To miss genuine veggie food

[IdiotIntrusion]

In the light of all the vegan options coming out, what's happened to veggie food? Granted veggies can eat vegan but I want real cheese or mayo on my burger instead of the fake stuff.

Not even allowed to add a coffee to a 'vegan' meal at burger king, I assume because of the milk. Had to pay separately.

Just having a moan. It's annoying as hell. Anyone else?

@RomainingCalm

Completely agree. When I first stopped eating meat the only choices tended to be quiche or mushroom stroganoff. Then over the years the veggie choices improved considerably. Now it's all gone downhill again.

I don't want jackfruit. I don't want a cauliflower pretending to be a steak. I don't want vegan-not-cheese. Even the veggie chilli made with beans/lentils/vegetables seems to be increasingly replaced by a vegan meat substitute version.

I even find myself mourning the once ubiquitous goats cheese tart.

Came here to moan about the jackfruit. Bloody sweet, stringy, slimy mush on a bun.

I actually liked the veggie lasagne and risottos, stroganoff and goat cheese tarts that pubs generally had.

I won't moan about the cauliflower, as I recently had quinoa-coated cauliflower dippers that were Actually amazing.

Oh and this was when the rainforests were being cut down to make way for cattle grazing for Burger chains.

Roast cauliflower can be nice if seasoned well.

I’ve just made my Sunday night potato and spinach curry… yum.

the vegan option are genuinely delicious! like you wouldn’t know it wasn’t real cheese.

FFS why do people say this shit? It tastes nothing like real cheese. It's one of the most common struggles veggies have in switching to vegan, theres really no substitute even remotely close to cheese.

I actually don't mind too much. I hate fake meat dishes anyway and wouldn't eat these either vegan or vegetarian; I do like cheese but feel that lots of the vegetarian options tend to be too dairy-heavy or dull (goats cheese everywhere). If it means restaurants / cafes do more adventurous / healthy choices I'm all for it

You are 100% right. I have felt the same for a while. People are vegetarian/vegan for many different reasons including religious and cultural and I actually think it’s quite offensive to lump everyone in together and make them eat the same one option.

Especially annoying if you want to visit the same restaurant more than once!

@OfstedOffred

the vegan option are genuinely delicious! like you wouldn’t know it wasn’t real cheese.

FFS why do people say this shit? It tastes nothing like real cheese. It's one of the most common struggles veggies have in switching to vegan, theres really no substitute even remotely close to cheese.

I actually don’t mind the taste of fake cheese but at the same time it in no way tastes of cheese. Closest thing it comes to is processed cheese slices that don’t taste of cheese either.

I’d describe fake cheese as salty, thick, cream.

@OfstedOffred

the vegan option are genuinely delicious! like you wouldn’t know it wasn’t real cheese.

FFS why do people say this shit? It tastes nothing like real cheese. It's one of the most common struggles veggies have in switching to vegan, theres really no substitute even remotely close to cheese.

Some of the stuff is actually really good nowadays. The supermarket stuff isn't ever going to food anyone but some of the cashew "cheeses' from small scale producers are incredible in taste and texture.

A vegan pizza chain called Purezza sells the cheese they make themselves and you genuinely wouldn't have a clue.

Is this actually a problem? Surely any restaurant that does a vegan meal will still serve cheese. Just get the vegan and ask for it to be served with cheese.

I live in a very small town up north. I never struggle to get a vegan meal, and there are plenty of vegetarian options with dairy cheese.

Depends what the meal is. Some vegan options just aren’t all that nice and if it’s got some meal substitute (the infamous jackfruit) then they can’t take that out!

So we have gone back to the days of ‘can I have that without the chicken?’

@NotMushroomInEre

Is this actually a problem? Surely any restaurant that does a vegan meal will still serve cheese. Just get the vegan and ask for it to be served with cheese.

The problem is that a lot of places aren't allowing this! You can't add real cheese to a McPlant burger, for example!

@Carpy88999

Haha

We want to eat vegetables!

Smothered in the coagulated breast milk of another mammal though.

Yes, it's actually delicious, as are eggs, milk and yogurt. I'm vegetarian but don't harp on at people for making different choices, it's pretty rude.

Your sanctimonious snarking at other people makes me think that maybe vegan cheese ain't all it's cracked up to be!

@OfstedOffred

It impacts desserts too. Everywhere I go now the majority of the cakes seem to be either GF or vegan or both.

I want a rich, buttery wheat based cake!! And I am denied this everywhere.

Yes! Cakes and puddings are upsetting. I do eat everything, but tend to only have meat and fish 2–3 times a week.

I was at a dinner recently where the option was either meat or vegan. So if you went for the vegan starter and main course you had to have a dairy-free cheesecake () for pudding. The option on the other menu was a tropical pavlova, but you weren't allowed to mix and match.

@Roseglen84 That is what cheese is though.

I’m veggie and can not stand the taste or texture of meat - why is everything fake meat now it’s disgusting

@mum2jakie I think that is ridiculous, but, the McPlant was created for vegans. The vegetarians should get the veggie burger and add cheese. Vegans have been creating a meal from the starter menu for years, so it's nice to be able to have an option. I do think vegetarians should be able to swap the McPlant for dairy cheese though.

I used to be veggie and this would have really pissed me off, I have to say. Isn’t it that there are something like double the number of veggies than vegans?

@TabithaTittlemouse

There’s a long thread on here on this subject a few weeks ago

There was and here’s hoping for more so we can veggie food back. Agree with the egging cauliflower and fake meat options being a problem.

We're omnivores, but my son has multiple allergies including eggs and dairy so when plant based diets took off I was quite excited, thinking it would give him more choices. But no. As others have said, so much of it is "substitutes" and he doesn't like them and prefers meals that are naturally free from his allergens, not fake cheese etc. And bloody nuts are everywhere! (He's anaphylactic to all tree nuts and peanuts.) The one cafe local to us where he used to be able to get a soya milk hot chocolate have now switched all their non dairy offerings to almond milk because apparently its more popular with vegans.
There may be more places serving plant based food now, but most of it's synthetic crap, and because there is now a "vegan option" we've found a lot of places are less willing to be flexible around DS's allergies than they used to be. I think people with allergies, vegetarians and quite possibly long term vegans are definitely being short changed by the current trend.

@MsJinks I agree!
When I ask if they have gluten free options they tell me they do vegan..which as you know is really really not the same. Dairy free biscuits are not the same either. I want butter in my cakes and biscuits and I want real chocolate in my cookies.

Completely agree, OP. It’s laziness, in my opinion, to lump vegans and vegetarians together. I’m a vege. I want my beany burger with dairy cheese, not vegan!

The only gluten free pizzas my local supermarket sells are Kirstys, so no real cheese - infuriating. They've got a whole aisle of frozen pizza so you'd think they could manage to stock one gluten free pizza that included cheese.

I'm omnivorous but would sometimes happen to have vegetarian options if they appealed on a menu. I don't go for the vegan choices. I have IBS and there's too much scope for regretting it 30 minutes later because of reacting to poorly described content that ends up being an irritant like soya or more fibre than my body tolerates.

DS1 had egg and milk allergies so I was well used to using dairy/ egg free alternatives and they really don't come close the original item. Admittedly oat milk is good on cereals and acceptable in cooking, and it's the only plant based substitute we have stuck with using. (We don't drink tea/ coffee so have no problem unless there are visitors).

Not being able to make simple vegetarian swaps of products in stock such as slices of cheese is daft and a deterrent to people making more gradual changes to their diets and exploring going vegetarian (and maybe vegan over time).

What I want to know is why do they put weird ingredients in vegan stuff.

Ds recently had a vegan ice cream as they’d run out of normal. He suffered an allergic reaction, his throat went tight etc.

We looked at the ingredients and vanilla ice cream contained coconut oil, chicory & chickpea flour as opposed to the normal vanilla which was milk, cream, sugar & butter.