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?

@GCWorkNightmare how many options are there on that menu for vegans, and how many are there for vegetarians?

The maths suggests that there are more vegetarian options, and yep, vegetarians (who don't have allergies) can eat the vegan option.

Now, I'm sorry that you won't eat fake meat, and I do think that that menu should include an option that doesn't involve fake meat, but it doesn't. There are plenty of places that do though, and to you and all the other veggies moaning that the vegan burger has replaced all the veggie options, my advice is to look at other menus. I don't live in a city, and I'm from West Yorkshire - there is an abundance of vegetarian options where I live.

Here’s the menu of the pub nearest me.

Tbh that is a British burger type of place though isn't it? I wouldn't eat there anyway because there's no vegan dessert 😂 and I'm not talking the pathetic, lazy sorbet either. You can usually get apple crumble, brownie or a chocolate cake at many places these days.

My local pub has zero vegan options (if you don't count the side salad) and takeaway delivery is very limited. I live in the countryside. When I visit friends in the city my eyes practically pop out at all their Deliveroo options. Sometimes you just have to take the wins where you can find them.

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

Literally none of those in the Welsh valleys, I’m afraid. Maybe I should insist my friends come with me when I’m working in big cities so we can eat out…..

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.

I’m surprised at that. I live very remotely:/rural and there are so many options around us, it’s incredible- we’re all vegan in our house. I am GF so slightly less choice but still good. I have the healthy cow app so I can see what’s around esp when we go on a bit of a day trip to some village that’s new. Within 30 minutes of our house there is a plant based cafe that has a load of whole food options, an Indian with a full vegan menu, at least 4/5 pubs with options including curries and things with tofu not heavily processed vegan fake meats. I must be super lucky where we live as it seems I have almost as much choice as I did in London.

Ah ok so you’re in wales? England always seems good when I travel for food. There’s a bookstore 40 minutes away with a vegan veggie cafe behind a revolving bookshelf! Ok, I think I lucked out with location!

my closest pub - and we are in a bog standard small town in wales - although not up the valleys admittedly - has 7 meat starters and 7 veggie starters with 4 vegan alternatives, 16 meat mains and 9 veggie mains with 6 vegan alternatives and 10 veggie desserts with 3 vegan alternatives. I think that is probably pretty representative of the population with plenty of choice for everyone. The kids menu has 5 meat mains and 3 veggie with 1 vegan.

OK, so you live in a very rural part of the country with extremely limited restaurant choices and you have a very restricted diet, so it's hardly surprising that you struggle. Your experience is far from typical though.

My very average market town has lots of restaurants with lots of different cuisines being served. Yes, there are probably some fairly traditional places with meat based menus that rely on fake meat for the veggie options, but there are lots of other delicious options available. And many more in our nearest cities.

So somewhere that relies on microwave meals then.

So you go somewhere else where they don't premake them, and get your sausages with no butter. It isn't hard.

Why would they leave the butter off because a very tiny proportion of people can't have it? That would be weird. The biggest group of people who don't want dairy will be vegans, so it makes perfect sense for the dairy free option to be the vegan option. The number of people who don't want butter but do want pork is going to be miniscule, and not worth catering to. Other options are available to you.

No, I don’t believe so unless it is high quality ones like cook as the food is really good and they are happy to make adaptations to meals.

Right so ONE place, which is clearly a steakhouse/pub food place, only has a vegan burger as the only option, and you think this means that all vegetarian food, everywhere, is now fake meat?

Do you want to think that through a bit?

My DD is vegan (ish -not fully by choice.Coeliac and dairy intolerant but also veggie so eats eggs).She likes the 'This isn't chicken /,sausages/bacon range' as its GF and adds something to stir fries etc.She would not eat those Asda fillets!She has a really healthy diet most of the time.

...do people actually buy these as a healthy option?

No. Why do you assume that?

Are you stalking the freezer aisle inspecting chicken nuggets and wondering whether people buy them as a healthy option?

I’d buy it. It’s a convenience food, people should know it’s not as healthy as whole-foods. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what it looked like as long as it’s not from an animal. I’ve got pet chickens in my garden, I don’t eat my friends ✌️

ODFOD.

It’s one place but there are probably another 25 within a 3 mile radius with the same issue.

In the main they don’t bother making any vegetarian food, just vegan versions using UPF replicas of the meat version.

No, there are not. You''re back to your imagination again.

I'm guessing with your extreme diet you don't get out much, so are just guessing what is on all those 25 menus.

Agree also.
Lets not forget its not vegetarians and vegans that are calling these products ‘chicken style’ and so on.

We are not marketing them. Big business is making big money to market them to people who think they taste like animals a lot of people want to eat.

My kids have no concept of what animals taste like as they’ve never eaten them, but their friends may pick up a ‘chicken style’ burger because they want the taste but not the harm. That’s a great thing.

I hate the terminology but if it means more people eat less animals then I’ll put up with all this crap on the supermarket shelves.

@BrieAndChilli
We are in Wales at the weekend
I don’t want you to out yourself, so to be honest I’m not convinced my question will. Don’t answer if it’s too personal
We are staying in Bluith Wells. That restaurant you mentioned sounds like much better choices than I’ve seen near me. Most ones near me have dropped all the vegetarian options for purely vegan, so I’d love to try it. Do you have a name, postcode.

It's not that people are 'dim'. It's just difficult to understand why someone who doesn't eat meat/animal products because they don't like the way animals are kept/reared/killed, would then, in the same breath, say they'd like the taste of a 'faux' chicken sandwich. Surely just biting into it would conjure up images, thoughts, feelings of battery farms, for example?

I know that, if I felt that strongly about something, I wouldn't want a bar of it... no matter how 'faux' it might be.

@JarByTheDoor thank you, that's helpful. It's strange you mention that example! I too work in MH and have had a lot to do with forms like that, I think they're SO hard to decipher-so many variables! I too am linguistically pedantic though-and yes, 'all the time' is impossible surely?! A lot of people would ask for clarification on a lot of the questions and sometimes I couldn't help them, they're so subjective and depending on what mood you caught someone in, they could be from one end of the scale to the other.

'surely biting into it would..'

Why would it? It's not come from a battery farm and it isn't an animal. I know that- my brain knows that because I didn't buy a chicken product I bought a plant based one. Cognition works a little better than that for most people who would enjoy such a product. Plus to be honest, I cannot remember what chicken tastes like-It's been 22 years.

I know where you’re coming from. But the word chicken on a package doesn’t make it taste like chicken.
Whilst it’s been over 40 years since I’ve eaten animals I can still tell, I think. However
My dh bought some fake lamb and mint steak things. ( lamb was his favourite meat). I bit in and they tasted so like my memory of the real thing I couldn’t go any further. For me, that’s a one off though.

Other stuff labelled after animals doesn’t taste like them. If, however, the labels encourage more people to eat the fake versions then it’s a win win.

I hate the marketing and labelling but it’s worth it in the long run.

Why would it? I'd just say why wouldn't it?

I don't believe what you say would be true for most vegans, who study absolutely everything that goes into their mouths for any connection to animals.

So, my point remains, it just doesn't ring true that you would purchase a 'food' item with 'chicken' on the label when you're totally against the idea of animals being used for 'food'!

if we want convenience we have to these days.
Most convenience products ( not all, please don’t start uploading images of the few ones that don’t ) have the word chicken, ham, etc on them.

We can only buy what’s available
We don’t have a say in marketing and labelling.

As I’ve said. If the labels encourage more people including meat eaters to eat non meat products then I think most vegetarians and vegans would be ok with putting up with these labels for the sake of the animals.

We are not so precious to not see the bigger picture.

Because I know it isn't, I think. It just tastes different to something 'none meat imitation' that I might use for a similar purpose e.g a bean burger. It's a different taste to me, not an a'nimal-y' taste.