It seems there is a huge effort to make Vegan burgers, vegan hotdogs, etc. Is there anything new in the vegan world or is it constantly trying to make foods to imitate meat based recipes?
Like another commenter mentioned, definitely look at other cultures foods. For example lots of Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and even Chinese food either has vegan or foods that are really easy to make vegan. Some example swaps: Indian food uses lots of ghee which can be subbed for vegan butter and East Asian food uses lots of fish sauce /oyster sauce which is easy to buy vegan versions of.
I’m pescetarian, so I will eat fish, most of what I eat is either vegetarian or vegan. So it’s certainly easier for me than you. But here’s the thing, I was brought up this way, therefore I don’t like the taste of meat and don’t want imitation stuff either.
But I have no difficulty with this at all. A lot of dishes just have meat in them, but they really don’t need it, they’re good without it, it’s not the base of the dish. The foods in shops that are prominently labelled “vegan” or “plant based” are primarily meat and dairy alternatives, because there’s no need to label all the other things that have always been inherently plant based. At least in recent years it’s becoming trendy to label these foods “plant based” that would never have had meat in them anyway, it makes it clearer, but it’s not always the case and there’s no real need to.
Try looking up more “ethnic” foods. Ethiopian comes to mind as they have a lot of vegan dishes.
Most North Americans are going to try to emulate meats and things like that.
I can get all veggy dishes from the local Chinese restaurant. The trouble starts because of all the sauces they use.
In my experience the only non-vegan ingredient in asian vegetarian dishes is eggs, and around here it is absolutely no problem to ask for extra-tofu instead. What sauces are you refering to?
Most North Americans are going to try to emulate meats and things like that.
Exactly my point. Why?
It takes time, effort and a bit of creativity to work with the many vegan protein sources. For example, most people are familiar with the concept of lentils, but when I tell people that I chuck red lentils into my tomato sauce, they look at me like that cannot possibly work. Mainly, because they’re not familiar with red lentils.
On the other hand, if a product promises that it tastes like bolognese / minced meat, they’ll know that they can chuck it into tomato sauce, even though it’s just as non-traditional of a protein for this usage.
I guess, it should also be said that there’s no marketing budget behind lentils. There’s no “Beyond Meat” brand that tells you how awesome beans and nuts are. As a result, they may not be as publicly visible, even though many vegans do make use of them.
Is there anything new and original in the non-vegan world? Or is it all just constantly finding different ways of serving animal products?
Just because we have the tech now to be exploring realistic plant based alternatives to meat, doesn’t mean that is all vegans eat or cook.
And after fucking years of hearing “I’d go vegie/vegan if there were good realistic meat alternatives” from you people, this new spin of “why do vegans want so many realistic meat alternatives?!” is kinda pathetic tbh.
Most of these new plant meats are made and marketed to help get omni’s off meat. The megre handful of vegans in the world are not the target market here, and the vast majority of us vegans have always been pretty content with our beans and tofus for protein.
And yes, there are plant based food innovations happening all the time, but they probably don’t count for you because omnivores don’t see food as ‘real’ or ‘good’ unless it contains tortured animal parts.
Humans have been eating food for a very long time. There are only so many cooking methods available and we are not creating new fruits or vegetables (unless you count stuff like pink pineapples or pluots or whatever). I think by now we’ve probably tried every possible combination of ingredients imaginable. Most dishes are already recreations or reinterpretations or fusions of more historical dishes. The only food frontier left is creating new highly processed ingredients, and that’s exactly what these meat substitutes are.
