'Pulled Oats' Are The Newest Weird Vegan Meat Alternative

If you're a vegan who's been craving the texture of pulled pork, "Pulled Oats" are here to save your conscience from a meaty mistake. And according to Gold & Green Foods Limited, the Finnish company behind the new and unexpected product, Pulled Oats have a flavor even meat-eaters have claimed to crave.

Nordic innovators have had a thing for oats lately. Oat milk, oat yogurt, oat crackers... And now, oat meat. Only this oat product might have more nutritional value than the tender, shredded original.

The protein-packed sandwich stuffer is made from oats, pea protein, and yellow beans, with a bit of oil and salt for flavor. The resulting product mimics the shredded, juicy texture of pulled pork but supplies more protein and less fat than any shredded meat option — even chicken.

Pulled Oats made their debut when the founder, Maija Itkonen, felt unsatisfied by the ultra-processed, soy-based, bland meat alternatives on the market. Itkonen wanted to create a nutritious plant-based protein with simple ingredients that even her kids would enjoy eating.

She devised the idea to try her luck at making oat meat — and luckily, she remembered that her childhood friend Reetta Kivelä had grown up to become an acclaimed scientist with a special interest in oats. They teamed up and began taste-testing recipes, finally cracking the code to the meat replacement they'd been craving. The company achieves the fall-off-the-bone feel of real shredded meat by literally pulling on the fibers of the oats. The texture is achieved using purely mechanical processes like mixing, pressing, and heating, meaning no chemicals or additives are needed.

After seeing success in Finland, the company decided to take their product abroad to Texas — because if there's anywhere in the world people love real pulled pork, it's Texas.

They served Pulled Oat burgers at this year's SXSW film festival in Austin and saw a whopping 94 percent approval rating for their imitation meat product.

"I never, ever eat vegan food," said one taster. "But I love these burgers."

It's worth noting that of the 151 visitors brave enough to try the oat meat, only 22 percent were self-proclaimed meat-lovers. The rest were flexitarian, vegetarian, and vegan.

Burgers are just one of the product's suggested uses — others featured on their website include Pulled Oat tacos, risottos, and pastas. We imagine they'd also hold up in any of these pulled pork sandwich recipes.