Long-term vegans, in your experience, are "imitation" foods for the transition, or for life?!
As a non-vegan, I would have expected that a typical vegan meal might be something like stir fry vegetables with tofu served over steamed rice, with herbal tea or fruit juice to drink. In other words, foods that are in a fairly natural state, but don't happen to include animal products. Instead, I see a lot of vegans, particularly young vegans, eating things like chili cheese dogs consisting of a soy-based hot dog, chili sauce made with soy-based "crumbles", topped with soy-based "cheese", with soy milk to drink. Such foods are highly processed, expensive, and, well, "artificial", in the sense that they are trying to imitate the appearance, texture and to some extent the taste of a different food. I suppose they give people who are surrounded by non-vegans a way of eating culturally familiar food.
In your experience, are such foods more common when a person is first making the transition to a vegan diet, or do you foresee them playing a big part in your day-to-day menu for life?
Answers:
The imitation foods are no less healthy or processed than a large marjority of food that omnivores consume. Sometimes vegans like to treat themselves with something a little different like imitation meat, but a balanced vegan diet is pretty much what you imagined. Quite healthy.
Imitation foods are for life in my opinion. As a vegan, my main foods are pasta dishes, rice dishes, vegetables, fresh fruit, homemade soups, jacket potatoes and curries. I have imitation foods such as vegan sausage, vegan bacon, vegan burgers, vegan mince meat, vegan sausage rolls, soya chocolate desserts, and vegan chocolate as treats. A vegan doesnt want to make their whole diet consist of those foods but they are great when you feel like a cheeky treat.
vegan
I've never had faux animal products in five years of veganism.
Your conception of a "typical vegan meal" is...a laughable stereotype.
I eat pizza, burritos, and pasta, thank you very much.
I've never even had tofu.
But the vegans you refer to who eat faux animal products obviously aren't concerned with how processed a food is,
nor are most people I know,
vegans or not.
Veganism: it doesn't mean non-processed.
Some days I'll make foods from fresh vegies, some days I'll make a pizza from vegie hot dogs and vegan cheese. Some mornings I'll have fresh mushrooms on toast, some mornings vegan yoghurt. I don't see any reason to not have them once in a while, provided I choose the environmentally friendly options and not the imported from the US/UK options (I live in Australia so it is unreasonable to consume products shipped that far when there are others produced locally).
vegan biologist
Vegan over 9 years and still eating them.
It doesn't even taste like meat anymore to me. I learned long ago that most meat's flavor comes from it's seasoning and they way it's cooked not some inherent quality of the meat. Have you ever eaten an unseasoned piece of meat not cooked in oil or something similar?
So fake meats are just easy to eat if you are in a hurry or like smoke flavor or bbq sauce, etc.
Imitation foods are good for life.
There are lots of healthy mock meats, and all vegan mock meats are cholesterol free.
Worthington big franks are canned vegan hot dogs that only have 2.5 grams of fat and just .5 grams saturated fat. They taste great.
Boca Vegan burgers have just .5 grams of fat.
Lightlife Vegan chick'n strips are fat free.
You are better off without them. Avoid anything that is processed in any way. Try a raw vegan diet. Look up 80/10/10 diet and fruitarian diet (read 'the fruitarian warriors guidebook' free online by Jericho sunfire). Try having this salad for dinner. It is delicious. Good luck!
http://radhasrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/0…
I love imitation meats. I don't eat them because "I can't live without meat," it's mainly because of their protein and I'm an ethical vegetarian. I am a vegetarian to protect wildlife... not for health reasons. (Im 15)
I think most people would say they are transition foods. I havent bought any of them for a long time, but occasionally will buy something so the kids have the same food as everyone else, on a campout or something.
my cousin has been eating for both- for transition and life!
but usually i think one would start just for an esay way of becomng vegan. until they get more info on food combining to get their nutrients, then they may choose other foods not immitation
Transition only, I never eat those things. I do not need anything resembling meat. All of that stuff is very processed and not healthy at all.
We are a vegetarian/pescatarian family, but I used to eat alot more imitation meat when I "transitioned". I don't now, but mainly because I have a family and I have health concerns about artificial flavorings and additives and soy. It's just not that healthy, and really if you are buying such processed food, are you really helping animals/the environment? Also, imitation meats are just too expensive. You can make some imitation meats homemade, like gluten, but I often find it really time consuming. I like to keep things simple. We mostly eat legumes and grain based dishes with lots of vegetables and some fruit. I also feed my kids eggs, milk, cheese and occasionally (once or twice a week), a bit of seafood or fish.
I still do like imitation meats. I love the imitation meats at Chinese Vegetarian restaraunts, I like garden burgers a lot and the occasional tempeh bacon, which I think is very delicious. So, we will eat these on occasion, as a special treat. But day to day, I only make all our food from scratch and natural ingredients.
Imitation meats are great for people transitioning into veganism as they learn about different foods. Some vegans also enjoy the taste of flesh, but do not agree with killing animals, so fake meat gives them a similar taste. I do think those products are more common for new vegans and vegetarians, but many long-term vegans and vegetarians also eat them on occasion. I've only had a "fake meat" once a long time ago and I personally do not like them nor do I eat them for two reasons: A. they taste way too much like flesh and it really grosses me out and B. they are highly processed and unhealthy.
vegan :D