With Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and more dominating the news waves with their plant-based meats, it was only a matter of time before someone came in with a counter to that trend.
Arby's has finally added their two cents to the conversation. Instead of making meat out of vegetables, however, they're making vegetables out of meat as a middle finger to those trying to do the exact opposite.
Photo courtesy of Arby's
The meat peddler's latest innovation is the Marrot, a "carrot" made entirely out of turkey. To get the desired shape and color, Arby's wrapped turkey breast segments in cheesecloth, cooked them sous vide for an hour, rolled them in carrot powder, then roasted them for another hour, adding sprigs of parsley to give them that full carrot look.
By doing this, Arby's claims they're "taking a hardline stance as the champion of meats," according to a press release, while showing that if plants can act as meat, meat can do just the same back to it.
They do look exactly like carrots, but what's more mind-boggling is that by doing this, Arby's managed to make meat more nutritious. Typically, a quarter pound of turkey contains 11 International Units (IU) of Vitamin A, not even a percentage of the recommended daily value. However, these Marrots contain 70% of the required daily value of Vitamin A, a massive spike compared to just plain old turkey.
Arby's might actually be onto something big here as a result. Ninety percent of all Americans miss out on the recommended vegetable intake every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By giving them the vegetables they need (carrot powder, for example) in a form of food they love (meat), it could actually help boost vegetable consumption. Of course, that's exactly what plant-based meat producers are trying to do anyway, but in a more sustainable fashion.
Could these faux carrots be a way to provide more nutritious pieces of meat to carnivorous consumers? Or, is their usage of plants to make meat better for you just proving what the plant-based industry has been showing us for a hot minute?
In either case, it'll be interesting to see if this prototype ever gets a market test or launches nationwide in the near future.
