There really is no need to eat meat anymore!

[PinkyLovePerky]

There is nothing, nothing I say, that cannot be recreated in veg form

It's a finger with no fish in .

Wtf is a fishless finger

I mean it's pretty much self explanatory

I think they do.

However it's also worth pointing out that fish don't have fingers either so I think fish fingers are a bit of a misleading product anyway .

Indeed, just as buffalo wings are misleading, as we all know buffalos don’t actually have wings.

Apparently you can make buffalo wings with cauliflower, which is even more far fetched...

How the hell can it be 'fish' and chips? It's tofu coated in batter and fried then served up with chips. It's tofu and chips.

Interesting point. In France there was a drive to protect words that refer to meat-based products- so you can ony call your product a saucisse if it has meat and meets a certain description. There is no such thing in the UK I don't think. It seems that words can mean anything or nothing.

The question of why food marketers think it is advantageous to use non-vegetarian/vegan words to name their vegetarian/vegan products is interesting. Apparently consumers have happily accepted this. Apart from naughty OP poking fun at the innovative and delicious plant-based jerky

I am another one baffled at the desire to eat heavily processed meat substitutes when there are so many wonderful vegetables out there. All the vegetarians and vegans I have met in the UK would rather eat a quorn steak than pulses for example. Each to their own but I cannot relate to that!

Indeed, just as buffalo wings are misleading, as we all know buffalos don’t actually have wings.

I tried being a vegetarian, but the fake meats upset my system something terrible so I gave up. I know meat substitutes aren't compulsory when you're a vegetarian, but I hate cooking and they were convenient. I also felt very weak and washed out and put on weight.

I admit I was baffled when I first heard the term "buffalo wings"

I've never tried them, in case they are a rare protected species

Yeah I’m more with pigsDOfly here. Saying a sausage is weird because it doesn’t look like a pig is like saying we shouldn’t eat houmous because it doesn’t look like a chickpea. Both foodstuffs use ingredients formatted into something people find tasty to eat, but they don’t piss around with the broad origins of them; one’s meat-based, the other veg.

Again, if meat eaters like meat so much then why do they process and flavour the meat until it no longer resembles the animal it comes from?

What a bizarre argument. Again, are vegans and vegetarians not then supposed to make tapenade, or bread, or carrot fritters or all the myriad nice things out there for them, but munch on the raw materials every day instead?

Frankly I wish manufacturers would stop trying to recreate meat with veg. Bean burgers are delicious; I don’t need some kind of seasoned fungus in the shape of a burger to try and compensate me for not eating a beef burger.

I have not tasted any meat substitute that I’ve preferred over a combination of real, tasty vegetables used instead of meat.

Yeah, I think you're missing my point there a bit @EugenesAxe .

OK I’ll read again. I did skim quickly.

I eat a mainly plant based diet and most of the time my meals are made from scratch with vegetables, beans, lentils, tofu etc. But sometimes I just need some quick, easy junk food like veggie sausages, baked beans and chips. I choose not to eat meat for many reasons, but I still miss the taste and texture of it, so while meat substitutes are not part of my daily (or even weekly diet) I do eat them occasionally.

Isn't a fishless finger just a ... finger???

Failing to see the point of this thread, can only guess the OP is trying to be funny or edgy or, I dunno, two minutes of my time I will never get back

Oh and whoever said ALL the vegans and vegetarians they know look like death etc, I eat a plant based diet, I radiate health

I stopped eating meat 30 years ago.

I hate meat and I hate the smell of meat.

I used to get really bad indigestion.

Since becoming vegetarian I no longer have stomach aches after everything I eat

Meat actually made me so ill.

I was 5.5stone and sick when I was a meat eater.

Now I am an overweight vegetarian but don’t have to plan my day around my food and having to lie down clutching my stomach for an hour or so after lunch

Judging by these threads I think I am the only person who can’t stand the smell of bacon.

Meat cooking is horrible.
Dp cooks meat but it makes the house smell horrible

@MythicalBiologicalFennel the jerky was a thing of wonder. It did take me forever to eat, and I’m wondering how long to digest

Hoping not to get into any more trouble today, but I suspect it is some of the faux vegetarians (see also mostly vegetarian / flexitarian / relaxed vegan / poster who referred to her dh as vegetarian because it was quicker than saying peskytarian / veganuary jumping on the band wagon lot) who are drawn to these products.

I don't understand why is you eschew meat or fish you want to eat something that is pretending to be meat. Surely it just needs to be presented as what it is without all the colouring or processing that makes it look like meat.

I'm not vegetarian and have no intention of ever becoming one, but I can see why vegetarian food that looks like meat would appeal to them. They might like the taste and texture of those meaty products they used to eat, and only have stopped because they don't want animals killed. So it there's a way of eating something with similar taste and texture which doesn't need animals to be slaughtered, it's not surprising that they'll take it.

Plus, force of habit is very powerful. Giving something up can be very difficult indeed, so anything one can do to minimise the (perceived) changes in one's lifestyle can help. Before vaping became widespread, I remember seeing advice along the lines of "hold something between your fingers" for people who wanted to give up smoking. I guess if there are food products which look like what you used to eat and are cooked in the same way, then going vegetarian might seem less of a drastic change in lifestyle for new vegetarians.

Sorry you’re going to have to explain your ‘point’ as I still think you’re having a go at people for processing meat into burgers and saying it’s the same as meat substitute processed into burgers.

It isn’t. As pigsDOfly says, it’s still meat or fish, and after battering and frying I can still taste that fish is fish, and not tofu.

Abra1de’s comment is essentially what my last paragraph was trying to say.

The point is is that so many meat eaters claim to be confused about meat substitutes or 'food that resembles meat' and question why vegetarians would eat them if they are against eating meat.

But at the same time they just seem to conveniently forget that sausages, burgers, chicken nuggets, etc don't just fall off the animal like that. They are processed, seasoned and reshaped until they no longer resemble the animal they came from so really it's not much different to vegetarian versions of those foods; they're just made and processed using different ingredients obviously.

Of course I don't think that meat eaters should just eat the meat straight from the animal or that processed meat is somehow wrong or weird .

I have no problem with processed food or food that doesn't resemble it's original form personally. I do however think it's weird to be baffled by veggie burgers but not by beef burgers or chicken burgers.

I am not referring to my friends Hugs, who is a proper vegan despite the fishless fingers

I still think you’re having a go at people for processing meat into burgers

I'm not. I'm taking the piss of people who think it's weird to process plants into burgers but not weird to process cows into burgers.

This is exhausting .

@Oliversmumsarmy I've always hated the smell of bacon, long before I stopped eating meat. For some reason though, when someone doesn't like brussels sprouts or mushrooms, that's personal preference. When someone says they don't like bacon they are either lying or a traitor to the people.

can only guess the OP is trying to be funny or edgy

Why do we have do be so earnest about everything?

Hugs I make burgers out of beetroots. They are delicious. It’s just the fake meat that’s a bit weird, in my humble opinion that I am not trying to push onto anyone else. Just an observation.