Cardboard Cooking

I use a lot of "veggie" meat when I cook, particularly when a recipe calls for sausage or ground beef. Its leaner than beef or even turkey, cooks up with less grease/oil, and just tastes good. Today, we decided our "big" meal would be at lunch so I made tacos. When I opened the bag of crumbles, what looked like a steak strip fell out with the crumbles. Since the company has recently started a new line of "steak" strips, we laughed it off as "cross contamination" and continued cooking. After lunch, I went to throw away the detritus and found that the strip? Was actually cardboard. SO not encouraging.