Pretty sure it's not more expensive. People that are willing to buy vegan are just generally richer and more likely to be able to spend more. Thus the prices are artificially inflated by market segmentation.

At least where I'm from the companies make way more profit from their vegan substitutes then their equivalent meat products.

I agree that making the same volume of food is probably cheaper if you're processing vegan only ingredients - but if you look at the amount of nutrients / $, vegan substitutes are nowhere close to meat

That's honestly highly unlikely.

These animals consume the same products the vegan alternatives are made with... for months or years, depending on the animal.

It might be true in places without massive animal farms, but that's usually connected to more human attention which would make it even more unlikely.

> These animals consume the same products the vegan alternatives are made with...

How many people are living off of grass?

I guess you've no idea how modern animal farms feed their animals. Hint: the quantity of animals is way too high for them to be fed with grass, it's usually a special feed, which is composed of corn, often fish bones and other substances.

That animals convert grass and plants in general to meat is undeniable. But I think the issue is, livestock is generally fed with human grown plants, which could be fed directly to humans and save a lot of energy (food and water) wasted in the process, because the amount of calories, for example, that you take off meat is nowhere near the calories contained in the food the animal consumed during its lifetime. Now, regarding if nutrients are missing from a plants only diet, that's another matter.

Plant based meats are

1) Still not real meat, hence is only considered by a limited market

2) Is still relatively new to the mass-market. Hence still isn't at it's lowest price point.

My understanding is that subsidies also drive down the cost of meat quite drastically.

They could market this like crazy to the eco-conscious crowd.

To add to the other points being made... meat is subsidized and doesn't include the cost of the externalities. It's hard to imagine that in the long run, plant based meat or lab grown meat will be more expensive than growing, feeding, and looking after animals.

Agreed. Lobbies won't let the current system go for a very long time.

If Tobacco industry can hang on, Meat industry is not going away any time soon. Also a change of this kind can come only gradually, if at all.

We can't just tell all the farmers to go and take a Python bootcamp.

Growing meat in an ultra-sterile environment using complex biologics, some of which the current source is to extract them from animals. I’d bet on fusion becoming mainstream first.

From first principles, it should be eventually.