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At age 15, Kid Two has transitioned to becoming an almost-vegetarian eater. But he’s a growing boy, and his body often craves protein. I’ve been doing my best with tofu and experimenting with seitan – both with quite a bit of success, but variety is the spice of life, right? So I jumped at this opportunity to sample and create a recipe for these new BeyondMeat Beef Crumbles. BeyondMeat is an interesting company; backed by Bill Gates and Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams, they’ve created a plant protein substitute for our high-quality animal products. It’s soy-free, gluten-free, Kosher, made from non-GMO pea protein, with no cholesterol, saturated, or trans fat and has 10 grams of protein per serving – the same as ground beef. They’ve also got an environmentally-sensitive POV, wanting a better way to feed the planet than water and land-intensive meat. I love their tag line “Meat is no mystery,” they say. It’s not, really. Protein is just a combination of amino acids, fats, trace carbohydrates and minerals, and a lot of water combined to give us that familiar chew, resistance, and variation.

It’s the chew, resistance, and variation that’s often the problem with animal-meat substitutes, though, right? The BeyondMeat folks wondered:

What if we are able to take these inputs from plants and apply heating, cooling, and pressure so they combine just like animal meat? And what if you define meat by what it is—amino acids, fats, carbs, minerals, and water—versus where it is from (i.e cows, chickens, pigs)? What you’d have is meat for the future. Meat from plants.

How cool is that? And the best part? It’s actually really delicious! We made Beefy Crumbles Tacos with the Fiesta flavor, and I’ve got to say this product is really impressive. I always thought of myself as a diehard meat girl, but I will happily use this for one or more meals per week. Don’t expect to taste ground beef – the flavor is similar but unique. The beauty is in the texture – it’s very appealing – truly similar to animal meat. I liked it so much I tried this recipe with the chicken flavor and had equally excellent results. Try this recipe for Beefy Crumble Tacos. It’s got mellow heat, crunch, color, flavor, all rolled into one tasty healthy package: