This is a perfect "transition" food if you're just starting out with healthy eating or going away from meat. I've been Vegan for 5+ years now and what I've learned with TVP is how long you soak your tvp to get the right texture. For example, if you follow the instructions on the package, the tvp gets extremely soft. If you remove it from the water too early... you'll get a harder chewy texture. Either way that's just step one, the last step is how long you cook or fry your tvp..For me my preference to get rid of the soft texture is to fry it until the tvp gets dark and you can see it getting darker. Once you get it to that point, add your sauce and flavoring like normal meat and you're good to go!! I love the product!!! People who don't do it to their preference tends to give up on it. There's not one right way for TVP, find your preference and master it and you'll blow people's mind away when you serve it for dinner! I'm not one of those "vegan converters", but when people eat the different types of plant based meat that are flavorful that I serve, they definitely start talking about going away from meat.. just saying lol