Side note: I propose that vegan meatballs be called peatballs! (Peat is made out of plants, correct? I'm not super knowledgable about that stuff.)
So no, doesn't really work well as a word for foodstuffs.
Yeah, but peat isn't something you'd want to eat. Its amazing to smoke whisky in, though.
But, if you want to 'veganize' those meatballs, mushroom is a common savoury alternative, I'm told a lot of the impossible burger type ventures are opting on PEA protein: so may just name them PEAballs?
I worked at a Vegan/vegetarian place for 1/2 year just to get more rounded before I went off to Michelin star stuff, and its rather labour intensive to make this stuff just taste 1/4 as good as meat.
So my question was always: why not just serve better quality, locally sourced, organic/grass fed beef? And just eat less of it; a 50/50 mixture of beef to mushroom yields an amazing juicy, umami filled burger.
I am no heavy meat eater but think all the fake stuff to be quite underwhelming. Quorn or however it is called can be spiced up quite well. I think they gave that to school children in the UK instead of meat because it was cheaper.
Overall I think it cannot compete with real meat, since that creates expectations. But cheese noodles can. Yeah, not vegan, but I don't really care about that from a diet perspective. Yes, cows could be treated better of course.