THL
With a rise in plant-based meats on the market, it’s easier than ever to leave animals off your plate. Wondering about the benefits of plant-based chicken? Here’s what you need to know to make a compassionate choice.
The plant-based movement is growing. From Walmart to Whole Foods, plant-based alternatives to meat are increasingly easy to find. This is wonderful news for chickens raised for food—and it’s also a positive shift for the environment and human health. Whether you’re new to plant-based eating or are well-versed in meat alternatives, we rounded up 25 delicious faux-chicken options that will help keep kindness on your table.
If you’re trading chicken nuggets for their plant-based counterparts, you are in good company. According to Credit Suisse, the plant-based industry is projected to grow from its current 14 billion dollars to 1.4 trillion dollars by 2050. Why? Between the animal welfare concerns and environmental issues linked to consuming meat, and the added health benefits of a plant-based diet, research shows that leaving meat off the menu is both a reasonable and compassionate choice.
What is plant-based chicken?
Plant-based chicken is a food product designed to imitate the texture and taste of meat. Generally, plant-based chicken is created from ingredients like vegetable protein, soy, or wheat, and it’s shaped into patties, nuggets, or roasts. Because plant-based meat contains higher levels of fiber and lower levels of saturated fat, food products like plant-based chicken are generally considered a healthier alternative to meat. Most importantly, plant-based alternatives to meat are a compassionate dietary choice—and choosing to consume them helps create positive shifts for animal welfare with every bite.
What is plant-based chicken made of?
While each plant-based chicken recipe is unique to the company that produces it, typical ingredients include:
- Pea protein
- Soy (or soy derivatives)
- Wheat (or wheat derivatives)
- Oil
- Seasoning
Is plant-based chicken good for you?
As with many food options, plant-based chicken is good for you in moderation, as part of a balanced diet. With foundational ingredients like pea or soy protein, plant-based chicken can be higher in fiber and iron and lower in cholesterol and saturated fats.
Although chicken is often marketed to consumers as a “healthy” meat, a recent study shows that eating chicken yields nearly the same blood cholesterol levels as eating red meat. Conversely, choosing plant-based options can lead to significantly lower cholesterol levels. So from a health perspective, it pays to opt for plants.
Why choose plant-based chicken?
Aside from the health benefits of a plant-based diet, choosing plant-based chicken is a compassionate way to stop contributing to the abuse of animals on factory farms. Broiler chickens—a term for chickens raised for meat—endure some of the worst abuse on factory farms. From the moment they hatch, these sweet, sentient beings are treated like food products, not animals with feelings. They are rapidly immunized (by injecting or spraying) and sometimes mutilated (through beak trimming and toe trimming) to avoid further injury in their cramped quarters. They spend the rest of their short lives in crowded indoor sheds that can house hundreds of thousands of birds, devoid of sunlight. After about six weeks, these chickens are then sent to slaughter, drastically shortening their typical seven-year lifespan.
White striping is a prevalent disease that affects chickens raised for food. It’s apparent in the food supply chain in visible white stripes in chicken meat, and it happens when chickens are selectively bred to grow too fast. When a chicken’s body can’t keep up with their tremendous muscle growth, white stripes show up in the meat. Unfortunately, this means white striping is quite common. Animals on factory farms are also fed large quantities of antibiotics to prevent infection. So if the adage holds that we are what we eat, leaving white striping disease and an antibiotic overload off our plates certainly sounds like the preferable choice.
The best vegan chicken brands
Here’s the good news: plant-based chicken is increasingly easy to find. From nuggets to roasts and beyond, the vegan “chicken” market is growing—and with it, a selection of mouth-watering plant-based foods. Here’s our roundup of 25 vegan chicken brands worth tasting:
1. Abbot’s Butcher
For chickenless options like Slow Roasted Chick’n and range of premium plant-based meats, try Abbot’s Butcher.
2. Alpha Foods
With Chick’n Nuggets (including a spicy variety), Chick’n Burgers, and Chick’n Strips on their menu, Alpha Foods has plant-based chicken covered.
3. Atlas Monroe
Atlas Monroe offers all-natural plant-based meat substitutes both at their San Diego location, and online.
4. Beyond Chicken Tenders
Serve up plant-based tenders with Beyond Chicken.
5. Boca
For Chick’n Veggie Patties, look for Boca in your local grocery store.
6. Daring
Daring foods offers savory plant-based meat that’s “1000% not chicken.”
7. Dr. Praeger’s
Look to Dr. Praeger’s for plant protein products, like the Perfect Chick’n Spinach Pesto Burger.
8. Field Roast
Field Roast, a plant-based meat and cheese company, offers a variety of products including meatless deli slices.
9. Gardein
For “the ultimate plant-based chick’n,” look no further than Gardein.
10. Hungry Planet
Hungry Planet Chicken is crafted from textured wheat protein, and available in crispy, grilled, or ground “meat” formats.
11. Jada
Just add water and oil to create a Plant-Based Chick’n meal from Jada.
12. Layonna
Based in Oakland, California, Layonna plant-based food market offers a plethora of meatless options.
13. Lightlife
Lightlife’s Plant-Based Chicken Tenders and Plant-Based Chicken Filets make it easier than ever to serve up compassion.
14. Loma Linda
Make plant-based meals in minutes with quick, quality meat substitutes from Loma Linda.
15. May Wah
New York City-based May Wah with Lily’s Vegan Pantry offers chicken substitutes like Vegan Chicken Nuggets, Vegan Gong Bao Chicken, Vegan Teriyaki Chicken, and more.
16. Morningstar Farms: Incogmeato
Incogmeato from Morningstar Farms offers a plant-based substitute that’s even better than the real thing.
17. No Evil Foods
With entertaining names like Comrade Cluck, No Evil Foods created no-chicken plant meat to “empower your plate.”
18. Quorn
Quorn’s new Meatless ChiQin line helps make traditional fried chicken a thing of the past.
19. Simulate (formerly Nuggs)
Formerly known as Nuggs, Simulate just may have created the ultimate plant-based chicken-less nugget.
20. Sweet Earth
For a range of meatless chicken dishes and a feast of flavors, look to Sweet Earth’s Plant-Based Chik’N line.
21. Tofurky
Tofurky’s line of Plant-Based Chick’N comes in flavors like Thai Basil, Sesame Garlic, and Barbecue.
22. Trader Joe’s
An expanding vegan line-up makes Trader Joe’s a good source for plant-based meat. Find their Chicken-less Mandarin Orange Morsels in the freezer section.
23. Upton’s Naturals
With choices like Chick Seitan, Upton’s Naturals serves up a range of plant-based meatless options.
24. Very Good Butchers
Thanks to the Very Good Butchers, products like the vegan Stuffed Beast are sure to become a plant-based favorite.
25. Whole Foods 365
Try Frozen Chicken-Style Plant-Based Nuggets from Whole Foods for a satisfactory chicken nugget substitute.
Where to buy plant-based chicken
Wondering where to buy plant-based chicken? Check your local grocery store, large chain retailer (like Target or Walmart), or supermarket (like Whole Foods, Giant, and Trader Joe’s). Hopefully more fast food chains will get on board with this growing movement, too.
What you can do
We believe that creating a more compassionate world for chickens is possible—and together, we’re able to effect change. In choosing to consume plant-based chicken, we’re putting kindness first by leaving animals off our plates. Our health, the animals, and the planet are all the better for it.
Aside from modifying your menu, you can also make a difference by helping to raise awareness and joining our movement.
