I think the larger issue is why do we stubbornly try to make one thing taste like another? I may be a meat-eater but I can fill my heart's content at a number of Indian vegetarian places, to the point where I don't realize I didn't eat meat. The meal as a whole is fully satiating and nourishing.

In the same vein, I love tofu when it tastes like tofu. But when some try to make it ressemble meat, it simply becomes bad tofu. Beans are awesome and can be combined in so many ways. Bean burgers are just over-seasoned patties posing as meat.

Maybe it's my French background showing but I prefer minimal processing, or processing that brings out the natural flavors of the ingredient, not trying to hide them.

because lots of people love meat but dislike the way it is obtained. compare fake cheese and icecream for the lactose intolerant - they love the taste of cheese and icecream, just not its effects on them.

Vegan cheese is completely different from lactose-free cheese, and is one of the worst things I have ever eaten. It does not retain a single attribute that makes normal cheese appealing, but still manages to smell like an old sock.

I've never had coconut ice cream, but I've had soy ice cream on several occasions and I thought it wasn't bad. (Shout-out to Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, a Wisconsin manufacturer who does a great job of accommodating a wide variety of dietary restrictions)

I'm sure your friend finds her brand of fake cheese palatable, but I seriously doubt it bears any resemblance to real cheese. One of my close friends was a vegetarian because she couldn't give up cheese, until the point where her conscience overwhelmed her and she became a total vegan. She's been looking for a vegan cheese for the past seven or eight years, and I've unfortunately shared in the experience. I'm comfortable with the claim that right now, vegan cheese is not a replacement for real cheese.

The problem with vegan cheese is that vegan foods are generally only convincing substitutes in a specific domain. Ice cream works because ice cream is always frozen. Nobody complains if your vegan ice cream doesn't look like ice cream when melted or boiling. On the other hand, the same cheese can be melted, broiled, burnt, shredded, or some combination of the 4 depending on the application. Plus, it has to taste like cheese too.

In some sense, it's a bit like vegan bacon, which generally just tastes a bit smokey, and I've never found any that has the crispy texture that melts in the mouth like real bacon. Fake cheese just has a really ... off texture, and it's flavor is one-dimensional.

Despite the label claiming that, it isn't actually the case. Rather than removing the sugar, which is quite difficult without affecting the milk, they simply add lactase.

In my opinion, it's because vegetarians know that their diet is an extreme departure from the norm, and anything they can do to feel more included in the mainstream, they will do. I have relatives that are vegetarians, and being vegetarian limits their social lives to some degree (I'm sure the impact is partially dependent on where you live; this comment is based on my observations only). For example, they can't eat at certain restaurants, and they tend to not bother trying to host dinners at their homes for people with normal diets (or worse, they do host, and guests don't come back after the first time). One of my vegetarian relatives has children, and it impacts their social lives as well - kids in households with mainstream diets usually aren't big fans of tofu and aren't going to be hanging out in vegetarian households as often.

Everyone wants to feel normal, even when their lifestyle choices are far from it. This, in my opinion, is the driving force behind the quest for "vegemeat".

As a vegetarian, I'm weird. As a picky vegetarian, I'm even weirder. That's fine, I'm used to weird, and I don't expect people to cater to my weirdness.

For me, it's not about specific taste. When I went vegetarian, I lost the taste for red meat. Last time I had it (10+ years now) it was NASTY - I remembered it tasting good, but it doesn't meet (ha!) that memory.

No, it's mostly about texture. I want something that tastes _good_ (for however "good" is defined) and has the right chewiness to my mouth.

It's also about convenience - My wife and I have "meat cookies", which are morningstar "burgers" fixed on a george foreman grill, and after a few minutes of cooling, are able to be picked up and eaten like a cookie. The taste is good, but it could be better. Nothing about this experience is like a normal meat-eater.

I will concede that it'd be really nice to go to a restaurant and have an easy time picking out food from the menu. That's less about being normal and more about being able to eat when hungry.

So no - I don't think my desire for meat alternatives is about a desperate need to feel like I belong. Its about having tasty options that didn't kill animals. For many vegetarians straight vegetables can fulfill that need. Not so for me.

You seem very self-aware, which I view as a rare and positive trait. So here's a question that I am genuinely curious about: in light of the fact that you said you remembered meat tasting good prior to becoming a vegetarian, do you believe that it is unpalatable to you now because it actually tastes bad (i.e. your brain actually no longer likes the taste), or is it the thoughts that you associate with meat (those that drove you to be a vegetarian in the first place - perhaps that a cow was killed for it, or its impact on the environment)?

It was actually very weird - I'd smell it, and remember the good taste, then have some and be quite startled how bad it seemed to me. (and again, other meats did not have that reaction). I have no idea if this is a matter of personal chemistry, a more intricate mental gymnastics than the one you propose, or is actually commonplace. To this day, the smell of KFC original recipe will make me salivate. (I once found an Indian place that had a veggie Pakora that tasted JUST LIKE THAT BATTER. Man I miss that)

For background: I went full vegetarian for 6 months in college, but stopped when I was seeing stars constantly. It's easy to get decent nutrition with a vegetarian diet, particularly as I'm not active, but microwaved rice and beans and mac n'cheese (my college diet) wasn't healthy enough. So I returned meat to my diet and that's when I found I didn't like red meat anymore. I imagine I could've taught myself to like it again, but I was content with the other meat options and had no more health issues. After a few years like this I noticed that a few foods (e.g. lettuce, baby spinach) that were previously on my "ick" list were now palatable, so I started dropping a meat a year, giving my taste and lifestyle time to adjust. After a few years of that, I was fully vegetarian, and my diet has expanded, though I still have a depressingly large "these foods don't taste good to me" list.

Why do I think pork is marginally than beef? I grew up in a rural-ish* area, and have a lower opinion of cows than pigs, in terms of intelligence and awareness. I similarly think a turkey is smarter than chicken, but we are talking literal bird brains at that point.

* rural-ish = a large town surrounded by farmland. State College, PA, for the curious.

It beggars belief that you claim to be related to a vegetarian and you think that kids subsist on tofu, or even that meals are a major part of kids hanging out. Kids eat chips and pizza and pasta, all of which is vegetarian.

I am French, I live in France, and grew up in a large city. I can confirm what he said about kids in some cultures, and it's not limited to the "rural America" the sanfran crowds like to dismiss so much on the internet. I had Indians friends I grew up with as a kid, and they were made to eat meat every time we were going out with the other neighborhood kids because we liked to go to fast foods like Quick (a belgian fast food franchise that's a bit like the European McDo) and there was no decent vegetarian food there, at least when I was a kid, I wouldn't know if they changed their menus because I haven't gone to fast foods for a long time. He had to lie to his parents about not eating hamburgers, they were devout, religious vegetarian hinduists and I have no idea how they'd react if they knew their kids ate beef.

What would have happened if they refused to eat meat with us? They would either have to watch us eat at Quick while growing hungry, or just leave the group altogether. Seeing our food cultures, I would definitely have hated the very idea of growing in a vegetarian household. The indian kids could come at our places and order pizza with us, but we never, ever shared a meal at their home.

My parents loved sharing food with our indian neighbors though, despite the fact that my father loved meat, he also enjoyed the food they made and my grandmother often made vegetarian cooking to exchange with them. But that's a whole another story when it comes to kids.

For the same reason that people use birth control instead of abstinence: People like to "have their cake and eat it too." If we can get the part of something we value minus some downside we deem undesirable, we are all over it.

I am a vegetarian, and have been for about 8 years. I agree that the taste isn't a duplicate, but inedible that's a stretcher?

> Unfortunately, the idea of fake meat that people won't notice is, at least today, a vegetarian fantasy.

And I never understood why. I like the taste of vegetables. Needing things that duplicate meat in taste and texture feels unnecessary and almost ... not quite, I can't find the right word ... hypocritical -- as if humans need that flavor?

Still, these imitation components strike me as tacky or cheap knockoffs. Even worse, for me they signal that even vegetarians can't go without the taste (or structure) of meat. I really wonder if their availability is a net positive for reducing meat consumption.

I consider myself quite a meat-eater, but I do enjoy properly thought-out vegetarian dishes (like Thai or Indian vegetable curry's), and I'm a big fan of main dish salads (usually with Feta cheese, walnuts or raisins). Still, when I do need to "replace" meat, I'd much rather go with nuts (mostly cashew, pine and almond) than any of the meat imitations.

Technically, cardboard and shoe leather are edible, if you boil them enough, but you tend not to go out of your way to eat them, unless there's a bunch of people with pointy-murder-sticks outside and you've already gone through all the dogs, cats, rats, and insects.

How about that stick of beef jerky I carry when I go out hiking ... replacing something that artificial with something plant based doesn't sound overly challenging and maybe it would have better shelf life? Or the mystery meat in canned store bought soups?

People don't buy 6 million units per day when something is "almost inedible".

Also the argument doesn't depend on a specific "meat" or seller or sales figures. How about mystery meat products at the food store like "olive loaf bologna" not even sure what kind of animal that comes from...

The OP claimed that McDonalds burgers were "inedible". Observably, millions of people do eat them, therefore the OP is wrong.

That says nothing about the quality of the burgers, or whether eating them is a good idea, or anything else. It merely demonstrates that people do, in fact, find them edible.

"How about mystery meat products at the food store like "olive loaf bologna""

What about it? People obviously buy it and presumably eat it, or it wouldn't be in the store.

Artificial? Where the heck are you buying your jerky? Jerky is one of the least artificial mass produced foods you can find - a big hunk of solid beef, dried, and flavored with some salt and salt-relatives. If at anything else it's not jerky.

Also, there is no requirement that meat substitutes be indistinguishable from meat to be considered edible.