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Is 'Vegan Meat' Just MEAT?

*starts sharpening tools*

Hehe. I'm not really a survivalist, but I've eaten squirrel stew. Why? because the local ecology has more squirrels than are required for proper balance.

As a "member" of People Eating Tasty Animals, I often feel the need to remind people that, if cows(etc) weren't food there'd be a lot less of them. Thus the turkey in that poster would never have been born if people didn't eat turkeys.
Isn't there a movement to make everything gluten-free ?
Some people can't digest gluten. Truth is only a few food ingredients(various forms of grain) actually have gluten... but... one of them is a starch that gets used for a wide variety of reasons in a wide variety of foods.

I've eaten vegetarian food, and yes, I actually considered it food. But I'm the kind of guy who can and has made ramen with Asian water buffalo meat. Oooh.. that meat is extra flavorful. And the aroma when it's cooked... makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Where did I get it? well... technically it was dehydrated strips being sold as dog chew toys. Yes really.... 1$ an ouch for dehydrated meat isn't great, but not terrible. As a novelty it's nice though. Boil it, strain it, use the water you boiled it in to boil noodles. The noodles will teste like it even if you don't mix the meat back in. Cut the meat up, add sauce, stir together.
 
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Ovo lactose, What an excellent user name that would make. Or maybe an online wargames character. 'I am Ovo Lactose'. 'Mortals, tremble before me. Those behind me are there at their own risk'.
This is expression is easily misinterpreted and becomes silly i.e. "One cannot get milk from an egg". As it fits the definition of vegetarian to consume milk and eggs. Why create a new definition when there is an existing definition that has a pedigree and that everyone already knows?
 
"AN 18-YEAR-OLD who turned vegan in his first term of university has managed three whole days at home before eating sausages. Joe Turner, who became a vegan because he likes animals and because everyone else was doing it..." https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/food/newly-vegan-student-home-for-christmas-lasts-three-days-before-eating-sausage-sandwich-20191208191545 maximus otter
I'm a vegan.jpeg
104 Year Old Vegan after eating one strip of bacon.jpg
 
What I can't understand is why so much vegan food has to be made to both look and taste like meat. The sheer amount of processing involved removes almost all nutritional content from it. What's so wrong with vegetables that they have to be 'formed' and tiddled with?

I have a friend who's vegetarian because she cannot bear the smell or taste of meat and it means that almost any 'vegetarian meal' (as opposed to meals that are incidentally vegetarian, like beans on toast or cheese or whatever) are made to both smell and taste of the meat that she literally cannot eat!
 
What I can't understand is why so much vegan food has to be made to both look and taste like meat. The sheer amount of processing involved removes almost all nutritional content from it. What's so wrong with vegetables that they have to be 'formed' and tiddled with?

I have a friend who's vegetarian because she cannot bear the smell or taste of meat and it means that almost any 'vegetarian meal' (as opposed to meals that are incidentally vegetarian, like beans on toast or cheese or whatever) are made to both smell and taste of the meat that she literally cannot eat!

Partially a fad, partially to appeal to meat eaters I presume.
 
Partially a fad, partially to appeal to meat eaters I presume.
I'm afraid it doesn't appeal to me. A few months ago, I had a full English breakfast in a pub in Bognor; my wife had the veggie version. I tried the veggie bacon; it was foul.
 
Partially a fad, partially to appeal to meat eaters I presume.
I'm not veggie, but will occasionally choose a vegetarian option in a restaurant, simply because I find the food more flavourful and better cooked and presented. After all, you have to work harder to make vegetables look and taste appealing, whereas a burger is a burger and a steak is a steak. If I want meat, I have meat, not something that's been denatured and then reflavoured to look and taste like meat.

I'd guess there's a subset of the market who will only try vegetarian food if they can be convinced it's exactly the same as eating meat.
 
What I can't understand is why so much vegan food has to be made to both look and taste like meat.
I've said before, you have to consider that if someone has eaten meat for the first 40 years of their life, it is (in most cases) going to be very difficult to get rid of that, not necessarily 'craving', but 'need' for it on occasion.

It would be interesting to know how someone who has never eaten meat feels. Have they ever considered trying it 'just to see' perhaps or does the thought alone make them feel ill?
I suppose there are all different scenarios depending on the person.
 
I've said before, you have to consider that if someone has eaten meat for the first 40 years of their life, it is (in most cases) going to be very difficult to get rid of that, not necessarily 'craving', but 'need' for it on occasion.

It would be interesting to know how someone who has never eaten meat feels. Have they ever considered trying it 'just to see' perhaps or does the thought alone make them feel ill?
I suppose there are all different scenarios depending on the person.
From all the anecdotal evidence I've heard, for someone who's been a long-time vegetarian, eating meat can cause them dreadful stomach upsets. But this is anecdotal and may be skewed towards those who don't WANT to eat meat for whatever reason, and therefore nervous reaction may come into play if they find out subsequently that they have eaten meat.

Many vegetarians of my acquaintance do occasionally eat meat (usually bacon sandwiches!) with no ill effects. But, again, they have not been ENTIRELY vegetarian, so maybe can tolerate meat better.
 
From all the anecdotal evidence I've heard, for someone who's been a long-time vegetarian, eating meat can cause them dreadful stomach upsets. But this is anecdotal and may be skewed towards those who don't WANT to eat meat for whatever reason, and therefore nervous reaction may come into play if they find out subsequently that they have eaten meat.

Many vegetarians of my acquaintance do occasionally eat meat (usually bacon sandwiches!) with no ill effects. But, again, they have not been ENTIRELY vegetarian, so maybe can tolerate meat better.
I knew someone who was brought up as a vegetarian who tried to eat meat once she reached adulthood, since she felt the decision hadn't been hers, she said she was violently ill, so she continued as a vegetarian.
 
What I can't understand is why so much vegan food has to be made to both look and taste like meat.
Amen.

I am not a vegetarian, but I like to have a vegetarian meal once in a while. I have no problem with vegetable-based food taking on the general form and seasoning of traditionally meat-based food, but it should be because it tastes better that way, not because it's the abstract primary goal. Some of the recently introduced vegetarian hamburgers are actually made to look like they bleed, for God's sake.

When I decided some decades ago to temporarily go vegetarian to have a healthier diet, I realized I could not enforce it when eating out because the veg options were either horrible tasting or very unhealthy.
 
After all, you have to work harder to make vegetables look and taste appealing, whereas a burger is a burger and a steak is a steak.

Sorry catseye but you're wrong. Chefs who know what they're doing have a number of tricks to cook a perfect steak including letting it rest before putting it back on the heat. There's also the technique of folding your thumb into your palm and touching the fleshy part under your thumb then touching the still cooking steak to match the density correct to the customer's requests that range between blue and well done and everything inbetween.

Most customers ask for a steak to be cooked medium rare. Most chefs understand that means "so I don't want to see any red blood!" (hence the resting bit during the cooking process which avoids that and avoids it being returned to the kitchen as a complaint) .. some chefs when they're too busy to do that just cook the steak medium instead anyway and most customers don't even notice the difference.

I managed one kitchen where the owner insisted on only fillet steak being hand minced to hand make his burgers. I still wonder what drugs he was on to this day (cocaine as it turned out) .. they were good burgers.
 
When I decided some decades ago to temporarily go vegetarian to have a healthier diet, I realized I could not enforce it when eating out because the veg options were either horrible tasting or very unhealthy.
To be fair Chas, there weren't many vegetarian options in the 1940s.
 
What I can't understand is why so much vegan food has to be made to both look and taste like meat. The sheer amount of processing involved removes almost all nutritional content from it. What's so wrong with vegetables that they have to be 'formed' and tiddled with?
^this^. I work with a coworker who is vegan. We've had this discussion several times and, really, she can't answer it (to my satisfaction). She says that because people like the taste and texture of meat, then that is why it's done.

If you're vegan, why is the food industry trying to make it like meat? Even down to the naming of the "ahem" food eg. Tofurkey, Beyond Meat. Why not make up its own name? Tofu is tofu, or soya bean or lentils etc. Recipes have their own names. Why the food industry's silly attempt to make something that is not meat appear and taste like meat?

If it's good and cooked properly, people will eat it. I'm not even vegetarian (though at the cost of meat, may eventually become one). I don't need the marketing to influence me to eat it. And I think it is exactly that. That the marketing gurus think people will be fooled and influenced to eat it.

My irritation with "vegan" food is that it is often as expensive or more expensive than the meat.
 
If you're vegan, why is the food industry trying to make it like meat? Even down to the naming of the "ahem" food eg. Tofurkey, Beyond Meat. Why not make up its own name? Tofu is tofu, or soya bean or lentils etc. Recipes have their own names. Why the food industry's silly attempt to make something that is not meat appear and taste like meat?
Because- I'll say again!- if you've eaten meat for 40 years you (might) still want the taste/look/texture of real meat because you're so used to it and they (the producers) know this.
My irritation with "vegan" food is that it is often as expensive or more expensive than the meat.
Agreed.

(I can't even get Tofurkey here now which was very good, if not salty. I think they had an argument with our suppliers for some reason iirc).
 
^this^. I work with a coworker who is vegan. We've had this discussion several times and, really, she can't answer it (to my satisfaction). She says that because people like the taste and texture of meat, then that is why it's done.

If you're vegan, why is the food industry trying to make it like meat? Even down to the naming of the "ahem" food eg. Tofurkey, Beyond Meat. Why not make up its own name? Tofu is tofu, or soya bean or lentils etc. Recipes have their own names. Why the food industry's silly attempt to make something that is not meat appear and taste like meat?

If it's good and cooked properly, people will eat it. I'm not even vegetarian (though at the cost of meat, may eventually become one). I don't need the marketing to influence me to eat it. And I think it is exactly that. That the marketing gurus think people will be fooled and influenced to eat it.

My irritation with "vegan" food is that it is often as expensive or more expensive than the meat.
Well, people have a variety of reasons for being vegan. Some actually claim to do it because it's "better for the environment"... or because they don't want to kill animals for food. whether they actually stick to it... yeah.... I suspect that some of them are just "making a statement" and do it for the optics.

At any rate I heard years ago that your digestion actually adjusts(or should) to what you eat, so if you never eat meat, you stop producing the digestive juices needed to digest meat.
 
^this^. I work with a coworker who is vegan. We've had this discussion several times and, really, she can't answer it (to my satisfaction). She says that because people like the taste and texture of meat, then that is why it's done.

If you're vegan, why is the food industry trying to make it like meat? Even down to the naming of the "ahem" food eg. Tofurkey, Beyond Meat. Why not make up its own name? Tofu is tofu, or soya bean or lentils etc. Recipes have their own names. Why the food industry's silly attempt to make something that is not meat appear and taste like meat?

If it's good and cooked properly, people will eat it. I'm not even vegetarian (though at the cost of meat, may eventually become one). I don't need the marketing to influence me to eat it. And I think it is exactly that. That the marketing gurus think people will be fooled and influenced to eat it.

My irritation with "vegan" food is that it is often as expensive or more expensive than the meat.
As someone who has at some stages of life been vegetarian, I also don't get it. There's plenty of great stuff you can make with vegetables without having to bring a poor substitute for meat into it.

The one which really had me scratching my head though was at a vegan restaurant I went to in South East Asia. They had put tofu and mushrooms into everything. One thing we ordered was a Thai papaya salad. That would be very easy to make a vegan version of - just swap out the fish sauce for 'vegan fish sauce', which I think is made from shiitake mushrooms and is an adequate replacement, and leave out the dried shrimps. Everything else is a fruit, vegetable, or juice thereof. But no, they had to go ahead and whack a load of tofu and mushrooms into it so it tasted the same as everything else.
 
As someone who has at some stages of life been vegetarian, I also don't get it. There's plenty of great stuff you can make with vegetables without having to bring a poor substitute for meat into it.
Exactly. I've cooked for three vegetarians for over a decade and it's really not difficult to make nice and nutritious meals with no meat. Herbs, spices, onions, garlic, cheeses, it's not tricky. Dried soya mince is quite useful though and my 'Happy Sheep Pie' and 'Chilli sans carne' were always popular. :)
 
Exactly. I've cooked for three vegetarians for over a decade and it's really not difficult to make nice and nutritious meals with no meat. Herbs, spices, onions, garlic, cheeses, it's not tricky. Dried soya mince is quite useful though and my 'Happy Sheep Pie' and 'Chilli sans carne' were always popular. :)
Honestly? certain kinds of soup and stew... don't need meat at all. Lentil and rice with chopped veggies is really good. Black bean and rice is also amazing. It doesn't really NEED meat to be nutritious at all, so there's no reason to have a meat substitute. If you want to add some bacon for flavor, or something like that... enh.. doesn't hurt really, but it's not needed.
 
During the early stages of the Covid hysteria, when all the normal food was flying off supermarket shelves, l had to buy some vegan stuff (there was always plenty left on display…)

l don’t recall the name of the product, but it was a smallish microwaveable pot of a vegan curry. l do remember that the labelling insisted that it was a particularly delicious treat or indulgence.

All l can say is, if vegans regarded that as a treat, then they suffer from very low expectations. lt was like flour and water paste mixed with a few beans, which had been slightly contaminated with curry powder. l’d have felt disappointed in it as a dehydrated hiking ration, let alone as a delicacy.

maximus otter
 
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