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Is 'Vegan Meat' Just MEAT?

Perhaps call burgers, patties, and sausages,podgy things,and bacon, insoles, (well they look like em.
 
It's just a name so it identifies it, we are used to burgers and sausages, we know what they are, they are a defined shape in our soggy lil brains
 
It's just a name so it identifies it, we are used to burgers and sausages, we know what they are, they are a defined shape in our soggy lil brains
Yeah, but vegans have renounced meat and animal products. So why do they need a surrogate?
 
yeah but its not like you cut open a pig and pull out sausage links and quarter pounders ... theyre just convenient packaging devices for composite foods, typically meat
 
It's like a nicotine patch for meat.
 
I had a discussion with a coworker who is vegan, asking why vegan/vegetarian food needs to be named as "like" chicken (quotes to be used for any food that is not meat, but a substitute). Neither of us could really come up with an answer. I don't know why a food item just doesn't have its own name. Every culture has different food dishes and if there is something new we often just give it its own name. Example, everyone who has had Middle Eastern food knows what a falafel is or, anyone who has had Canadian food knows what poutine is.

So why have non meat replacements not been named - other than with meaty names? I think that might put people more at ease with wondering what they are really eating. If vegan foodstuffs had specific names, then (I think) they could not be marketed as anything else and companies would not be able to fake what they are selling. Then people thinking meat is covertly replacing vegan items in their food might feel that the food source is more secure.
 
I don't see why vegans need sausages and burgers in any form.

There are mushroom burgers that taste like mushrooms (obvs), and soya sausages as well as leek sausages that taste of herbs or veg. So not all veggie burgers and sausages taste like meat - most don't.
 
There are mushroom burgers that taste like mushrooms (obvs), and soya sausages as well as leek sausages that taste of herbs or veg. So not all veggie burgers and sausages taste like meat - most don't.
Yes. But why have burger and sausages of any type? Given up meat. Eat non-meat. Sure. But why wish for pastiches of meat based products? Just eating non-meat foods is all that is required.
 
Yes. But why have burger and sausages of any type? Given up meat. Eat non-meat. Sure. But why wish for pastiches of meat based products? Just eating non-meat foods is all that is required.
I've read somewhere they like to make them look like meat products so it's easier to convert meat eaters to vegetarianism and veganism.
 
Yeah, but vegans have renounced meat and animal products. So why do they need a surrogate?
I like the taste of meat and cheese.
I don't like farrowing pens, or day old calves being put in sacks, so they can't learn to walk and cause a nuisance before the slaughterman comes, or carving a chicken and finding massive clots of blood where its legs were broken for a long time before its death.
I do like being able to eat a burger, or a sausage, without feeling sick at what the poor animal had to go through beforehand!
I understand that there are vegetarians/vegans who genuinely don't like the taste or texture of meat, but IME (and I've been a vegetarian since 1984, and a vegan for five years), most of us do, and it's also an awful lot easier to go into a shop and see things labelled as 'chicken' or 'burger' and to know roughly what you're going to be getting :)
 
Yes. But why have burger and sausages of any type? Given up meat. Eat non-meat. Sure. But why wish for pastiches of meat based products? Just eating non-meat foods is all that is required.

I suppose it's easier to "substitute", i.e. if you're making a certain meal for a family everyone can have the same thing bar the meat. Obviously, you could just not have meat and have extra veg/carbs instead but that might be harder with burgers in a bun or hotdogs.
 
I've never eaten meat / poultry / fish in my life, so I have absolutely no idea what it tastes like. But I have no interest in finding out (not for any moral purposes; I just cannot stomach the idea of eating dead flesh). So personally for me the idea of "meat substitute" things like quorn burgers or what have you, have no appeal.

I assume they are marketed towards people who used to eat meat and now don't want to (for whatever reason) but still want to have that taste. But not all ex-meat-eaters are interested in still eating 'meat-like' things; Mr Zebra used to eat meat before we were married and he has no interest in that sort of substitute food either (but then again he wasn't a big meat-eater when he was younger, and doesn't miss it at all).
 
She was fed a vegetarian diet by her owner for some reason

I have noticed that Gluten-Free stuff for dogs is a real thing. I nearly put what I took to be a paté in my basket, before I noticed the handsome face of a woof on the lid! It was among the end-of-line stuff in Tesco and mixed in with all the other groceries! :chef:
 
Like i said earlier, i hate the taste of meat but the veggie burgers and sausages taste nothing like meat does, it is the shape that i think they are referring to more than anything
 
I just looked up what ‘Vish’ is. Apparently it derives from banana blossom.

So... instead of fish, the alternative is a substitute that comes from the other side of the world with a huge carbon footprint.

I have a younger vegan friend. I used to say that when I was young, vegetables were delivered on a horse and cart (from the CO-OP) and scooped off the floor of a dirty cart and weighed on dirty scales against those old cast iron weights. The vegetables were seasonal. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbages, leeks. In summer we had pea pods, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions. Onions were delivered by a ‘Frenchman’ on a bike. I kid you not.

There was more stuff available but the point is this. I didn’t see a red pepper until I was twelve and chillis and exotic spices were unheard of outside a Vesta Curry. Now today’s young vegetarians and vegans can enjoy a varied diet and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of the fruit and veg they like all year round. And it only has to be transported from the other side of the planet. The carbon footprint of a kiwi fruit can probably be measured in the same terms as Bono’s hat.

Yet oddly, it seems the people who consume these far flung products may be the same people as those we’ve seen protesting about the environment or some extinction event in recent times.
 
Vesta, ummmm, I loved the Vesta beef risotto, you can get the other Vestas but i cant seem to get the risotto
 
it seems the people who consume these far flung products may be the same people as those we’ve seen protesting about the environment or some extinction event
could be the same lot yes, or a different bunch, are you implying a double standard ?
 
I have noticed that Gluten-Free stuff for dogs is a real thing. I nearly put what I took to be a paté in my basket, before I noticed the handsome face of a woof on the lid! It was among the end-of-line stuff in Tesco and mixed in with all the other groceries! :chef:
You'd have probably been fine if you'd eaten it anyway, food manufacturing hygiene standards are at human consumption level for dog food. People are even employed to taste test dog food. Myself and the kid next door used to eat dog biscuits for a laugh sometimes when we were nippers.
 
I think it's the same as the obsession of people adding the word artisanal, rainbow, and unicorn on foods for authenticity and novelty.

... yes, and without realising that the more they apply such banal terms to just about everything, the less "novel" they become.

I see that you are quite new, so :welc: by the way.
 
One good sign that vegetarians are not just seen as weirdos: The cliche that vegetarians long for meat, and even secretly cosume it, so often used in sitcoms, has annoyed us for 40 years. It''s finally diminshing, huzza!
But if a plant or science-based faux meat appeals to anyone who longs for a rare burger, huzza!
 
fractal broccoli

Romanesco certainly looks exotic and can carry a speciality price-tag in some stores but it is not necessarily imported, with the carbon footprint that implies. I don't remember seeing it in the UK until about twenty years ago, though it is said to have reached America in the early 20th Century. It is also very pleasant, unlike some of those novel salad leaves which seem to be bitter plastic! :hungo:
 
I know vegetarians that enjoy the texture and flavour of meat but don't want to be involved in killing animals.

I'm the worst type of carnivore - I like meat, but if it looks remotely like it was alive (bones, scales, eyes, pipes) I'm not going near it.
 
I’m paranoid it’s meat’: the rise of vegan conspiracy theories
From KFC’s Imposter burger to Greggs’ sausage roll, meat-a-like foods are now a vegan staple. But these plant-based alternatives are so realistic they’re prompting sincere concern...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...TZGltBSSn6f2pzTFSiMcrC0Kfg#Echobox=1562973481

That's an interesting point, isn't it. How would one know if what they are eating is actually meat-in-disguise or not, if they purportedly taste the same? Is the texture the same as well?

Some people involved in the preparation of such food may well think it would be "a bit of a larf" to put real meat in. Cos there's some funny folk about. Not to mention; if the meat-substitute stuff is more expensive to produce than normal meat, then some companies might want to cut costs...

*removes conspiracy beret*


Many years ago whilst eating out, I remember having occasion to ask Mr Zebra to confirm the nature of something contained within our meal. He assured me it wasn't meat, but nevertheless the worry was there. Doubly so because I don't know what meat tastes like, so I could inadvertently eat it without realising.

Tis why I've always preferred plain foods, or at least foods in which I can recognise each component of it. Makes life so much easier. :)
 
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