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ive been veggie for 15 years and my wife has been for more than twice as long. quorn has been a long term 'meat free' option which i dont mind but vivera kebab meat and heck super green sausages are fairly recent discoveries that are vegan and absolutely fantastic.
i think your taste buds sort of forget what meat tastes like (i was previously mad on salami etc) although you think you remember. it was very easy for me to make the change. inspired by a heady mixture of reading about late sixties counter culture, animal welfare and health all factored. i also get that its a bit of bore socially so dont bang on about it too much.
however, more and more, there as really tasty options out there. but these products are definitely very tasty! and jackfruit is also incredible!
My wife and daughter have gone Vegan. I have no problem with that because I've never been particularly keen on meat.
But it completely flummoxes me why they buy all that imitation meat. I've started refusing to eat that stuff. I told them it's just a short step away from Solyent Green. 🙂
There's plenty other good vegan meals.
We've made it to page two without some **** going "yes but bacon" or mansplaining about how they couldn't possibly be vegetarian when no-one asked them to. I think we've grown as a forum.
One thing to consider is that veggie/vegan meat substitutes are often just about the flavour, texture and convenience.
The flavour of sausages/ burgers etc. whether real meat or not is mostly from seasoning. Quorn sausages and burgers taste like real meat to me (bearing in mind I haven’t knowingly eaten real meat for over 30 years), so much so that if someone else serves me a quorn veggie burger I have to double check!
I would challenge any hardened meat eater to do a blind test on sainsbury’s own brand meat free hot dog sausages – taste and feel no different to meat ones (which barely contain meat anyway). I’d also love to see that experiment with gregs sausage rolls 🙂
I don’t get why some people have a problem with veggies/vegans enjoying food that tastes and looks like meat, but isn’t? We are all omnivores biologically, so are kind of hard-wired to enjoy it, even if some of us have chosen not to eat it.
Thanks for this. I could've written that word for word, saves me some typing. Hot dogs are a great example, the Tivall ones are awesome if you can still find them anywhere. Whilst many meat-a-like products aren't all that close in actuality, the hot dogs really are indistinguishable from their porky bretheren.
You'll always get some pillock going "you might as well just eat meat" yet no-one ever complains that a chicken burger is a poor beef substitute or that shepherd's pie is just an imitation cottage pie. Burgers, sausages, mince, chunks, meatballs, nuggets, they're all just convenient ways of packaging protein whether that's meat, vegetable or plant sourced. I don't really view stuff like TVP and Quorn as "fake meat" so much as just a method of eating protein that doesn't involve dead flesh.
I know vegetarians who use meat substitutes (myself for one) and some who avoid it like the plague. There's no "right" way here, find what works for you. There's plenty of naturally vegetarian dishes and plenty of options for substituting out in traditionally meaty dishes too. Both are equally valid. You could even consider it a stepping stone - say you like chilli, make it with Quorn mince to start out with, then once you've got used to that look into beany or lentilly versions. (Point of note here, Quorn mince cooks quickly, if you steep it for two hours you'll end up with slurry. You either want to fry it off first or basically just warm it through.)
Ultimately, eat what you like rather than what some "rules" or halfwits on the Internet tell you you have to do. Saying you're vegetarian or vegan is really for the benefit of everyone else's understanding, there's absolutely no reason why you can't be mostly veggie and treat yourself to the odd KFC now and then if that's what you want to do.
Funny you should turn up in a vegan thread Poah
this isn't a vegan thread as far as I can see given the OP statement about eating less meat, but don't let your -ism blind you.
I would suggest ism can refer to an ideology, not necessarily a belief system.
Oh I think we might be splitting semantic hairs if we think there is a gulf between an ideology and a belief system. In either case, I don't see why ideologies are any less prone to dogma.
they no longer have a need to eat meat, so don’t.
100% this.
If I had a pound for every time someone went "but whhyyyyy?" when they discovered I'm veggie I'd have a number of pounds by now. There's a few reasons, the primary one being that I find the concept of eating dead flesh to be utterly revolting. I'd be squeamish about handling raw meat and sure as shit couldn't bring myself to hunt and kill my own food, so to have someone else handle all the inconvenient wetwork seems monumentally hypocritical. Plus, y'know, it's still dead flesh, and you expect me to put it in my body? 🤢
But really, the short answer to "why" is simply "because I can." I'm lucky enough to live in time and place where nutritional and tasty alternatives are readily available. Why do you eat meat when you don't have to? Because you always have and you've never really given it a second thought? It's simply culture, different countries eat different things and it's just what we're conditioned to see as acceptable. I don't eat lambs and that's somehow considered outré, yet you don't eat kittens and that's perfectly normal?
People are weird.
Been vegi/vegan for over 20 years and used to love meat. There are some crappy meat replacement products out there, some really good. Yeah, a lot of it is massively processed but I don't give a shit, to be honest. I used to like meat, I liked the texture of meat, meat replacements gives me that. It's been over 20 years and the foods are getting better all the time. You're never gonna fool an omnivore with most of it but it works for me. Only ever found one palatable vegan cheese though, some smoked Austrian stuff that I found in that London. Even melted well. The rest of it is grim beyond words.
sure as shit couldn’t bring myself to hunt and kill my own food,
I could.
I could hunt and kill you too but I won’t because you’d probably taste like lentils and sprouts and that.
Don't be silly. Cows don't taste of grass, do they.
In any case, I probably wouldn't be good eating, I'm a skinny little wretch.
Cows don’t taste of grass, do they.
Neither of us really knows. I’ve never eaten grass and you don’t eat cows.
Good point, well made.
The flavour of sausages/ burgers etc. whether real meat or not is mostly from seasoning.
Not really, only if they have lots of seasoning, mainly to cover the use of crap 'meat'. A nice minced steak burger with just a bit of salt and pepper has plently flavour from the meat.
Quorn sausages and burgers taste like real meat to me (bearing in mind I haven’t knowingly eaten real meat for over 30 years), so much so that if someone else serves me a quorn veggie burger I have to double check!
You'd never know given your flavour statement above!
I would challenge any hardened meat eater to do a blind test on sainsbury’s own brand meat free hot dog sausages – taste and feel no different to meat ones (which barely contain meat anyway).
Those meat free hot dogs are indeed tasty, I can tell the difference though pretty easy, but I do much prefer the meat free ones, they are quite morish.
For a thread about vegan diets and eating less meat there seems to be a lot of gammon about!!!
I've stopped eating meat/diary products/eggs and lost loads of weight, feel fuller, so I'm snacking less and I'm enjoying learning to cook differently. Made a bolognase with lentils the other day and it was delicious.
The weird thing is the longer I go without meat and other animal products the less and less I want them. Thought I'd struggle but I really don't. Had real milk in my tea today (ran out of oat stuff) and it knocked me sick!
I'm not defining myself as a vegan or a veggie and being dead strict about it all. I don't rule out eating meat or fish in the future, but it has to be a conscious choice rather than habitually reaching for a chicken sandwich on my lunch break.
there seems to be a lot of gammon about!
It's the new bacon
this isn’t a vegan thread as far as I can see
My bad. If it had been, you wouldn't have bothered wading in suggesting the OP continue eating meat, right?
Neither of us really knows. I’ve never eaten grass and you don’t eat cows.
Let me help you both, they don't taste the same in any way.
Another illusion shattered.
Cougar probably doesn’t taste like lentils.
Anthoxanthum odoratum
is may favourite grass to eat, it doesnt taste like cow!
Re vile vegan cheese report, my tuppenhaporth -
Some vegan cheese is not even nice, it's awesome. This was a great surprise to me, having only tried (and loathed)the different plastic-wrapped branded potater and/or coconut derived stuff from supermarkets and wholefood stores. Then I tried a home-made one 😍
Not all vegan cheeses are the same. Have a look here
Pretty much everything factory-processed is shite, and that includes both meat and non-meat produce. Use the small green puy type lentils for mince dishes.
I like burgers tho. Best accessible ones I've found are the regular Linda McCartney vegetarian quarter pounders. They are vegan too. On their own they taste simply ok, great texture, juicy, quite bland. To massively improve them is a simple thing:
1. sprinkle a big pinch of good quality fresh smoked paprika plus salt and pepper over the topside of each burger before whacking them in the oven on foil.
2. Over-cook by *ten mins more* than recommended, turning once, keeping them in their own juices if possible. Put in toasted bun, top with sauces, finely chopped onion, dill pickles, sweet mustard, salad etc.
Try it? If you do let me know what you think! They are 2 quid for two. Cardboard packaging a bonus. *Do* get decent smoked paprika. I found a big tin of El Avion brand in TK Maxx last week for a couple of quid. Sure liquid smoke will also work if you are happy with using it.
Apart from that we as a couple just stick to veg, legumes and pulses. You can make an enormous range of dishes with those three. Endless options.
Additionally, I eat fish, but love those Itsu seaweed snacks. For fishy taste they're ace. Looking forward to trying making my own from nori sheets.
I asked a friend who eats a lot of Quorn as opposed to meat what it actually was, she didn’t know.
I hope you told her it's a soil mould grown in massive vats in a factory 🙂 . I find it quite filling but it gives me terrible indigestion.
I tend to eat quite a lot of mushrooms and cheese on meat free days, a small amount of pulses but chickpeas etc just cause a load of stomach grief. The soya industry is horrendous so I avoid that. Wild fish a couple times a week too though I count it as meat, it's the flesh of an animal that has either been caught and killed very slowly and probably gutted alive, or raised in hellish conditions and killed with pretty non existant welfare. Can't understand vegetarians who don't eat meat because it's cruel but eat fish, especially farmed fish, which is one of the most devoid of any kind of ethics and low welfare industries around. But I guess they're not cwute and fwuffy.
TOtally don't understand imitation meat like realistic bleeding veggie burgers, I guess it's just part of this vegan social media lifestyle trend. I'm not fussed if my real burger is 'bleeding' why would I want a veggie one to do it.
Why do you eat meat when you don’t have to? Because you always have and you’ve never really given it a second thought?
I eat less meat and more vegetarian dishes than I used too. I enjoy the variety. Actually I may be approaching that "flexitarian" diet mentioned up there (but would call it a balanced diet). However it is a bit light on meat. I eat meat because I like the taste and I can't see me ever giving up totally.
TOtally don’t understand imitation meat like realistic bleeding veggie burgers,
It's an odd one. I thought similarly, but read up on it. It's not a simple story. If an animal is butchered in a certain way, then all of the blood is drained out. The juice that comes from ground beef burger is, IIRC, a mixture of water, rendered fat snd myoglobin.
So first off, a meat burger is not really 'bleeding'.
Anyway, ffwd to veggie/vegan burgers. This is something that I can speak about with some experience as I gave up eating red meat some time back. I loved the taste of a great burger with all trimmings, even though I rarely ordered one as I'm pretty fussy how I like it, and didn't like to support the big American franchise for a number of reasons. And health-based disincentives etc. So I tended to order a half-pounder at the same small local place about once a month or less. But when I did order it, I really, really enjoyed it.
I can live without them, of course, and it's genuinely good for me that I do. For my health amd my outlook. My GP agrees. Anyway, I didn't eat them because they were made of bits of a mammal, I ate them because they tasted great and satisfied my tastebuds, touch-sense (texture) and belly. *burp*
So much for all that. Cue the ocassio al veggieburger or bean burger. Some good, some great, but most all soft and lacking that umami taste.
But if someone offered me a plant-based burger with less 'bad' fats yet high in protein with
more or less the same bite, succulence, umam and juiciness as a decent beefburger... then why not? Maybe I'd have two a month as a special junk treat. Like before but more. But still maybe not quite SO bad. As long as its not made from dirty palm oil, avocados and baby robins then bring it on. In fact where the **** is it? I want to try one.
Then, sometime last year I was yacking with my mate's stepdad who was at the time banging to me about this 'bleeding veggie burger' he'd seen in the news and 'what I dont get is why a veggie, etc, etc'. You can guess the rest. Anyway, I was skeptical because it (bleeding ng burger) sounded silly, so I just nodded along and agreed I thought it was a silly gimmick, and why would a veggie etc bla bla. But I was making a mental note to look it up and scoff at it
And found it fascinating
Especially the heme/myoglobin/plant-blood thingummy science. Could be all guff though, right? Not tried one yet either. I dont care at all what is trending ,and what is not. That's for young people to worry about. But I'd very much like a great-tasting vegan meaty burger that dribbles doen my chin as I look slightly off to the right, with a confused smile as if I've just half-remembered that it was someone's birthday, maybe even mine. *parp*. 'Eh?'
I guess it’s just part of this vegan social media lifestyle trend.
I can't speak to that. Intensely dislike social media in general. Hardly use it. But I love food. I really do love food too much 😤
I’m not fussed if my real burger is ‘bleeding’ why would I want a veggie one to do it.
I bet you'd send that bone-dry and bland burger back to the chef!
^sorry for all the typos iOS + STW still hates me editing in allotted window, repeatedly crashing the page and lagging like mad.