Whole Foods adds a new plant-based bacon
Hooray bacon sets a new high-water mark for bacon without the pig.
- 5G Technician, ETA International
People are weird about bacon. They wear shoes proclaiming it, wave it in vegans' faces to taunt them, and put their beer down to fight over it.
Few foods earn this kind of fanaticism.
So it's notable when picky Whole Foods decides to carry a new plant-based bacon, which it announced in 300 of its stores. Hooray bacon is made primarily from coconut oil, rice flour, tapioca starch, liquid smoke, mushrooms, salt, maple syrup and beet juice. That may not sound promising, but, like many plant based meats, an unlikely list of ingredients comes together into a surprisingly good analog.
Nestled into a BLT, Hooray bacon comes much closer to conventional bacon than efforts before it.
Most plant-based bacon has the texture of a smoked tongue depressor that shatters when you chew it, but Hooray makes major progress toward matching the chewiness, oiliness and rustic irregularity of conventional bacon. More importantly, it replicates the addictive savoriness that makes one wonder if bacon should be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a Schedule I drug.
Hooray bacon vs. Oscar Mayer bacon
| Hooray bacon (15g serving) | Oscar Mayer bacon (per 15g) | |
| Calories | 60 | 71 |
| Sodium | 270mg | 276mg |
| Saturated Fat | 3.0g | 2.0g |
| Cholesterol | 0mg | 5.5mg |
| Carbohydrates | 6g | 0g |
| Sugars | 1g | 0g |
| Protein | 0g | 5.5g |
Hooray bacon isn't exactly health food, but if you're worried about cholesterol and animal abuse, it has none, and the company claims its production generates 80% fewer greenhouse gases. Beyond that, it's a mixed bag: Compared with a common Oscar Mayer bacon, a 15-gram serving boasts fewer calories and no cholesterol but has no protein and six grams of carbs. Both are sodium bombs.
Bacon is an irrational food, so the goal of a plant-based version is to replicate its hypnotic taste appeal. Hooray comes closer that you probably thought possible.
Eaten by itself, Hooray bacon can't yet mimic pig bacon to the degree Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat do a cow burger, but I've sampled it a couple of times and it stands apart. Bacon isn't a center-of-the-plate food (much to your cardiologist's relief), so layered into a BLT or a burger Hooray bacon is close enough to satisfy. And like all plant-based food makers, this four-person startup in San Francisco should have a lot of headroom to quickly rev the product.