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In my experience the meat references are mostly referring to the functionality of the product. E.g. if I want to eat a pair of buns with some meat, cheese, salad in between I can simply look for a vegetarian "burger" and know that it's attempting to solve for that exact use-case.

Best example of this I know of is probably the vegetarian hot dogs at ikea. They taste nothing like hot dogs, but boy do they taste great in a hot dog bun with ketchup.

Plenty of people eating vegetarian for moral reasons, but miss the flavour or texture of meat.

A lot of people eat vegan food because they don't want to kill animals, not because it tastes better...

I love meat, but choose to abstain for ethical reasons. Ethical concerns - rather than strictly dietary or culinary ones - are common reasons for being vegan or vegetarian.

Did you not know that?