Review: Gimme Lean! Sausage Style

From our friends at LiteLife comes their Gimme Lean: Sausage Style. This impressive packaged faux meat is truly loaded with "Style". I like the sausage casing-like wrapper, the density and weight of the unit, and the very fashionable strawberries flanking the sausage patties on the design. This is a faux meat that is ready to go out on the town.

Unfortunately, I don't find this to be the best tasting veggie sausage around. I've had this product in my house numeorus time. I use it mainly for breakfast sausages. It could be that it has other, better, uses than as a breakfast sausage (maybe the strawberries are trying to tell us that this is more of a dessert sausage).

The sausage flavor is too subtle and the main flavors that come through seem to be salt and pepper alone. I prefer other patty style sausage like the ones from Boca or Morning Star. Additionally, with those two brands the patties are made for you. The Gimme Lean is pretty inconvenient and has nether a patty or link version of their product

The first few times I sampled Gimme Lean: Sausage Style, I made the mistake of opening up the whole casing and making patties like one would make hamburgers. Don't bother. If you do like Gimme lean, let me suggest that you take a sharp serated knife and cut into the wrapped sausage hunk and pre-make patties that way. (see image below)It was much easier and saves you the trouble of dealing with patty formation early in the morning.

• Overall Rating: 2
• Similarity to meat (but in a good way): 3
• Similarity to actual food described: 2
• "Worth it?" Rating: 2
• "Would I get them again?": 2

About these ratings

Nutrition Facts
Per Single Serving
Serving Size 2 oz. 57g

Calories 50 Fat 0g Saturated Fat 0g Cholesterol 0mg Sodium 330mg Carbohydrate 4g Fiber 2g Sugar 1g Protein 8g Soy Protein 7g

Ingredients
Made from water, soy protein concentrate, tapioca starch, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, malt extract, evaporated cane juice, beet powder, spices, natural flavors (from vegetable sources), vegetable gum. No nitrites. No MSG.

Don't eat it!

Here's a bug I found on my roof top garden today in Brooklyn. There's nothing in the image to give it a sense of scale but it is longer than my middle finger.

World's Sexiest Vegetarian

"The veggie voters have spoken, and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin have been selected as PETA’s 2005 “World’s Sexiest Vegetarians” "

Expect no review from this reviewer

Review: Vegetarian Ground Beef

Here's a fun product from Lightlife called Smart Ground (Taco / Burrito). I used it in soft tacos and burritos. Typically with some cheese, salsa, and Fat free sour cream. This is a pretty good product with a nice texture and a very good attempt at taco meat flavor. The major drawbacks are that it is pricey, it comes shrink wrapped in a pretty unappetizing bubble of plastic and it is very salty. The saltiness is the biggest downside of this product and many other faux meats.

If you need something fast than you can be satisfied with this. My personal preference is for my own faux ground beef made from TVP, honey, soy sauce, chili powder, (vegetarian) worcestershire sauce, black pepper, onions and garlic. Muy excellente.

Back to the product:

• Overall Rating: 2
• Similarity to meat (but in a good way): 3
• Similarity to actual food described: 3
• "Worth it?" Rating: 2
• "Would I get them again?": 2

Nutrition Facts
Per Single Serving
Serving Size 2 oz. 57g

Calories 50 Fat 0g Saturated Fat 0g Cholesterol 0mg Sodium 330mg Carbohydrate 4g Fiber 2g Sugar 1g Protein 8g Soy Protein 7g

Ingredients
Made from water, soy protein concentrate, tapioca starch, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, malt extract, evaporated cane juice, beet powder, spices, natural flavors (from vegetable sources), vegetable gum. No nitrites. No MSG.

Marathon running for charity

Bad news. My NYC Marathon Entry was denied.

but...

Great news!! I joined the New York Road Runner's Team for Kids charity team and I got in!!!

Please feel free to contribute to my $2,500 pledge commitment to the Team for Kids. Use this URL to donate online

https://www.nyrrc.org/cgi-bin/start.cgi/mar-programs/nyrrf/team/donations.htm
Remember to use my last name and entry #:

Ingberman #27778