Every vegan has probably heard “Why do you vegans make your food taste like meat (animal flesh) if you’re against it?”. And every time it continues to astound us that the reasoning fails to reach them and it requires explaining, how the moral objection relates to the treatment of actual animals rather than to how their bodies happen to taste when cooked or to that flavor/texture profile being approximated/simulated/replicated in foods that taste the same but don’t involve the same issues of animal exploitation etc. Or how such products would be extremely beneficial and important if the main reason people are eating animal flesh is for the experience, and if we can provide them the desired object without all the harm involved - while meeting their more important (e.g. nutritional, energy & health) needs as well - since that can mean potentially trillions of sentient lives of non-human animals spared every year if people can actually be convinced to use the alternatives as replacements and stop buying the animal versions, not to mention the much lower environmental impact, etc.

And yet these products continue to be demonized in the media and in public, whether it’s making dubious health claims about them steeped in Facebook-y misinformation, criticizing their supposed unnaturalness (and often purely basing the criticism of them on an appeal to nature fallacy), or relentlessly mocking and roasting vegans for eating them in any number of ways - including attempts at revealing some apparent hypocrisy of a vegan who would choose to eat them.

With all this external information we hear and are exposed to constantly, it can be difficult to separate our own thoughts and feelings from it sometimes, since the internalization of cultural attitudes is often very powerful & insidious. So if a vegan started feeling guilty or questioning their values and choices in relation to eating plant based meat, there’s a good chance it could be attributed to paying too much attention to what the general “trolls” of the world and society think and say to us about our moral positions, lifestyle, diet, etc. and letting negative ideas get to us too much, being too self-critical, etc. However I wouldn’t want to gaslight anyone either as everyone’s experience is valid and it’s entirely possible to have an overlapping personal attitude toward plant-based meat that is separate or unaffected by whatever other people (mostly non-vegans) have said to you.

Aside from people who don’t have access to this category of products in general, I know a number of vegans who choose not to consume plant-based meat, some for health or cost reasons, while others are grossed or freaked out by its uncanny similarity to real animal flesh, which sometimes leads to avoidance and sometimes doesn’t. (This variation makes sense since some vegans or vegetarians have a disgusted reaction to real animal flesh while others don’t). So there exists some amount of seemingly genuine sentiment expressed naturally within the vegan community that is questioning the soundness of plant-based meat for different reasons, rather than such ideas existing purely by means of some artificial outside influence infiltrating our headspaces, potentially from the meat industry itself (they do have entire social media campaigns designed to discredit their competition after all).

Plant-based meat is a type of product I’ve had a strange relationship with. Since becoming vegan, Ive eaten more meat than I ever ate when I was a meat eater. I was vegetarian (not yet aware of the reasons to be vegan) for quite a while before plant based meat was really a thing/became widely available, so I never knew such products existed that were intended to actually replicate the taste and texture of animal flesh, nor had I ever needed to eat them or imagined or felt a desire for such a product - there are plenty of great plant based foods available as it is. Of course there were “veggie burgers” and things like that (which apparently a lot of people want to make a comeback) but while very tasty and hearty, the purpose of those was more to serve as a replacement for the nutrition and utility of animal meat rather than be a 1-1 substitute for the consumption experience of it.

So the arrival of realistic simulacrums of animal tissue on the market was unexpected to say the least. But now they’ve become ubiquitous and often dominate the vegan options available at many establishments. All the debate over processed foods aside, many people still prefer more whole food options or other plant based products like seitan, tofu, etc. But the reality is that these plant-based meat products are extremely popular, mostly among non-vegan, “vegan-curious” or flexitarian consumers who make up most of the purchases, as well as among vegans and vegetarians. People enjoy them for the taste experience while also finding them a convenient source of nutrition (not that it’s necessary given other options). Some might choose them over animal meat for ethical, environmental or health reasons, regardless of the public disagreement & confusion around the healthfulness of plant-based meat vs animal meat (& as compared to plant-based whole foods etc).

For a casual vegan or vegetarian looking for options to choose from, I’m sure it’s a familiar experience in recent times that some kind of dish with plant-based meat ends up being the only “proper” or decent option available in certain situations (or you have a wide range of options, every one of which happens to utilize plant-based meat). So the veg*n is more or less forced to eat plant based meat sometimes as a side effect of its popularity & availability in combination with the comparative lack of popularity and availability of deliberate vegan options in general, meaning it occupies the little space in the market that tailors to the demographic that wants vegan options (which, again, is mostly made up of non-vegans). This is something I wish non-vegans would remember when they think about judging vegans for eating plant-based meat, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but we often don’t actually have much choice anyway. If the plant based chicken option happens to be what’s accessible instead of tofu or seitan or falafel or chickpeas or whatever then that’s what we get. Also, in many cases the plant based meat option is literally just seitan, TVP or some other plant based food but they put the plant based meat label on it. Sometimes it can be easier to tell that it’s not real animal flesh, which personally allows me to enjoy it more, appreciate it for what it is as a result of its plant-based ingredients, and reduces the small amount of worry that there’s been a mixup with “real meat”.

I don’t judge any vegan or person in general who chooses to eat plant-based meat, I eat it myself sometimes (by choice even when there are other options), though I feel weird about it sometimes. I don’t think it’s a moral issue, though I’m not entirely certain of that since Ive heard some ethical cases to be made against it but which are more abstract/conceptual, symbolic, very consent and respect focused, and strongly principle-based/deontological rather than consequential, pragmatic or practical, etc. And I feel like given the real, physical, tangible and serious stakes of animal agriculture and the potential for food innovations like plant-based meat to disrupt its market and save animals, the purpose it serves is potentially more important and outweighs the value at least at this point in time for the animal rights movement (even if a temporary solution that could be re-evaluated later on in a vegan society) compared to relatively immaterial concerns/objections/qualms or feelings of moral uneasiness about taking pleasure in something designed to replicate the experience of eating an animal’s flesh.

It’s more just that I wonder sometimes how many of us ever feel weird and guilty eating it on some level, because in my opinion, even if it’s perfectly understandable, moral and reasonable given the situation we’re in in society, it is sort of a strange phenomenon. I think about whether we’re being speciesist or if we would be comfortable with a similar scenario when it came to a human injustice that people were simulating as a replacement for it. I think the experience of being a vegan in today’s world is very surreal in general and navigating the carnist society while holding the values we do is quite bewildering at times, so we can’t really be blamed for not knowing how to act or for questioning ourselves and our conditioning etc.

However I think the feelings of guilt partly come from internalized shame caused by other people (non-vegans) criticizing & ridiculing us for eating plant-based meat. For example, when non-vegans say that we’re “fake vegans” or “carnivores in disguise” because we secretly wish we were eating real animals, etc. just because we ate plant-based meat. All nonsense, but it can end up seeping into your subconscious and making you doubt yourself. Also with all the negative beliefs that people have about plant based meat in general, saying they think “vegans should just get their own foods”, preferring us to eat/promote different vegan foods for some reason and particularly being against anything “processed” or “unnatural” at the moment. Do you ever feel like you want to hide the fact you’re eating plant based meat so you don’t have to deal with either judgment from non vegans or your own feelings of embarrassment about it? Even if it’s irrational, it can be easy to slip into these destructive thought patterns about it. We shouldn’t feel bad for eating WHAT we want (not who we want - and animals are "who"s, not "what"s). Or should we?