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Comment by hugg | Hacker News Reader

Is it really better to make something "like" a meat product instead of just making a good vegan/vegetarian product?

Since going lacto-ovo vegetarian myself, I just want tasty food, doesn't matter if it's "like" a meat product.

Yes, it is better! Part of the goal is to provide a "gateway patty" to make it easier for meat-eaters to reduce their consumption. Good for their health, good for the environment, good for the animals.

(Also, I've been vegan for years and _love_ the Impossible burger.)

I guess over the years I've lost some perspective :). Thanks for your reply.

> Good for their health

It's definitely not clear that eating meat is bad for your health. In fact there's plenty of evidence to suggest it's good for you.

Also the impossible burger has about the same amount of calories as an 80% lean ground beef burger, so it's no better as far as calories are concerned.

Speaking just for myself, yes a meat-replacement that tastes and feels very similar to real meat would be a huge step towards me eating less or no meat.

There's a subset of people who are content with good vegan or vegetarian food. That set doesn't include me. I would however like to not eat meat anymore for ethical reasons.

I lack the willpower however to commit to vegetarian and vegan food, because I absolutely do not like those dishes and I don't have the mental headspace to tackle that alongside with a dozen other improvements I'm trying to make in my life (eg. producing less trash, staying healthy, charity work, etc.)

Compare it to the vape-pens that can replace smoking a cigarette. I'm not well versed enough to know if the numbers back up my intuition on this, but on face value I'd say that if vape-pens are available to help the subset of people who would like to stop smoking but are finding it too hard, why would that be a bad thing? The people who want to stop smoking completely can still do so.

A big thing for me was figuring out what vegetarian food I liked. There was a lot of experimentation. Building my own recipe bank for fast, easy to make food and more complex dishes. I am still expanding that knowledge.

This question comes up quite often. I'm with you insofar as I also prefer a good vegetarian* product, but tbh, in my experience, almost every vegetarian burger (for example) one encounters day-to-day is in no way trying to "be" meat. Falafel patties, beetroot patties, sweetcorn patties, whole portobello mushrooms as patties, etc. I'd say the added diversity added by faux-meat products is not harmful.

* I'd like to say I prefer a good vegan/vegetarian product, but I have struggled to find vegan (egg-free/dairy-free) food I really love.

Yeah I think those kind of alternatives are fine, since they don't really try to push "its just like meat!!" message, they all have distinct flavours.

Well, what I was really trying to say is—I don't really mind the "it's just like meat!!" products. I may personally prefer the "it's just vegetables" products, but having more options is fine.

I imagine that whatever culture is developing the vegetarian/vegan food products will do whatever they can to emulate the foods that are already part of their culture, as that is going to be the primary replacement request.

In the US, I'm guessing the biggest items are burgers, dogs and sandwich meats.

They allow vegetarians to utilize hundreds of years of meat-based recipes with a simple substitution. Instead of your whole diet changing, you can just swap some ingredients.

For the same reason, they're great for restaurants to retrofit their menus to be veg friendly.

Small steps are important on any road of transition. People often don't like big changes, and are more likly to go back to their old habits when the difference is to big.

It's also important to understand how much food is tied to culture and identity. It's not simply a matter of convincing them it's healthier or kinder to animals.

Same here, I prefer a black bean burger to one of these. I don't dislike the impossible burger but still have the uncanny valley sensation while eating them.

It is a good vegan/vegetarian product though...

I hear what you are saying but for someone in my shoes (I'm vegetarian, my wife is not), this makes life so much easier.

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