Comment by delis-thumbs-7e
6 days ago
I have been vegan for 12 years. It is not that hard to make vegan burger patties at home. Or you can just cut up a block of tofu and season it to be eaten in a burger. Takes about the same time or less to cook as these Beyond grease fests. Besides there is so many cheaper alternatives these days that I very rarely buy them.
We don’t need meat alternatives. Vegan diet is cardiovascularly extremely healthy, seems to protect against most cancers, tastes good and is most importantly ethically and environmentally only viable option at this point. It’s pretty cheap as well, tofu, lentils and veggies are not exactly expensive even without all the gazillion subsidiaries pumped into meat production. [Of course your vegan diet can consist of eating only canned soda and potato chips and that is not healthy nor cheap, but the problem there is that you are a moron, not that you are vegan].
So the problem with meat alternatives is that you don’t really need them and if you want burger patties etc. you can make them at home pretty easily or these days buy cheaper alternatives sold in most supermarkets.
Convenience is king.
I get where you are coming from. I try to buy unprocessed as much as possible, but there are days where I want something that I could do myself or buy premade from the grocery store. On days like that, I'm glad I have the option to buy premade even if my self-made version tastes better, is healthier, and often cheaper.
Besides that, its a good tool to get the general omnivore to reduce meat consumption. A friend of mine does eat meat but is lowering her consumption of it. Having a convenient alternative that she doesn't have to think about and can just get prepackaged helped her half her meat consumption in a effectively a few weeks.
Vegan for 15 years. I cook 95% of my own meals, including black bean burgers, tofu, etc... Sometimes I want something that tastes like meat and I reach for a Beyond or Impossible burger. I don't need it. But I can't recreate its texture and flavor profile on my own. It's not "better" than other things I can cook. It's just different.
> ethically and environmentally only viable option at this point
Seems like a broad statement that I don't agree with, but why would it be the most important aspect unless the framework is a religious one and that's where your ethical framework derives from? It's a dietary choice, nothing more, and if you feel that way it's perfectly fine to do so, but don't blow it out of proportion.
I personally tend to enjoy some vegan food, and enjoy the people in my life who are vegan or choose other restrictions as they see fit, but if they decided it was important beyond that, such that it might impact our relationship, I'd let just let them because it's a bit silly. Eat meat, don't eat meat, pick your suppliers of whatever you eat carefully if you have the means and choose to, have your personal principles whatever they are, all the more power, it's just not much more than that, no?
Are you seriously asking me why ethics and environment might be the most important consideration in the decisions I make? I don’t use cocaine either - not a dietary choice. I also do not bludgeon poor old ladies to death with a shillelagh - not a simple choice how I decide to get my daily exercise.
Interestingly enough I also don't use cocaine and don't bludgeon poor ladies to death. I'm also not particularly tempted to do either, but if I did cocaine it certainly wouldn't be an ethical question, more of a recreational indulgence. Seems like we have more in common than different.
Why are you trashing vegans that are still living unhealthy? Be glad that they still chose to eat vegan.
You come off as very militant in that sense.
I gladly trash all people who live unhealthy, myself included. However, that is not what I say in the text, that is what you read into it. Examples of ”unhealthy vegans” are always flatmates who survive purely by vegan donuts or some other absurdity like that, but it has not even anecdotal evidence in terms of health benefits or the lack of thereof of the said diet or any other.
> Beyond grease fests
Vegans have a problem with avocados and beans now? THat's where the "grease" comes from in these fake meats.
This was someone equating a chopped up tofu pattie with Beyond Meat, e.g. totally out of touch with the target market. Random ass food delivered via hamburger bun does not make it a hamburger analog, but Beyond, Impossible, etc do.