How prevalent is veganism in India? Whenever I look at Indian food, it's butter this and milk that. Sure, there are some very good vegan choices, but it seems to me that Indians love their dairy.
Veganism is actually a fairly new phenomenon in general, a lot of Jains in particular have adopted it. But vegetarianism in India dates back over a thousand years BCE , so yeah, they've got a bit of a head start.
Except for the part where they're kept in small cages or "free range" in dirty cramped pens. Luckily it's easier to get eggs from chickens raised ethically than meats. You just gotta fork over a few extra bucks or get the hookup at a farmer's market
We drive 10mph around here because the damn chickens like to "free range" in the road. Those are pretty large pens, the size of a damn town.
The USDA needs to get their pockets out of big ag's hands. Free Range should be Free-Fucking-Range. I get to know the chicken I eat got to run wild 16 hours every day, but many people do not.
Yeah the fuckery that they pull when they list things as grass fed and free range is vile. Then they make a profit on top of it because they barely change anything but charge premium prices for the fancy label.
I'm lucky to have a beef farm in my state that ships locally and actually follows the spirit of grass fed up to grass finished in sprawling pastures. They also do individual slaughter. For eggs we've got a few locals that bring them to the farmers markets on Sundays. Beef is like a once a week thing for us these days and it's usually just ground beef. Chicken and fish are our biggest sources of protein now. I don't really do pork anymore. Can't find any that's remotely close to ethically sourced which is abysmal considering how intelligent pigs are. So I just stopped buying it.
Also, and I'm fully aware this could just be some kinda subconscious bias, but I swear the meat and eggs taste SO much better than the stuff from the grocery. Eggs especially. The yolks are so vibrant and hardly break when being fried. Even the shells seem stronger and less likely to shatter into tiny annoying bits.
Here's my reason for trying to eat a little more beef than that. If I'm giving "lives lost" any value, you can't beat cows for calories per animal death. It beats a lot of plant-based foods. And I do have local beef, though it is not fully sustained like local chicken is... which is why I eat more chicken and seafood as well. Not to mention, even though beef around me can be ecologically sustainable, it will not remain that way if too many people eat it because it needs to be supplemented by import. So some beef = good. More beef = less good.
We actually have some ethically sourced local pork, too. I guess it's nice living in a farming area of my state, despite not living in a farming-state. The butcher's pork section is always small, but he's got some.
Also, and I’m fully aware this could just be some kinda subconscious bias, but I swear the meat and eggs taste SO much better than the stuff from the grocery
Not really a subconscious bias. They are fresher, and preservation techniques often have not been started on them. If you eat an egg that has never been refrigerated, of course it's fresher. (or the opposite, lol)
The seafood my family fishes is right off a boat, generally only a couple hours harvested. After the fishermens' cut, the best stuff goes to a couple local restaurants and seafood markets, and the rest are frozen and shipped. Yes, you can taste the difference. I never liked scallops until I tasted "the real thing" off a boat.
I never said they were? I'm not even a vegetarian stop being so sensitive. I don't care for making anything suffer when I can still have eggs without the suffering. It's that simple. If you've based too much of your personality on macho meathead bullshit then do you boo. I'm sure that's a great replacement for an actual personality.
If they can make animal-free cheddar and animal-free yogurt that tastes exactly like the real thing, sign me up. Right now, vegan alternatives are... not good.
I've tried a few types of coconut-based yogurts that were tasty. I'm not a fan of almond milk, so didn't like those varieties as much. On the cheeses though, completely agree! I had one that was tolerable, but definitely falls in the "not good" category.
The vanilla flavored one was a bit sweet, but that's how I generally prefer it. I usually am throwing berries and granola in there too so admittedly can't give you an unbiased recommendation! I think there are plain flavored ones either almond or coconut milk based, which might be more of what you're looking for.
Yes, this is why I think we take the wrong approach considering things as animal free substitutes. That’s a high bar.
Meanwhile I’m perfectly happy dipping my veggies in hummus instead of cheese dip. Not as a substitute but as a different choice that is good on its own merit
I saw a milk that claims to be just that on the shelves. Incredibly expensive and (from what I hear) nowhere near the same taste.
The problem is that animals and plants do "what they do" with incredible efficiency. If you want to do exactly what some evolved thing does best, you probably cannot come close to matching it with technology. A century of aircraft design and planes are not in the same league as birds regarding flight efficiency.
If animal-free milk goes the path that animal-free meat is, they may well be reaching the upper bounds of efficiency already, nowhere near close enough to replace natural animal and dairy.
Which is a bit of a shame (as a meat-eater). I think having outside competition that could truly stand on its own would help reduce the corruption of big ag.
If you want to do exactly what some evolved thing does best, you probably cannot come close to matching it with technology.
Not necessarily true - evolution (and simulating evolution) is great at finding local maxima/minima, but not as great at moving out of those in the case where the local min/max is not the global min/max. So, for example, birds might not be the optimal way to do flight efficiency, but between birds and optimal flight efficiency if there's a region of worse flight efficiency of any real size (more than you could vault in a couple generations of lucky mutations) then evolution will never find it because the intermediate steps to get there will be selected against too heavily to jump the gap.
I don't think I entirely disagree with you. I was generalizing the real phenomenon that we are unable to engineer competing mechanisms to those found in the wild.
That said, "region of worse efficiency" tends to happen all the time. The accurate argument would be a "region of untenable inefficiency". A legless bird that evolved the ability to fly its entire life from hatching to death is an unlikely evolution. Not coincidentally, finding ways to keep something up in the air longer-term than birds do is something our engineering is capable of.
I feel like trying to be vegan in a culture that has long promoted vegetarianism would be easier than trying to be vegan in a meat-centric culture like the US has.
This is what people don't get, if you've been veggie for years then you don't need meat substitutes, these products are for normies trying to cut back or give up while they break the cultural training.
I've been vegetarian for... more than a decade? I love meat substitutes and generally prefer having the substitute present in meals (either as the main thing, like a burger, or as an inclusion). I do agree that meat substitutes are a fantastic way of reducing meat consumption for meat-eaters, but that doesn't mean you need to do away with it completely once you're in 'full veg' mode
Maybe. While I do sometime choose the plant-based meat, thinking of it as a substitute was my initial reluctance to try vegetarian food. Back then, I ridiculed the idea of a “veggie burger”, but really liked grilling a “black bean patty”. Did you realize Mac and Cheese can be vegetarian? “Greek veggie dip” is horrible, but I love hummus. I always loved various potatoes, but it was quite a revelation that you could spice them up and use them as a meal. My latest infatuation is Halloumi or Paneer - don’t ever call a nice grilling cheese a substitute for anything.
At least for me, it is easier to choose foods for their own value, rather than suffer with a substitute, r a variation “without”. I’m not a vegetarian and have no interest in it, but I will choose what looks good to me at any given time, on its own merits
One of the earliest known vegans was the Arab poet al-Maʿarri, famous for his poem "I No Longer Steal From Nature". (c. 973 – c. 1057).
The first known vegan cookbook was Asenath Nicholson's Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians, published in 1849
These are documented historical facts. Not "saying something" which ironically appears to be the position you are claiming.
Did the modern name come about in the 40's? yes, that's the etymology of it. But you're treating that fact like the movement or ideology was formed at the same time, which is tremendously, provably wrong. It's like claiming gay people are a relatively new invention because the term "homosexual" wasn't coined until the 1890's
I mean, the United States has, to be fair, developed a food culture that emphasizes using a lot of meat, especially over the past century or so. It's not surprising that people from an area that eats so much meat, who go vegan, are going to want to look for ways to still make dishes familiar to them
Yep. It's all about helping people transition. So much of American food culture is centered around burgers, steak, BBQ, etc. It's really hard to just drop all of that on a dime, even if you want to. These products help people with that mental itch.
If its any indication into other factors, every time I try to make butter chicken it ends up tasting like a British persons home made curry recipe so there's that. Jokes aside as someone who likes cooking, a lot of traditional recipes, of any culture are simply much more labor intensive than slapping a bean patty on a pan then furnishing it. I'd wager the pace of a lot of western lifestyles, the choice gets weighted quickly.
To be fair, a patty sandwich of any type (be it hamburgers, chicken sandwich, beans, or any kind of imitation meat) is going to be similarly labor intensive and time consuming if one had to make the patty and bread oneself rather than being able to just buy them. I'm sure traditional recipes for most cultures can be made similarly convenient if probably somewhat different from their original form, if demand exists for them to be premade and sold that way. There's a specialty grocery store very close to my home that specializes in Indian food, tho also has some international foods from other places too, and it's freezer section has all sorts of Indian dishes done up as tv dinners, or premade frozen samosas of various flavors one just has to fry in a pan for a few minutes, among other things.
Yup. I love a good microwaved samosa or Chana masala and it's easier than grilling a frozen chemical burger frankly. I don't think convenience is a fair argument here. Microwaved Chana is nowhere as good as a freshly made 3hour dish, don't get me wrong, but there are convenience options that aren't vegan chicken nuggets.
I mean comparing a frozen vegetable patty to a whole frozen meal is a bit of a stretch in quality and affordability imo. Honestly a lot of it has to do with things like how many pans and utensils you use too. Even if I make a burger from ground beef its still only one pan, two cutting boards (one for meat one for veg) and all the fresh produce just needs to be washed and cut, if you wanna grill the onions, same pan no problem, all you need is a knife and a spatula. When I tried to make butter chicken the tastiest recipe called for two different marinades and a sauce you make in stages. I can go over the video and look at the kitchen hardware necessary but I think it's easy to imagine its a lot more. I've found quite a few Indian recipes in particular are similar that way so it seemed topical.
Depends on if they're capitol E English or not, then I'd imagine you'd probably have South Asian and Jamaican styles being dominant. I was referring to the englishmans home cooked take on it. If you want the story, years ago I was in Australia and my neighbors there were UK English, I don't know how to describe it other than it tasted like my early attempts at traditional recipes. If it helps I remember "Man I did all that and mine still just tastes like someone used a strange ramen flavoring packet." So that's probably how I'd describe it.
most of those meals involved meat. So took a bit of relearning. Being able to just make an old thing but with fake meat was nice. Then sometimes brain craves something from child hood, so have to find an alternative.
I get that it's a meme, but what's the problem? I'm vegetarian/flirt with veganism; it's purely for moral/ethical/environmental reasons.
Indian food is delicious. An Impossible burger on a pretzel bun dripping with grilled onions, avocado, vegan aioli and mustard with a side of steak fries? That's also delicious, in my opinion.
Meat is delicious, and that's not at all incompatible with my reasoning for being vegetarian.
Nothing against people who prefer meat substitutes. But I do think they should be brave and just abandon meat altogether. If you keep relying on meat substitutes, you haven't let go of meat entirely, I found it easy to get back to meat eating.
Bravery has nothing to do with it. It tastes good, and there's no harm to any animals. So why not eat it? Denial for the sake of denial is not a virtue.
If you keep relying on meat substitutes, you haven't let go of meat entirely, and it would be easy to get back to meat eating.
That's like saying that if you enjoy shooting people in video games, then you're one step away from shooting people in real life. I've been eating fake meats for almost a decade now, and I've never been tempted to eat real meat.
I know how horrible and senseless factory farming is, and I have images of the slaughtered seared into my memory from vegan documentaries. Why would I go back to that when I can have substitutes that are just as good, if not better?
I can't really answer the question of why, but the sample set of people I know who switch to vegetarianism and veganism bears out that the ones who rely in fake meats much more frequently switch back than those who focus on learning to cook foods that don't imitate meat.
On the counterargument, I did miss cheese quite a bit, and learning to culture my own vegan cheeses hasn't led to buying animal milk cheeses again, so ymmv
It wasn't meaningless, and I went out of my way to make clear the sample size wasn't statistically significant.
The point was that the parent comment implied there was no reason to start eating meat again after making a moral choice not to. My anecdote shows that some people do anyway, therefore there must be a reason.
That in my experience they tended to be the people who relied on meat substitutes was presented as an observation of interest, not as hard evidence of universal truth.
Being called stupid and criticizing my decisions kept me from "being brave"
Like "You're not good enough until you are this much" bullshit. If that's the attitude, then fuck no. Why do I wanna go even further into things if y'all are assholes right off the bat. Like, no. fuck you. If it's this complicated then I am going to do what has been a life of hassle free eating. My guilt is very easily wiped away like that.
I’m vegan and I eat plenty of fake meat. I’m vegan because I think it’s right, not because I dislike meat. Don’t listen to OP. You are good enough, and any reduction in the consumption of animal products is better than no reduction.
I went through a long period of transition before cutting out animal produce entirely, but have now been vegan for a good few years.
I went through a long period of transition before cutting out animal produce entirely, but have now been vegan for a good few years.
This is the way. It's like a relationship: if you have to force it, it's gonna be shit.
I cut down on meat significantly in the past 3 years. I eat mostly vegetarian, fish once a week and meat every once in a while. Overall, my meat consumption decreased by about 90% which I call good enough and I don't really have the intention to change that.
I've been talking a bunch of shit out of annoyance. And there's a bunch of posts echoing exactly what I was complaining about.
Even getting called a liar.
This is the only reasonable or polite response I've seen. Missed one maybe?
So thanks. I really shouldn't be painting the entire lifestyle with the same brush, because well here we are.
So I'll shut up, and say thanks. And for the record, my kid still makes me get the impossible patties. She's not veg anything, so ita just cause they're good and that on its own should be good enough. Not all is lost in my removed.
Nothing against people who prefer meat substitutes
That's good.
I do think they should be brave and just abandon meat altogether
That's bad.
Now, firstly, thank you for defining a lot of people cowards.
Secondly, while I like indian food, I like meat more. And I liked it since forever. If I can have the delicious taste of meat in my plate without killing an animal, that's great. Fantastic! I'm eagerly waiting for lab crafted meat any day. I'm willing to pay it more than real meat, because I'm not fond of killing living beings to eat them. But if that's not yet possible, I'd still have my steak and my hamburger.
I'm vegetarian. Western food is so focused on meat that people often have no idea how to make a meal that doesn't contain it. My mother once asked me how to make a vegetarian version of Chicken Parmesan. So keep the tomato sauce, cheese, and spices, but swap out the chicken with pasta. Congrats you've made vegetarian Chicken Parmesan. I like to call it Spaghetti.
I think that speaks to OP's point: instead of thinking in terms of trying to replicate the meat dish without meat, think in terms of making a vegetable dish that satisfies the same mood.
It's just funny that someone was looking for a meatless chicken parm because the original recipe was eggplant parm, just someone thought it would be better with meat.
And there’s a lot of alternatives for many different prices. I remember how people used to berate me for being vegetarian while growing up, telling me I’d die and whatnot.
and people get so pissy about like 'where is muh serving of protein??' like just because you saw an infograph as a child doesn't mean you have to have a hunk of a living creature every meal
You know what has protein? Every whole plant food. You don't need a dedicated part of a meal that is high in protein when the whole meal contains protein.
Different plants have different macros. Ofc there are plants with high protein but don't go around spouting carrots and fruit are a balanced diet. You need beans, legumes, nuts, etc.
There’s nothing childish about paying attention to macros. If you’ve ever spent time doing any programmed exercising that includes making linear progress, you know the difference protein can make. And it’s hard to achieve even when you’re not extremely limited in ingredients.
I’m not knocking vegan or vegetarian diets. Just saying it’s not at all easy, and that protein matters a lot.
Also most vegetarian Indian food is absolutely loaded with butter/ghee. It’s not “healthy.”
I think the poverty and lack of access to healthcare in some areas might be a bigger drag on life expectancy than cooking with butter, especially when a fair number of Italian dishes also include butter.
Eggs 13% protein idk how I feel about them. Personally I prefer yellow peas, green peas, peanuts.
You can downvote me but that doesn't change the fact that you need an absurd amount of eggs
Yeah I don't get the whole "replace meat with a vegan steak" idea.
Just prepare a delicious Dahl, the recipe of which has been around for hundreds of years!
There's actually a lot of plant based meat that are chemical / preservative free, Redefine Meat comes first to mind. As there is a lot of animal meat that is full of chemicals, preservatives, carcinogens, and antibiotics use.
I would only assume most fast food meals, meat ones included, are not chemical / preservative free. That's a western fast food problem, vegan or not.
Lastly, vegan people broadly don't eat plant based meats. Like it get the joke... It's just broadly inaccurate. Meat eaters, people trying to eat less meat, and some vegetarians buy plant based meats.
Lastly, vegan people broadly don’t eat plant based meats
I think it's a demographics thing. There's a whole lot of vegans who eat "fake meat" regularly or even exclusively. I have a successful restaurant chain near me that specialized in "plant-based alternative" meals, from burgers to lasagnas and everything in between. No it's not all meat. Lots of "Cashew Cheese" and similar.
And honestly, I don't think vegans should be faulted for "wanting meat but not eating it". It's the ones that get judgey of non-vegans like the other 99% are somehow inferior to them. I know way too many vegans who are vegan for good reasons or for personal-trauma reasons, and they should be left alone. Even if they want a miracle burger and mac 'n cashes.
Of course there is. Not saying no vegans eat it ever. It could be a regional variable, but I'm speaking about population as a whole, not your local vegan restaurant. Google says 86% of plant based meat is bought by meat eaters. I also work in the field so have some knowledge on the subject. 86% is about right but could be 5-8% high. But in any case, the people who buy it are broadly meat eater, or more likely "flexitarians" .
And vegans should eat more plant based meats. The better brands are very healthy and it could help them stick to their vegan diets.
Google says 86% of plant based meat is bought by meat eaters
The reference behind that Google statement (assuming the same) is a vegan blog talking about the Beyond brand only, and it's citing a wordpress site as its source, and the wordpress site has been deleted.
NPD has a study mis-cited by vegnews.com (that MPD doesn't actually seem to cite), but it includes plant-based milks, and I don't think that gives meaningful numbers. I'll drink a soy latte with a steak any day. I'm lactose intolerant.
NIH has the most reliable study, that settled around 2/3 of plant-meat consumers are omnivores. Which is saying something, but is also not surprising from the fact that almost 90% of the world consumes meat. So I think it sorta just runs out to nowhere, with regards to being a demographic thing. Clearly, vegans and vegetarians are more likely to consume plant-based meat than meat-eaters. With 10% of Americans being vegetarian and representing over 30% of plant-based meat consumers, they're eating that stuff up.
Now with that out of the way, this is literally just a lame “I've depicted the group I don’t agree with as the Soyjak and my group as the Chad, thus superiority confirmed”.
Thank you, it drives me nuts when people say shit like "chemical-free". Everything is made out of chemicals, tell me which one otherwise I'll just assume you're uneducated and afraid of things you can't pronounce.
Literally not a single thing in our world isn’t chemicals. Lemontek - chemicals interacting.
Alcohol for some party - Chemicals. Every part of any meal - chemicals. All of it.
That one’s just for you. People always go off about it being a natural chemical reaction etc and it’s timely with all the conversation about growing acception of psychadelics for mental health
In general I think people are referring to things that are either A) heavily proccesed and/or B) something that isn't naturally occurring. When they speak about "chemicals"
Your body is made to eat natually occuring plants and animals. Any deviation from that is risking long term issues. Effects that are very often (at least here in the states) ignored unless they just straight up kill you. And even then it'll probably take a couple decades before anyone actually does something about it. So, yes while many people misuse the word "chemical," their fear is not misplaced. You should be skeptical of things that are synthesized until they are proven to interact with the human body appropriately
I think we need to understand what definition people are using for "chemicals". They usually are referring to highly processed ingredients, with highly processed preservatives, highly processed artificial flavors (called "natural flavors", but taken for example from the anal glans of a beaver... yes this is real and common). By the broadest definition, absolutely everything is a chemical. Generally, people should avoid any definition for a word that makes the word nonsensical. And also generally, you will find big lobbyist groups using that general definition to shell-game about the specific chemicals they are trying to protect.
When a food-concerned person mentions chemicals, they are referring to things like antibiotics or hormones, preservatives or processed sweeteners with known side-effects. Some of them are talking about isolates, like soy protein isolate to which there are valid health concerns.
And yes, sometimes people referring to chemicals don't know what chemicals they're complaining about. And yes, sometimes people complaining about chemicals are complaining that their meatless burger's consistency comes from methyl cellulose, (probably) completely harmless but absolutely artificial.
The same way some vegans are made ill by the thought of meat, some folks are made ill by flavor- or consistency-related facts in their food. I mean, I think vegans would be concerned to know the beaver anal secretions above was in some plant milks under the term "natural flavors".
Granted, there are things in this world that aren't chemicals. Muons, stuff at the LHC, plasma... But everything that a normal person interacts with is a chemical.
Most vegans in the US do not eat food that mimics meat.
Most Western butt holes cannot handle Indian food that well. The couple times I went to Indian weddings, I was clamoring for anything that would not burn my butthole. The good combined with the ridiculous amount of alcohol made the toilets cry.
The fiber is not the issue. I'm good on that. It was the spiciness that was the problem. I can handle a little bit of spice but there was pretty much no reprieve.
I don’t know, that’s a stereotype that may not be true. I mean, I’ll also make fun of my culture’s lack of spice and spice tolerance, but I’m the opposite data point. I love spicy food, prepare very spicy food for my kids, and on my one trip to India had at least the spice tolerance of my Indian co-workers. We’re not all white bread and mayonnaise
"spicy food" doesnt mean the same thing depending on cuisine. Different types of heat are used in different dishes.
I can eat mexican meals for days and have no issues, cholula and all.
Meanwhile mild indian is usually a treat that sets off a small bomb in my gut.
Also, people make fun of americans like we dont have fuckloads of hot sauce brands all over the place. We live next door to mexico, guys, we have plenty of spicy cuisine.
I'll have you know our British digestive systems can handle almost anything from over 60 years of Indian, Pakistani, Carribbean and Mexican food. When Taco Bell arrived on our shores it was bland disappointment compared to existing burrito outlets, especially given all the hype that it apparently puts an American in the toilet for hours :(
Think this post confuses veganism and vegetarianism. Also it's chemicals all the way down. Those spices? Made of chemicals.
Those alternative burgers are actually pretty tasty but also very heavy because they are imitating beef. For American fare I'd generally prefer a sandwich with deli style meats made out of tofu or seitan, or a bean burger.
My only problem with Indian food. Whenever I try a restaurants it's shit. But when my coworkers would bring in a feast on Diwali, it was my favorite time of year.
I can't find any restaurants that taste even similar to their home cooked meals.
I was lucky enough to travel to India once, and try some great food … I wanted to be vegetarian while there, simply because it was so good. The guys thought they were being helpful pointing out meat dishes everywhere we went, but it was typically an afterthought on the menus, not well prepared, not worth eating.
— In an American restaurant the focus is on meat and it is well prepared so that’s what I’m looking for
— in my limited experience with restaurants in India, the focus was on foods that didn’t have meat, and was very well prepared, so that’s what I’m looking for
As long as the vegetarian option is a substitute, or an option, or doing without, rather than the focussing on a good meal, most of will have no reason to select it, no reason to expect it to be a good choice
This has to be the most eat pray love meme I've ever seen. Hindus are vegetarian not vegan (disclaimer: they aren't a monolith) and use a lot of ghee (milk product). That brown dude looks like a Sikh; they are typically not vegetarian or vegan.
With the power of spices... I lived in an apartment with Indians as neighbours 2 floors beneath.
There wasn't a single day when you couldn't smell all spices combined when you walked past their apartment. It was ... an interesting smell...😮💨 I don't believe they could smell/taste the original flavours of their food
I used to work with a guy from Pakistan, my car would smell of curry for a week after a couple days of driving about with him. I could tell that he'd been back to his hotel room by the lingering smell in the hallway.
So what is the dish, and what are the ingredients then?
I can't tell from the low res picture exactly what's in the bowl. It looks to be some kind of curry or Tikka masala, both of which are vegan to my knowledge.
I'm vegan for a while now and live in Europe. In the past, vegan options were creative and often good and now it's this fake meat all over. I wish I lived closer to India then to America
What I wanted to say is that I like the Indian way according to the meme better than the American and my home country is tending towards the American. I wanted to hint to that by complaining about it in the first part
Welcome to the culture wars. How am I supposed to demonstrate my sigmoid male prowess to fertile young females, if I'm eating a plate of seasoned vegetable mush?
Whereas if it appears to be a juicy slab of meat, I can maintain the veneer of my fragile masculinity. And who knows, maybe one of those cute progressive females will open her legs to me if I appear to care about animals.
we ate burgers with i think corn-based patties once. actually tasted better than a burger imo. definetely a carnivore, but the vegans sure have some dope alternatives.
Not a vegan, but a vegetarian. This is why I love Indian food. When food is made from the beginning to not include meat products, it doesn’t feel like it’s ‘missing’ anything.
Here's my thing about meat: I'll switch away from meat if you make it taste good. It doesn't have to pretend to be meat, as long as it tastes good, that's all I care about. I will still eat the occasional burger or bbq, but if you can find me vegetarian or vegan recipes that make me as happy as bbq does, I'll try it.
For bacon bits, they're talking about the drid stuff in the plastic cans - "Bacos" and similar. They're usually soy based with artificial flavor - probably for longer/safer shelf life
It's less surprising when you realize that stuff that processed almost might as well have been constructed from raw hydrocarbons. It's like some NileRed "turning paint thinner into cherry soda"-level shit.
I said this above as a reply to another comment, but I do feel there are a lot of interesting dishes around the world that would be loved almost universally and I wish they would become universally accessible too
The secret is that meat on its own is garbage. Instead of using plants to make meat taste good (teriyaki, buffalo sauce, nearly a dozen herbs and spices, etc.), you can just use those plants to make plants taste good
I don't eat a lot of meat, but after hearing arguments like these from vegetarians and vegans, I gave up on not eating meat.
Too expensive to eat vegan and I got really fucking tired of being called fucking stupid for buying meat free alternatives. It's not worth the effort in the end.
vegan food isn't expensive. artificial meat replacements are expensive, because you're paying someone to chemically torture plants until they vaguely remind you of animals. lentils, beans, and other awesome-tasting protein sources are dirt cheap. vegan-first dishes are great and really cheap.
It wasn’t just the vegan thing though. My kid is autistic and absolutely wouldn’t eat anything other than what she put on her list. Like to the point we had to get her help.
I guess that’s something I shouldn’t have left out. It just wasn’t something that even crossed my mind as I made the comment.
It's interesting that while you were making this up you couldn't decide whether your kid was vegetarian or vegan. You'd think with cooking two separate meals every night you'd be familiar with the difference.
Ignoring the obvious joke you missed. If someone being a little rude is enough to make you completely give up on your ethical/moral stance, you need to grow a spine dude .
If a gay person is an ass to me i dont decide to become homophobic and blame it on them.
I won't go near the comparison to one's sexual preference, to another voluntary dietary habits.
But, you're not wrong. If this was something that was super important to me and life affecting, then you are completely right.
Now, as someone who is just trying to not eat meat for personal and whatever reasons, that's not how you get people into your cause. I am not bound to it, and the perception of the community is something i get to have liberty with.
How about "well, it's not an animal. not bad". Not being me with my kid hearing that her favorite burger patty (the impossible one) is a waste of money and an embarrassment to the real vegans in the middle of the safeway by a random asshole stranger, who had the after thought to explain how tofu is better totally not noticing that his very life is in danger.
Oh yes the voluntary dietary habit of taking a sentient being's life against its will because it's tasty and I can't be bothered to learn how to cook properly using plants.
Meat is pretty much the most expensive protein source. You can get tofu for like 1/5 the price of meat. The other guy summed it up well (although with some sarcasm) that eating vegan is only expensive when you try to replicate the meat. Just eat tofu and you'll be healthier and richer :)
How many people called you stupid for buying meat free alternatives? I largely do not eat meat and I can count on one hand the number of times it has been mentioned in the past decade. It's also only comparatively expensive because meat is so subsidized.
I mostly do not eat meat because it is fucking terrible for the environment.
Middle of a Safeway once, in line at McDonald's my ex was called a poser for ordering the veggie burger by someone in line at a fucking McDonald's (dont care if youre just there for the fries), online community of course adds to it because, well yeah, here we are.
Entitled people have a way of announcing and decrying those below them. Like morons who think Android phones are for the poor.
I got really fucking tired of being called fucking stupid for buying meat free alternatives.
Sorry that you met condescending assholes. Some people just have the urge to feel superior over others for absolutely silly reasons. The rise of meat alternatives is one of the few things that make me optimistic for the future, along with renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps. Factory farms are so much worse for the environment and animals, of course we should embrace alternatives to the worst option.
Prices also go down with more competition. There basically wasn't any market for meat alternatives 10 years ago, now it's growing quite fast. In 5 years, many of them will likely be cheaper than meat.
They were referring to the comma. Commonly used with a verbal pause. So like: "It's not...though?" As if the "though?" was its own thought and the only part of the sentence that had the question inflection.
Indian food most often is vegetarian but definitely not vegan, in my experience.
Also: It often seems to be colorful mud. Some parts of the dishes tend to be way too hot.
Wrong. The fake meat in the top portion is overprocessed and tastes like garbage instead of delicious meat, while the bottom portion is 100% delicious vegan food.
Edit: downvotes from people who hate vegan food, I guess.
Depends on the brand IMO. I actually really like Impossible Meat; to me it tastes like decent quality beef with some really good hard to place seasoning. If it wasn't so damn expensive I'd get it over actual ground beef.
I mean, isn't all Indian food overspiced? You could probably make curry out of just about any meat or meat substitute and it will still taste like spices.
American food has a higher focus on meat flavor, which is why so many meat alternatives try to imitate meat. You can buy vegan Indian or Chinese food here that tastes decent, but it's not a steak.
Depends which part of India you mean. Telegu food is often very spicy. Bengali and Gujarati food is actually mostly sweet. Himalayan food is 99% bland and 1% volcano hot.
100% serious. On the average our grocery stores are better with far more access to food choices. I can pick out essentially any type of fruit or veggie year round and have access to fresh food from across the planet.
Not your thing? Well, I'm my small city (.5mil) I have access to 3 farmers markets which will get me fresh local veggies and meat.
Y'all are on crack if you think you have access to better food in the EU or Asia.
You'll find that 95% of towns in the US will have access to fantastic food year round.
I mean if you want to be a fatass, that's your choice. You can continue to live however you want. I just had. Ribeye last night from the cow we had butchered a few weeks ago with some potatoes and brussel sprouts from the local market.
But okay, the existence of soda definitely means we don't have access to good food.
One of these cultures has normalised vegan and vegetarianism for centuries, the other is trying to wean a meat-obsessed population.
They are not the same thing, nor do they have the same requirements to reach their end goals
How prevalent is veganism in India? Whenever I look at Indian food, it's butter this and milk that. Sure, there are some very good vegan choices, but it seems to me that Indians love their dairy.
Veganism is actually a fairly new phenomenon in general, a lot of Jains in particular have adopted it. But vegetarianism in India dates back over a thousand years BCE , so yeah, they've got a bit of a head start.
Vegetarian? Yes. Vegan? No.
I am a vegetarian. I eat dairy. I don't eat meat and eggs.
Just eat eggs bro it's just a chicken period
Except for the part where they're kept in small cages or "free range" in dirty cramped pens. Luckily it's easier to get eggs from chickens raised ethically than meats. You just gotta fork over a few extra bucks or get the hookup at a farmer's market
We drive 10mph around here because the damn chickens like to "free range" in the road. Those are pretty large pens, the size of a damn town.
The USDA needs to get their pockets out of big ag's hands. Free Range should be Free-Fucking-Range. I get to know the chicken I eat got to run wild 16 hours every day, but many people do not.
Yeah the fuckery that they pull when they list things as grass fed and free range is vile. Then they make a profit on top of it because they barely change anything but charge premium prices for the fancy label.
I'm lucky to have a beef farm in my state that ships locally and actually follows the spirit of grass fed up to grass finished in sprawling pastures. They also do individual slaughter. For eggs we've got a few locals that bring them to the farmers markets on Sundays. Beef is like a once a week thing for us these days and it's usually just ground beef. Chicken and fish are our biggest sources of protein now. I don't really do pork anymore. Can't find any that's remotely close to ethically sourced which is abysmal considering how intelligent pigs are. So I just stopped buying it.
Also, and I'm fully aware this could just be some kinda subconscious bias, but I swear the meat and eggs taste SO much better than the stuff from the grocery. Eggs especially. The yolks are so vibrant and hardly break when being fried. Even the shells seem stronger and less likely to shatter into tiny annoying bits.
Here's my reason for trying to eat a little more beef than that. If I'm giving "lives lost" any value, you can't beat cows for calories per animal death. It beats a lot of plant-based foods. And I do have local beef, though it is not fully sustained like local chicken is... which is why I eat more chicken and seafood as well. Not to mention, even though beef around me can be ecologically sustainable, it will not remain that way if too many people eat it because it needs to be supplemented by import. So some beef = good. More beef = less good.
We actually have some ethically sourced local pork, too. I guess it's nice living in a farming area of my state, despite not living in a farming-state. The butcher's pork section is always small, but he's got some.
Not really a subconscious bias. They are fresher, and preservation techniques often have not been started on them. If you eat an egg that has never been refrigerated, of course it's fresher. (or the opposite, lol)
The seafood my family fishes is right off a boat, generally only a couple hours harvested. After the fishermens' cut, the best stuff goes to a couple local restaurants and seafood markets, and the rest are frozen and shipped. Yes, you can taste the difference. I never liked scallops until I tasted "the real thing" off a boat.
Same, got this one road where I always need to be careful about the hens.
Effing dinosaurs, with 6,000 years of eating cave men, deserve all the incarceration they get. /s
More seriously, depending on your priorities, factory farmed chicken is less bad for the overall environment than pretty much any beef
Chickens are not people
I never said they were? I'm not even a vegetarian stop being so sensitive. I don't care for making anything suffer when I can still have eggs without the suffering. It's that simple. If you've based too much of your personality on macho meathead bullshit then do you boo. I'm sure that's a great replacement for an actual personality.
Based response
To a vegan, that doesn't matter because it'd be speciesism.
Yeah, Vitamin B12 defiencies make you act erratic
Delicious chicken period that chickens cannibalize if not fed properly, fun fact!
Hell they'll cannibalize it even if they are, you can't compare an animal to a person!
And which won't turn into a chicken eventually anyway unless a rooster was involved.
Somehow doesn't sound as tasty.
chickens don't have periods
Yeah I have a lot of vegetarian Indian friends, not as many vegan.
They have made dairy using a bacteria recently, so animal free dairy may be a thing soon.
If they can make animal-free cheddar and animal-free yogurt that tastes exactly like the real thing, sign me up. Right now, vegan alternatives are... not good.
I've tried a few types of coconut-based yogurts that were tasty. I'm not a fan of almond milk, so didn't like those varieties as much. On the cheeses though, completely agree! I had one that was tolerable, but definitely falls in the "not good" category.
Were the coconut-based yogurts sweet? Because I don't want sweet yogurt. I want yogurt I can put chives in and put on my falafel (for example).
The vanilla flavored one was a bit sweet, but that's how I generally prefer it. I usually am throwing berries and granola in there too so admittedly can't give you an unbiased recommendation! I think there are plain flavored ones either almond or coconut milk based, which might be more of what you're looking for.
Yes, this is why I think we take the wrong approach considering things as animal free substitutes. That’s a high bar.
Meanwhile I’m perfectly happy dipping my veggies in hummus instead of cheese dip. Not as a substitute but as a different choice that is good on its own merit
I can live without cheddar cheese. Maybe. But I need my yogurt.
Brave Robot! I tried it recently, it was good!
I saw a milk that claims to be just that on the shelves. Incredibly expensive and (from what I hear) nowhere near the same taste.
The problem is that animals and plants do "what they do" with incredible efficiency. If you want to do exactly what some evolved thing does best, you probably cannot come close to matching it with technology. A century of aircraft design and planes are not in the same league as birds regarding flight efficiency.
If animal-free milk goes the path that animal-free meat is, they may well be reaching the upper bounds of efficiency already, nowhere near close enough to replace natural animal and dairy.
Which is a bit of a shame (as a meat-eater). I think having outside competition that could truly stand on its own would help reduce the corruption of big ag.
Not necessarily true - evolution (and simulating evolution) is great at finding local maxima/minima, but not as great at moving out of those in the case where the local min/max is not the global min/max. So, for example, birds might not be the optimal way to do flight efficiency, but between birds and optimal flight efficiency if there's a region of worse flight efficiency of any real size (more than you could vault in a couple generations of lucky mutations) then evolution will never find it because the intermediate steps to get there will be selected against too heavily to jump the gap.
I don't think I entirely disagree with you. I was generalizing the real phenomenon that we are unable to engineer competing mechanisms to those found in the wild.
That said, "region of worse efficiency" tends to happen all the time. The accurate argument would be a "region of untenable inefficiency". A legless bird that evolved the ability to fly its entire life from hatching to death is an unlikely evolution. Not coincidentally, finding ways to keep something up in the air longer-term than birds do is something our engineering is capable of.
Man I haven't tried Basundi, is it available in Haryana by any chance?
They're more vegetarian than vegan.
The idea that India is like the veganism world capital, is misinformation that spawned from reddit
I feel like trying to be vegan in a culture that has long promoted vegetarianism would be easier than trying to be vegan in a meat-centric culture like the US has.
It's not vegan so much as veggie. They definitely respect those cows they get the milk from though.
Quite popular, in my city it's quite hard to find meat in the popular restaurants. And these places are quite old and we'll know.
Most foods don't have any form or trace of meat or eggs, although milk and related items are very widely consumed.
It's vegetarian and not vegan.
This is what people don't get, if you've been veggie for years then you don't need meat substitutes, these products are for normies trying to cut back or give up while they break the cultural training.
I've been vegetarian for... more than a decade? I love meat substitutes and generally prefer having the substitute present in meals (either as the main thing, like a burger, or as an inclusion). I do agree that meat substitutes are a fantastic way of reducing meat consumption for meat-eaters, but that doesn't mean you need to do away with it completely once you're in 'full veg' mode
Maybe. While I do sometime choose the plant-based meat, thinking of it as a substitute was my initial reluctance to try vegetarian food. Back then, I ridiculed the idea of a “veggie burger”, but really liked grilling a “black bean patty”. Did you realize Mac and Cheese can be vegetarian? “Greek veggie dip” is horrible, but I love hummus. I always loved various potatoes, but it was quite a revelation that you could spice them up and use them as a meal. My latest infatuation is Halloumi or Paneer - don’t ever call a nice grilling cheese a substitute for anything.
At least for me, it is easier to choose foods for their own value, rather than suffer with a substitute, r a variation “without”. I’m not a vegetarian and have no interest in it, but I will choose what looks good to me at any given time, on its own merits
veganism was invented in the 1940s in Britain
inaccurate. Even a brief wiki would correct you on this.
saying something doesn't make it true. alluding to the existence of evidence is not the same as presenting evidence.
what on earth are you on about.
These are documented historical facts. Not "saying something" which ironically appears to be the position you are claiming.
Did the modern name come about in the 40's? yes, that's the etymology of it. But you're treating that fact like the movement or ideology was formed at the same time, which is tremendously, provably wrong. It's like claiming gay people are a relatively new invention because the term "homosexual" wasn't coined until the 1890's
veganism is a specific philosophy, and while variations of vegetarianism predate it, veganism itself dates to the 1940s.
I mean, the United States has, to be fair, developed a food culture that emphasizes using a lot of meat, especially over the past century or so. It's not surprising that people from an area that eats so much meat, who go vegan, are going to want to look for ways to still make dishes familiar to them
Yep. It's all about helping people transition. So much of American food culture is centered around burgers, steak, BBQ, etc. It's really hard to just drop all of that on a dime, even if you want to. These products help people with that mental itch.
Not just the meat, there is cheese and milk involved in a lot of it as well.
It's not just culture, or itch, or whatever.
I just love the taste of meat! My body craves for it. But if I can keep that delicious flavour in my plate without killing an animal, that's great!
If its any indication into other factors, every time I try to make butter chicken it ends up tasting like a British persons home made curry recipe so there's that. Jokes aside as someone who likes cooking, a lot of traditional recipes, of any culture are simply much more labor intensive than slapping a bean patty on a pan then furnishing it. I'd wager the pace of a lot of western lifestyles, the choice gets weighted quickly.
To be fair, a patty sandwich of any type (be it hamburgers, chicken sandwich, beans, or any kind of imitation meat) is going to be similarly labor intensive and time consuming if one had to make the patty and bread oneself rather than being able to just buy them. I'm sure traditional recipes for most cultures can be made similarly convenient if probably somewhat different from their original form, if demand exists for them to be premade and sold that way. There's a specialty grocery store very close to my home that specializes in Indian food, tho also has some international foods from other places too, and it's freezer section has all sorts of Indian dishes done up as tv dinners, or premade frozen samosas of various flavors one just has to fry in a pan for a few minutes, among other things.
Yup. I love a good microwaved samosa or Chana masala and it's easier than grilling a frozen chemical burger frankly. I don't think convenience is a fair argument here. Microwaved Chana is nowhere as good as a freshly made 3hour dish, don't get me wrong, but there are convenience options that aren't vegan chicken nuggets.
I mean comparing a frozen vegetable patty to a whole frozen meal is a bit of a stretch in quality and affordability imo. Honestly a lot of it has to do with things like how many pans and utensils you use too. Even if I make a burger from ground beef its still only one pan, two cutting boards (one for meat one for veg) and all the fresh produce just needs to be washed and cut, if you wanna grill the onions, same pan no problem, all you need is a knife and a spatula. When I tried to make butter chicken the tastiest recipe called for two different marinades and a sauce you make in stages. I can go over the video and look at the kitchen hardware necessary but I think it's easy to imagine its a lot more. I've found quite a few Indian recipes in particular are similar that way so it seemed topical.
What does a British person's home made curry taste like? I'm curious.
Depends on if they're capitol E English or not, then I'd imagine you'd probably have South Asian and Jamaican styles being dominant. I was referring to the englishmans home cooked take on it. If you want the story, years ago I was in Australia and my neighbors there were UK English, I don't know how to describe it other than it tasted like my early attempts at traditional recipes. If it helps I remember "Man I did all that and mine still just tastes like someone used a strange ramen flavoring packet." So that's probably how I'd describe it.
Bet it's for breakfast;-)
I was taught to cook a ton of things growing up.
most of those meals involved meat. So took a bit of relearning. Being able to just make an old thing but with fake meat was nice. Then sometimes brain craves something from child hood, so have to find an alternative.
I get that it's a meme, but what's the problem? I'm vegetarian/flirt with veganism; it's purely for moral/ethical/environmental reasons.
Indian food is delicious. An Impossible burger on a pretzel bun dripping with grilled onions, avocado, vegan aioli and mustard with a side of steak fries? That's also delicious, in my opinion.
Meat is delicious, and that's not at all incompatible with my reasoning for being vegetarian.
Aioli is naturally vegan. Classically, it's just garlic paste and oil. Flavoring mayo with garlic is not supposed to be called aioli.
Try making the proper kind. You'll be impressed.
Nothing against people who prefer meat substitutes. But I do think they should be brave and just abandon meat altogether. If you keep relying on meat substitutes, you haven't let go of meat entirely, I found it easy to get back to meat eating.
You're chatting out your ass, this is like saying lesbians shouldn't use dildos in case they go back to fucking men
Complete ignorance of the thing you're talking about
Keep it civil please.
You first
Sorry but that's a ban. I'll make it a temp ban this time, but please don't do this again or I'll have to make it permanent.
Is this kindergarten
No. What makes you feel like you're in kindergarten?
👆🤓
Bravery has nothing to do with it. It tastes good, and there's no harm to any animals. So why not eat it? Denial for the sake of denial is not a virtue.
That's like saying that if you enjoy shooting people in video games, then you're one step away from shooting people in real life. I've been eating fake meats for almost a decade now, and I've never been tempted to eat real meat.
I know how horrible and senseless factory farming is, and I have images of the slaughtered seared into my memory from vegan documentaries. Why would I go back to that when I can have substitutes that are just as good, if not better?
I can't really answer the question of why, but the sample set of people I know who switch to vegetarianism and veganism bears out that the ones who rely in fake meats much more frequently switch back than those who focus on learning to cook foods that don't imitate meat.
On the counterargument, I did miss cheese quite a bit, and learning to culture my own vegan cheeses hasn't led to buying animal milk cheeses again, so ymmv
Your anecdote is meaningless as your sample size is not statistically significant.
It wasn't meaningless, and I went out of my way to make clear the sample size wasn't statistically significant.
The point was that the parent comment implied there was no reason to start eating meat again after making a moral choice not to. My anecdote shows that some people do anyway, therefore there must be a reason.
That in my experience they tended to be the people who relied on meat substitutes was presented as an observation of interest, not as hard evidence of universal truth.
Who cares for bravery? Avoiding meat is avoiding meat. Crazy strawman.
Being called stupid and criticizing my decisions kept me from "being brave"
Like "You're not good enough until you are this much" bullshit. If that's the attitude, then fuck no. Why do I wanna go even further into things if y'all are assholes right off the bat. Like, no. fuck you. If it's this complicated then I am going to do what has been a life of hassle free eating. My guilt is very easily wiped away like that.
I’m vegan and I eat plenty of fake meat. I’m vegan because I think it’s right, not because I dislike meat. Don’t listen to OP. You are good enough, and any reduction in the consumption of animal products is better than no reduction.
I went through a long period of transition before cutting out animal produce entirely, but have now been vegan for a good few years.
This is the way. It's like a relationship: if you have to force it, it's gonna be shit.
I cut down on meat significantly in the past 3 years. I eat mostly vegetarian, fish once a week and meat every once in a while. Overall, my meat consumption decreased by about 90% which I call good enough and I don't really have the intention to change that.
Yeah same here. I like fake meat. I mean, if it tastes good and has no animal parts in it, it goes into my mouth. It's not that complicated.
I've been talking a bunch of shit out of annoyance. And there's a bunch of posts echoing exactly what I was complaining about.
Even getting called a liar.
This is the only reasonable or polite response I've seen. Missed one maybe?
So thanks. I really shouldn't be painting the entire lifestyle with the same brush, because well here we are.
So I'll shut up, and say thanks. And for the record, my kid still makes me get the impossible patties. She's not veg anything, so ita just cause they're good and that on its own should be good enough. Not all is lost in my removed.
So your whole point is a slippery slope fallacy. Gotcha.
Looking at someone not eating meat: you should stop eating meat.
I don't think meat substitutes is is the major problem to worry about. In fact, perhaps they could help?
https://plantbasednews.org/opinion/do-84-vegans-and-vegetarians-give-up-diets/
That's good.
That's bad.
Now, firstly, thank you for defining a lot of people cowards.
Secondly, while I like indian food, I like meat more. And I liked it since forever. If I can have the delicious taste of meat in my plate without killing an animal, that's great. Fantastic! I'm eagerly waiting for lab crafted meat any day. I'm willing to pay it more than real meat, because I'm not fond of killing living beings to eat them. But if that's not yet possible, I'd still have my steak and my hamburger.
You don't make friends with
saladthat attitude.A lot of Indian cooking is vegetarian, not vegan. Ghee is very often used.
I'm vegetarian. Western food is so focused on meat that people often have no idea how to make a meal that doesn't contain it. My mother once asked me how to make a vegetarian version of Chicken Parmesan. So keep the tomato sauce, cheese, and spices, but swap out the chicken with pasta. Congrats you've made vegetarian Chicken Parmesan. I like to call it Spaghetti.
I'd swap the chicken for eggplant personally.
I think that speaks to OP's point: instead of thinking in terms of trying to replicate the meat dish without meat, think in terms of making a vegetable dish that satisfies the same mood.
It's just funny that someone was looking for a meatless chicken parm because the original recipe was eggplant parm, just someone thought it would be better with meat.
What was first, the eggplant or the chickenplant?... 😛
90% of "vegetarian versions" of dishes are just the dish without meat. 9% of the remainder are the dish with black beans and/or mushrooms
I mean personally I'd sub it in for something with some protein, though you definitely don't need nearly the amount you get from a piece of meat.
And there’s a lot of alternatives for many different prices. I remember how people used to berate me for being vegetarian while growing up, telling me I’d die and whatnot.
Still here, after nearly thirty years.
Same for me! I have been a vegetarian since I am a child and vegan on-and-off for two decades. I am healthier than the rest of my family.
The protein-panic is induced by corporations and their influencers that sell protein powder, shakes etc.
Of all the things most people in wealthy countries lack in their average diets, protein is not it....
Yeah. I've never suffered a protein deficiency.
You need it.
Maybe you do.
and people get so pissy about like 'where is muh serving of protein??' like just because you saw an infograph as a child doesn't mean you have to have a hunk of a living creature every meal
You should still be eating protein...
You know what has protein? Every whole plant food. You don't need a dedicated part of a meal that is high in protein when the whole meal contains protein.
That's delusional.
Different plants have different macros. Ofc there are plants with high protein but don't go around spouting carrots and fruit are a balanced diet. You need beans, legumes, nuts, etc.
Can I still have 11 bread?
There’s nothing childish about paying attention to macros. If you’ve ever spent time doing any programmed exercising that includes making linear progress, you know the difference protein can make. And it’s hard to achieve even when you’re not extremely limited in ingredients.
I’m not knocking vegan or vegetarian diets. Just saying it’s not at all easy, and that protein matters a lot.
Also most vegetarian Indian food is absolutely loaded with butter/ghee. It’s not “healthy.”
Italy and Japan life expectancy: 84 years.
India: 70 years.
Drastic differences.
I think the poverty and lack of access to healthcare in some areas might be a bigger drag on life expectancy than cooking with butter, especially when a fair number of Italian dishes also include butter.
Turkey (lots and lots of meat): 78 years.
Life expectancy is not a good scale.
Especially when said infographic was not only wrong, but also propaganda.
"where's my protein" in the egg. Eat the egg. It will be more than enough for a week.
As a vegetarian, eggs and dairy are a lifesaver.
Eggs 13% protein idk how I feel about them. Personally I prefer yellow peas, green peas, peanuts. You can downvote me but that doesn't change the fact that you need an absurd amount of eggs
Yeah I don't get the whole "replace meat with a vegan steak" idea. Just prepare a delicious Dahl, the recipe of which has been around for hundreds of years!
There's actually a lot of plant based meat that are chemical / preservative free, Redefine Meat comes first to mind. As there is a lot of animal meat that is full of chemicals, preservatives, carcinogens, and antibiotics use.
I would only assume most fast food meals, meat ones included, are not chemical / preservative free. That's a western fast food problem, vegan or not.
Lastly, vegan people broadly don't eat plant based meats. Like it get the joke... It's just broadly inaccurate. Meat eaters, people trying to eat less meat, and some vegetarians buy plant based meats.
I think it's a demographics thing. There's a whole lot of vegans who eat "fake meat" regularly or even exclusively. I have a successful restaurant chain near me that specialized in "plant-based alternative" meals, from burgers to lasagnas and everything in between. No it's not all meat. Lots of "Cashew Cheese" and similar.
And honestly, I don't think vegans should be faulted for "wanting meat but not eating it". It's the ones that get judgey of non-vegans like the other 99% are somehow inferior to them. I know way too many vegans who are vegan for good reasons or for personal-trauma reasons, and they should be left alone. Even if they want a miracle burger and mac 'n cashes.
Of course there is. Not saying no vegans eat it ever. It could be a regional variable, but I'm speaking about population as a whole, not your local vegan restaurant. Google says 86% of plant based meat is bought by meat eaters. I also work in the field so have some knowledge on the subject. 86% is about right but could be 5-8% high. But in any case, the people who buy it are broadly meat eater, or more likely "flexitarians" .
And vegans should eat more plant based meats. The better brands are very healthy and it could help them stick to their vegan diets.
The reference behind that Google statement (assuming the same) is a vegan blog talking about the Beyond brand only, and it's citing a wordpress site as its source, and the wordpress site has been deleted.
NPD has a study mis-cited by vegnews.com (that MPD doesn't actually seem to cite), but it includes plant-based milks, and I don't think that gives meaningful numbers. I'll drink a soy latte with a steak any day. I'm lactose intolerant.
NIH has the most reliable study, that settled around 2/3 of plant-meat consumers are omnivores. Which is saying something, but is also not surprising from the fact that almost 90% of the world consumes meat. So I think it sorta just runs out to nowhere, with regards to being a demographic thing. Clearly, vegans and vegetarians are more likely to consume plant-based meat than meat-eaters. With 10% of Americans being vegetarian and representing over 30% of plant-based meat consumers, they're eating that stuff up.
Very true, great points all around
Now with that out of the way, this is literally just a lame “I've depicted the group I don’t agree with as the Soyjak and my group as the Chad, thus superiority confirmed”.
It was never going to be a balanced take
Literally everything in this sentence is wrong.
Thank you, it drives me nuts when people say shit like "chemical-free". Everything is made out of chemicals, tell me which one otherwise I'll just assume you're uneducated and afraid of things you can't pronounce.
My dude... Says who? You? It's not hard to Google - you find lists of them when you do.
Chemical free food? Everything is a chemical. Not hard to google that
"plant-based" is not "meat". Are there "meat-based plants?"
All food is comprised of "chemicals".
Vegans are great, especially with garlic in a nice butter sauce.
Edit: also you're literally made out of chemicals.
Literally not a single thing in our world isn’t chemicals. Lemontek - chemicals interacting. Alcohol for some party - Chemicals. Every part of any meal - chemicals. All of it.
I love how lemon tek was your first example
That one’s just for you. People always go off about it being a natural chemical reaction etc and it’s timely with all the conversation about growing acception of psychadelics for mental health
In general I think people are referring to things that are either A) heavily proccesed and/or B) something that isn't naturally occurring. When they speak about "chemicals"
Your body is made to eat natually occuring plants and animals. Any deviation from that is risking long term issues. Effects that are very often (at least here in the states) ignored unless they just straight up kill you. And even then it'll probably take a couple decades before anyone actually does something about it. So, yes while many people misuse the word "chemical," their fear is not misplaced. You should be skeptical of things that are synthesized until they are proven to interact with the human body appropriately
🤓
Yea yea. You know what I mean
I’m sure cows do not care that the beef in them is healthy
Yeah, that argument is idiotically obtuse.
I think we need to understand what definition people are using for "chemicals". They usually are referring to highly processed ingredients, with highly processed preservatives, highly processed artificial flavors (called "natural flavors", but taken for example from the anal glans of a beaver... yes this is real and common). By the broadest definition, absolutely everything is a chemical. Generally, people should avoid any definition for a word that makes the word nonsensical. And also generally, you will find big lobbyist groups using that general definition to shell-game about the specific chemicals they are trying to protect.
When a food-concerned person mentions chemicals, they are referring to things like antibiotics or hormones, preservatives or processed sweeteners with known side-effects. Some of them are talking about isolates, like soy protein isolate to which there are valid health concerns.
And yes, sometimes people referring to chemicals don't know what chemicals they're complaining about. And yes, sometimes people complaining about chemicals are complaining that their meatless burger's consistency comes from methyl cellulose, (probably) completely harmless but absolutely artificial.
The same way some vegans are made ill by the thought of meat, some folks are made ill by flavor- or consistency-related facts in their food. I mean, I think vegans would be concerned to know the beaver anal secretions above was in some plant milks under the term "natural flavors".
Yes! I was merely poking fun, but I very much enjoyed reading through your comment. Thanks for clarifying for us!
Sorry, must be having a very literal day today. My wife says they're common ;)
Don’t you dare be sorry, I genuinely love the energy put into clarification and pedantic detail
That just made my day, thanks!
Is light a chemical?
It's not a thing.
Granted, there are things in this world that aren't chemicals. Muons, stuff at the LHC, plasma... But everything that a normal person interacts with is a chemical.
I’m a vegetarian, but feel free to cover me in butter and smother me in garlic anyway.
YW
I love both, I'm not sure I know any real person who thinks this is a competition
Every vegan I know is on some sort of culinary journey.
Vegan btw
Vegan from protein shakes lol
Same, it's nice having more options. Apparently that's a bad thing according to some.
That’s because this meme isn’t about veganism at all, it’s about anti west narratives
It’s not enough to be vegan, or enough to tell people you are vegan. You have to be a better vegan than them.
Didn't you know? Todd's vegan!
Vegone?
Different cultures have different fucking food preferences, more at 11
Ohhhh scary, buzzz words... Chemicals.
Most vegans in the US do not eat food that mimics meat.
Most Western butt holes cannot handle Indian food that well. The couple times I went to Indian weddings, I was clamoring for anything that would not burn my butthole. The good combined with the ridiculous amount of alcohol made the toilets cry.
Try a fiber supplement. Or eating vegetables.
As a Canadian Caucasian I concur that we should all eat more vegetables.
The fiber is not the issue. I'm good on that. It was the spiciness that was the problem. I can handle a little bit of spice but there was pretty much no reprieve.
there are plenty of Indian recipes that's not spicy.
but also it's a good idea to just build a bit of spicy food tolerance.
The problem is when someone else is deciding how spicy to make it.
You need to focus on the creamy, typically lighter colored curries. Butter chicken, korma, things like that.
The anus has taste buds in it, so when it's spicy enough going down it can be spicy again coming out haha.
But why the fuck are there taste buds in there?
I don’t know, that’s a stereotype that may not be true. I mean, I’ll also make fun of my culture’s lack of spice and spice tolerance, but I’m the opposite data point. I love spicy food, prepare very spicy food for my kids, and on my one trip to India had at least the spice tolerance of my Indian co-workers. We’re not all white bread and mayonnaise
"spicy food" doesnt mean the same thing depending on cuisine. Different types of heat are used in different dishes.
I can eat mexican meals for days and have no issues, cholula and all.
Meanwhile mild indian is usually a treat that sets off a small bomb in my gut.
Also, people make fun of americans like we dont have fuckloads of hot sauce brands all over the place. We live next door to mexico, guys, we have plenty of spicy cuisine.
I'll have you know our British digestive systems can handle almost anything from over 60 years of Indian, Pakistani, Carribbean and Mexican food. When Taco Bell arrived on our shores it was bland disappointment compared to existing burrito outlets, especially given all the hype that it apparently puts an American in the toilet for hours :(
Taco bell gives you the shits because its poorly cooked meat with a lot of beans, not because the food is good or spicy
What a bunch of dumb gatekeeping
It's a meme
It's still stupid and spawning stupid conversations
...which you're participating in. So what does that make you? 🧐
Idk but this comment makes you look brain dead
No, it’s shit.
Think this post confuses veganism and vegetarianism. Also it's chemicals all the way down. Those spices? Made of chemicals.
Those alternative burgers are actually pretty tasty but also very heavy because they are imitating beef. For American fare I'd generally prefer a sandwich with deli style meats made out of tofu or seitan, or a bean burger.
My only problem with Indian food. Whenever I try a restaurants it's shit. But when my coworkers would bring in a feast on Diwali, it was my favorite time of year.
I can't find any restaurants that taste even similar to their home cooked meals.
Water is a chemical. Salt is a preservative This is fucking stupid.
Honestly the Indian one should have just been "Here's your meal." "Thanks. It is delicious, as expected."
Beyond Meat Ingredients: Water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide [vitamin B3], pyridoxine hydrochloride [vitamin B6], cyanocobalamin [vitamin B12], calcium pantothenate[Vitamin B5]).
Based on my light research, Beyond meat is not too bad, ingredient wise. If someone wants to chime in, I don't see any preservatives either.
But, but, but... Few ingredient good, many ingredient bad!!
Mfw when 'whole foods' turns out to be a rule of thumb, not a lifestyle.
If only we could genetically engineer cows to grow NATURAL beyond meat burgers everyone would be happy... wait no...
Ah yes! Herbs and spices, the original chemicals and preservatives.
I was lucky enough to travel to India once, and try some great food … I wanted to be vegetarian while there, simply because it was so good. The guys thought they were being helpful pointing out meat dishes everywhere we went, but it was typically an afterthought on the menus, not well prepared, not worth eating.
— In an American restaurant the focus is on meat and it is well prepared so that’s what I’m looking for
— in my limited experience with restaurants in India, the focus was on foods that didn’t have meat, and was very well prepared, so that’s what I’m looking for
As long as the vegetarian option is a substitute, or an option, or doing without, rather than the focussing on a good meal, most of will have no reason to select it, no reason to expect it to be a good choice
This has to be the most eat pray love meme I've ever seen. Hindus are vegetarian not vegan (disclaimer: they aren't a monolith) and use a lot of ghee (milk product). That brown dude looks like a Sikh; they are typically not vegetarian or vegan.
Unless OP put it somewhere in the comments the word Hindu wasn't used.
India is known for vegetarian cuisine due to Hinduism. Jains are a small minority.
I never did, lol
With the power of spices... I lived in an apartment with Indians as neighbours 2 floors beneath.
There wasn't a single day when you couldn't smell all spices combined when you walked past their apartment. It was ... an interesting smell...😮💨 I don't believe they could smell/taste the original flavours of their food
Nice neighbours though
the original flavor of their food?
what is that? bland?
I used to work with a guy from Pakistan, my car would smell of curry for a week after a couple days of driving about with him. I could tell that he'd been back to his hotel room by the lingering smell in the hallway.
Nice if you like Indian food.
The smell of all the spices is too much for me at times but I am super sensitive to smells. Gives me headaches.
Let's not forget the Mediterranean cuisine either. Falafel. Hummus. Baba Ganouj, Dolmas... crap I've made myself hungry now.
North-East Mediterranean you'd be hard pressed to find anything vegetarian let alone vegan.
I had a meal in Bosnia that was just four different kind of meats and the only non meat was a shit ton of raw onions.
That's my people!
Both are good but fake meat is the Pinnacle of processed foods
India has some bomb-ass food.
And some people get bomb-ass because of that food /jk
Americans eat like shit anyway lol, they won't notice
But why choose when you can have both?
Shit, now I want some Indian food. Not even vegan, I just like it.
You mean vegetarian. The indian example shown is vegetarian.
How do you know what the ingredients of the dish are?
.... From the picture.
So what is the dish, and what are the ingredients then?
I can't tell from the low res picture exactly what's in the bowl. It looks to be some kind of curry or Tikka masala, both of which are vegan to my knowledge.
Tikka masala almost always has butter and usually milk/cream. Curries vary but almost always have butter and sometimes cream (sometimes coconut milk).
Most Indian food is vegetarian but not vegan.
Cool, thanks for explaining. I've always used coconut milk in my curry, hence my confusion.
I'm vegan for a while now and live in Europe. In the past, vegan options were creative and often good and now it's this fake meat all over. I wish I lived closer to India then to America
You really don't want to live in a country close to India.
I was speaking metaphorically but I guess you are right when taken literally
I do wish Indian food was more easily available anywhere in the world, both meat and veg versions but nonetheless available
There are some dishes from every cuisine which are universally loved and should be available universally too.
But what you said… isn’t a metaphor, and the tone of your comment does not hint towards anything but a literal interpretation
What I wanted to say is that I like the Indian way according to the meme better than the American and my home country is tending towards the American. I wanted to hint to that by complaining about it in the first part
Welcome to the culture wars. How am I supposed to demonstrate my sigmoid male prowess to fertile young females, if I'm eating a plate of seasoned vegetable mush?
Whereas if it appears to be a juicy slab of meat, I can maintain the veneer of my fragile masculinity. And who knows, maybe one of those cute progressive females will open her legs to me if I appear to care about animals.
we ate burgers with i think corn-based patties once. actually tasted better than a burger imo. definetely a carnivore, but the vegans sure have some dope alternatives.
edit: omnivore would be more correct
Not a vegan, but a vegetarian. This is why I love Indian food. When food is made from the beginning to not include meat products, it doesn’t feel like it’s ‘missing’ anything.
Here's my thing about meat: I'll switch away from meat if you make it taste good. It doesn't have to pretend to be meat, as long as it tastes good, that's all I care about. I will still eat the occasional burger or bbq, but if you can find me vegetarian or vegan recipes that make me as happy as bbq does, I'll try it.
I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but occasionally do a diet with my wife that makes us get creative with food. Here's a few things I still eat:
Pad Thai is a good place to start
Oreos are surprisingly vegan
Taco Bell's bean burrito, actually most Mexican food can just replace the meat with refried beans.
Bacon bits are vegan, toss them on some pasta like Cacio e Pepe
Chipotle's chorizo is fake pork sausage, get it in either a bowl or a burrito.
Then the classics:
Okay, I hadn't thought about pad Thai, but I love pad Thai.
I hadn't thought about taco bell since its been a while since I've been there.
How are bacon bits vegan?
I haven't tried Chipotle's chorizo, I'll have to try it out.
Thanks for the suggestions!
For bacon bits, they're talking about the drid stuff in the plastic cans - "Bacos" and similar. They're usually soy based with artificial flavor - probably for longer/safer shelf life
Ah, okay. I was like, "how is something with 'bacon' in the name even remotely vegetarian, much less vegan."
That makes sense, although now I wonder how they're able to sell them as "bacon bits" if they don't actually have any bacon in them.
It's less surprising when you realize that stuff that processed almost might as well have been constructed from raw hydrocarbons. It's like some NileRed "turning paint thinner into cherry soda"-level shit.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
turning paint thinner into cherry soda
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I said this above as a reply to another comment, but I do feel there are a lot of interesting dishes around the world that would be loved almost universally and I wish they would become universally accessible too
How to make chickenless soup
por que no los dos
What a brain dead post, which makes sense given the unfunny and lame as fuck “I’ve depicted the group I don’t like as soyjack” bs
Yeah all Indians are vegetarians and look exactly like this /s
america bad
The secret is that meat on its own is garbage. Instead of using plants to make meat taste good (teriyaki, buffalo sauce, nearly a dozen herbs and spices, etc.), you can just use those plants to make plants taste good
That's a bit of a stretch. Meat + salt rarely disappoints me
I don't eat a lot of meat, but after hearing arguments like these from vegetarians and vegans, I gave up on not eating meat.
Too expensive to eat vegan and I got really fucking tired of being called fucking stupid for buying meat free alternatives. It's not worth the effort in the end.
vegan food isn't expensive. artificial meat replacements are expensive, because you're paying someone to chemically torture plants until they vaguely remind you of animals. lentils, beans, and other awesome-tasting protein sources are dirt cheap. vegan-first dishes are great and really cheap.
As a man who fed a vegan child for 8 years…no. Vegan meals cost way more.
That one kid cost as much as two non vegan kids to feed.
Maybe it was because I was buying what she said to buy.
Fortunately when her mom tearfully said, “please be a vegetarian until you grow up and buy your own food.” she went with it.
It was a nightmare feeding her separate from the rest of us, but I respected her choices. I had to cook two meals every evening. That was rough.
Glad she’s grown and off at college. I miss her but I don’t miss all that extra work.
You should've asked for help from the vegan community - it could've been really easy. :(
You’re right.
It wasn’t just the vegan thing though. My kid is autistic and absolutely wouldn’t eat anything other than what she put on her list. Like to the point we had to get her help.
I guess that’s something I shouldn’t have left out. It just wasn’t something that even crossed my mind as I made the comment.
It's interesting that while you were making this up you couldn't decide whether your kid was vegetarian or vegan. You'd think with cooking two separate meals every night you'd be familiar with the difference.
See, it's arrogant, and stupid shit like this that makes me wanna go get a burger just to spite ya.
"Oh fucking no!! I am torturing plants and shit blah blah blah"
No fucking wonder.
Ignoring the obvious joke you missed. If someone being a little rude is enough to make you completely give up on your ethical/moral stance, you need to grow a spine dude .
If a gay person is an ass to me i dont decide to become homophobic and blame it on them.
I won't go near the comparison to one's sexual preference, to another voluntary dietary habits.
But, you're not wrong. If this was something that was super important to me and life affecting, then you are completely right.
Now, as someone who is just trying to not eat meat for personal and whatever reasons, that's not how you get people into your cause. I am not bound to it, and the perception of the community is something i get to have liberty with.
How about "well, it's not an animal. not bad". Not being me with my kid hearing that her favorite burger patty (the impossible one) is a waste of money and an embarrassment to the real vegans in the middle of the safeway by a random asshole stranger, who had the after thought to explain how tofu is better totally not noticing that his very life is in danger.
Oh yes the voluntary dietary habit of taking a sentient being's life against its will because it's tasty and I can't be bothered to learn how to cook properly using plants.
There's nothing at all wrong with eating fake meats. i do all the time. Thats not the point i was making
I think that may have been a joke.
It was a joke Mark. A Christmas joke.
Lol I eat meat but knock yourself out there hero
Meat is pretty much the most expensive protein source. You can get tofu for like 1/5 the price of meat. The other guy summed it up well (although with some sarcasm) that eating vegan is only expensive when you try to replicate the meat. Just eat tofu and you'll be healthier and richer :)
Aren't almonds also bad for the environment? Not the person you're replying to, just curious if almond dahi or paneer substitute are worth the expense
How many people called you stupid for buying meat free alternatives? I largely do not eat meat and I can count on one hand the number of times it has been mentioned in the past decade. It's also only comparatively expensive because meat is so subsidized.
I mostly do not eat meat because it is fucking terrible for the environment.
Middle of a Safeway once, in line at McDonald's my ex was called a poser for ordering the veggie burger by someone in line at a fucking McDonald's (dont care if youre just there for the fries), online community of course adds to it because, well yeah, here we are.
Entitled people have a way of announcing and decrying those below them. Like morons who think Android phones are for the poor.
Sorry that you met condescending assholes. Some people just have the urge to feel superior over others for absolutely silly reasons. The rise of meat alternatives is one of the few things that make me optimistic for the future, along with renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps. Factory farms are so much worse for the environment and animals, of course we should embrace alternatives to the worst option.
Prices also go down with more competition. There basically wasn't any market for meat alternatives 10 years ago, now it's growing quite fast. In 5 years, many of them will likely be cheaper than meat.
You dodged a bullet, the average vegan eventually goes back to me when their body starts crapping out on them to do lack of protein
Do you even know what protein is or where it comes from? Have you ever asked yourself where animals get their protein?
Animals eat other animals, that's whalere the protein comes from
All the way down? You saying the bottom of the food chain is animals?
Yes, the first single cell life forms ate other single cell lifeforms, the world is cannibalistic.
Nutella is vegan.
It's not, though?
They were being hyperbolic to make a point about OP.
OP claimed the indian food is vegan. It's not, it's vegetarian. Same way Nutella is vegetarian, not Vegan
I mean . . . is it or not, because your punctuation confuses the matter.
The question mark denotes confusion or flabbergastedness. Nutella contains milk, so it's explicitly not vegan
They were referring to the comma. Commonly used with a verbal pause. So like: "It's not...though?" As if the "though?" was its own thought and the only part of the sentence that had the question inflection.
That's the point. Indian food is rarely vegan.
That's oreos you're thinking of
Jello is not vegan.
Indian food most often is vegetarian but definitely not vegan, in my experience. Also: It often seems to be colorful mud. Some parts of the dishes tend to be way too hot.
I mean have you all seen the videos in tiktok about the zero hygiene they have in the street food places while preparing the food, oh my...
Wrong. The fake meat in the top portion is overprocessed and tastes like garbage instead of delicious meat, while the bottom portion is 100% delicious vegan food.
Edit: downvotes from people who hate vegan food, I guess.
Depends on the brand IMO. I actually really like Impossible Meat; to me it tastes like decent quality beef with some really good hard to place seasoning. If it wasn't so damn expensive I'd get it over actual ground beef.
It's still overpriced and overprocessed. Ridiculous sodium levels as well.
I mean, isn't all Indian food overspiced? You could probably make curry out of just about any meat or meat substitute and it will still taste like spices.
American food has a higher focus on meat flavor, which is why so many meat alternatives try to imitate meat. You can buy vegan Indian or Chinese food here that tastes decent, but it's not a steak.
Overspiced!? Umm..no. No it is not.
Only if you're British. But if you're British then using basic salt and pepper is sometimes considered "over spiced".
Imagine conquering the world for spices and then you don't use them in your own cuisine.
Overspiced? Not really.
Nope. So much nope that I'm curious if maybe you understand over spiced to mean something different.
Depends which part of India you mean. Telegu food is often very spicy. Bengali and Gujarati food is actually mostly sweet. Himalayan food is 99% bland and 1% volcano hot.
I didn't know that was a concept. Probably because I like flavor
You people just make shit up at this point 🤷♂️
The US has some of the best food in the planet.
Im not sure if you're trolling or if you're american and serious.
100% serious. On the average our grocery stores are better with far more access to food choices. I can pick out essentially any type of fruit or veggie year round and have access to fresh food from across the planet.
Not your thing? Well, I'm my small city (.5mil) I have access to 3 farmers markets which will get me fresh local veggies and meat.
Y'all are on crack if you think you have access to better food in the EU or Asia.
You'll find that 95% of towns in the US will have access to fantastic food year round.
Chicken nuggies, doritos, and mountain dew please
I mean if you want to be a fatass, that's your choice. You can continue to live however you want. I just had. Ribeye last night from the cow we had butchered a few weeks ago with some potatoes and brussel sprouts from the local market.
But okay, the existence of soda definitely means we don't have access to good food.