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Comment by maury91 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a fan of plant-based meat, this is most likely because of my culture ( I'm Sardinian ), we do have many meat based dishes and many plant based dishes, and honestly I don't see the need to cook the meat based ones with processed food that tries to replicate the taste and consistency of meat.

I believe that if you don't want to eat meat there's a world of recipes that do not involve meat and are made to elevate the delicate taste of veggies. I've grow up with eating whole foods, we cook everything from the base ingredients, sometimes we even make those base ingredients ( for example we have sheeps and cows and we make milk, and out of milk we make cheese ), personally for me pre-packaged food appears as the sub-optimal choice

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Meat tastes really good.

I think there are many people who want to eat less meat but really enjoy meat. I am one of those people.

Agreed. My family has a long history of cardiovascular problems so I am trying to cut down on red meat myself to possibly extend my life...but dangit I want some chicken fried steak and cheeseburgers. I might use impossible burgers to satiate my cravings in a heart-healthy way, but it just isn't the same.

Chicken is not red meat, and also it's an healthy meat ( not sure if in USA chickens are pumped with weird stuff that makes them unhealthy ), you can make a light version of schnitzel by using chicken breast ( mostly protein, low fat ), some healthy oil like EVO oil to shallow fry it, and you should be good ( also if you are worried about cholesterol you can avoid eggs and use other ingredients like oil to make the breadcrumbs/panko/flour/semola stick to the meat )

PS: I'm not a doctor, to my knowledge this is a healthy dish but if you have any health issue I recommend first talking with someone with a specialisation to know how much is healthy and much you can eat of it

You can trim, slice, and hammer pork tenderloin as another way to get a fairly low fat schnitzel.

Regarding cholesterol, the link between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol isn’t very strong. As far as I know unless someone is following specific medical advice from their own provider eggs do not need to be restricted.

Yes, that is true, if your body is healthy the two type of cholesterol ( LDL and HDL ) contained in foods should balance each other and you will not have cholesterol problems. Some people can have medical conditions and can eat maximum ~3 eggs/week. I can't know if OP is one of those people, this is why I suggested a way to avoid cholesterol rich ingredients.

Edit: replaced "have cholesterol rich ingredients" with "avoid ..."

I think it's pretty well established that the dietary cholesterol to blood cholesterol link is very strong in some people, very weak in some people, and somewhere in the middle for most people. There are definitely 'hyper-responders' for whom dietary cholesterol is very, very bad. There are also people that can eat dozens of eggs a day and have perfectly normal blood cholesterol. The only way to know how those genetic dice rolled for you is to do a personal study - eat a lot of eggs for a while and see if you start to develop elevated cholesterol.

As an anecdote, I eat on average 8-10 eggs a day. They are my primary source of calories. My blood cholesterol is extremely low, like on the extreme low end of normal on most blood tests (although it is starting to creep up as I get older)

I’m just curious why you would eat 8-10 eggs daily? That seems like a very large number.

Because eggs are filling, relatively cheap, and pretty good for you. Especially if you have a body that doesn't do well with high-glycemic index foods and you don't want to eat animal meat.

meat = animal cells

egg = one animal cell

Technically the same thing

I think the main difference is that eating an unfertilized egg doesn't end the life of a viable animal.

I am personally happily eat meat, but I respect people that choose not to kill animals and at least some of them find eating unfertilized eggs to be acceptable.

In my personal worldview I view unfertilized eggs as approximately morally equivalent to eating a peanut. In practice it's difficult to make them exactly equivalent but by carefully selecting where the eggs come from you can get closer.

In case you were responding specifically to GP's mention of "chicken fried steak": it's beef, not chicken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_fried_steak

I translated "cotoletta" into "Schnitzel" to give an immediate idea of the dish to the reader ( because Schnitzel is more famous ), but in Italian cotoletta can be both with chicken or pork or beef, the recipe is the same with every meat ( beat the meat, bread it, shallow fry it )

The chicken-based analogue to chicken fried steak in Southern United States cuisine is chicken fried chicken. Chicken Fried Steak is steak that is breaded and fried like fried chicken and covered in white gravy. Chicken Fried Chicken is the same thing, but with a chicken cutlet instead of steak in the case of Chicken Fried Steak or a piece of bone-in chicken in the case of traditional fried chicken.

The problem with red meat isn't meat per se; all meat has saturated fat, some more than others. Reducing LDL cholesterol (reducing CVD risk) means increasing fiber and reducing saturated fat, and if someone chimes in saying that it's not casual, we have an excellent mendelian randomization study that gives us a pretty good link [1]. All plant-based meat alternatives, including cheeses, have high amounts of saturated fat from coconut oil, which isn't very good either.

[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26780009/

Aw dang. I might just have to keep skipping burgers then and just learn some new favorite meals lol

Me too, and I believe OP is just saying that it's better to substitute your nutrition with other non-meat whole foods, instead of substituting it with heavily processed fake meat. And I agree.

I eat less (almost no red meat), but that is as far as I'll go. Taste is one thing, but also the high quality proteins and nutrition, plus I don't see the problem in killing animals in and of itself. I can't replicate this calorie-per-calorie strictly with veg without supplementation, nor do I feel as good. That approach doesn't seem "green" or financially viable for everyone, notwithstanding that some people do better on vegan diets than others. As far as I can tell, modest consumption is best for optimal health, by virtue that replacing them with.

Meat tastes really good.

That does not imply that plant-based pseudo-meat tastes better than plant-based recipes designed to use, not hide, the plant flavors.

It's so strange isn't it, there are so many vegetarian dishes that are delicious.

I've never understood the need to use a replacement that's worse across the board.

I wonder if it's a cultural thing, like "I want a steak"

If you become a vegetarian in the US, you will come to appreciate that almost no mains offered in any "American" restaurant are without meat. If you go to a popular American restaurant that your friends picked, you are lucky to have 1 non-salad non-side option.

For whatever reason, our culture has decided that if it doesn't have meat, it barely qualifies as a meal. As a result, high quality vegetarian food must be aquired by seeking out ethnic food, seeking out veg friendly places, or learning to cook.

But then in your effort to eat less meat, would you replace it with plant-based alternatives?

Personally, I cook without any alternatives and just make proper dishes with no meat. Then, once in a while, I’ll get some better locally sourced meat and make a great meat based dish.

> But then in your effort to eat less meat, would you replace it with plant-based alternatives?

Yes, 100%. I like meat, and meat based dishes. I’ve never had a vegetable based dish that compares to even something similar but containing meat.

I feel like when meat alternatives are discussed this option of just making vegetable based dishes always comes up. And I think most people agree with me here - meat makes them better across the board. If it didn’t this market wouldn’t exist and people buy much less meat.

As I’m unwilling to switch completely to vegetable based dishes, meat alternatives are the next best option.

As someone who enjoys meat well enough… I realized a while ago that meat itself doesn’t have that great of a flavor, it can be downright bland. The flavor comes from the seasonings and spices they are typically prepared with. Which are either: a) salt or b) something that came from a plant.

Fake meat feels similar to my Slovenian eyes. There's a whole world of recipes that just don't include meat and are delicious. It wasn't until I moved to the USA that I even realized those are "vegetarian" ... to me they're just regular foods and recipes. Lots of cottage cheese hearty meals with high protein content.

It helps that traditional (100+ years ago) Slovenian culture was that you rarely eat meat because meat is expensive. Ye olden folks typically ate meat only on Sundays, I think. Maybe bacon fat to season the food on other days.

Sometimes I talk to my vegetarian friends and ask "If you want to be vegetarian, why don't you just eat natively vegetarian dishes? Why the fake meat?". So far no satisfying answer.

Fake meat is generally aimed more at meat eaters than people who are already vegetarian or vegan. If you already like tofu and seitan, you probably aren't trading those in for the new products.

I know a lot of vegetarians who have been such for decades and half their diet is veggie sausages, burgers, and similar. Not even the new fake meats, the previous generation.

Vegetarian/veganism is not a fashion choice, it's a moral one. It's like asking why a Muslim prepares a dish that's traditionally prepared with pork but instead substitutes lamb. I'm not sure what more explanation you require.

To quote a funny meme: If my mother had wheels she would've been a bicycle!

You can't just replace ingredients. Make a lamb dish if lamb is what you want!

Interesting, we say "If my grandma had wheels she would've been a wheelbarrow!" ( "Se mia nonna aveva le ruote sarebbe una carriola" ). And there's also the version with grandad, but it's better you look that one on Google "Se mio nonno aveva..."

We (neighbours to the east) sometimes say “If my grandmother had balls, she'd be my grandpa” as a meta on the other versions of the grandma jokes, but I searched and did like the Italian grandpa version.

> You can't just replace ingredients.

Huh? Yes you can. Replacing ingredients, adding ingredients, removing ingredients is the basis for all food culture. Recipes get passed down through generations and those variances over time are what give us distinct and unique dishes.

As my Italian friend once said:

"Yes, the thing with BBQ sauce and pineapple is tasty, but it's not a pizza!"

Your Italian friend is wrong.

This seems like such a strange fight to take on. People have been substituting ingredients in recipes since there have been recipes. Any dish becomes a lamb dish if you put lamb in it.

It was very trendy in certain circles when I was in college to be vegetarian/vegan and I think it was mostly a fashion choice. If it had been about morals, there would have been other lifestyle changes.

People also adopt religions to be fashionable, and they don't follow all the tenets of that religion. Seems bad-faith to ask someone who professes a moral stance why they don't behave more like someone who is just professing that moral stance to be fashionable.

Who is asking that?

You might be surprised. Imposing such a dietary restriction can take a lot of mental and emotional effort (especially if people around you are annoyed by the fact they must accomodate you, or act threatened by your choices). When I started being veg, I had very few (0?) other lifestyle changes unless you include maybe trying make a few environmentally conscious decisions. I wouldn't take your word on the motivations of your friends, unless you know they are no longer veg today.

> Sometimes I talk to my vegetarian friends and ask "If you want to be vegetarian, why don't you just eat natively vegetarian dishes? Why the fake meat?". So far no satisfying answer.

Because there are people who like the taste and consistency of meat, but object to killing animals.

Is it an addiction to the taste of meat?

If your objection to killing animals is strong enough there are millions of purely vegetarian recipes that are delicious and much more tastier than fake meat. Why not switch to those?

Yes Mediterranean countries tend to have less meat in their cuisine. But Anglo and Germanic cuisine tends to incorporate more meat and that's just what people are used to.

Someone already pointed out the obvious, meat tastes good, but has some ethical baggage. Ala - fake meat.

But I think as you're pointing out, people around the world have made amazing dishes for centuries that are completely vegetarian why not eat those instead? And why there's no satisfying answer is because - It's not an either or. Do both is a perfectly valid answer.

I've been vegan for 13 years and my partner of 7 years is an omnivore. When I make dishes they like, we both eat vegan for the night. When we want a burger (and we're to lazy to make black bean patties) we use the fake meat. It's just another option to keep around that's incredibly convenient.

In my experience, these tend to be the "middle-ground", between vegan/vegetarians and omnivores. When Thanksgiving comes around it stresses my family to no end that there's no "core" (aka meat) for me. It is unfathomable to them that eating 5 veggie sides is enough. Conversely for those who choose not to eat meat without many vegetarian friends/restaurants tend to use these to bridge the gap. But you're right, once you're comfortable with stocking veggie alternatives ahead of time, knowing what dishes exist, and used to plant-centric thinking, all of which takes a lot of time, these don't make as much sense.

> It's not an either or. Do both is a perfectly valid answer.

Good point. I think my confusion as a non-vegetarian comes from my habit to just not eat meat when I don't feel like eating meat. "Oh I had more meaty meals than I'm comfortable with last week? Okay we mealprep a natively meatless dish this week. Done"

Like, the idea of having meat substitutes doesn't even occur. Because when I want meat, I have meat. And when I don't want meat, I don't.

Alternative meat products are really great for people who can't or don't cook. I can cook fine now, but I still get lots of alternative meat products when I don't want to make a meal. At this point I'd consider fake chicken nuggets to be a comfort food.

> Sometimes I talk to my vegetarian friends and ask "If you want to be vegetarian, why don't you just eat natively vegetarian dishes? Why the fake meat?". So far no satisfying answer.

c'mon, stop being deliberately ignorant.

> c'mon, stop being deliberately ignorant.

Attacking the messenger is a good example of unsatisfactory answer.

Is a legit question. Do you have something to say?

Indeed, as someone who is Indian but not vegan or vegetarian, my meals during the weekdays are meatfree and usually vegan as well. This is not by conscious choice, the recipes are simply made that way. I suppose back in the day where meat was expensive, as you mentioned, so people made vegetable based meals and that's what stuck. During the weekends with family gathered, people eat meat, just as I do too on weekends. It becomes a sort of mini feast every weekend.

In the US, it often puzzles me to hear that some people actually don't consider a meatless meal a meal at all, as if they have to eat meat for all three meals of the day. That is unknown to Indians, generally speaking.

Do you also ask people why they drink diet soda when they're not on a diet?

You're basically suggesting they don't get to use an ingredient because of the way it's marketed or why it was invented, which are terrible reasons. "It tasty" is all the justification they need.

I see this a lot here in Germany (I'm an immigrant) - people buying vegan sausage, vegan ham, etc. I prefer to just eat "normal" vegetarian food (I don't even like real ham!) but meat is so central to traditional German cuisine and people here want the kind of (what they consider) staple food that they're willing to eat fake meat.

When I was backpacking around India and Nepal for 6 months altogether, I just stopped eating meat - their chicken pieces were always just bones with tiny bits of meat here and there, mutton was worse than chewing gum and that was it for the meat, food safety notwithstanding.

Now enter a wonderful universe of vegetable curries and masalas where every household has their own twist on recipes and it all tastes so much differently. I couldn't care less if there was no meat, the spice mixture, thick sauces and ingredients meant I felt very satiated and didn't miss meat at all.

Its all just in our minds. Recently I was explaining to my friend how I eat often cold salads for lunch and in the mountains its more likely some sandwich, probably already half-frozen in the backpack. And I don't care, it tastes great after some physical effort and gives body all it needs and some more. For him, you can't have lunch if its not warm and there is no big piece of meat on plate in some form.

Also some people equate spices with just chili, meaning for them that any spiced food must burn your anus for whole next week and leave permanent scars on lower back. Which is a shame, there is whole universe of intense tastes unavailable to traditional western cuisine that doesn't burn your tongue a bit (or it still can while not using any chili at all).

Often what we want is some familiar texture and substantial mouthfeel of meat. Just adding tiny slices of meat to remind you it’s there or substituting it with “meatier” veggies like mushrooms or cabbage can do the trick.

> there is whole universe of intense tastes unavailable to traditional western cuisine that doesn't burn your tongue a bit

FWIW, I agree with everything you said, but I'd like to point out there's a ton of spices used in western cuisine too.

For example, in my hometown (central Italy) we use a lot of wild fennel pollen, which goes on basically everything. In Hungary fennel seeds, marjoram, paprika and turmeric are in practically every kitchen.

Star anise, nutmeg, saffron, mace, clove etc.. have been used in western cuisine for centuries too, and are used in very traditional western dishes (french onion soup, bechamel sauce, risotto alla milanese etc)

Western cuisine certainly uses less spices than the indian subcontinent, but I would not say the spices were unavailable to western cuisine.

What about protein intake?

> their chicken pieces were always just bones with tiny bits of meat here and there, mutton was worse than chewing gum

This is strange, maybe they were exceptionally poor but generally speaking, the chicken or mutton in India is not just bones and definitely is not the texture of chewing gum. Now I don't know what they were doing wrong cooking that mutton but every time I've made it, it comes out incredibly, it melts in one's mouth. I hope you reconsider Indian meat dishes.

I agree on the vegetarian dishes, I mainly eat those during the week, but we get meat on the weekends.

> I'm not a fan of plant-based meat, this is most likely because of my culture ( I'm Sardinian )

Many of the well-known plant based meat companies make their foods for American consumers. That food taste is not similar to what we are accustomed to in the Mediterranean. You can give a try to Heura's mediterranean items. Its an European company and it knows the Mediterrnanean cuisine well:

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/bocados-mediterraneos

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/albondigas-originales

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/bocados-especiados

https://heurafoods.com/es/productos/picada-troceada

It's a good option for eating out as a vegetarian/vegan. At least in the US, most vegetarian/vegan restaurant dishes are an afterthought or non-existent unless it's a vegan restaurant. I don't complain about it, but I've come to not enjoy going to restaurants as a result of this.

It's also not bad for people who want to transition from eating meat to being more plant-based and it's another option in general.

I'd argue most of the vegetarian/vegan food is going to be cooked alongside meat, especially burgers. You're not getting a special griddle when it comes to prep. The closest I've seen is cooking the vegetarian food earlier and putting it in a steamer, but who wants anything that was prepared 6 hours ago let alone steamed?.

I guess I just don't understand the whole concept. I went to vegan expo thing way back in the day at UCLA and nearly every vendor was pretty much "our fake meat" which was odd because I assumed they didn't like meat, yet clearly do. Very confusing.

Veganism is an ethical position, not a diet. It to reduce the harm to animals we cause as much as feasible and possible. A veggie burger cooked need to a beef one doesn't harm any animal nor does it add demand for animal products. Ethically there's nothing really wrong with it.

Same with the last, I'm vegan because I can live fine while lowering the harm I do to animals, but meat and dairy products do taste good.

You'd be pleasantly surprised in Europe, just checked LA on happycow and shows 828 vegan-friendly options to dine, whilst looking at Vienna, a comparatively very small city showed 818 options.

100% agreed. Never understood why vegan evangelists would try to convert me with some God awful meat-free sausage rather than a fresh falafel with tahini.

I think a lot of people either eat out or buy and heat up frozen ready-to-eat meals or meal parts (chicken tenders, fries, bag of vegetables, bag of stir fry mix) because they lack either the time or inclination to prep foods themselves. These are the maybe-could-be vegetarians that meat alternatives really appeal to.

It depends on the dish. With burgers, for example, I much prefer an Impossible Burger patty to any meat-based burger for the flavor alone. I also love vegetable-based dishes, but I seek out Impossible meat in addition to those. I also enjoy mostly non-prepackaged, unprocessed food, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can enjoy both.

Do we have to keep having this conversation? Lots of people, like myself, choose to not eat meat because we care about animal welfare. It's not because we don't like eating meat. Therefore food that tastes and feels like meat but didn't require killing an animal makes sense.

Yeah, this is the issue that most people seem to miss. It's not the flavour that is the issue, which is why products that attempt to replicate it are successful with vegans/vegetarians.

What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike.

Removing that element from my diet is the goal, not the flavour. I don't understand why this is so hard for some people to understand.

Sometimes it seems so predictable that someone will say it that I think they are being deliberately ignorant and trolling.

Some people just don't care about the same things. And some people also don't have the creativity, joy or whatever to cook a vegetarian meal. People are just different and for some, biting into a burger or eating a piece of chicken gives them some kind of joy. Maybe they even associate some kind of lifestyle, identity with that. I think there is no point arguing these principles over and over. People are different.

> What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike.

Looks like a phobia and probably should be treated as one.

I second this. I cut meat by cooking better vegetarian recipes, not by finding better meat substitutes. Asia has no shortage of excellent dishes, as does Italy. I'll take a good pasta dish over a fake sausage made of mystery ingredients any day.

Tomatoes are nearly fungible, but meat substitutes are not. Potatoes are cheap but meat substitutes are not. Carrots are easy to find anywhere but meat substitutes are not.

Seitan is very cheap and easy to make at home, and can be quite tasty.

I second this sentiment. General advice is to avoid things in boxes and bags: aka highly processed foods.

The ingredients list on the beyond meat website looks like this: Water, pea protein*, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals

What are you really eating?

Huh that’s actually not too many unfamiliar ingredients. Pea protein, methyl cellulose and potassium chloride. Sure those could be harmful but that’s not exactly the same as a Twinkie

I don’t see anything glaringly bad here

There's only one thing on that list which isn't food/seasoning/salt: methylcellulose. However, it is derived from plant cellulose, and is basically a semi-synthetic equivalent of pectin, a natural product (or other dietary fibers). Methylcellulose is better than pectin because it's just easier to get standard properties.

There's nothing harmful about it and the body treats it exactly the same as pectin - it passes straight through like other dietary fiber.

> General advice is to avoid things in boxes and bags: aka highly processed foods.

What kind of rule is this?

Half of the barely-processed foods I buy are in boxes and bags. Rice, potatoes, frozen vegetables...

Fresh meat is also wrapped for sanitary reasons. Do you count plain cheese as highly processed because that has plastic on it too.

Let alone how normal it is to add things like starch and salt and juices.

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