I think there is also a cooking skills gap no one acknowledges. For example tofu is way different than chicken/beef/pork. Scares a lot of people away because poorly cooked tofu is 100x worse than poorly cooked meat.
Our family eats about half vegetarian because the cost difference is still minimal and variety is fun. Animals are also way more evil than most people realize. Cows are basically the only one that won’t eat it’s friend when they are bored. Not saying it justifies earing them, but I’ve never understood why vegans put animals on a pedestal.
I don’t put them on a pedestal. I would still be vegan even if I hated animals. You don’t have to love or even like somebody to not want them to be tortured and killed. The conditions that chickens, pigs, and cows live in aren’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.
I think tofu is just an acquired taste. When I first started cooking it, I did all the things. Pressing, freezing then thawing, brines, breading, sauces, air frying, etc.
But the more eating it became habit, the less all that stuff mattered. When I’m preparing it now, I usually take it out of the package and immediately crush it with my hands into rough chunks into whatever I’m cooking. I actively crave the stuff enough that I will pretty much always eat a raw chunk as I’m crumbling it.
That, and their magical ability to convert things humans can’t eat (grass) into things humans can (beef, milk). This is fundamentally why"food" animals were domesticated.
I might add health concerns to that list along with cost and taste. Allergens and sodium content, for instance. Also a concern about being “highly processed”.
Not that that’s not an issue with animal-based foods. But Impossible is still “new and different” and if Impossible turned out to be terrible for you, it wouldn’t be the first time something new and different (even something new and different that was touted by some as being better for you) resulted in a public health crisis. (I’m referring to trans fats in particular here.)
Sometimes it tastes better. The last 10 years has been really depressing, because I’ve discovered that there are quite a lot of people who are unwilling to change even in the face of pandemics and environmental collapse.
Nope! Change is bad. Always. Just cross your arms and dig in your heels.
Yeah. Taste is a very subjective thing.
I have tried chicken, fish, prawn and squid from well known restaurants and I can still just make a salted steamed potato that I would like better.
Turns out I just don’t like meat stuff.
Well, at least I know I can digest them in case it is required in emergencies.
It’s already cheaper it’s the tastes just as good part that is expensive. The faux meat is still expensive but vegetables have been cheap. If you didn’t care about variety you could eat chicken soup with a Costco chicken for a whole week for like $8
When the vegetarian option becomes cheaper and tastes just as good though, continuing to eat the meat version is an explicit choice.
I think there is also a cooking skills gap no one acknowledges. For example tofu is way different than chicken/beef/pork. Scares a lot of people away because poorly cooked tofu is 100x worse than poorly cooked meat.
Our family eats about half vegetarian because the cost difference is still minimal and variety is fun. Animals are also way more evil than most people realize. Cows are basically the only one that won’t eat it’s friend when they are bored. Not saying it justifies earing them, but I’ve never understood why vegans put animals on a pedestal.
I don’t put them on a pedestal. I would still be vegan even if I hated animals. You don’t have to love or even like somebody to not want them to be tortured and killed. The conditions that chickens, pigs, and cows live in aren’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.
This would be an argument for not breeding them into existence in the first place. Creating an evil entity is not a good thing.
I think tofu is just an acquired taste. When I first started cooking it, I did all the things. Pressing, freezing then thawing, brines, breading, sauces, air frying, etc.
But the more eating it became habit, the less all that stuff mattered. When I’m preparing it now, I usually take it out of the package and immediately crush it with my hands into rough chunks into whatever I’m cooking. I actively crave the stuff enough that I will pretty much always eat a raw chunk as I’m crumbling it.
The meat animals are selected for tastiness, not friendliness.
That, and their magical ability to convert things humans can’t eat (grass) into things humans can (beef, milk). This is fundamentally why"food" animals were domesticated.
I might add health concerns to that list along with cost and taste. Allergens and sodium content, for instance. Also a concern about being “highly processed”.
Not that that’s not an issue with animal-based foods. But Impossible is still “new and different” and if Impossible turned out to be terrible for you, it wouldn’t be the first time something new and different (even something new and different that was touted by some as being better for you) resulted in a public health crisis. (I’m referring to trans fats in particular here.)
Sometimes it tastes better. The last 10 years has been really depressing, because I’ve discovered that there are quite a lot of people who are unwilling to change even in the face of pandemics and environmental collapse.
Nope! Change is bad. Always. Just cross your arms and dig in your heels.
Taste can go either way, but meatless options are almost overwhelmingly the winner in the texture department.
Yeah. Taste is a very subjective thing.
I have tried chicken, fish, prawn and squid from well known restaurants and I can still just make a salted steamed potato that I would like better.
Turns out I just don’t like meat stuff. Well, at least I know I can digest them in case it is required in emergencies.
It’s already cheaper it’s the tastes just as good part that is expensive. The faux meat is still expensive but vegetables have been cheap. If you didn’t care about variety you could eat chicken soup with a Costco chicken for a whole week for like $8
for some people