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!

there is no fake meat comparable to actual meat. And what is it made from anyway?

Why's everyone always banging on about what they do eat / don't eat / should eat / shouldn't eat

How about we all just eat what we like and leave everyone else to do the same?

I don't get this evangelical drive to convert and interest others in one's diet.

I do not care what anyone else eats

Well, no, it's not THAT complicated, I happily exist as a vegan without getting my shopping from either the capital or the continent [wink

It's annoying when people try to convince people that's it's easy to be vegan and just make it sound complicated. It's just a change of diet, just change the bits needed.

And I don't know why people are so harsh to vegans, (well I do in part, but I wish it would change), I have friends who eat GF, or paleo, or are veggie for religious reasons and I don't feel the need to rip the shit out of them for their 'stupid' or 'complicated' diets. But be vegan and suddenly you are fair game.

poor I agree. Eat and let eat.

It's not the thing for me but I don't begrudge anyone else's diets, and wouldn't want to be harsh to anyone.

Lovely lovely steak. Sorry cows, there's no substitute.

And I don't know why people are so harsh to vegans

Only to the ones like OP who jump up and down shouting Look at me, I'm a vegan! Let me tell you ALL about it! It's AMAZING and you can buy fake everything!

Nobody cares. Just eat your food, I'll eat mine, end of story.

I can't call it veganism anymore. I think it's more fitting to call it Veganology.

Lol at Masmuka.

I'm glad OP didn't try to convince us of the superior taste and health benefits of Quorn products - then I would have known this thread was a wind up.

But really, there is currently no decent, inexpensive alternative to meat products. Otherwise everyone most people would already be vegans!

If meat substitutes were cheap and delicious, how many people would actually say, "I know xxx tastes better than real meat, but I really, really want to indulge in gratuitous slaughter and consumption of baby lambs"??

Thing is, Vegan food is wonderful, tasty and nutritious. I just can't understand why 'meat substitutes' are either required or desired. My mum likes to buy them for me as she is 82 and likes the 'meat and 2 veg' look to a plate. I'm happy with just the 2 veg [not sprouts though, they are the devils num nums].

I really don't give a monkeys who eats what but I'm going to have to hide this thread because sniffing the cheese in the fridge didn't do the trick and I am tempted to go to Tesco just to sniff the Stilton.

Instead of the rant I would have preferred a post along the lines of 'top tips for substitutions to veganise regular food please lovely MNers' because it's a topic I'm interested in, rather than what appears, as others have pointed out, to be an advert. Everybody knows vegan cheese is fucking horrible. Even vegans know this.

Gobblers, no one on this thread has been horrible to vegans... just challenged the oddities in the OP, which is surely just a crappy excuse for an advert!

OP, having eaten some of the current fake meats just last week I can assure you they taste nothing like the real thing and still have a weird taste and texture.

I also eat a lot of Eastern European foods. I may live in a teeny tiny rural town but we have a 'Polish Deli' and supermarket. A sense of adventure has led me to taste test a lot of the less obvious foods they sell. Some I would eat a lot more of, others, never again! There are reasons some foods are regional delicacies!

No. Not so much on this thread, I was talking in a wider sense and even I said I thought the op was pretty OTT

Even so, if someone starts a thread on here saying they have decided to go gluten free, can anyone suggest alternatives? Then you don't get lots of people saying yum, bread, pastries, pasta, wow I just love the taste of croissants in the morning, even posting pictures of a freshly baked loaf.....

if someone starts a thread on here saying they have decided to go gluten free

They usually aren't starting from the premise that everyone else is cruel and heartless for eating gluten.

That's very true Notgrumpyjustquiet maybe that explains the replies, I think I'm just feeling a bit sensitive today :)

Why does anyone want vegan meat or cheese? If you miss meat or cheese, then just eat meat or cheese.
I'll never get the point.
I sort of get soy & almond milk because they mix nicely with muesli (better than mammal milk).
I love good tofu.

That's true, Gobbler. I have a couple of vegan friends, I suppose I would be guilty of thinking one is a complete evangelical idiot twonk. The other is fine, she shares some bloody good recipes and food ideas

I experienced much the same when I started Intermittent Fasting - about 2 years before the telly programme. So many people telling me of the horrors of the starvation mode and other complete crap

I'm a vegetarian who eats processed fake meats, but still, I hate the way Quorn is being promoted as a healthy, fat free alternative to meat at the moment. All of these fake meat products are ridiculously processed. We should be striving to eat less processed food, not more. Not only that but if you don't want to eat meat, why not be creative? You don't need meat replacers everyday, just like you don't need meat everyday.

Vegfest is good though, lots of free chocolate samples and a lot of them are good. I was even impressed by some of the "cheese" samples this year. Still nowhere near as nice as some Tickler or Blacksticks blue, but they were passable.

What you fail to mention though OP, is that loads of these fake meat products are shit for people who are gluten-free.

& I like tofu, had some with my lunch actually. Not to replace meat, but because tofu is good with noodles.

I know Myricales, but I am not an evangelical vegan, I rarely mention it unless very pertinent to the conversation, but the amount of times people have found out in a round about way that I am and then spent half an hour proclaiming how much they love rare steak and crispy bacon and a nice rack of lamb while I smile and nod is too many to count. I'm not shoving it in their faces why do they do it?

And to be fair over enthusiastic and like an advert as the op was no where does it mention meat eaters being cruel or heartless.

Ask me anything you'd like to replace and I can come up with at least 2-3 great vegan alternatives

Sausage and egg Mcmuffin?

I've been vegan for 32 years and there aren't many substitutes I'd recommend. Fake fish fingers and fake fishcakes are good. There is one brand of fake marge/butter that is good. If you want fake cheese you're better off making your own than buying the mass produced stuff however the spreadable stuff is apparently very like real cream cheese (I've never tasted real cream cheese and I think the fake stuff is vile but apparently that is what it's 'supposed' to taste like).

I'm having a problem digesting dairy since a bout of food poisoning and was wondering about vegan cheese, so I'm glad this thread has saved me the bother. Sounds minging. I've tried various vegan yoghurts, and apart from coyo, which is prohibitively expensive and not amazing, the rest was fucking disgusting watery spunk.

YABU

pumpkin well, Quorn isn't vegan...

Mamushka that post was a bit twatty...

I'm gluten free, and believe me, that although 17 years of it means I am happy, healthy, and eat lots of tasty food, if I told you that all the GF alternatives were wonderful I'd be lying. I've eaten a lot of really, really vile food, and paid through the nose for it.

And a lot of people will go on at length to me about how they could never give up real bread etc, so I think its a general food twat thing, rather than specific to being vegan