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It's pretty interesting - if you talk to a lifelong vegetarian, they have very little interest in the various meat substitutes. The taste and texture and nutri

It's pretty interesting - if you talk to a lifelong vegetarian, they have very little interest in the various meat substitutes. The taste and texture and nutrients of a balanced vegetarian diet are sufficient; why go through the extra trouble to make the food taste like something it isn't? I expect that we'll gradually adjust to eating less meat and enjoying more vegetables, without resorting to made-in-a-factory meat substitutes. That scenario seems much healthier than some sort of fungus-meat-analogue dystopia, personally.

schoen 4y ago
I noticed this was very different in different cultures. For example, when I went to Singapore, there was lots of Chinese vegetarian food and lots of Indian vegetarian food. The Chinese vegetarian food almost always used mock meat, while the Indian vegetarian food never did. Personally, as a vegetarian for over three decades, I have sometimes been grossed out by realistic meat substitutes, but sometimes found them palatable and even appealing. Just a few days ago I ate a mock meat sandwich from The Butcher's Son in Berkeley that I enjoyed quite a bit (even though it's not very similar to anything I would normally eat most of the time). I suspect this question is pretty complicated and varies a lot from place to place, person to person, and time to time. For instance, it might be different for people who associated meat with celebrations and feasts and then gave it up somewhat reluctantly, and for people who found meat unpleasant and unappetizing and always preferred eating other things. These two people would naturally have different cultural and emotional associations to the act of eating (something that seems quite a lot like) meat. So I'd encourage people working in the vegetarian food industry to pursue both tracks: make mock meats that are more and more realistic, and also show people that things that are not very meat-like at all can be appealing and interesting to eat.
jhanschoo 4y ago
Ymmv, but as a lifelong flexitarian, meat substitutes help me adapt recipes I encounter in the wild. Just as there are nonvegetarians that enjoy new tastes and food and nonvegetarians that stick to what's vanilla, so too you can encounter diversity among vegetarians. Besides, meat substitutes have a long tradition; where I live, mock meat has been in Buddhist cuisine and this has been a tradition prior to the Western trends towards vegetarianism.
zasdffaa 4y ago
Speaking as a veggie... > why go through the extra trouble to make the food taste like something it isn't? ...because meat tastes a lot better is why, and is often more protein-, fat- and calorie-dense. Vegetables are pretty boring to me at least. > fungus-meat-analogue dystopia Branding a meat substitute as 'dystopian' makes your comment idiotic.
ascorbic 4y ago
It depends massively on the person. I was vegetarian from birth to age 16, it was during this time that Quorn was launched in the UK. I loved it. It was a lot nicer than the other meat substitutes we had available in the 80s/90s. It was a lot more expensive though, so it was only ever a treat. In retrospect it was probably only a similar price to meat, but we didn't have much money. Conversely my wife has been vegetarian since she was a young child and can't stand any meat substitutes.
ChrisRR 4y ago
Which only applies if entire countries become 100% vegetarian, but that's never going to happen. At best we can massively reduce our meat (especially beef) intake, but eating meat is so ingrained in western culture that it's never going to fully go away

schoen 4y ago

I noticed this was very different in different cultures. For example, when I went to Singapore, there was lots of Chinese vegetarian food and lots of Indian vegetarian food. The Chinese vegetarian food almost always used mock meat, while the Indian vegetarian food never did. Personally, as a vegetarian for over three decades, I have sometimes been grossed out by realistic meat substitutes, but sometimes found them palatable and even appealing. Just a few days ago I ate a mock meat sandwich from The Butcher's Son in Berkeley that I enjoyed quite a bit (even though it's not very similar to anything I would normally eat most of the time). I suspect this question is pretty complicated and varies a lot from place to place, person to person, and time to time. For instance, it might be different for people who associated meat with celebrations and feasts and then gave it up somewhat reluctantly, and for people who found meat unpleasant and unappetizing and always preferred eating other things. These two people would naturally have different cultural and emotional associations to the act of eating (something that seems quite a lot like) meat. So I'd encourage people working in the vegetarian food industry to pursue both tracks: make mock meats that are more and more realistic, and also show people that things that are not very meat-like at all can be appealing and interesting to eat.

jhanschoo 4y ago

Ymmv, but as a lifelong flexitarian, meat substitutes help me adapt recipes I encounter in the wild. Just as there are nonvegetarians that enjoy new tastes and food and nonvegetarians that stick to what's vanilla, so too you can encounter diversity among vegetarians. Besides, meat substitutes have a long tradition; where I live, mock meat has been in Buddhist cuisine and this has been a tradition prior to the Western trends towards vegetarianism.

zasdffaa 4y ago

Speaking as a veggie... > why go through the extra trouble to make the food taste like something it isn't? ...because meat tastes a lot better is why, and is often more protein-, fat- and calorie-dense. Vegetables are pretty boring to me at least. > fungus-meat-analogue dystopia Branding a meat substitute as 'dystopian' makes your comment idiotic.

ascorbic 4y ago

It depends massively on the person. I was vegetarian from birth to age 16, it was during this time that Quorn was launched in the UK. I loved it. It was a lot nicer than the other meat substitutes we had available in the 80s/90s. It was a lot more expensive though, so it was only ever a treat. In retrospect it was probably only a similar price to meat, but we didn't have much money. Conversely my wife has been vegetarian since she was a young child and can't stand any meat substitutes.

ChrisRR 4y ago

Which only applies if entire countries become 100% vegetarian, but that's never going to happen. At best we can massively reduce our meat (especially beef) intake, but eating meat is so ingrained in western culture that it's never going to fully go away