the perfect food!

What makes food good for me is that it is delicious, has high fiber/protein content, is cheapish but not too cheap, lasts a long time, goes with many other foods, and is good for the environment etc. Is there any food that exists with all of these? Apples? No! There's no protein in apples. Pasta? Boring! Bread? Lasts for like 5 days, then gets moldy! Realistically, not much can do all of this. Except.

This!!
Which is all of this:



Yesterday, after not being able to find these lil' treasures for what seemed like years, they popped up in the freezer section at Whole Foods. I think they're like $3.79 there, but in the past, I've found them at Trader Joe's and Target for more like $2.49. But just between you and me, I'd still buy them if they were $100.49. Because they are so super-good.

Last night, we cooked some with green beans and mashed potatoes and it was, even with a nice beer, cheap (about $7, split 2 ways) and pretty quick. Not to mention fun!

While I'm thinking about it, here are some of my other favorite meat substitutes:

-Whole Foods mock chicken salad (regular and barbeque)
-Whole Foods vegan crabcakes (which are, I just found out, made from mock chicken salad)
-Quorn Gruyère Cutlets
-Morningstar Sausage Patties

Of course, you can't compare these to real meat--except for their main-dish status in a meal--or you'll always be grossed-out and/or disappointed. Or not. For me, the texture of all of these is better than that of real meat, because i don't have any guilt or weird feelings about biting into muscle fiber and other tissue. But in any case, even if you're a daily meat-eater, these riblets are as close to perfect as any food i've ever encountered.