Orange Chicken Showdown: Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken versus Aldi’s Never Any Chicken with Orange Sauce

Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken is a perennial favorite of everyone’s favorite odd little supermarket.  Freezers across the country are stocked with bags of this weekday dinner delight and it has been a lifesaver in terms of getting everyone satisfactorily fed in my household as well.

However, we seem to be living in the age of meatless alternatives.  If you like hamburgers you can default to the old standbys like Boca or Morningstar Farms, but you are more likely to choose a Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger.  Heck, you can even get moderately priced meatless fair from the ever quirky Aldi.

You can also get a bag of meatless orange chicken from Aldi.  Or is it orange not-quite-so-chicken?  I digress.

Naturally, I wanted to compare Aldi’s offering with that of the old standby Trader Joe’s:

An initial visual inspection reveals the primary difference between the two products.  The Aldi alternative is much more like chicken nuggets with sauce while the Trader Joe’s offering is more akin to Chinese takeout.  If you desire the craggy and crunchy thrill of deep fried chicken pieces than Trader Joe’s will win every time.  You can see the difference:

In truth, that is the primary difference.  Let’s be honest for a moment.  The presence of actual chicken versus a textured vegetable protein is almost a non-factor because I do not know of anyone who eats frozen orange chicken because of the meat.  This is a show about crunchy fried bits and orange sauce.  Unless you run across a stray piece of cartilage there is nothing that you remember about the chicken.  I posit that you could sell people pieces of deep fried batter in orange sauce, minus any actual protein, and it would sell quite well.

Aside from the texture difference of the chicken pieces there is a slight difference in the taste of the orange sauce.  The Aldi version is slightly thinner and sweeter.  The Trader Joe’s version is thicker and has a vinegar bite.  Which do you prefer?  That would be personal as I know people who prefer thin red sweet and sour over thicker and more vinegary sweet and sour.

The real question I have is why Aldi could not have made a meatless orange chicken that duplicated the craggy fried goodness of the Trader Joe’s Mandarin Orange Chicken.  It would seem to me that random and misshapen bits of protein covered in battered and deep fried would be an easier problem to solve versus the analogue of a breast meat nugget.  Just saying.

Friday Linkage 1/5/2018

It’s 2018 and it’s cold.  I am not just talking about the relationships in and out of the Trump White House either.

Since it is so cold across much of the United States I am waiting for James Inhofe to give one of his patented rants about how winter disproves any science about global warming or climate change.  It will happen as surely as taxes, ridiculous tweets by Trump, and bad midseason television shows.

On to the links…

Ryan Zinke Taps almost $40,000 from Wildfire Preparedness Fund to Pay for a Helicopter Trip—Scandal and corruption have a name.  That name is Ryan Zinke and he is the head of the Department of the Interior.  The government is nothing but a slush fund for these kleptocrats to live high on the hog while the Donald tweets his latest brain fart.

Vehicles are Now America’s Biggest CO2 Source but EPA is Tearing up Regulations—Reducing our use of fossil fuels for transportation is the single biggest challenge facing us in the coming years.  However, it is one the easiest things for individuals to reduce given our profligate use of personal automobiles for transportation.

Norway Reaches Carbon Emissions Goal From Transportation 3 Years Early, Thanks To Tesla—The solutions to reduce our transportation emissions exist.  It is a question of political will and money.  Norway did it.

100% — Chinese City’s Record-Smashing 16,359 Electric Bus Fleet—Shenzen went all EV for its bus fleet.  Imagine if the major U.S. cities made this kind of commitment?  It would mean a huge buildout in charging infrastructure and demand for EV busses that would drive down the cost for smaller fleets.  It’s a virtuous circle of EV awesomeness.

Finance Institutions Are Making a Massive Investment in Solar—Is this where the worm turns?  Once financial institutions choose renewables over fossil fuels it will be increasingly difficult for the legacy energy regime to finance expansion in any economical manner which will be a death knell for the future of those fuels.  We can hope.

The Dutch Plan to Build an Artificial Island to Support the World’s Largest Wind Farm—The Dutch are not fooling around when it comes to wind.  30 GW of wind power is a huge amount.  How huge?  30 GW roughly equates to 30,000 MW of capacity.  In real terms that represents more than 4 times the wind power installed in the state of Iowa.

New York to Procure 800 MW of Offshore Wind in Next Two Years—After seeing what the Dutch are doing this does not seem like much, but any progress is progress.

Trump Holds Geothermal Card Up His Sleeve When Pitching “Energy Dominance”—What role does geothermal energy play in the future energy mix?  Like hydro, geothermal tends to be a forgotten player despite its benefits of being near baseload power and having a lot of unexplored potential.  The fact that the Trump administration has the near future in its hands—however tiny—makes me very nervous.

Nuclear Agency Has The Hots For Solar Energy Windows—I have the hots for solar windows.  Imagine every multistory building with a glass façade generating electricity because it was covered in transparent solar glass.  That is the future, man.

Takeout Creates a Lot of Trash. It Doesn’t Have To.—Normally, I do not patronize takeout.  Choosing to dine in or eat homecooked meals is my modus operandi.  However, this past week I brought some takeout beignets from the Lost Cajun in Breckenridge to our friend’s condo.  I can attest to the waste of takeout.

Tom Brady Is Drowning In His Own Pseudoscience—Like Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop, Tom Brady and his junk science doctor are peddling some serious bullshit.  Here is my two cents: If someone is giving you health advice and also selling an item to further that same advice take the time to question the veracity of every claim.  This includes the health advice from your doctor.  And Tom Brady.  Especially Tom Brady.

Friday Linkage 1/13/2012

It’s Friday the 13th and we get the first real snowstorm of the year.  The temperature also dipped about twenty five degrees over night.  Nothing makes it feel like winter quite like a cold snap with a few inches of the white stuff.  On to the links…

Why Black Market Entrepreneurs Matter to the World Economy–If we really want to think about how to save the world then we are going to have to understand how the world functions economically.  System D is a pathway to progress.

Cash Mobs Support Local Business, but Can they Create Change?–I was unfamiliar with the concept of a cash mob until I read this article.  I do not know if this is anymore fundamentally society altering than crop mobs or whatever else social media can do.  Time will tell.

Pond Scum to the Rescue–Biofuels are an avenue to future fossil fuel independence if people like Craig Venter can get it right.  The promise of liquid biofuels with great lifecycle costs in terms of money and energy are the Holy Grail.

Renewable Energy in California Parks Sits Unused–Articles like this piss me off because it gives ammunition to people like Mitt Romney to talk about the failure of government.  Really?  How about just calling this a failure of sense?  Is it really any different than when a business makes a boneheaded move and gets grilled on CNBC?  Not really.

Richardson Bay Island is Now a Nature Preserve–On the other hand, good things can happen when people get together and think about forward looking solutions.  What was essentially an island of waste in Richardson Bay near Marin is now a thriving natural park.

American Air Before Regulation--For anyone who has doubts about the good government can do just look at these pictures.  The air we breathe is so much better because of government intervention.

Meatless in the Midwest–I hate articles like these because they portray the states in between New York and California as wastelands when it comes to enlightened foodies.  Really?  In my little section of Iowa there are several excellent restaurants dedicated to vegetarian cuisine, a whole culture of sustainable food production, and a lot of people who did not need to relearn how to garden when it became trendy.  I invite the author to look beyond the easy story and actually see what is going on in places other than New York City.

Greeks go Back to the Land–Maybe it’s because I live in a place where people are not so far removed from farming to think it a strange occupation.  But in Greece the hard economic times have forced people to reexamine the nature of work and making a living.

Cure Your Takeout Addiction--Tamar Adler has some really good advice about paring down your pantry and still being able to produce great food at home day in and day out.  Her advice about fancy salt is so right.  I have seen too many people poring over the various salts in specialty shops.  Spend your money elsewhere.