[54mf]

"First: The vegetarians that I know don't like meat."

Hi, nice to meet you! Vegan for almost a decade, the smell of a burger on the grill in the summer gives me hella cravings. We exist.

"Second: When I tasted an Impossible Burger, it was awful. It tasted like a horrible veggie burger."

I'm jealous, you must not have ever eaten a truly horrible veggie burger. I had a Gardenburger in like 2005 that literally tasted like cardboard. The Impossible Burger is a miracle of science.

[inciampati]

The cravings are probably a sign that you are missing something essential that is in the burger. It tastes good because it is nutritious. I would eat a burger occasionally to stay healthy.

[tecleandor]

No, it doesn't taste (or smell) good because it's nutritious. The cravings are a psychological reflex of remembering something you liked the taste, nutritious or not.

There's people who doesn't consider charring meat having a good odour, and that doesn't make it less nutritious. There's super tasty things which are horribly un-nutritional, or even poisonous. That goes both for smell and taste.

[54mf]

"The cravings are a psychological reflex of remembering something you liked the taste, nutritious or not."

Nailed it. We used to have summer dinners at my grandparents when I was a kid, complete with grilled burgers. It is, in large part, emotional.

[asavadatti]

This is specious reasoning. A whiff of cigarette smoke can trigger cravings for nicotine. That doesn't mean one is missing something essential or that its nutritious. (or that one should eat a cigarette occasionally to stay healthy ;)