Sunnyvale, CA — A new California food company, Fake It Till’ We Make It™, has been feeling the heat recently. They decided to start with a bang, and deliver the next new flip on vegetarianism: “meat that tastes like tofu.”
A small, select group seems to be enjoying the experience, as we can see in a few Amazon.com reviews:
“It makes me feel so good!” Wrote one lonely, widowed mom of three adult boys, “Like I am reversing the climate crises, without giving up my favorite foods! Delicious!”
A man grievously allergic to tofu had a similarly positive reaction, “I can finally taste soy for the first time since I was a baby, so delicious. Very happy I had this opportunity. Did not disappoint.”
Another one, posted by bodybuilder_tim read, “I generally try to avoid tofu because of the hormones, but I’ve always liked the flavor. This chicken was delicious and full of protein! I highly recommend it.”
However, these happy, go-lucky reviews were hard to find in the torrent of disappointment from people within the omnivorous, herbivorous, and carnivorous communities.
“I picked up what looked like a normal chicken for my wife to cook at home,” wrote one carnivore, “and when it started cooking, it smelled weird, but we didn’t think much of it, and sat down to dinner. The first bite I took, I knew something was wrong, but it was my wife who said it. ‘This tastes like tofu.’ At first, I thought I had accidentally picked up a tofurky, but we scrounged through the trash for the packaging, and I couldn’t believe my eyes’ meat that tastes like tofu!’ Who would do such a thing?” A reply read, “Me too! The packaging is very misleading. Is it even FDA approved?”
“Why don’t you just eat tofu?” A post by Instagram user Vegan.For.Life read. “This is an offensive play for power by the meat industry. They know that meat is not only bad for your body, but bad for the environment, and are trying to squeeze as much money out of the masses before they realize what is happening. Please don’t buy this product! If you are going to eat something that tastes like tofu, why not eat the real thing instead of a highly processed alternative that has lived a bad life in cages?”
Twitter user vegi.girl wrote, “I can’t believe you would eat this. They get the chicken to taste like soy by cooking them alive in soybeans. That is completely inhumane and wrong. How can you condone such hate actions towards the animal community?”
The comment, though seemingly nonsensical, sent the FDA into a flurry.
Recently, the government’s chief food and drug oversight agency has been proud of the humane treatment in which the animals in factories are treated and did not like to be accused of wrongdoing. So inspectors made a surprise visit at one of the Fake It Till’ We Make It™ production facilities.
Although the FDA found no evidence of chickens being boiled alive in soybeans, factory workers were not being allowed to drink water while working in the hot slaughterhouses, and many of them were getting heatstroke. Fake It Till’ We Make It™ is now facing millions of dollars in fines to the federal government, which they cannot pay because they just started up their business, and are already deep in debt.
Vegi.girl is now facing a potential lawsuit from Fake it Till’ We Make It, on the accord that her lie cost them their livelihood and business.
