Someone needs to invent cooking meat smell

To atone for the eating of a few mouthfuls of raw dead animal a week ago, this last Saturday I was inspired to try cooking with one of the new-ish products that is purely vegetarian but trying to look like meat/mince.  

This one is soy protein based - which is a meat substitute source of protein that has fallen out of favour, it seems.  Remember the days when Textured Vegetable Protein was about the only fake meat in town?   I didn't mind it, really, especially the chunky version for things like chilli.

So, I tried chilli con carne with this product.

I don't know if it was really necessary, but I tried frying it off with onion, and that was the main problem.  I thought it had a most peculiar smell while frying.  Not really food like at all.   My son came into the kitchen and said "I can tell that's not meat you're cooking", and he had good reason to so comment.

I tasted some of it after it was "cooked" (the mince alone, I mean) and it was a pretty underwhelming flavour.  I think the Beyond Burger had inherently more flavour, and a somewhat meat one at that.

The end result chilli was quite OK - this product certain holds a mince meat-like texture quite well, and sufficient chilli and spices means that it is not as if the bland taste of the "meat" is all that noticeable.   I doubt it would taste great as a burger, though.

And they really need to do something about that odd cooking smell.