UK supermarket Tesco sets 300% sales target for plant-based alternatives to meat

However these plant based alternatives are getting pretty damn good for when you want some comfort food or a classic bbq.

Check out the joy a vegan finds in realising how many naturaly vegan dishes (i.e. dishes traditionally made without any animal products) can be found in Greek cuisine:

https://www.thenomadicvegan.com/the-nomadic-vegans-guide-to-...

I’ve got great news: Greece is full of delicious vegan food! You will find a huge selection of naturally vegan dishes in traditional Greek cuisine.

This can be partly attributed to the nature of Mediterranean cuisine in general, which generally emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables and uses meat only sparingly.

In the case of Greece, though, there is an additional reason for all the veggie-friendly dishes: religion. The calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church contains more than 180 fasting days, including every Wednesday and Friday as well as longer periods lasting several weeks, like the weeks leading up to Christmas and Easter. And the diet followed on fasting days is, as it turns out, not far from a vegan diet.

So I guess it's revelatory for some people to realise that they "flavour almost every meat dish with lots of vegetable products and spices", but in much of the world that sounds like a really odd thing to say. Because, I mean, duh?

Edit: and if I sound a bit dismissive of your comment, I apologise but I'm a bit fed up with hearing how "we" should stop eating so much meat and "we" should adopt a plant-based diet, when that is exactly what I've had for all of my life, a plant-based diet. It seems to me that, as usual, some countries lead the trend for industrial farming and it's the populations of those countries that should change their ways. For myself, I'm not going to give up the meat I eat once or twice a week because some people across half a continent or half a world can't sit down to eat unless they're served a burger or a steak. You're the ones who have caused the mess we're in. You fix it. You know very well who you are.

It reminds me of a food eureka moment a couple of decades ago when I was round for dinner with the family a friend who's a farmer. They served boiled potatoes that they'd dug up earlier that day and I suddenly remembered that potatoes could actually taste of something other than the oil / butter / salt that you cook them in or flavour them with.

Edit: I presume part of the reason for "plant-based alternatives to meat" is that it's much more difficult to commoditise simple vegetables. I can think of plenty of plant-based alternatives to meat and they're... plants. Potatoes, carrots, aubergines, courgettes, cavolo nero, broccoli...

However, I do see a place for meat substitutes as an option for "veggie curious" consumers who want to move away from meat consumption. If you're used to grilling hamburgers with the family every Saturday afternoon, meat substitutes provide a 1-for-1 option that requires no more thought that grabbing a different package at the grocer.

The switch to actual vegetables (or even tofu) takes a bit more thought. Tofu isn't usually tasty on it's own (but is fantastic when cooked with other flavors). And for somebody reared on beef and pork, learning to cook vegetables as the main ingredient takes time and new recipes.

I'm going to try to avoid including meat where it doesn't really add anything.

Who is "we"? The EU has banned the use of hormones in farm animals for growth promotion since 1981 and for most other uses in subsequent years:

In 1981, with Directive 81/602/EEC, the EU prohibited the use of substances having a hormonal action for growth promotion in farm animals. Examples for these kind of growth promoters are oestradiol 17ß, testosterone, progesterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate (MGA).

https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/chemical_safety/meat_hormon...

Note also (same link):

The United States and Canada contested the prohibition of the use of hormones as growth promoters in food producing animals, and in 1997 a panel of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled that the EU measure was not in line with the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS).

Eventually the EU was forced to accept importation of meat from animals treated with hormones.

In any case, there's no "we". Some countries do what you say, but not all.

To quote the article, girls did not menstruate until 17-18 three centuries ago... because they were starving.

The only thing to pay attention to, really, is B12. We all need it and even meat eaters should probably take a supplement.

I'm not sure why people would be interested to consume meat grown in a lab considering all the unknowns/risks.

Just look at the chemical cocktail that's in any off- the- shelf "meat alternative" products. No way do I want that stuff in my body.

If Tesco, or any big retailer was honest about increasing sustainability, they'd be focusing on how to decentralize warehousing and shipping, and a simple solution is to support local farming. Unfortunately, the world doesn't operate this way, and we're stuck with this need to purchase food from far flung parts of the world.

Looks fine to me. I recognise all the individual ingredients and many home cooking recipes have ingredient lists as long as this (a chicken curry might have 20 ingredients for example).

I'm not really sure what problem you're implying there is here. It seems like a poor example if you're trying to say "not everything vegan is healthy" which nobody is saying anyway. Nobody eats vegan chocolate trying to lose weight, but they might do it to help with climate change and reduce animal suffering.

I personally wouldn't eat it in place of meat (or at all) because of the wheat/gluten content. We do have some meat substitutes in the US that are gluten free (Impossible Burger) that tastes ok and has reasonable mouth-feel.

That said, I'm not sure how bad the environmental overhead is. The main source of protein in these things is often either soya or peas. Soya is a bit of a tossup depending on where it's grown; it can be either very good or very bad (though probably still less bad than meat). Peas are generally pretty low overhead; in particular, they're nitrogen fixing (as are soybeans), so need less fertiliser.

A lot of people know that meat has a high environmental footprint, and people are becoming aware of how poorly animals can be treated by factory farming.

Those people are looking to reduce their meat consumption, and these products are a crutch to allow that to happen.

Also, male fertility rates are crashing, but it's definitely not related to ever increasing intake of phytoestrogens...