Agree with almost all of this - if you buy well-grown fresh vegetables, they're delicious all by themselves if you take time to learn how to cook them - but the

Agree with almost all of this - if you buy well-grown fresh vegetables, they're delicious all by themselves if you take time to learn how to cook them - but the same is true of something like chicken. If you get chicken where the chickens are well cared-for, well-fed and not pumped full of hormones it does actually taste delicious by itself. It reminds me of a food eureka moment a couple of decades ago when I was round for dinner with the family a friend who's a farmer. They served boiled potatoes that they'd dug up earlier that day and I suddenly remembered that potatoes could actually taste of something other than the oil / butter / salt that you cook them in or flavour them with. Edit: I presume part of the reason for "plant-based alternatives to meat" is that it's much more difficult to commoditise simple vegetables. I can think of plenty of plant-based alternatives to meat and they're... plants. Potatoes, carrots, aubergines, courgettes, cavolo nero, broccoli...