Despite the rise of plant-based meat products, the reputation isn’t exactly the greatest. Weirdly textured, unnaturally round hockey pucks of burgers sold at fast food places don’t spell delicious for meat eaters or veggie only. The grocery store is filled with patties and nuggets that don’t really even seem to be try being meat. When the plant-based meat is that bad, you might as well just stick with meat or veggies and not try to frankenstein one into the other, right? Maybe not…
Enter Juicy Marbles, a company that makes scarily realistic plant-based meats with a pull apart texture like genuine meat. This new ‘meat’ purveyor boasts having the ‘world’s first marbled plant-based steak.’ It also claims its loins as the ‘biggest piece of plant-based meat ever conceived’ on their website.
The ribs from Juicy Marbles are too realistic.
But those pale in comparison to the ribs, the most recent creation from Juicy Marbles including very real looking and edible bones. “And edible bones? Well, they may offend some, but let’s not take things too seriously,” the website description reads. “Bones invite you to eat with your hands, tear off succulent chunks of meat, and share that indulgence with the whole table.”
The “bones” in question are made of nearly pure plant protein and have a similar nutrition content to beef jerky.
Currently, the ribs aren’t in grocery stores and will only be available in a few limited drops for now. These drops are available to members of the Surreal Kitchen Tasters Society, which is anyone who signs up to be a part of it on the Juicy Marbles website. They act as a panel to taste test products before they are available for the public. The first 500 of the 1,000 available ribs drop August 28.
Juicy Marbles has achieved such life-like (pun intended) textures and flavors by creating products out of soy proteins woven together with proprietary technology dubbed the Meat-o-Matic Reverse Grinder 9000, which is what allows the plant-based meat to be marbles like real meat. When you get down to it, protein is protein, no matter where it comes from. The products also feature beetroot juice, which is used to create (not to be grotesque or anything) a fleshy color to the “meat” and a bloody attribute for the juices.
Who is Juicy Marbles plant-based meat products for?
It’s not much of a surprise that Juicy Marbles caters to meat eaters who want to be more sustainable rather than people who just don’t like meat and may be put off by the products being a little too close to the real thing. Will you be trying it?