Do most people think vegan food is utter shit? It's not!

[Ennuid]

And that we all just eat still eat pasta, salads and that vile tofu (yuk!) they used to make in the 90's?

I've been vegan for 15 years and let me tell you there isn't anything these days that you will miss in terms of taste or texture, the ''fake'' stuff is amazing and just as good, if not better than the real thing (not to mention much healthier). I mean meat, chicken, fish, cheese, melty cheese, ice cream, milk, yogurt, salami, pate, mayo, spreads, hot dogs, burgers, pizza, even eggs... literally anything you can imagine! Ask me anything you'd like to replace and I can come up with at least 2-3 great vegan alternatives.So may EU and US companies make really good stuff and the chinese fake meats are different but equally amazing. Every largish city will have at least a few veggie/vegan restaurants and stores (I have personal experience of Brighton, Edinburgh and Norwich).

The best thing you can do is visit one of the vegan fairs where you can get lots of free samples and see everything in one place. There seems to be a vegan fair just about everywhere in the UK nowadays (quite surreal since 5 years ago there were maybe 5 or so?) , here's a schedule for 2015: [edited by MN to remove possibly spammy address, we're sure MNers are smart enough to Google if needs be] .

There's even a new all vegan supermarket chain spreading all over Europe. Vegan is the new organic, baby!

[Narvinectralonum]

Ladyplumpington - they don't make it to a fruit bowl! I buy one I eat one. If you leave them in a fruit bowl they can go manky in the wink of an eye or (as so often happens) you forget about them. I tend to operate a JIT policy wrt soft fruit (also if I kept stock, the kids would snaffle it before I got round to thinking hmmm, I will eat a peach now).

[iamadaftcoo]

Vegan food is perfectly nice.

I don't think it's better than non-vegan food. I've had delicious vegan cakes, but they still weren't as delicious as cakes made with butter and milk and eggs. Ditto ice-cream.

[Narvinectralonum]

Food is one of the greatest pleasures in life

It's really really not.

"food is just fuel" attitude is representative of the vegan point of view then I really feel sorry for you all.

I suspect it isn't, when I think of some of the evangelical Vegans I've met in the past (possibly like the OP)? Who have raised food to the pitch of a fetish. But that is no different from someone claiming food is one of the greatest pleasures in life - if you really think that then I feel sorry for you. You must have a very dull life. :(

I do get the impression that vegans try way too hard to convince themselves and everyone else that the food they eat is exciting and delicious and not totally lacking in some of the main food groups.

I certainly agree with you, at least partially, here. Food is not exciting. Not ever. If you get excited by food then you really have a problem. Delicious? Well - different people have different tastes. I've eaten some truly rank food in my (long) life, since I was a vegan and when I was a meat eater too. And I've eaten some nice stuff - delicious even. Sometimes it's the luck of the draw (I went to a restaurant last weekend, for lunch, ordered soup which was on the board as parsnip and nutmeg, which sounded like it would be nice, then they came back to the table and said actually that soup was finished now, they only had beetroot soup left, and I changed my order because no way am I ever going to eat beetroot soup. But I'm sure some people would like it). As I said, the peach I ate a little while ago was indeed delicious. But some people don't like peaches and that's fine. I think carrots are of the devil, but some people like them (apparently). And so on. A vegan diet may or may not lack some of the main food groups, just like a meat eating diet. It doesn't have to though and most vegans do eat more healthily than many (not all, not most even - but I'd say many certainly) meat eaters.

The ones I know posting on Facebook "YUM! Look at this delicious NATURAL, colourful and healthy food that Mother Nature has given us!" ...and yes, it looks beautiful, colourful and delicious, but it also usually looks like a side dish to the main course.

Again, I agree with you about posting pictures of food on FB. That's just wanky. Although meat eaters do it too... The side dish thing though...I don't necessarily agree with you there. I think this might be an example of society as a whole changing its attitude to appropriate portion sizes and sensible meal planning. Many people (and that includes vegans, definitely) overeat. If one person has a dish and it's enough for them, to fit their appetite, then it's not for you to tell them they are eating a side dish. And that's the same for poncey nouvelle cuisine miscroscopic smidgeons of meat, dribbled with an artistic line of colourful goo, too - it might look bizarre but if that is what someone wants to eat then that's their choice surely? People have different sized appeities and some people graze rather than eat one huge meal a day. Which goes back to the fuel thing - if you're fit and healthy and neither underweight nor overweight then surely you are getting the balance right for you even if it isn't right for someone else?

[nigelslaterfan]

iamadaftcoo

You have to try that coconut non dairy ice cream..... oh lordy

[iamadaftcoo]

nigel I hate coconut :)

[iamadaftcoo]

Food is not exciting. Not ever. If you get excited by food then you really have a problem.

Um. I get excited by food. Should I be having therapy??

[iamadaftcoo]

How insulting to tell other people that if they find food a great pleasure they have a very dull life! What should be my greatest pleasures in life, out of interest? What would be acceptable as great pleasures to the fun police? Family? Friends? Travel? Sex? I enjoy all those things too.

[nigelslaterfan]

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fa/30/88/fa3088dda42c2517a3ded2016254773e.jpg&imgrefurl=www.pinterest.com/juicelove/non-dairy-ice-cream-competition/&h=275&w=236&tbnid=sW3-1IGSpnFpWM:&zoom=1&docid=WJCRPWywplACTM&ei=yV95VfHQJuf97AbHkoOoDA&tbm=isch&ved=0CG0QMyhGMEZqFQoTCLHZ6a60h8YCFec-2wodR8kAxQ" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">this stuff is supposed to be fabulous

[iamadaftcoo]

I've had that! It's still not as nice as regular ice cream, IMO.

[fascicle]

Fascicle. thanks but do you not find the vegan treats start to add up in cost?

All food here is vegan, so difficult to compare. Although the only treaty things I really buy are crisps, flapjacks and the odd packet of biscuits - most of the things I buy along these lines happen to be vegan, rather than being specifically aimed at vegans. I tend to make treaty things like cakes, puddings and biscuits. They would have similar ingredients to non vegan equivalents, the main difference being no eggs and perhaps vegan margarine, so generally no extra cost.

[ouryve]

There is lots of lovely vegan food but fake meat is not lovely, is full of additives and barely resembles food.

[mopthefloorwithme]

What Fat Vegans Eat is a laid-back Facebook page - no evangelising, just food talk and photos of what everyone's having for dinner .....

[Bunbaker]

"Food is not exciting. Not ever."

You must be a terrible cook then. Good food is one of the pleasures in life. Just as important IMO as family and good friends.

I have a healthy relationship with food. I eat well and healthily most of the time. We are all slim in our family, yet we all enjoy our food. A good meal is to be savoured and enjoyed.

To view food as fuel is so joyless and boring and sad.

I regard myself as a competent cook and enjoy vegan, vegetarian and omnivorous food. I don't cook anything I don't like (except parsnips at Christmas)

Another pleasure of mine is to watch TV cookery shows as they inspire me. I suppose they wouldn't appeal to you if all you eat is joyless fuel though.

[Narvinectralonum]

To be obsessed with food is boring and sad. To view food as one of the greatest pleasures in life is beyond sad. It's disturbing. Have you never read a book? Heard a piece of music? Watched a play or a film? Had a hot bath???

Cookery shows certainly don't appeal to me, they are an example of dumbed down telly culture.

As for excitement - well, people's thresholds vary. I know people who find abseiling or water skiing exciting. I'd find those things terrifying. My excitement levels probably peak at nice safe pursuits like going to a concert or a show, visiting an amazing city or getting a new book by a favourite author. And surfing, that's exciting and it's probably the most dangerous thing I would contemplate doing (although I did once venture into the toilets at Borispol airport and that, it turned out, was very dangerous but not exciting just yucky).

Food is not exciting. I'd rather it tasted nice than rank of course, but that's as far as it goes. Yummy food is good. Meeting Peter Capaldi was exiting. The extremely tasty lunch I had right before I met him was not exciting. It was lunch.

[iamadaftcoo]

Narvine I read books, watch films and have baths and I also enjoy and love food.

Frankly I think being excited by a bath is way more bizarre than being excited by food :s

And I'm not even sure I know who Peter Capaldi is tbh. The old guy in doctor who yes?

You're seriously odd, in any case.

[iamadaftcoo]

Oh and I am a healthy weight and have a full and fulfilling life. But I fucking love food. So sue me.

[Narvinectralonum]

I didn't say I was excited by a hot bath. I mentioned a hot bath as one of life's pleasures.

If you want to spend you time fetishising food and being excited by it that's fine by me.

Clearly their are people who consider themselves to have 'relationships' with food, who find it their greatest pleasure in life and who find it exciting. Good luck to them (they may need it).

[Narvinectralonum]

Bloody autocorrect. THERE. The shame.

[keeptothewhiteline]

Food excites me.
I have travelled to many exotic places. I love foreign culture, history, archeology. But I also love food. I love heading to an exotic spice or fish market, I love going to a night market in Penang or Kandy and sniffing the heady air full of charcoal smoke, spices and food smells that are unidentifiable to me.
I live historic sights and hearing exotic music, but I also love eating a lunch that has been freshly pulled from the sea, served fresh with crusty bread and warm lemons.
My OH feels the same way. We love to eat, we love to cook, a day out in town will almost always include a visit to a chinese supermarket or an Indian greengrocers.
Food an integral part of life.
Loving food means we can party every day.

PS none of my family is even slightly overweight.

[whois]

Hot bath = mega boring. That's so lame you enjoy a hot bath more than you eating delicious food in good company.

[Bunbaker]

I take a lot of pleasure eating good food. I also love reading, watching plays and films, watching a cracking TV series, listening to music, walking in the countryside, visiting stately homes and castles, going to the seaside, going to live music events etc. Just because I enjoy my food doesn't preclude me from enjoying other things as well.

Given the plethora of cookery shows (which IMO aren't dumbed down TV) and online food/cookery forums I would say that those who just view food as a way of stocking up fuel tend to be the weird unusual ones.

My favourite way of enjoying an evening is eating a good meal with good friends, listening to good music. (Too many goods there).

Enjoying good food utilises the senses of taste and smell. Eating good food with friends satisfies those senses and also the feeling of well being. What's not to like?