Lazy Vegan Friday. Sweet Earth Seitan Bacon (review)
Last month we were in Detroit, and visited their Whole Foods, where we bought a bunch of things unavailable in Canada, and took them back home with us (or snacked on them immediately.) One of those things was Sweet Earth Hickory & Sage Smoked Seitan Bacon. The funny thing about buying this was that the checkout person was super excited about it, said she had never seen it before, and that it looked so good. But then she said something that made us pause and say wait a minute. “I’d eat this, but I’ve given up bacon…”
We realized she thought it was an animal product. JC told her… “it’s actually vegan.” And then she was even more excited about it.
The style and colour of the package was what initially attracted me to it. It looked like a pretty traditional product, and since it was something I didn’t recognize in the plant-meat section I had to take a closer look. Much later, I remembered that I had seen them at ExpoWest earlier this year where they first launched this product (but I don’t think I sampled any at that time though.)
Anyway, fast forward to a few weekends ago when we were at the Piebird Birdhouse Cottage and I was thinking, what quick fun breakfast options can we enjoy while at the cottage? And my hand hovered over this package and I thought… well, of course.
I don’t really have a particular attraction to bacon one way or another, but I was super curious about trying this one.
Ingredients
Ingredients: Filtered water, vital wheat gluten, extra virgin olive oil, red beans, buckwheat groats, vegan bacon natural flavours, natural hickory smoke, evaporated cane juice, maple syrup, natural soy sauce, garlic, sea salt, tomato paste, nutritional yeast, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, cumin, sage, rosemary, caramelized sugar, and spices.
Contains: Wheat, Soy, Coconut. Non-GMO, No Nitrates.
Nutritional Information
So what did we think?
It has a great rich flavour, and doesn’t really try to be animal-bacon, and I appreciated that it mostly goes its own unique way. It wasn’t tough, and I bet if I fried it up with a bit more oil in the future it would be even more delicious.
As it stands this was a great breakfast addition and full of smoky savoury goodness. I liked that it was somewhat thinly sliced, and I can see its future potential in sandwiches in addition to a natural pairing with tofu scrambles.
The strips are somewhat delicate and tender which means it is worth taking care when you’re flipping it in the pan.
I will pick this up the next time we are in the USA, and hopefully someday Sweet Earth Products can join us in Canada (but I can’t help but think they will be impacted by the Field Roast wheat-meat issue as well, so until that’s resolved, I suspect they wont be able export it here either. )
Have you tried this? What did you think?
They’ve got a bunch of other products I’m curious about like very convenient burritos and delicious looking pies. So perhaps I’ll be able to check one of them out for a future lazy vegan Friday.