A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals • Hacker News Board

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#191

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #113

_Microft wrote: post #8

The dish mentioned sounds far better than what is usually served as vegetarian food at canteens and restaurants. Quite often they offer just a compilation of side-dishes to have something vegetarian on their menu. (Dumblings with red cabbage and - wait for it - gravy from roasting meat is a widespread menu offer for vegetarians in southern Germany. Not sure if it counts as vegetarian option though). Once people notic…

In my experience, and in particular with conference food, vegetarian dishes has its own food culture and tastes. To be specific they usually do not include any pepper, garlic, chili, or herbs like parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and cumin. Salt and umami is also often missing. Instead the cooks tries to create tastes through using different grains, seeds, fruits, salads and vegetables. Food without meat does not have…

You should make friends with a family from India, and see all the spices they use in their vegetarian food.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#192

Post by thrower123 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

YinglingLight wrote: post #16

The study is on college kids.

It does sort of raise the issue of this being a captive audience.

If the dining hall at my college suddenly went vegetarian, I would have pretty much had to go along with it; it's the most convenient option, and often the only real choice to get something to eat between classes - going off campus would take too long. And then there is the case that your meal plan is only valid there, and in the case at the school I went to, you could not opt out of paying for the meal plan even if you wanted to, so you'd be flushing $500-$1000 down the drain.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#193

Post by frankhhhhhhhhh » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

This just in, people eat more vegetables when there are actual vegetables on offer. When vegetables are removed, surprisingly people eat less vegetables!

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#194

Post by mandevil » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #104

_Microft wrote: post #8

The dish mentioned sounds far better than what is usually served as vegetarian food at canteens and restaurants. Quite often they offer just a compilation of side-dishes to have something vegetarian on their menu. (Dumblings with red cabbage and - wait for it - gravy from roasting meat is a widespread menu offer for vegetarians in southern Germany. Not sure if it counts as vegetarian option though). Once people notic…

Western cuisine seems to fundamentally misunderstand vegetables. Methinks it was partly the unavailability of spices, and partly the easy availability of meat. Meat is like a cheat code when you're cooking. A good cut of meat needs a little more than some salt and fat to taste good. With vegetables, you're forced to be more inventive. Take okra for instance. In India, its a favorite vegetable. Saute it with some Indi…

I've always thought it was wealth. Around the world, wealthy people tended to have fairly similar diets with lots of meat (even in Asian areas, with exceptions for Jains and others who had religious objections). It's poor regions and peoples who need spices to make food palatable. There was a cuisine lock-in around 1850-1950 where food culture solidified into a single thing [1], and if your region was poor when that happened, you end up with interesting vegetables and flavors, and if it was rich, you end up with "large hunks of meat" as your cultural foods.

[1]: The reason British food has such a terrible reputation is that their cuisine solidified before widespread refrigeration was available but after urbanization, so it was built around carrying foods long distances that could survive no refrigeration- which drives you to overcooking, lots of sausages and preserved meats, etc. For most other regions the food culture represents a time before urbanization, and modern refrigeration supports that even when the population urbanized.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#195

Post by war1025 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

jamil7 wrote: post #110

puranjay wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western cuisine seems to fundamentally misunderstand vegetables. Methinks it was partly the unavailability of spices, and partly the easy availability of meat. Meat is like a cheat code when you're cooking. A good cut of meat needs a little more than some salt and fat to taste good. With vegetables, you're forced to be more inventive. Take okra for instance. In India, its a favorite vegetable. Saute it with some Indi…

I think it's also a matter of Northern European climates, meat and dairy was available for most of the year while vegetables other than potatoes and onions where really only in spring and summer.

There are a whole host of root vegetables that are pretty darn tasty and basically absent from the modern American diet.

Beet, Turnip, Parsnip, Rutabaga to name a few.

Northern climates can and in the past have grown a wide variety of vegetables.

I don't know where exactly to pin the blame for the current (but improving) state of affairs, but it isn't for lack of ability to grow a diverse set of vegetables.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#196

Post by benj111 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #175

benj111 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The vegetarian things I eat, taste nice, and just happen to be vegetarian, they're not meat replaced with Quorn. Additionally, one thing I don't understand, up until recently animal rights seems to have been the main driver behind vegetarianism. If you're morally against eating pig, why would you want to eat something that pretends to be pig?

If you're morally against killing people, why would you want to play a game about killing people?

One other thing I've never quite understood is that a child can watch James Bond shoot a few hundred people and that's fine, it is significantly less fine for that child to watch a film of 2 people having sex, even though sex is a normal heathy part of life. In the UK a 16 year old can legally have sex, but cant watch it?!

Tbh I'm not sure, I get turned off by things like Saw, because I don't really think theres the need to go that far, but on the other hand, is Mario jumping on a turtle animal cruelty?

I suppose the line is realism? Mario isnt attempting to be real? Quorn mince isnt attempting to be real, vegetarian bacon is.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#197

Post by justsubmit » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

nefitty wrote: post #170

damq wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all studies about vegetarianism are born of an agenda to promote vegetarianism. To a meat eater, studying the effects of eating an all vegetable diet is the same as studying the effects of walking backwards everywhere you go: it's not something we'd ever consider doing so we see no value in studying the effects of doing it. Furthermore, meat eaters do not care if other people don't want to eat meat. As such, m…

What blocks you from even considering the option? It's a little strange to see a comment so boastful of a lack of intellectual curiosity on HN.

> What blocks you from even considering the option?

Human biology, perhaps? After all, haven't we evolved over thousands of years to be omnivores?

> It's a little strange to see a comment so boastful of a lack of intellectual curiosity on HN.

In other words, according to you, people who aren't interested in being vegetarian lack intellectual curiosity. It's a little strange to see a comment so boastful of intellectual intolerance on HN...

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#198

Post by benj111 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #189

benj111 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non vegetarian, there's only one meat I don't eat for moral reasons, and I wouldn't want to eat anything that pretends to be that meat, regardless of whether I like the taste. Quorn cubes, or Quorn mince I can understand, they're generic. Vegetarian bacon is supposed to be a specific part of a specific animal. And I've never heard anyone argue, vegetarian or otherwise, that vegetarian bacon tastes anything like…

No different than the reason people eat turkey bacon. To have a different option that's the right "shape". Bacon is basically synonymous with crispy rectangle and sometimes dammit I want salty crispy rectangles on my burger.

Perhaps? I (personally) would disagree. To me bacon isnt generic, its as specific as chicken leg. I can see how that would account for the discrepancy though.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#199

Post by DennisP » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

_Microft wrote: post #8

The dish mentioned sounds far better than what is usually served as vegetarian food at canteens and restaurants. Quite often they offer just a compilation of side-dishes to have something vegetarian on their menu. (Dumblings with red cabbage and - wait for it - gravy from roasting meat is a widespread menu offer for vegetarians in southern Germany. Not sure if it counts as vegetarian option though). Once people notic…

My brother is a strict vegan and had no trouble on a recent trip to Germany. He used some kind of app to find restaurants with good vegan options.

Re: A rise in vegetarian options leads customers to embrace meat-free meals

#200

Post by geggam » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #183

geggam wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I choose to eat animals. You choose to eat plants. Question is why do you want plants to taste like animals and it was answered. Some folks don’t like killing. I don’t mind taking an animals life to eat. Therein lies the difference

> I don’t mind taking an animals life to eat. Therein lies the difference Can I ask if you'd be okay with killing all the animals you eat yourself? If you wouldn't be prepared to do the killing yourself, why?

Yes. I grew up on a farm. I used to hunt. I can raise slaughter clean and process animals.

I have always been close to my food source and I think that is why I find this disconnect people have interesting.

My wife can’t eat out of the garden because she sees the shit on the plants and the bugs that crawl all over them. She doesn’t have a problem with store veggies though :)