[est31]

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theoretical advantage that artificial meat has is the lower amount of resources needed. Over time, because of this it can get much cheaper than real meat, at least if you don't factor in skewing of the market due to government subsidies. Then, if they truly have comparable tastes, people will naturally choose those alternatives.

This seems like the best strategy: If you force people to become vegan by law without giving good alternatives, you just make them angry at people who want to stop climate change. If you nicely ask them, some will switch but most won't. So I believe the best way forward is to invest into meat alternative startups and help them make their product as widely used and as cheap as possible.

[_0w8t]

Meat taste comes mostly from salt and souses. People who tried home-made sausages or grilled meat without any of those complained that it tasted like nothing. The problem with tofu sausages is that one just cannot add that much salt as to meat without making it feel too salty.

That acquired taste can be reset if for 2-4 weeks one avoids any product with added salt or sugar. Then tofu and many other products including plain meat without any additives will taste much better.

[LegitShady]

Impossible Foods directly disagrees with you (they say it comes from heme) and they have food scientists working for them.

Tofu dogs never taste like meat, ever. If you wait 2-4 weeks you're just creating a new habit, not approximating meat in any way.

Your comment, while potentially a healthy choice, certainly isn't an accurate description of meat taste. And meat eaters everywhere can recognize this because we have all tried the other products and it doesn't taste close, even after 2-4 weeks.

[rowanG077]

This is simply not true. I often it "raw" meat without adding salt or any sauce. There are some meats which taste pretty to close to nothing but this isn't even close to the case for most meats.

[_0w8t]

There is a famous recipe of winning a cocking competition. Just add more salt and sugar. So for quite a few people that defines a taste. But if for some reasons one do not exposed to that, then I suppose food without salt or sugar tastes normally.

[LegitShady]

you can repeat it as often as you want, its not true. You're pretending meat is water and doesn't have anything of its own to flavor it, and that's just not true.

You won't convince people by lying to them about the flavor of things you want them to buy. They'll label you a liar and move on.

[rowanG077]

Something tasting better is not the same thing as the original tasting like nothing. Meat with good seasoning tastes better then no seasoning but that has absolutely nothing to do with you claiming meat tastes like nothing.

[radicalbyte]

I know this saying. It also includes fat: butter for sweet and lard for savory.

[fulafel]

Tofu sausages are indeed terrible. Try seitan, quorn or some other kind that has a bit more effort put into it.

[mklarmann]

Our studies have shown, that about 10% are first movers (willing to give up benefits, to become climate friendly eaters) and 80% will go with the default when it is acceptable. The last 10% would still need to be coerced actively by some kind of restriction.

[est31]

10% is a lot. It's enough to swing an election. And no idea what the 80% would think. Also, I'm interested in global solutions, not ones that are effective in one country only. Globally, there are varying degrees of support for fighting climate change. Especially third world countries want growth and say it's the responsibility of developed economies to fight it because we have polluted so much historically. The goal is to make it impossible for Bolsonaro to sell his meat to any country in the world.

[andrenth]

How about we make it impossible for Trump or Merkel or Abe or Xi Jinping to sell their coal-powered production to any country in the world?

The question is rhetorical and is meant to show that 1) this proposal is not a “global solution”, as punishing a single country would hardly make any difference; and 2) you’re personifying a country’s exports, associating them to an administration you disagree ideologically with, to make it sound evil, and that is not rational nor productive.

[est31]

I just meant Bolsonaro as an example. Part of the goals of his government is to expand the meat industry and people in that industry love him. This has nothing to do with disagreeing or not disagreeing with him.

[trymas]

TL;DR: In my opinion meat analogues will not convert meat-eaters to vegetarians, problem is that switching to vegetarian diet requires rather big cultural change on our eating traditions.

I hear where are you coming from, though IMHO it's a problem with lack of knowledge/tradition/culture of producing vegetarian/vegan meals.

If you would say that you're vegetarian to my grandparents, they'd imagine that you eat vegetable salad all the time, with occasional baked potatoes for hot meal, they cannot imagine a meatless meal.

From my experience people tend to think that there must be a 1 to 1 replacement for meat foods: steaks, sausages, cutlets, burgers, meatballs, etc.

IMHO usually great vegetarian dishes (tasty, easy to make, not expensive, etc.) are mostly different set from meat dishes. It requires a cultural shift, which is insanely hard to change in general western population, where it's common and expected to have ham/bacon sandwich for breakfast, meatballs and spaghetti for lunch, steak for dinner, and beef burger or ribs on a bbq on a weekend.

You need a completely different set of dishes to change that meat eating tradition and IMO tofu sausages, cheap soy steaks and other meat analogues will not convert meat-eaters to vegetarians (fingers crossed for Impossible meat projects to change that).

Anecdotal example from the same thread on Indian vegetarian cuisine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20652404

P.S. I very much agree with you on this:

> The theoretical advantage that artificial meat has is the lower amount of resources needed. Over time, because of this it can get much cheaper than real meat, at least if you don't factor in skewing of the market due to government subsidies.

Subsidies are really skewing prices of animal vs plant based products.

Where I am from pork is around 5-6€/kg, chicken 3.5-5€/kg, beef 10-30€/kg, milk 0.5-1€/l.

Whereas soy-almond milk 1.5-3€/l, soy meat analogues 5-15€/kg, mushrooms 3-15€/kg, etc.

There is no substantial price difference (mostly), which is spectacular to me. How it's possible to sell 1 kilo of chicken breast for 3.5€ is spectacular to me, when freaking beans cost around 3-4€/kg. How do they grow that chicken, when it's clear as a day that it requires probably an order of magnitude more resources compared to growing beans. I wouldn't even go how government is bending backwards for milk producers with tax incentives to keep prices "competitive", and I have no idea how pork is not 20-50€/kg, when every other year there's some disease, which requires to kill and destroy all pigs in farms in 500km radius.

[est31]

> You need a completely different set of dishes to change that meat eating tradition and IMO tofu sausages, cheap soy steaks and other meat analogues will not convert meat-eaters to vegetarians (fingers crossed for Impossible meat projects to change that).

This is exactly what I was reffering to. The current alternatives are not motivating enough for people to switch, but with good meat alternatives like impossible/beyond meat we should see trend changes.

It feels to me that the approach "just change your culture" has been tried out and has mostly failed because most people in the west have not switched. It requires a lot of political/moral conviction for people to switch. Good meat replacements will I think change this and make it easier for people to eat less meat while keeping their culture.

[mjlangiii]

I agree that people think you need meat alternatives because they lack the knowledge of how to make a plant based meal.

I agree with GP that most people don't care what a meatless meal could look like, culturally they just want meat each meal and will only consider an "impossible" substitute.

If we must change our impact on the environment, maybe it doesn't matter that people have a cultural desire to wait on impossible standards for substitutes and to continue harming the environment in the process. I don't know how important it is to change now, but if it critical then I'd be fine with something like rationing meat or some creative ideas towards forcing drastic change.

Also, maybe your grandparents can't imagine meat only once a week, but my grandparents certainly can, not because of current habits but from the great depression. They grew up on farms and had animals but they had more plants and usually ate the plants, only rarely they would slaughter animals for meat. Most meals were plants and that was the most normal thing in the world.

I assume meat at every meal is an extremely recent phenomenon and I think culturally we can easily move on from it, if we take the necessary measures.

[bluntfang]

Thanks for this well thought out comment. It's sad that it's getting downvoted. I agree that the replacement strategy isn't going to get us anywhere. It's a novelty. It's like people going on fad diets. They'll do it for a few months, feel accomplished, and backslide into their old habits. Going plant-based is a lifestyle change, it's something to own and be proud of, just like having a healthy workout routine.

[tom_mellior]

The spaghetti example is weird since you can already get pasta with lots of different sauces, with vegetarian options easily available.