All about TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)

[St George]

I have found goodnessdirect.co.uk, but their postage charges are more than I am willing to pay. Are there any other online shops that sell it cheaper, or high street shops that sell it?

It is VEGAN chunks that I want. Maybe they are all vegan. I dont know as I am new to this, lol!

Thanks in advance:)

[gertvegan]

St George, have you checked out the health food shops in your area? You'll be surprised at all the goodies you will find.

[Gorilla]

Sainsbury's do some fairly good TVP chunks and they only cost about 60p for a packet which serves about 4 i think. i used to use it sometimes but i've gone off it now.

[Tofu Monster]

I buy mine from Holland and Barrett. They have plain or savoury TVP available in chunks or mince, depending on what consistency you want. I use them in chilli and they're fine. They're reasonably priced, and yes, they are vegan!

[drummer]

TVP is really great cooked in the crock-pot (slow cooker) with vegetables as a casserole.

[tails4wagging]

St George, try Holland & Barratt or your local health shops. I think Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco sell the tvp chunks?. They are in a packet/box on the shelves.

[eve]

I don't normally buy TVP, but I'm going to a little get-together and we are all bringing something savoury. I thought this might be a good introduction for them to try something resembling mince. But when I looked in the supermarket, that Sanitarium company have just about halved the size of the packet, doubled the price to $5 for 200gr, and when I checked the ingredients listing, they now put milk in it! Grrrrrr. Oh well, I'll make something nicer.

[snaffler]

I buy mine from Frome Wholefoods they get the bulk stock from Essential in Brizzle sorry :D Bristol

[drummer]

Eve, some health shops sell TVP in bulk for about AUS$3.99/kg. Very cheap. They sell it without the milk-derived caramel colour. I don't know where in Queensland you could get it, but its worth asking around. Select Foods also make TVP, and can be bought from Health Shops or Coles or Safeway. Select Foods also make TVP chunks and TVP slices. The TVP slices are like steak chunks, only better.

[acousticCORE123]

Hello everyone, I am a new vegan transformed by a great meal I had at a local place, but I feel like a small fish in the atlantic at my local health food store. So, i had some questions about soy products: Is there a difference between textured soy and Seitan? I noticed TVP can come in chunks or strips, but does it also come in flakes so you can mold yourself like you can Seitan? (I never had seitan, so I dont really know if the texture is simillar to TVP...)

[tasha]

Honestly, I'm not as well educated on the "real" difference between some of these products, however, I can tell you that tvp tends to give *gas*; seitan doesn't seem to have the same effect.

Tvp is much easier to work with though, as it stays good for a long time and is easy to add to any dish when you need it. You can make seitan and then ground it up, it is excellent to use in pot pies or you can slice it and make yummy sandwiches or add to stirfries.

I'm sure someone more knowledgable will come on here and give you more valuable information. ;)

I just know what tastes better and what causes less gas!!!!!!! :D

[acousticCORE123]

tasha :eek: ....hahahaha....i know what you mean....i always thought it was the high fiber content, but i guess not! Besides, seitan is fiberous as well. thank you very much for your input :)

[Tigerlily]

How do you use TVP? JUst add it as is to dishes?

[tasha]

You have to add boiling water and some people add a little ketchup too.

It really isn't all that bad if you need some "ground beef" for a pot pie or a rice dish and you just happen to have some in the cupboard. It keeps for quite awhile dry.

[Tigerlily]

Hmmm. Is it nutritious?

[feline01]

TVP (texturized vegetable protein) is a heavily-processed soy-based product which I avoid. Seitan is made from wheat flour and is in the same family of gluten which is the actual product obtained from the flour. The easiest way to make seitan is using vital wheat gluten, most health food shops sell it. It can be found already prepared in the refrigerated section of some health food stores.

[acousticCORE123]

Thanks for the input everyone......

Is either one (TVP or Seitan) more nutritious than the other? (mainly in terms of fat and carbs.....i imagine the seitan would be carby-er)

[Kiva Dancer]

I'm not sure about the carb level of either one but I will say the body needs carbs in order to get on properly. It needs fat, too.

I found something that says that vital wheat gluten (the thing that seitan is made from) has .5g fat and 6g of carbs per 1/4 cup. Don't know if that's good or not, though.

TVP I also avoid because it's made from soy protein isolate. Soy protein isolate, imo is soy in its extremely refined state and there's some speculations that spi contributes to increased risk for certain cancers.

Personally, I would go with seitan before I gave TVP a second glance.

[Tigerlily]

Thanks. It's just that there's no seitan here. But there's TVP.

I never liked the feel of meat anyway, so it's probably pretty meat-y?

[acousticCORE123]

Yeah, Tigerlily, meat substitutes are very meaty. If i remember correctly, the "chicken" I ate was very thick and stringy, thats what blew me away about it. So, if you dont like meat, then you might not like meat substitutes....but thats just my experience (my 1 time experience) so others might be able to disagree with me

[Kiva Dancer]

Thanks. It's just that there's no seitan here. But there's TVP.

I never liked the feel of meat anyway, so it's probably pretty meat-y?If you can find vital wheat gluten, you can make your own seitan. There are many recipes around that tell how to do that.

I would say yes, TVP is very meat-y. Almost disgustingly meat-y if you don't really like that texture. The first time I had TVP (long before I knew what it was made from), I got ill because the mouthfeel was too much like ground meat for me to stand.

[acousticCORE123]

TVP I also avoid because it's made from soy protein isolate. Soy protein isolate, imo is soy in its extremely refined state and there's some speculations that spi contributes to increased risk for certain cancers.




I just read this http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/soy.htm and it basically confirmed what you were talking about in terms of the increased risk for cancer as well as other things. I dont know though, I think I gotta read up on this a bit more.....maybe check some health journals.

[Kiva Dancer]

That's very wise, but be warned: some so-called "experts on soy" are really nothing more than scare-mongers who toss about some clever sounding words mixed in with unfounded information and partial truths which serve to confuse more than clarify.

For some good, valid sources, I recommend this site (http://www.drgreger.org/newsletters.html) and this one (http://www.veganhealth.org/). Both sites have very good, accurate articles that answer questions about the safety of soy. There's also a thread here that discusses the safety of soya (soy) which is very good reading, as well.

To clarify also: it's the soy protein isolate (SPI) that's showing to be a problem, not soy itself (think of it as being the difference between a vegetable, fresh from the produce stand vs. a vegetable that's been breaded and fried :eek: ). Tofu, tempeh and miso, afaik, don't contain SPI and IMO, aren't potentially problematic like SPI is.

[veganpixie]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum. Tell me, and I'll move it to a better one. Thanks. Hi, I'm posting and asking this while fresh in my mind b4 I forget. I have TVP tiny soy pieces that I'm ready to cook in water to make mock chicken for my dear Frisky kitty. I have several good seasonings and good ingredients like nutritional yeast and brewer's yeast and Bragg Liquid Aminos to season it well and make the mixture good, yummi, moist, and mock chickeny-like.

My dilemma is that I don't know the right or best measurements and best blends, you know which ingredients blend best with what. I'm searching for a good recipe in yahoo and goodle, but I still haven't found a good recipe yet. I need to feed this to my dear sweet Frisky so he'll get stronger and gain some weight, as he is ill. But I can't elaborate on his illness condition right this moment. I shall again tnite when I have more time. I don't have a natural soy sauce right now so I can only use my Bragg. Can someone please help me here?

This is urgent and I need to "master" for lack of better words a good recipe so the chicken smell and flavor will be so pungent and strong he'll devour it and eat it. Okay, thank you for your help and for listening.

[Pob]

I feed my cats meat, however, I did try one of them with some of my dinner - he wanted to try it. I was aiming more for a beefy taste.

I had used vegetable bouillon (the pale kind) and natex yeast extract in the gravy. There was a lot of yeast extract and not much bouillon. It wasn't too salty. The cat liked it.