I don’t understand why vegans try to mimic things. I have no problem eating vegetables and mushrooms but I would never eat bacon made of mushrooms. The devil deals in deception.
They’re not harming anyone by existing so I frankly don’t see why this complaint comes up in every thread on the internet. Just don’t eat it if you don’t want it, meat isn’t going away.
I do also care about the animals and the environmental impact and it’s just extremely naive to think that a large part of humanity would switch from meat-based diets to tofu and steamed veggies. People are lazy and like tasty easy things.
I wonder to what extent the customer base of these products is mostly curious people who are just dipping their toes in, not quite ready to take the plunge into veganism/vegetarianism. Or well-intentioned parents/friends who want to include vegans in things like cookouts?
I dunno. I'll observe that people who've successfully been vegan for a long time (the kind of recurring customers you'd presumably want) have been following their dietary restrictions that whole time, I guess they don't have an overwhelming hankering for bacon or whatever. But then I guess they are hard to address, if they are already happy!
We have completely eliminated ground beef from our diet and choose Beyond Beef instead as it tastes better. I have tried lots of bacon alternatives and most of them are disgusting.
Most vegetarians/vegans don't try and mimic food like this. Just want you to target your statement to the right people --> companies trying to make money on niche/high margin items.
With the growth of veganism in the west, it's not surprising that we will see more companies targeting them with novel food products.
It doesn't seem like there's any more conspiracy when it comes to alt-meat products than what underlies all of the products in the supermarket, especially all of the packaged goods.