I was taught that ground meats were only limited if they contained 5% or more fat. I double checked my materials, and there is no mention of limits except that ground beef is only listed as core if it's 95% lean or more. My books are a few years old, has this changed? Maybe simplified to include all ground meats to avoid confusion?
At any rate, regarding dry tvp, I'm sure Whole Foods would have tvp, as most health food stores do. Even grocery stores often have it, but it's much more expensive in a box than in bulk "scoop your own" bins, which is how I always buy it.
It comes in chunks (look like light brown dog food nuggets)to simulate chunks of chicken, granules (looks like grape nuts cereal) to simulate ground meats, and fajita or "steak" strips (looks sort of like small pieces of jerky). You add about a 3/4 cup - 1 cup of hot water or broth to 1 cup of the tvp pieces and let it sit for a few minutes to let the water absorb into the tvp.
You can also buy various meatless "crumbles" in the freezer case of most grocery stores. A 12 oz bag is equivalent to a lb of ground beef and are available from various brands like Morningstar Farms and Boca, and come in sausage flavors also. These are a lot more expensive than the tvp, but are already seasoned and you don't have to rehydrate.
I've used the frozen crumbles, and they're good, but I prefer to make my own "half meat" with the dry granules or fajita pieces. I brown lean ground beef, pork, or chicken or any combination (I just don't care for turkey) with any seasonings I want to add (like onion, celery, green pepper, garlic...) with the dry tvp. When the veggies are starting to get soft and the ground beef is almost browned, I start adding water or broth, bit by bit into the mixture. I freeze it in a ziploc bag and every 10 - 15 minutes while it's freezing, I knead the bag so that it freezes, but stays crumbly so I can scoop out whatever I need. After it's completely frozen, I open the bag and squeeze out all of the extra air before reclosing and then put the plastic bag inside another plastic bag to ****** freezer burn.
I scoop out what I need to use in any recipe calling for ground beef like spaghetti sauce, chili, taco meat... If I'm making tacos for a crowd I just make it like "half meat" but instead of water use spicy V-8 juice and taco seasonings.
1 1/2 to 1 2/3 dry tvp is equivalent to 1 lb of ground beef. It is very low in calories and fat.
It doesn't taste like much of anything, but absorbs the flavors of whatever you put it in. The reason I started making the "half-meat" was my husband wouldn't eat straight tvp, so I started adding it to my ground beef. 1/2 cup tvp to 1 lb of burger at first. My husband didn't taste the difference, and was surprised that it wasn't all beef. I kept adding more and more tvp to the recipe. I haven't eliminated the meat completely yet, but I've gotten to the point that it is more tvp than meat. I love it as a way to cheaply stretch ground beef, because tvp is only $2.25 per lb (and 1 lb of dry tvp is equivalent to about 3 lbs of ground meat).
If you like tvp "straight," there's no reason to mix it with beef, but if you don't care for it at first, adding it to beef and gradually increasing the tvp really can change your opinion of the stuff. My husband went from "I'm not eating that garbage," to actually reminding me that we're running low on tvp. I think the day it changed for him was the day I was making tacos for the two of us, and a bunch of his friends dropped by and he asked if I had enough to have them stay for dinner. I just added more tvp, a can of black beans and some more taco seasonings. His friends raved about the tacos and one guy even asked for my recipe saying it was the best taco meat he'd ever had, because the meat wasn't greasy but had a lot of flavor.
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