Vegans, it’s time to rejoice: 3D printed vegan steaks (a mouthful if we’ve ever heard one) are apparently a thing now.
UK vegans and veggos can now get their hands on the ‘steaks’ in the restaurants of Marco Pierre White, a British chef who you may recognise as a judge from MasterChef Australia and MasterChef Australia: The Professionals.
He is also famed for allegedly making Gordon Ramsay cry (though Pierre White said Ramsay “made himself cry“), and for having an epic falling out with Matt Preston which saw him quit MasterChef and join Hell’s Kitchen Australia in vengeance.
There is no beef like chef beef, as the poets say.
Pierre White has now officially announced he will be serving vegan ‘steak’ in his UK restaurants, with the mouth-watering innovation setting punters back an eye-watering £20-30 (approximately $37 – 55 in Aussie money).
The steak is an invention of Israeli startup Redefine Meat. Essentially, it’s made from a combo of coconut fat, beetroot, chickpeas and soy and pea protein, which is then 3D-printed to mimic the texture and look of beef steak.
According to the Financial Times, up to 10 kilos of the ‘meat’ can be printed every hour.
Redefine Meat’s website says they can replicate “any meat imaginable”, including ground beef, burgers, kebabs and sausages.
As well as Pierre White’s London restaurants, the ‘steak’ is available in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Tel Aviv, should you be making a vegan food travel guide.
Apparently, the vegan ‘steak’ is so realistic that the company has had “vegans complaining that this is too much like meat,” the company’s CEO and founder Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, told The Guardian.
This raises the eternal question: how much meat should a vegan steak mimic if a vegan steak could mimic meat?
At the moment, Redefine Meat tragically isn’t available Down Under. But, there are still some pretty sweet vegan alternatives to mince meat, pies, sausage rolls and burgers available to crave your secret meat thirst.
