Whole Foods Adds a New Plant-based Bacon

Hooray food

People are weird about bacon. They wear shoes that proclaim it, wave vegans in the face to mock them, and put their beer down to argue about it.

So it's noteworthy when picky Whole Foods decide to introduce a new plant-based bacon that they announced in 300 of their stores. Hooray Bacon is mainly made 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 makes a surprisingly good analogue.

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Most plant-based bacon has the texture of a smoked tongue depressor that breaks when chewed, but hooray is making great strides in adapting to the chewiness, oiliness, and rustic irregularity of traditional bacon. More importantly, it mimics the addictiveness that makes one wonder if bacon should be regulated as a List I drug by the FDA.

Horray Speck versus Oscar Mayer Speck

Hooray bacon isn't exactly a healthy food, but if you're worried about cholesterol and animal abuse, it doesn't exist, and the company claims its production is 80% less greenhouse gas. It is also a mixed bag: Compared to a conventional Oscar Mayer bacon, a 15-gram serving contains fewer calories and no cholesterol, but no protein and six grams of carbohydrates. Both are sodium bombs.

Hooray bacon is not inherently mimicked to the extent that Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat make a cow burger, but I've tried it a few times and it's a different one. Bacon isn't a center of the plate food (much to your cardiologist's relief), so the layering into a BLT or burger hurray bacon is close enough to satisfy. And like all plant-based food manufacturers, this four-person startup based in San Francisco should have plenty of leeway to quickly revamp the product.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions about a disease or health goals.