8 ms·

POV: Omnivore with a (previously) vegetarian spouse. We generally ate veg @ home One of my biggest issues with modern veg diets is all of the veg food trying t

POV: Omnivore with a (previously) vegetarian spouse. We generally ate veg @ home One of my biggest issues with modern veg diets is all of the veg food trying to masquerade as other food. Soy bacon does not taste like, or taste as good as, real bacon. Tofu and Boca burgers do not taste like actual meat. But tofu and the like can taste amazing on its own merit. It's an ingredient with it's own flavors and textures, so put it where it can do some good. And don't get me started on veg patties. I have a (very) meat loving father who got completely hooked on Boca burgers while on Weight Watchers. He'll still eat them on a regular basis, even though he looooves regular burgers, just because they're delicious. In my mind, you don't have to try to pretend to be something else to be good, especially veg sandwich patties. Latkes are amazing. Refried beans bound together with eggs, breaded and deep fried sounds amazing. Don't put yourself next to something else and force a comparison. Just be tasty.

derefr 7y ago
Veggie “meat equivalent” foods weren’t created to feed people too picky for tofu or chickpeas. They’re there because, pretty often, someone first decides to cook a traditionally meat-containing dish, and buys all the ingredients for it; and only then finds out (or only then considers) that some of the people they’re feeding are vegetarians; and so, to save the dish they’ve already planned, buying some veggie pseudo-meats to put in some of the food in place of the meat they were going to use, is the simplest way to ensure everyone can eat “the dish.” (Even though, if the dish is just meant to highlight or accent the flavour and texture of a meat, then what they’ve made the vegetarians is in essence an entirely different dish. The packaging on the meat-substitutes promises that it will try as hard as possible to not take your meat dish and turn it into a different dish, and many cooks believe them.)
benj111 7y ago
Agreed. The vegetarian things I eat, taste nice, and just happen to be vegetarian, they're not meat replaced with Quorn. Additionally, one thing I don't understand, up until recently animal rights seems to have been the main driver behind vegetarianism. If you're morally against eating pig, why would you want to eat something that pretends to be pig?
- bootlooped 7y ago
  Because it tastes good. It's not a contradiction to enjoy the taste of an animal, while also believing that the harvesting of that animal is unethical.
  - benj111 7y ago
    As a non vegetarian, there's only one meat I don't eat for moral reasons, and I wouldn't want to eat anything that pretends to be that meat, regardless of whether I like the taste. Quorn cubes, or Quorn mince I can understand, they're generic. Vegetarian bacon is supposed to be a specific part of a specific animal. And I've never heard anyone argue, vegetarian or otherwise, that vegetarian bacon tastes anything like actual bacon anyway.
    - Spivak 7y ago
      No different than the reason people eat turkey bacon. To have a different option that's the right "shape". Bacon is basically synonymous with crispy rectangle and sometimes dammit I want salty crispy rectangles on my burger.
      - benj111 7y ago
        Perhaps? I (personally) would disagree. To me bacon isnt generic, its as specific as chicken leg. I can see how that would account for the discrepancy though.
- lukeschlather 7y ago
  If you're morally against killing people, why would you want to play a game about killing people?
  - benj111 7y ago
    One other thing I've never quite understood is that a child can watch James Bond shoot a few hundred people and that's fine, it is significantly less fine for that child to watch a film of 2 people having sex, even though sex is a normal heathy part of life. In the UK a 16 year old can legally have sex, but cant watch it?! Tbh I'm not sure, I get turned off by things like Saw, because I don't really think theres the need to go that far, but on the other hand, is Mario jumping on a turtle animal cruelty? I suppose the line is realism? Mario isnt attempting to be real? Quorn mince isnt attempting to be real, vegetarian bacon is.
cameronbrown 7y ago
> But tofu and the like can taste amazing on its own merit. Pretty much most people I know (read: non-veggies) agree with you on this point. The harder they try and imitate meat the worse the quality of food tends to be imo.
bootlooped 7y ago
Mock meat foods are a great way for restaurants to easily serve vegetarian or vegan plates with a simple substitution. They also make a massive number of recipes accessible to vegetarians or vegans. They also lower the barrier to entry for meat eaters to convert to eating less meat. I think they're really great in many ways. Downsides: they are highly processed, currently expensive, and of questionable nutritional value.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Another downside it that they have the potential to turn people away, because they don't even resemble what someone is expecting. For example, calling fried jackfruit "fried chicken". Fried jackfruit is delicious on it's own merit, but it doesn't even come close to a fried chicken substitute. And if I order vegan fried chicken, anything can be the chicken substitute, but I bet it won't be as good as fried jackfruit if it's not fried jackfruit. I'd rather they just call it what it really is, and if it's tasty, it will be memorable.
- JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
  Trying to offer "bridge" foods that are vegetable versions of normal dishes doesn't help. It never is as good, at best it's "yeah...its OK." So you have only re-enforced the idea that vegetarian food will never be quiet as good as the "real thing". On the off chance it is exactly like the meat its pretending to be then all your saying is "See? All you have to do is spend more for exactly the same thing!" I might try a "Quenwopper" bowl for 9 bucks if they offered it at BK. I'm not spending 9 bucks on a burger who's entire selling point is that it tastes exactly like the cheaper burger.
  - jlmorton 7y ago
    Kind of a shor-term view, no? The Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat patties are significantly closer to a beef-life flavor than past patties, and they're improving at a quick pace. They may be more expensive now, but it's pretty likely that economies of scale will reduce the price of plant-based meat substitutes, while pretty unlikely that Tyson Foods is going to quickly find a cheaper way to raise a cow.
seanwilson 7y ago
> One of my biggest issues with modern veg diets is all of the veg food trying to masquerade as other food. Look at them as a way to help people slowly transition their taste buds to a new diet and to help people easily cook meals that both vegans and non-vegans would eat.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  But its always worse than what it emulates. If you want to promote veggies, maybe start with a good dish? I understand familiarity is a thing, but so is taste.
  - seanwilson 7y ago
    > But its always worse than what it emulates. If you want to promote veggies, maybe start with a good dish? I understand familiarity is a thing, but so is taste. I don't think that's true at all. You can make great dishes with tofu, seitan and tempeh, where some cultures have been cooking with these for a long time (tofu goes back 2000 years). Also, look at what people are saying about modern plant based burgers at fast food places.
odyssey7 7y ago
An influential book for me was Arnold Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony. It's half harmonic theory and half a manifesto on art. In a lengthy footnote he advises using materials to their advantages, rather than forcing them to do something they weren't meant to do. I've seen this sentiment mentioned in other places as well. As a vegetarian, I've felt this was wonderfully applicable. There's so many great flavors and textures you can achieve with plants, but a lot of vegetarian cook books and pre-made food aim to mimic meat-based dishes instead of embracing more natural outcomes of these different materials.
ikornaselur 7y ago
I just went full vegetarian at the start of the year and my biggest issue at first was I kept trying to find replacements for everything, which just wasn't the same. Some replacements were good, some were just awful, but I always compared it to the real thing. After I started embracing just vegetarian/vegan dishes without them being replacements, I realised I had loads of things to discover and just treated this change as a way to explore new food. After I did that, I loved it, so I agree 100%, while I like some replacements, that shouldn't be the main focus.
justinmchase 7y ago
Absolutely this. I never met a vegetable I didn't like and there are tons of great vegetarian dishes and maybe its 100% mental but the moment you try to turn a non-vegetarian dish into a vegetarian dish, and especially if you try to use a meat substitute, its over. I'd hate to think this is true but perhaps vegetarians go so long they forget what things taste like but some of these meat substitutes are straight up disgusting and I don't know why people even bother with them.
- Spivak 7y ago
  I'm sure there are disgusting meat substitutes but it feels like they're super rare. Wheat gluten nuggets and patties are dope, veggie patties are often disappointing but rarely bad, seitan strips can be slimy if you don't cook them but you basically can't mess it up otherwise, tempeh at worst tastes like crumbly bland nuts, shredded wheat gluten comes out 'oily' if you don't drain it but beyond that is hard to mess up, tofu just tastes like tofu you either love or hate it, and the branded burger subtitutes basically taste like an okay burger. Where are all the disgusting options hiding?
greggman2 7y ago
I'm not vegetarian and I agree with you 100%. That said my favorite sandwich in the world is a fake soy turkey avocado sandwich at Jan's Health Food Bar in Huntington Beach California. It would taste worse with real turkey IMO.
ohbleek 7y ago
I get so tired of this argument. If you were raised eating meat then you'll likely have tendencies to eat meals based around meat. Meat substitutes make sense in the current world and given the typical diet of western cultures. It doesn't have to taste just like the meat it mocks, it just has to taste good. There is nothing special about the taste of chicken or beef other than it is good and you're used to it. If something is similar it doesn't have to be exact and if it doesn't hit that mark it doesn't make it inferior. Chances are most meat doesn't taste the same and has various levels of quality but people don't have the same level of scrutiny between choices of chicken as they do between fake chicken and real chicken. I have given fake buffalo chicken sandwiches to friends before that had no idea at all that it wasn't real until I told them (Iknew about any allergies beforehand). Please excuse my tone, I've been veg for +10 years now and I'm tired of hearing the same weak arguments and excuses. People eat too much meat and it's time to stop making excuses. It's not necessary to stop eating it completely if you don't want to but you shouldn't be eating it more than a few times each week. The nuance of your argument is not lost on me, in fact I agree with the main point but not the part meant to persuade.
- markkanof 7y ago
  You might get tired of it, but it's a pretty strong argument. If I know what real bacon tastes like then eating some vegetarian facsimile of bacon is going to lead to massive disappointment and drawing the conclusion that eating vegetarian is not really an option for me. If instead I just eat things that are vegetarian and have no meat based equivalent then there is a good chance of discovering new and interesting foods and really being able to enjoy what you are eating.
  - devb 7y ago
    For people who feel strongly enough about the ethics of animal farming and the environment, meat substitutes can be "good enough." When I gave up meat years ago I just considered it to be the price of doing what was right.
- jedimastert 7y ago
  I wasn't trying to make the argument that "'not meat' doesn't taste as good as 'meat', so don't eat it", but rather "Don't eat oranges looking for apple". Oranges are still delicious, but they're different and comparing them is not the point. Also, I might disagree with this statement: > There is nothing special about the taste of chicken or beef other than it is good and you're used to it. Umami (savoriness) is actually fairly difficult to find outside of meat if you have an even slightly limited diet and some studies suggest it's craved as an instinctive signal of protein (like sweetness and simple carbs), so if you just stop eating meat there can definitely something missing. (BTW, if you're trying to get off of meat but still have a craving, dried mushrooms and soy sauce have very concentrated umami flavors, and adding MSG can just up the tasty factor in a lot of dishes)
Sawamara 7y ago
Here is the thing though (8+ year vegetarian here, with vegan periods): we have been grown up eating shit like that. Eating sausages, salami, all that jazz. There is nothing wrong with going back to the spices and texture of that. A certified bio soy sausage gives me everything that I want to get that is familiar and similar to me eating hot-dogs in my childhood - and without any ethical concerns. So please, do understand that not everyone wants to replicate food, but rather just want something with a shape of familiarity to insert into their everyday staples.
Reedx 7y ago
That's interesting. Now thinking about it, a downside of this framing is that it might turn people away from those ingredients. Particularly if it's their first time trying it. If you're expecting bacon and it doesn't taste like bacon, then your impression and association with said ingredient is going to be negative by default.
overcast 7y ago
The purpose of Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers is offering alternatives to meat eaters, not veggie eaters looking to eat something that tastes like meat.
UglyToad 7y ago
Just as a counter to this, while I agree such substitutes are a poor facsimile to real meat I'm incredibly grateful for them. I'm vegetarian for moral reasons but my problem is I don't really like vegetables and have constant meat craving. Being able to cook dishes I've been eating for the first 27 years of my life and make them vegetarian (though not as good) is a life saver and I'm grateful for the increasing investment and development in this area.

derefr 7y ago

Veggie “meat equivalent” foods weren’t created to feed people too picky for tofu or chickpeas. They’re there because, pretty often, someone first decides to cook a traditionally meat-containing dish, and buys all the ingredients for it; and only then finds out (or only then considers) that some of the people they’re feeding are vegetarians; and so, to save the dish they’ve already planned, buying some veggie pseudo-meats to put in some of the food in place of the meat they were going to use, is the simplest way to ensure everyone can eat “the dish.” (Even though, if the dish is just meant to highlight or accent the flavour and texture of a meat, then what they’ve made the vegetarians is in essence an entirely different dish. The packaging on the meat-substitutes promises that it will try as hard as possible to not take your meat dish and turn it into a different dish, and many cooks believe them.)

benj111 7y ago

Agreed. The vegetarian things I eat, taste nice, and just happen to be vegetarian, they're not meat replaced with Quorn. Additionally, one thing I don't understand, up until recently animal rights seems to have been the main driver behind vegetarianism. If you're morally against eating pig, why would you want to eat something that pretends to be pig?

bootlooped 7y ago
Because it tastes good. It's not a contradiction to enjoy the taste of an animal, while also believing that the harvesting of that animal is unethical.
- benj111 7y ago
  As a non vegetarian, there's only one meat I don't eat for moral reasons, and I wouldn't want to eat anything that pretends to be that meat, regardless of whether I like the taste. Quorn cubes, or Quorn mince I can understand, they're generic. Vegetarian bacon is supposed to be a specific part of a specific animal. And I've never heard anyone argue, vegetarian or otherwise, that vegetarian bacon tastes anything like actual bacon anyway.
  - Spivak 7y ago
    No different than the reason people eat turkey bacon. To have a different option that's the right "shape". Bacon is basically synonymous with crispy rectangle and sometimes dammit I want salty crispy rectangles on my burger.
    - benj111 7y ago
      Perhaps? I (personally) would disagree. To me bacon isnt generic, its as specific as chicken leg. I can see how that would account for the discrepancy though.
lukeschlather 7y ago
If you're morally against killing people, why would you want to play a game about killing people?
- benj111 7y ago
  One other thing I've never quite understood is that a child can watch James Bond shoot a few hundred people and that's fine, it is significantly less fine for that child to watch a film of 2 people having sex, even though sex is a normal heathy part of life. In the UK a 16 year old can legally have sex, but cant watch it?! Tbh I'm not sure, I get turned off by things like Saw, because I don't really think theres the need to go that far, but on the other hand, is Mario jumping on a turtle animal cruelty? I suppose the line is realism? Mario isnt attempting to be real? Quorn mince isnt attempting to be real, vegetarian bacon is.

cameronbrown 7y ago

> But tofu and the like can taste amazing on its own merit. Pretty much most people I know (read: non-veggies) agree with you on this point. The harder they try and imitate meat the worse the quality of food tends to be imo.

bootlooped 7y ago

Mock meat foods are a great way for restaurants to easily serve vegetarian or vegan plates with a simple substitution. They also make a massive number of recipes accessible to vegetarians or vegans. They also lower the barrier to entry for meat eaters to convert to eating less meat. I think they're really great in many ways. Downsides: they are highly processed, currently expensive, and of questionable nutritional value.

stronglikedan 7y ago
Another downside it that they have the potential to turn people away, because they don't even resemble what someone is expecting. For example, calling fried jackfruit "fried chicken". Fried jackfruit is delicious on it's own merit, but it doesn't even come close to a fried chicken substitute. And if I order vegan fried chicken, anything can be the chicken substitute, but I bet it won't be as good as fried jackfruit if it's not fried jackfruit. I'd rather they just call it what it really is, and if it's tasty, it will be memorable.
JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
Trying to offer "bridge" foods that are vegetable versions of normal dishes doesn't help. It never is as good, at best it's "yeah...its OK." So you have only re-enforced the idea that vegetarian food will never be quiet as good as the "real thing". On the off chance it is exactly like the meat its pretending to be then all your saying is "See? All you have to do is spend more for exactly the same thing!" I might try a "Quenwopper" bowl for 9 bucks if they offered it at BK. I'm not spending 9 bucks on a burger who's entire selling point is that it tastes exactly like the cheaper burger.
- jlmorton 7y ago
  Kind of a shor-term view, no? The Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat patties are significantly closer to a beef-life flavor than past patties, and they're improving at a quick pace. They may be more expensive now, but it's pretty likely that economies of scale will reduce the price of plant-based meat substitutes, while pretty unlikely that Tyson Foods is going to quickly find a cheaper way to raise a cow.

seanwilson 7y ago

> One of my biggest issues with modern veg diets is all of the veg food trying to masquerade as other food. Look at them as a way to help people slowly transition their taste buds to a new diet and to help people easily cook meals that both vegans and non-vegans would eat.

whenchamenia 7y ago
But its always worse than what it emulates. If you want to promote veggies, maybe start with a good dish? I understand familiarity is a thing, but so is taste.
- seanwilson 7y ago
  > But its always worse than what it emulates. If you want to promote veggies, maybe start with a good dish? I understand familiarity is a thing, but so is taste. I don't think that's true at all. You can make great dishes with tofu, seitan and tempeh, where some cultures have been cooking with these for a long time (tofu goes back 2000 years). Also, look at what people are saying about modern plant based burgers at fast food places.

odyssey7 7y ago

An influential book for me was Arnold Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony. It's half harmonic theory and half a manifesto on art. In a lengthy footnote he advises using materials to their advantages, rather than forcing them to do something they weren't meant to do. I've seen this sentiment mentioned in other places as well. As a vegetarian, I've felt this was wonderfully applicable. There's so many great flavors and textures you can achieve with plants, but a lot of vegetarian cook books and pre-made food aim to mimic meat-based dishes instead of embracing more natural outcomes of these different materials.

ikornaselur 7y ago

I just went full vegetarian at the start of the year and my biggest issue at first was I kept trying to find replacements for everything, which just wasn't the same. Some replacements were good, some were just awful, but I always compared it to the real thing. After I started embracing just vegetarian/vegan dishes without them being replacements, I realised I had loads of things to discover and just treated this change as a way to explore new food. After I did that, I loved it, so I agree 100%, while I like some replacements, that shouldn't be the main focus.

justinmchase 7y ago

Absolutely this. I never met a vegetable I didn't like and there are tons of great vegetarian dishes and maybe its 100% mental but the moment you try to turn a non-vegetarian dish into a vegetarian dish, and especially if you try to use a meat substitute, its over. I'd hate to think this is true but perhaps vegetarians go so long they forget what things taste like but some of these meat substitutes are straight up disgusting and I don't know why people even bother with them.

Spivak 7y ago
I'm sure there are disgusting meat substitutes but it feels like they're super rare. Wheat gluten nuggets and patties are dope, veggie patties are often disappointing but rarely bad, seitan strips can be slimy if you don't cook them but you basically can't mess it up otherwise, tempeh at worst tastes like crumbly bland nuts, shredded wheat gluten comes out 'oily' if you don't drain it but beyond that is hard to mess up, tofu just tastes like tofu you either love or hate it, and the branded burger subtitutes basically taste like an okay burger. Where are all the disgusting options hiding?

greggman2 7y ago

I'm not vegetarian and I agree with you 100%. That said my favorite sandwich in the world is a fake soy turkey avocado sandwich at Jan's Health Food Bar in Huntington Beach California. It would taste worse with real turkey IMO.

ohbleek 7y ago

I get so tired of this argument. If you were raised eating meat then you'll likely have tendencies to eat meals based around meat. Meat substitutes make sense in the current world and given the typical diet of western cultures. It doesn't have to taste just like the meat it mocks, it just has to taste good. There is nothing special about the taste of chicken or beef other than it is good and you're used to it. If something is similar it doesn't have to be exact and if it doesn't hit that mark it doesn't make it inferior. Chances are most meat doesn't taste the same and has various levels of quality but people don't have the same level of scrutiny between choices of chicken as they do between fake chicken and real chicken. I have given fake buffalo chicken sandwiches to friends before that had no idea at all that it wasn't real until I told them (Iknew about any allergies beforehand). Please excuse my tone, I've been veg for +10 years now and I'm tired of hearing the same weak arguments and excuses. People eat too much meat and it's time to stop making excuses. It's not necessary to stop eating it completely if you don't want to but you shouldn't be eating it more than a few times each week. The nuance of your argument is not lost on me, in fact I agree with the main point but not the part meant to persuade.

markkanof 7y ago
You might get tired of it, but it's a pretty strong argument. If I know what real bacon tastes like then eating some vegetarian facsimile of bacon is going to lead to massive disappointment and drawing the conclusion that eating vegetarian is not really an option for me. If instead I just eat things that are vegetarian and have no meat based equivalent then there is a good chance of discovering new and interesting foods and really being able to enjoy what you are eating.
- devb 7y ago
  For people who feel strongly enough about the ethics of animal farming and the environment, meat substitutes can be "good enough." When I gave up meat years ago I just considered it to be the price of doing what was right.
jedimastert 7y ago
I wasn't trying to make the argument that "'not meat' doesn't taste as good as 'meat', so don't eat it", but rather "Don't eat oranges looking for apple". Oranges are still delicious, but they're different and comparing them is not the point. Also, I might disagree with this statement: > There is nothing special about the taste of chicken or beef other than it is good and you're used to it. Umami (savoriness) is actually fairly difficult to find outside of meat if you have an even slightly limited diet and some studies suggest it's craved as an instinctive signal of protein (like sweetness and simple carbs), so if you just stop eating meat there can definitely something missing. (BTW, if you're trying to get off of meat but still have a craving, dried mushrooms and soy sauce have very concentrated umami flavors, and adding MSG can just up the tasty factor in a lot of dishes)

Sawamara 7y ago

Here is the thing though (8+ year vegetarian here, with vegan periods): we have been grown up eating shit like that. Eating sausages, salami, all that jazz. There is nothing wrong with going back to the spices and texture of that. A certified bio soy sausage gives me everything that I want to get that is familiar and similar to me eating hot-dogs in my childhood - and without any ethical concerns. So please, do understand that not everyone wants to replicate food, but rather just want something with a shape of familiarity to insert into their everyday staples.

Reedx 7y ago

That's interesting. Now thinking about it, a downside of this framing is that it might turn people away from those ingredients. Particularly if it's their first time trying it. If you're expecting bacon and it doesn't taste like bacon, then your impression and association with said ingredient is going to be negative by default.

overcast 7y ago

The purpose of Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers is offering alternatives to meat eaters, not veggie eaters looking to eat something that tastes like meat.

UglyToad 7y ago

Just as a counter to this, while I agree such substitutes are a poor facsimile to real meat I'm incredibly grateful for them. I'm vegetarian for moral reasons but my problem is I don't really like vegetables and have constant meat craving. Being able to cook dishes I've been eating for the first 27 years of my life and make them vegetarian (though not as good) is a life saver and I'm grateful for the increasing investment and development in this area.