Well, let’s start out with this… neither is made out of meat, so if you’re looking for that juicy hamburger flavor, you should look elsewhere. These aren’t a substitute for the real thing, but they are wonderful in their own right.
This isn’t very detailed, but Sain’s comment reminded me that I had essentially identical burgers on back to back days, one with “MorningStar Griller’s Prime” patties, and one with Gardenburger “Flame Grilled Burgers”. Blue-cheese and BBQ burgers, to be precise.
Let’s start with the Gardenburger: “flame grilled” they are not. Good, yes, but they have large chunks of veggies that server to remind you with every bite that you are indeed mou’ing down on plant matter. They’re tasty, but their texture just didn’t do it for me. They’re also smallish size patties compared to the MorningStar.
MorningStar Griller’s Prime are easily the winner here, largely because of texture, but they also score points on taste. They are the ‘meatier’ tasting burgers of the two types, and are a bit larger/denser which wins points for me. Also, they actually grill up very nicely on the grill.
To be honest, my biggest beef (totally intended, kinda :p) w/ vegetable masquerading as meat is “why bother?” Personally I’m totally happy eating vegetables. Cooked well w/ skill and taste, of course. But I just detest the whole idea of making it look and taste like meat.
I will agree that gardenburgers make some sense. Specifically, you need to be able to grill them alongside all the real burgers. The stuff I was talking about actually refers more to the soy meat stuff that the Asians do.
Slybob, Garden burgers? Oh why oh why? What has the leftcoast done to you? There’s more “crap” in those than real beef! Eat a portabella mushroom samich’. They taste much better, and have 259 less ingredients!
wow… “slybob”… haven’t heard that in a while! :)
Oh, it’s not like I’ve given up on the real thing… I’m just adding something new into the mix. They’re good. Since when have I really cared what’s actually *in* my food??