A factory in the US has given foodies a peak behind the curtain at how they prepare the meat substitute for people's Thanksgiving dinners – but many wished they didn't look.
Every year, 'Tofurky' makes vegan-friendly, wheat and tofu-based, holiday roasts for people to enjoy while celebrating the traditional American holiday. The company sells more than 7.5 million meat substitutes a year as workers make, bake and package 6,000 holiday roasts in each 10-hour shift at their Hood River factory in Oregon.
In a video, which has gained more than 9,500 views since being shared on YouTube, the company showed just how their plant-based products are made.
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And while the end product may be delicious, the process isn't always so appeasing. The clip shows foodies mixing industrial quantities of the tofu and wheat 'masa,' to wrap around each Tofurky's interior of wild rice stuffing.
The clip revealed there are a team of four people responsible for making the mixture known as 'masa' in each shift. The dough of tofu and wheat is mixed with canola oil, water and savoury seasonings for that appropriate autumnal texture and flavour.
A lone employee then takes over by making the wild rice stuffing at the centre of each holiday roast, mixing in breadcrumbs, celery, onion, carrot, leek and other seasonings. Further down the line, another staff member is tasked with assembling the ingredients for Tofurky's dry seasoning mix.
The two mixtures are then combined in a nested funnel within a funnel that directs the two savoury goops into a tube within a tube and cooked. The holiday roast is scanned via X-ray to ensure that nothing unwanted has been baked into the mixture.
Finally, the finished products, which retail for $13.50, are refrigerated in their packaging before being boxed for shipment. Speaking about the process, Turtle Island Foods CEO Jaime Athos said: "97% of our production is at our own plant in Hood River. We had challenges around packaging.
"We were also caught off guard by the huge increases in gluten prices, first driven by Covid and then the war in Ukraine [a major exporter of wheat worldwide]."
But it wasn't the packaging that caught viewers off gaurd as many took to the comments claiming the video had left their stomach churning. One user said: "Ick."
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Another added: "This is how you never hostThanksgiving again." Meanwhile, a fourth defended the company: "I don't know why people are 'disgusted' by this. You have a choice to eat unprocessed food, no one is stopping you from doing that.
"But also, it's more disgusting to see how a roast meat meal is actually made from a live animal being slaughtered and prepped for a roast dinner, I'm speaking to other vegans not non vegans when I say this. Keep calm and don't lose your head over this."
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