I like the taste of meat but I don't like how is it made. So if I can get a sensible substitute which hasn't been made killing animals, I'll eat it.
I'm not all day eating substitutes, as some of them are extremely processed, and also, I like vegetables and legumes, but I'll eat a Beyond burger or some other fake meat every once in a while.
You can think about it as in "I like my cell phone but I rather find something made with less suffering, so I'll buy a fairphone or something like that"
There are some people who like the taste and texture of meat, but dislike the impacts of the commercial meat industry.
Those people might choose to use a meat-substitute, if it was reasonably similar in taste/texture/resulting product, and had less harmful impacts on the world.
Meat substitutes are becoming fashionable, but they are still expensive relative to factory meat, and while some are very good, many taste awful and are not a good substitute nutritionally.
I couldn't even finish the Impossible Whopper when I tried it - taste and consistent of rubber. We tried some substitute chicken recently - taste was good, consistency was good, but then we looked at the ingredients - was basically a ball of flour with some flavoring; not really what I want to serve my kids regularly.
Something I've noticed about the meat substitutes: My family likes them better when they don't try to be meat. As in - when they are flavorful and nutritious on their own rather than attempting to simulate meat, they tend to be better than the options that are trying too hard to pretend to be meat.
Despite not eating meat for a few years now, I like the flavour of meat. So I personally welcome fake meats any time of the week, as long as they aren't prohibitly expensive to the environment.
As a sample size of 1, I love meat but I know that it is environmentally pretty disastrous. I'm waiting avidly for impossible burger-type meat substitutes to be available so I cam shift my consumption, and some of my family consumption.
By contrast, I would never serve 'meat-alikes' to my vegetarian friends. I always cook them proper veggie dishes because many of them don't like the flavours and textures they associate with dead animals.
Ironically I find that I (vegetarian, not vegan) tend to enjoy meat replacements that don't try replicate meat. I find the ones that DO try to replicate meats taste are just not very good at it, and it ends up tasting pretty bad. The good stuff is still tasty and savory but it's doing its own thing.
edit: Not to say the impossible burger can't be good (I've not been able to try one) Just a comment on existing products that I've tried.
I'm a meat eater and I really prefer no meat over fake meat. A good vegetable curry, ratatouille, stew, pasta or a portobello mushroom burger really beats all of the fake meat substitutes for me. If meat becomes too expensive, I'll just cut it out completely... Until lab grown meat becomes a viable alternative. All these fake meat substitutes are just awful, to me.
So I love the taste of meat, but I generally don't think my personal enjoyment is sufficient reason to further harm both highly intelligent animals and the climate. It's a decision I have deemed egoistic with regards to myself (and myself only - I am not one for evangelism). I want to explain why my experience seems a bit different with "replacements".
It is very hard to change habits, so I have not stopped eating meat completely. However, I have successfully reduced my meat consumption by a significant amount, all thanks to some substitutes making it very easy to reduce some real meat while keeping my every-day habit foods. The quality and taste of the replacements range from excellent to complete utter shit. I exclusively focus on the currently good or excellent ones and adapt new items from now and then.
For example, the "Rügenwalder Mühle" company in Germany makes some excellent products [1] that are totally enough to satisfy me. Substitution works best with meats that are typically a highly processed mess filled with salt & spices. No, it doesn't fully taste the same as meat but, like I said, it tastes good enough and every gram less meat eaten is a microscopic positive change that still matters en masse.
In my country (Europe) meat substitutes are more expensive than the cheap meat you'll find in discounters. So if you want to have a meat-like taste for many poorer people meat is the obvious choice.
I tried a Beyond Meat burger. It tasted so much like the real thing that I did not finish it. It had that rusty-nail sharpness I have not missed at all.
I have been vegetarian for ~30 years. Pork and ham are the only meat I have missed. Knowing how pork is produced in the US, I would never buy any of it.
Unfortunately, fake meat is as "packaged and processed" as it is physically possible for stuff sold as food to be, making it not really food at all. That is too bad, because meat production is a huge driver of the looming global climate catastrophe, enough so that people switching to a meat substitute would cut their CO2 footprint more than giving up their car. But it is hard to recommend switching from actual food to merely food-shaped stuff. That said, a huge fraction of Americans habitually eat stuff not really food, already. If those were to switch to a meat substitute, their diet would have no more non-food than before. Unfortunately, those are the least likely to switch, no matter how closely it matches the real thing, unless it gets substantially cheaper than real meat.
TBH many of us are not looking for a replacement for meat. I personally want something that potentially tastes better, and don't really care for the "fake meat" marketing (don't need it to be red or meat like)
I want to eat artificial meat. Meat is tasty and many great dishes require something meat-like. In my experience artificial meat has only replaced the bottom-of-the-barrel burgers/sausages/chicken slabs, though. The expensive brands have nearly nailed down the texture of semi-processed beef, but the taste relies too much on "add salt until tasty".
That said, I've cooked myself some decent fast food with fake meat instead of cheap €1 burgers. The cheapest, shittiest meat is just a protein source drenched in fat, plants can easily substitute that.
If you're going vegetarian, fake meat isn't the way to go. There are great dishes built around vegetables, mushrooms, and all other kinds of non-meat products that you can eat instead. You won't ever find an artificial steak that's any good, but you may find something even better if you try exploring other meals instead.
I don't care what anyone else eats, as long as you let me know of your dietary restrictions if we're planning on eating together.
Just as a counter to this, while I agree such substitutes are a poor facsimile to real meat I'm incredibly grateful for them.
I'm vegetarian for moral reasons but my problem is I don't really like vegetables and have constant meat craving. Being able to cook dishes I've been eating for the first 27 years of my life and make them vegetarian (though not as good) is a life saver and I'm grateful for the increasing investment and development in this area.
Personally don't like older meat substitutes, they just taste like compressed vegetables to me. I like impossible, but beyond is decent too. I just don't get them that often (but I didn't buy burgers that often when I ate meat).
I personally don't give a shit about the "processed" stuff, that word is meaningless to me
As with some other comments I assume this is more aimed at the meat-eating market than vegetarians etc.
As somebody who hasn't eaten meat for years, I've long used "fake meat" substitutes because I originally missed normal meat, but the idea of eating actual meat (even lab-bred) triggers a disgust reflex now; I'll stick with the fake stuff.
During my life as a vegetarian/vegan I regularly consume “fake meat” products because they are simple to prepare and allow me to use recipes that are not vegetarian. For example, it’s extremely hard to find a good vegetarian burger — the beyond burger was a revelation the first time I tried it. I still like burgers, even though there are many wonderful vegetarian dishes. I didn’t stop eating meat because I don’t like the taste of meat.
Imagine that many of your favourite dishes, those you grew up with, were suddenly unavailable to you because some ingredient no longer existed. If a new ingredient hit the market that was not quite the same but was a convincing substitute in taste and texture, would you consider it silly and avoid it?
For people who feel strongly enough about the ethics of animal farming and the environment, meat substitutes can be "good enough." When I gave up meat years ago I just considered it to be the price of doing what was right.
I don't get what you're trying to say. Of course people like the taste, but why pretend to eat meat? We all know it's not the same. I'd rather have a real version of something I like than a fake version of something I miss.
I'm not all day eating substitutes, as some of them are extremely processed, and also, I like vegetables and legumes, but I'll eat a Beyond burger or some other fake meat every once in a while.
You can think about it as in "I like my cell phone but I rather find something made with less suffering, so I'll buy a fairphone or something like that"
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