Tag: consumption

I have just read an article about ‘alternative meat’ products and my plan when I read the title was to have a little rant about them because I take issue with vegan sausages and vegan burgers, or anything that originally was a meat dish but has had the meat substituted for something else. It may be important to stress I have in the past spent eighteen months as a vegetarian and four as a vegan, both of which ended because of foreign delicacies, so this isn’t a rampant meat loving piece. I must also stress though that despite that and certain moral understandings, there is some hypocrisy within me as I do enjoy and eat meat despite a desire to eat less over all. My issues are two pronged, firstly the vegans and vegetarian diets when done properly should be healthier than one involving meat. That does feel like a slightly general and ambiguous statement but I don’t have space to go into detail, it’s a take my word for it moment. Things such as vegan sausages are not the healthy option, they are often high in salt and artificial flavourings, and arguably akin to the filler used to bulk out a cheap meat sausage. It is just junk food but at least junk food admits it’s junk food. Secondly vegan food, especially as there is no cheese or eggs involved, can be so creative and there are so many tasty dishes out there. We eat vegan sausage, burger, lasagne, cheese and when it is shit, partly because it just is and partly because our minds compare it to the real thing, we wonder why people who don’t know vegan food complain about not being able to eat anything, or about how shit vegan food is, or about not being able to get protein from anything. Why copy the meat versions because they will never be the meat versions and struggle to be anything in their own right, when there are so many incredible and easy dishes out there. If people just knew this more may actually become vegan or at least cut down on the consumption of animal products. Persisting with vegan sausages just misses the point.

However, I did say my plan was to rant as if I then wasn’t going to, and judging by the size of that paragraph I failed, but the article made me think I was being slightly absolutist in my beliefs. This food company Impossible Foods did appear to actually create dishes, albeit burgers, meat balls et al, which were tasty. The woman writing it did suggest the strong sauce made it unclear the exact taste of the plant based version but it did seem to be a step. Which makes me think that if someone can do it well, and actually make really decent, healthy, cheap, meat-free alternatives to dishes meat eaters love they may actually cut down the consumption of meat produced and animals killed which can only be a good thing. Of course I’m sure there are some environmental arguments for the dangers of creating huge mono crops of whatever the meat alternative is made from were these things to really become popular, but it can’t surely be anything near the production of soy or consumption of fresh water used to raise cattle, pigs or other such creatures. It is the right direction then, or a small part of the collective right direction perhaps would be better.