To wonder who eats this food and why?

[BingoBonus]

https://groceries.asda.com/product/plant-based-meat-alternatives/plant-based-by-asda-chicken-style-fillets/1000383161908

Plant-based chicken-style breaded fillet. The main two ingredients are water and oil!

I don't understand the boom in plant-based ultra-processed foods...........do people actually buy these as a healthy option? And if you are vegetarian why would you want something that looked like meat?

“you can’t even go as a vegetarian and get a nice bean burger anymore” I’ll agree with that part. I miss a bean burger!

Make one from scratch

Why would you buy something so easy and cheap to make. Bean burgers can still be found though.

My veggie BIL dislikes the taste/texture of meat so really doesn’t want the ‘fake meat’ offered on some menus now. He’s upset it’s that or vegan options only, when he just wants a regular veggie dish. Fair enough really, I like a good veggie dish myself sometimes but wouldn’t chose vegan or fake meat. I guess it’s hard for restaurants to cater for all diets especially when you throw in allergies.

100%.

So the vegetarian food now emulates meat. What are we “don’t like meat” people meant to eat?

Surely the same foods that vegetarians have always eaten before all of the fake meat products became so popular.

Just because they're available, you don't have to eat them!

Whatever they want. Obviously. Are you somehow suggesting that other vegetarian food has ceased to exist?

Vegetables?
Pulses?
Funghi?
Cheese?
Eggs?
I'm not sure where you're living where the shops aren't stocking any of these things.

Salads I grant you are a bit tricky, but I live with a vegetarian who doesn't really like fake meat and frequently can't be arsed to cook, and the supermarkets are full of perfectly acceptable vegetable/grain/cheese-based ready meals.

Can’t eat risotto or veggie lasagne. Allergic to tomatoes so that limits a lot. Don’t eat bread, jacket potatoes or rice.

Quorn has been around since 1985. I stopped eating meat in 1988.

There’s been a huge downturn in vegetarian food on restaurant menus where default is now vegan burgers etc. But they aren’t an option if they taste like meat. And the bean burgers have been dropped in favour of the Beyond Burger in most places.

It’s an issue to eat out now if you’re a non-meat eater that actually wants protein or food that doesn’t taste of meat.

I have a dairy intolerance.

I work on average 12-13 hours a day wit. Several weekends a month being work days. I travel for work on average 3 days a week. Not easy to do much with eggs and a cucumber in a hotel room.

I get in a unique case, but I just don’t get why all the veggie food is now being made to taste like meat.

It isn't. What are you talking about?

What are you struggling to understand?

I eat out a lot, and I never choose fake meat!! Where are you going where these are the only options?

To be fair, it sounds like you have quite a long list of things that you can't eat, so your options are inevitably going to be a bit limited!

Why you're imagining that all vegetarian food is made to taste like meat, when that is so obviously not the case.

You appear to have an extremely restricted diet but why that would lead you to see things that aren't there doesn't make any sense.

a lot of these fake meat things are bought by the family&friends of the vegetarians and vegans who are trying to be nice and make a good meal but only really know meat-based recipes so they are happier buy a meat substitute and do a familiar recipe rather than research something new.

but I agree that looks like a shit example of the genre.

i remember during lockdown and food shortages in aus, it was always the plant based vegan stuff that was still on the shelf

not even no food in a pandemic got people eating them

Surely for a dairy intolerant vegetarian the rise of veganism is a godsend? Better to have something that tastes unappetisingly meaty but won't damage you than the other way around.

Here’s the menu of the pub nearest me. Few veggie starters there. One non-meat/fish choice on the mains and it’s a fake meat burger. No veggie option on the children’s menu at all.

Meat eating hubby gets 7 choices. I don’t get any. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sure, but that isn't typical of any of the places I go to! Try widening your repertoire!

For example, just thinking about where I have been recently, I have eaten wonderful Italian, Indian, Middle Eastern and Mexican meals with not a fake burger in sight!!

I'm vegetarian and that doesn't look appetising so wouldn't eat that. But I absolutely hate the ongoing rhetoric of ' if you are veggie why would you want to eat something that looks like/tastes like meat?' I'm veggie because I don't believe in killing and eating animals so I can eat them. I don't deny I like the taste or ever enjoyed eating meat, infact I loved meat, a lot, but my choice of not eating it out of cruelty overtook my feelings towards how it tasted. So now if I can eat something that tastes exactly like meat, but that doesn't mean and animal has to die so I can eat it it's a win win for me. Obviously there are some vegetarians that don't have this viewpoint and that's fine not everyone is the same. Same way someone will probably like those plant based fillets.

Tapas/mezze type places tend to be good too. I've also had amazing Indonesian, Thai and Japanese food too.

I think if you go to places where they tend to do a lot of traditional British food, like steak, fish & chips etc, then it's hardly surprising that they go down the fake meat route for their veggie options, as that fits with their style of food and what they're used to cooking. Or else they just go with something safe but dull like veggie lasagne.

If you’re a dairy intolerant meat eater though often your only choice is the vegan option.

costa sausage bap for example- the meat version has butter. If you want dairy free your choice is the fake sausages. Which IMO aren’t great at all.

it’s easy enough to leave the butter off so people can use flora or whatever. But increasingly it’s everything or nothing. If you can’t have one, you can’t have any allergen.