Forums > Social Discussion > Vegetarian Meat? or veges made to look like meat?

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blu_valleySILVER Member
fluffy mess
197 posts
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Well, I'm a simple girl myself.
If it looks like meat, smells like meat or tastes like meat, then it's supposed to be meat. I dont trust any of that immitation stuff myself, that be some bad juju right there. I like things to be 'what you see is what you get'. Why would you want to trick yourself?

Then again, I'm a big meat eater so I dont have to deal with the immitation stuff often, unless I meat up with my veggie friends, but even then I stick to veggies that look and taste like veggies, so I'm fully aware that it is vegetables that I am eating and I'm ok with that.

"I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.." - Oriah Mountain Dreamer


flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: blu_valley

Why would you want to trick yourself?




That thread, as mentioned at the very top of the original post can be found [Old link].

strooSILVER Member
trusty sidekick to superman
799 posts
Location: oxford, england, uk


Posted:
i dont trust it either! being a vegetarian myself i'd never eat imitation stuff. i dont really trust the 'beef flavourings' in crisps for example. if it doesn't contain the food its ment to taste like, it shows that all its flavour is due to additives and the likes. i dont see the point in pretending to eat dead animals really...

...but then again, thinking about it, i think i'd rather someone ate imitation meat if it was in the place of real stuff... if for example, they had just become a vegetarian and were finding it really hard or something.

Livin' on dreams and custard creams


flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: stroo

it shows that all its flavour is due to additives and the likes




what do you mean by "the likes"? If you're referring to the use of ingrediants that can't be created or isolated from naturally occuring foodstuffs without the use of a lab, then there's plenty of products out there that don't fall under that category. You can achieve a lot by being clever/using lateral thinking with long accepted store cupboard items.

Seiten, what is beleived to have been the original topic of this thread uses no ingrediants that haven't been available to the average chinese household for the past few thousand years - wheat flour and water. The flavouring is achieved by a broth of water, various common spices (sometimes seaweeds) and soy sauce. Nothing artificial or funky going on.

Until I was forced to start making stuff from scratch I didn't realise that a lot of the flavours in meat dishes don't come from the meat at all, but from the spice and vegetable components. Other components, such as eggs are included to serve a function, such as as a binding agent, which have been traditionally used because they're readily available, not because they are essential. For example, as a fat basterd I've done a lot of research in the past 6 years and can now make cake/muffins using no special ingrediants above the average UK person who does baking, that's cheaper and gives debateably just as good results. What's more, using the cost saving over using butter and eggs I can use all organic ingredients.

Whilst there is some crap out there, it's worth keeping an open mind and don't always assume that just because something is different it has to be frankenstein food. It can just be that the producers have put a lot of time and effort into researching new ways of doing things.

Sure you can make things using artificial flavourings too, and too use your example, a lot of crisp makers will use whatever is cheapest; generally artificial not natural organic/gm free. If you're into studying ingredients of food you'll see a big difference between the likes of walkers and kettle chips, where you pay a bit more and get great flavours with far less (if any) unprenoucable words. I'm a big beleiver that in general (there are exceptions), the more ingrediants something has the worse quality of recipe it is.

LadayBRONZE Member
member
75 posts
Location: In UK for now, but born an lived in ZIMBABWE and S...


Posted:
I think it's a joke! Personally i stopped eating chicken when i was 7 and by 12 was a vegie! At 16 i was a Vegan for two years..until one day i had enough of cheeseless vegie pizza and now am back to being just a veg. And eventually i'm going back to vegan soon! I gave up meat for the simple fact i think it is unhumane to kill and animal so i can eat. Unless u could kill it yourself...which i can't. I do understand that there are people out there who don't eat it for religious reasons or other reasons but if u the type of Veg,like myself who won't eat it for the same reason then how CAN you eat something that tastes and looks like a dead animal? Mmmmmm??

nearly_all_goneSILVER Member
Pooh-Bah
1,626 posts
Location: Southampton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Erm, because I know it's not and I like the taste?

What's the big deal? It's soya. Whatever it looks like.

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau


flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: laday

then how CAN you eat something that tastes and looks like a dead animal?




As I've said previously in the thread lots of people are bought up as omnivores and acquire a taste for it. I doubt it'd be interested if I'd never gotten to that stage myself, but i did. You said you were vegan, but changed back to vegetarian, despite thinking it's inhumane to kill animals for food. Death is an inevitable part of the dairy industry. Inhumane treatment is an inevitable part of any mass farming. I have much more problem with drinking animal milk than I do with eating a completely non animal product that resembles an animal product in some way. There's several brands of vegan cheese in the UK now, if pizza is your only vice I'll happily send you some recipes.

Written by: nearly_all_gone

What's the big deal? It's soya. Whatever it looks like.




seiten isn't soya! soya is good too though as it happens smile

flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: laday

And eventually i'm going back to vegan soon!




what's the big wait? If it's something you beleive in then why not right now? If you want to go on a diet, eating as much as you can before the weekend then starting isn't as good for you as starting right now and cutting down. The same goes for giving up smoking, smoking one a day less for a week is better for your health than smoking as many packets as you can lay your hands on before the weekend. Becoming vegan on ethical grounds is great, but if you want to stop animal cruelty through farming why do it in the future when you can start right now? I remember when i first started getting involved in direct action in 1999 and my best mate thought it was a great idea, but told me he was going to study really hard at school/university and become a politician instead, changing the world that way. Did he? nah, course not. I knew it at the time, but didn't wanna say anything, the guesture was there, just a little bit flakey wink

Sir_Sheepold hand
725 posts
Location: Chester, UK


Posted:
Flid has perfected the art of vegan pizza, both myself and Polythene can testify to that smile And vegan cheese is great, I never really liked the orginal dairy cheese, but I'm quite partial to the vegan variaty.



Coincidently, today I celebrate my first anniversary of turning vegan. I've discovered more about food and cooking and tested flavours I never would have done if I was still a carnivore. I'd never really thought about tofu when I was eating meat, but now I love it - it's so damn versatile!



Flid was estatic when he found out about Tai (down Greek Street in London was the first one we found, we then discovered three in walking distance of where I used to work (my lunchtimes were never the same after that heh)) and I was the first person he took along on his inaugral visit. I was a newly turned vegetarian and I was blown away with the tastes and textures available on my plate.



(Turkey Twizzlers anyone?)


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I personally have no problem with eating 'fake meat', but I see a lot of the 'meat' products as being pretty fake themselves, with a hell of a lot of extra non-meat ingrediants (water/breadcrumbs/additives etc).



Fake-bacon, whilst not exactly the same taste as regular bacon, is still delicious in it's own right. I don't purpously aim to buy produtcs that mimic traditional cuts of meat or style of presentation, I buy whats available which is vegan.



And, no, I have never experienced a craving for a juicy steak, or a McDonald's. I'm healthier and happier now I'm vegan, and never see myself reverting back.

Spoiling Christmas for small children since 2003.


nearly_all_goneSILVER Member
Pooh-Bah
1,626 posts
Location: Southampton, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: flid


Written by: nearly_all_gone

What's the big deal? It's soya. Whatever it looks like.




seiten isn't soya! soya is good too though as it happens smile



Nah, I freeze soy sauce and food colouring into moulds to make them look like frozen steaks, which I then eat like lollys. Which I obviously did all the time as an omnivore.

See? I wasn't wrong. I'm never wrong. wink

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau


fluffy napalm fairyCarpal \'Tunnel
3,638 posts
Location: Brum / Dorset / Fairy Land


Posted:
Written by: Malcolm

Cherry is such a clever cook ubblove




Indeed biggrin

Geologists do it in the dirt................ spank


partypSILVER Member
newbie
20 posts
Location: United Kingdom


Posted:
i was brough up veggie so have never eaten meat (well i ate a cornish pastie when i was 6 but i don't know how much meat is in them anyway!)
veggie food nowadays is so much better - when i was little linda macartney quorn and all that stuff didn't exist...i still had an interesting varied diet (my mum makes killer lentil lasagne!!) but it's easier now cos i am extremely lazy most of the time when it comes to cooking...
couldn't be a vegan tho - like my dairy products too much - but i do admire people who are...
it's wierd - i think it's easier for me than for people who give up meat - i don't know what i'm missing - but the thought of eating it makes me feel sick - it's psychological - i just can't do it...
i'm quite happy to eat veggie burgers and sausages - and i've converted my die hard carnivore boyfriend - tho he still eats meat he eats veggie burgers and stuff a lot of the time!

i'd love there to be a decent veggie restauranat round here - the only one is awful - bland lentil sludge of varying shades of brown!!!

flidBRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: Sir_Sheep

And, no, I have never experienced a craving for a juicy steak, or a McDonald's




I have, it used to happen quite a lot, but that's life, I made a choice and 6 years on I'm still happy with it. A few months back I went with my workmates to the pub in the evening, where obviously there wasn't anything I could eat. By the time I got the bus back and was walking through town at about 11pm I saw a big advert in the window of mcdonalds for a bigmac. It looked so good. 5 minutes later when I was home I started cooking some vegeburgers, 15 mins after that I was eating them and it was damned good. I wasn't even remotely temped by an actual bigmac, but when often when I see things that I like the looks of I study them (I'm forever recording ingrediants lists of things on my phone) and recreate them at home instead. Now I must depart, to make tonight's sweet and sour sauce that tastes 100% identical to the stuff I used to get from my favourite chinese takeaway (and is somewhat cheaper when you make it yourself).

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