As a picky eater who's not very fond of most vegetables, for most of my life I thought it would be impossible for me to enjoy vegetarian or vegan food just beca

As a picky eater who's not very fond of most vegetables, for most of my life I thought it would be impossible for me to enjoy vegetarian or vegan food just because whenever I'd seen some vegan options available somewhere they were just like what you described. Eventually it turned out that there are many more options out there than what you get when a meat-based restaurant needs to come up with some non-meat dish to not lose some orders and that if you find places where people know what they're doing you can easily discover vegan dishes that you find on par or even preferable to their meaty alternatives merely because of their taste and texture. Turns out there's a variety of "sub-cultures" there, but if you don't actively look for them all you get to see is bland mainstream filled with vegetables that I used to pick out from my plate as a child.