Everywhere I've been, there's been an immigrant selling their food - first place I randomly had Ethiopian food for example. But also my first Tamale, which seemed pretty normalized.
I think people not being able to cook, is maybe the hurdle we need to clear - or not having the confidence to cook. My mum let me help out, I got taught at school - not to any great standard, but enough to instill in me the confidence that after a few tries you can make anything you want (and now I have fun seasonal arguments when I produce a meat thermometer and ask her to stop killing it)
Typing that actually helped me out. It's not that I have an issue with meat substitues - it's that they seem to be pasting over the symptom, and missing the cure. Getting somebody to buy their Beyond-Meat-Patty from BK is good, but it would be better if they cooked themselves, or picked up something from their local-vegetarian-Indian restaurant - "STOP GOING TO BK"
Whole Beyond Meat thing seems to be some weird stop-gap - filling a cheap-meat hole. "Just Stop Eating Cheap Meat"
>Whole Beyond Meat thing seems to be some weird stop-gap - filling a cheap-meat hole. "Just Stop Eating Cheap Meat"
For a variety of reasons (if nothing else, even just economics wise) this is unlikely to ever happen in America.
At the very least, we lose nothing by trying to solve the problem both ways - substitutes for the low end of eating to move people who wouldn't otherwise move, and better education/skills/etc for the general range of the population where it's lacking.
A lot of the country has almost a toddler-like relationship with food. They like what they like and you have to practically shove it down their throats to get them to try anything new... just look at the restaurant options available in some parts of rural america... they're basically large chains microwaving frozen foods (at least the south gets exposure to some authentic mexican food and barbeque... the midwest is... well... limited)
People literally die because they will not eat healthier to save their lives. It's not at all unusual for a diabetic person to lose a limb and still not change their diet.
I'd wager that a meat-like replacement that tastes enough like meat and looks like meat will be more successful than anything on the BK menu containing the word falafel. It's like tricking children to eat healthier by putting a food they don't want to try into a fun shape.