Please Don't Eat Our Best Friends

[Karna5]

UsernameWithA9, I don't know what Impossible Burger is, but I eat vegan cheeseburgers all the time. I have a stack of the patties in my freezer right now, and when I don't cook them in oven with bread and cheese I often crumble them into pasta dishes. They're delicious whatever brand they are (I have no clue what brand it is as it's just a plastic bag with stacked patties, and I have several more stacks in the deep freeze as well).

For breakfast I had noodles with vegetarian meatballs and sauce.

There are definitely yucky vegetarian meat substitutes. A lot of them are too spicy, and I hate spicy food. But a lot are delicious. It's not unlike non-vegetarian food. Some is good, and some is not. I eat what I like and don't let the rest enter my thoughts, especially when nobody died to make it.

FYI, there's also delicious vegan ice creams as well, and Vegonaisse (vegan mayonnaise) is delicious, too.

[AlienSlof]

Food technology has moved on amazingly since my first years as a veggie. Some things still need work - vegetarian scampi is dry and tastes nothing like prawns! Other things are great now. I get a product called 'this is not bacon' and it's more bacony than real bacon! We also have Quorn - a mushroom based protein - that can be made into just about anything and taste like anything. It doesn't taste like mushooms! Then again, I adore mushrooms! There are lots of other brands here in the UK too, both vegetarian and vegan. I have almost as much choice for delicious food now as any meat eater. Some things, such as vegan cheese are hellishly expensive, though. Delicious but too pricey for a retired oldie to afford!

I don't feed my animals veggie though (apart from my tortoise!), as to feed cats especially on just plant matter is considered abuse here in the UK. Cats need meat. It annoys me when manufacturers put veggies in cat food - this is purely to appeal to humans. My cats eat the meat and leave the veggie bits! Dogs are surprisingly more like we are in that they can enjoy an omnivorous diet. However, my little poodle adores fresh raw pork mince which I get for her as a treat occasionally. Her birthday is coming up, so I'll be getting her some that's just for her!

[Karna5]

4 minutes ago, AlienSlof said:

Some things, such as vegan cheese are hellishly expensive, though.

*Nods* I've had a few variations of vegan cheese. Some is delicious, some I kinda hated. And I'm with you on price for it. I haven't had a job since 2015, so I'm perfectly happy still using cheese made from milk or cream.

I also have twelve cats, and cats are not omnivores. They actually need meat to digest and get their nutrients, so I go through a lot of cat food (dry and canned, plus treats and litter) per month *Laughs*

Humans can get all the nutrients they need from a good non-meat diet, especially after they're old enough not to need their mother's milk. Dogs are omnivores, so theoretically they can get by on what humans eat (I didn't check the science of it other than knowing my whole life dogs are omnivores). But cats do need some form of animal protein. I have a house in the rural countryside, so we get a lot of mice, briefly. They get caught by my cats fairly quickly when they get in the house, and I always know when one was caught as I hear scrambling and crashing noises as the cats attack.

But you're right about the technology. Even ten or fifteen years ago, most vegetarian foods weren't really that good. They were edible, but not on par with traditional variations. That's shifting, though. I suspect in our lifetime the shift will be complete.

 

[Karna5]

Side comment with regards to the U.S. and dogs: One must remember the U.S. is fifty states with different cultures and cities, much like the European Union is many countries with different cultures and cities. I was born in Argentina, but in metro Detroit, where I lived from 1975 until maybe five years ago, almost nobody I knew had dogs. Maybe one in eight or ten families I ever knew in my lifetime had a dog. They're not common. I'd just like to point out the U.S. cannot be considered to be one culture as there is a lot of diversity ranging from Hawaii and Alaska to Arizona and Michigan and everything between including variations between large urban cities, suburbs and rural country, deserts and swamp, forests and mountains, flatlands and plateaus, hot zones and freezing ones.

[Guest deleted156886133]

6 hours ago, Karna5 said:

UsernameWithA9, I don't know what Impossible Burger is, but I eat vegan cheeseburgers all the time.

Founded in 2011, the company is actually called Impossible Foods and started becoming popular here in the States around 8 years ago, 2016, when they released their vegan plant-based burger. You can get one from most any Burger King fast food restaurant now and they sell their products at select grocery stores, Trader Joe's being one such store. They seem to be making a global impact because there are also stores in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore that stock their product. It's so much more than your average vegan or vegetarian beef alternative. I've tried the average, not a fan. And I just noticed from their website that they offer pork and chicken alternatives as well. Their production process is fascinating because the end product looks just like beef and is reported to also taste the part. It's uncanny really.

There's also a Wikipedia page to peruse if you don't care for their biased corporate page --> here.

[Guest deleted156886133]

Q: What do dogs and average vegetarian burgers have in common?

A: I wouldn't eat either one even if my life depended upon it.

Edited August 14 by UsernameWithA9
Forgot the period.

[Karna5]

6 minutes ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

Founded in 2011, the company is actually called Impossible Foods and started becoming popular here in the States around 8 years ago, 2016, when they released their vegan plant-based burger. You can get one from most any Burger King fast food restaurant now and they sell their products at select grocery stores, Trader Joe's being one such store. They seem to be making a global impact because there are also stores in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore that stock their product. It's so much more than your average vegan or vegetarian beef alternative. I've tried the average, not a fan. And I just noticed from their website that they offer pork and chicken alternatives as well. Their production process is fascinating because the end product looks just like beef and is reported to also taste the part. It's uncanny really.

There's also a Wikipedia page to peruse if you don't care for their biased corporate page --> here.

That explains why I didn't know about them. I haven't driven a car since 2015, and the city where I live doesn't even have a fast food restaurant (it has maybe 800 people in it, and each neighbor is roughly a mile away from the next). I simply don't have contact with fast food restaurants anymore, and I haven't had television since 2011. Like I said, for all I know I eat Impossible Foods. I just don't know what the brand is because my girlfriend orders them (we eat nearly entirely what we can mail order or make ourselves).

[Guest deleted156886133]

2 minutes ago, Karna5 said:

it has maybe 800 people in it, and each neighbor is roughly a mile away from the next

I have 800 neighbors merely a block away. I must say, I'm envious as I still live in a hustle and bustle metro madness. I need a vacation from this place. Your neighborhood sounds peaceful and tranquil. When's the last time you've seen a crackhead or a nodding heroin junkie? Ugh!

[AlienSlof]

1 hour ago, Karna5 said:

I also have twelve cats...

 

12 cats!!!!!!11111one

I have 4 elderly cats now, 2 of which are probably not going to be around too much longer - one is senile and the other has just been diagnosed with kidney disease. They're still relatively hale and hearty right now, so I value the time I have left with them. Lots of cuddles all round!

I used to run my own cat sanctuary and at its busiest, I had 20 cats, most were kittens. Back then, people just abandoned their pregnant cats rathr than getting them spayed. I would spay and rehome them.

[Karna5]

1 hour ago, UsernameWithA9 said:

When's the last time you've seen a crackhead or a nodding heroin junkie? Ugh!

When I lived in Detroit (the lawless parts of it in the 1980s and 90s) there used to be gunshots all the time (and robberies, and my best friend was killed in a car jacking, etcetera). I remember one time I was standing outside my house and noticed a police officer talking to my neighbor (seeing police officers was very rare). I heard six shots right behind my house, not a hundred or two feet from me. So I walked up to the police officer and said, "Officer, there were some gunshots just now." The officer looked at me and said, "There were?" So I said, "Yes, right there, right around the corner, pow, pow, pow." The officer calmly stared a moment and then said, "That happens all the time, sir. Have a nice day."

The officer wasn't wrong, of course. I remember one time five or so of my friends were taking target practice with pistols and rifles in our basement. We'd cleared a wall and put phone books and were firing for quite a while. During this one of my friends went outside for a moment and came down and said, "Holy crap! You can hear that all the way down the street!" *Laughs* Nobody ever called the cops. Nothing ever happened of it.

When was the last time I saw a crackhead or heroin junky? I've seen my closest neighbor (who lives almost a mile away) twice in the last five years when he knocked on my door to bring me extra deer meat he couldn't fit in his freezers and once when he came to help us fix a broken water well. I never see them anymore. Never. I almost never see anyone anymore.