can get one that will suit your cooking needs without the hassle of all the prep work. If you really want to skip on the prep work, you can even find pre-seasoned and pre-made vegan beef meals.

Versatile, delicious, and good for the environment, we hope this sums up our overview of why vegan beef is the way to go! 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is vegan beef made of?

Vegan beef is made with a whole lot of plant-based ingredients and none of the beef-based ingredients!

Vegan beef looks like beef. Vegan beef tastes like beef. Vegan beef cooks like beef. Vegan beef may even smell like beef if you want it to. There are even brands that make meatless beef “bleed” the way regular beef does when you slice or bite into it. But, there is no way actual beef is made from our mammal friends.

Vegan beef is made with plant-based ingredients like soy, wheat gluten, or pea protein, to name a few. These are selected for their texture - because good beef alternatives need to have great texture!

Is plant-based beef a good choice? 

We like to think so! Regular beef is a source of saturated fat, which vegan beef has significantly less of. Generally, though, the two have similar caloric content as well as protein content. Again, this is a generalisation of most plant-based beef.

Vegan beef also contains fibre, folate, niacin, iron, phosphorus, manganese, and copper. Knowing this, and the fact that making vegan beef is better for the environment, we’d happily make the switch to beef substitutes.

How long does vegan beef last?

That depends on how it’s been stored. One thing we like to keep in mind is storing our beef substitutes similar to how or where we got them. If we bought our plant-based beef from the freezer, we keep it in the freezer. If we bought it from the fridge, then we store it in the same place at home. 

We find that some vegan beef brands last more or less than 10 days if it is unopened. If your pack of beef substitutes has been opened already, you might get about 3 days before it starts to go bad.

Should I thaw my vegan beef before cooking?

That depends on what vegan beef you get and what the manufacturers advise you to do. There are some that need no thawing and you can get to grilling or frying them right away.

Some brands, however, require you to thaw your plant-based beef in the fridge overnight before cooking. Keep that in mind and make adjustments for when you’re planning your next meal.

And while we’re on the subject of thawing, do note that most brands recommend that you don’t refreeze thawed vegan beef. It may mess up the taste and the texture!