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France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

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Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#281

Post by cheese_goddess »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #228
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was tricked into buying vegan sausages. I don't even know how that is possible unless one is extremely unattentive. In my experience, vegan and vegetarian substitute products are universally located in the specialty section of the grocer and nearly universally advertise their plant-based status prominently. These products cost more than the real thing, so why try to fool anyone into thinking they're real meat? Th…

To be fair, "Beyond" products (Beyond burgers, beyond sausage) require grocery stores that carry them to place them in the meat section (though the store may also place them with the vegan meats). The idea is that people will get introduced to "close-tasting" plant-based meat alternatives, and it seems to have worked out pretty well for them, since they've been incredibly successful. It's been 18 years since I've eat…

For example:

https://youtu.be/8uN8PUU5U2Q?t=1463

(Shows Beyond Burger placed next to meat burgers in a French supermarket).

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#282

Post by cheese_goddess »

markstos wrote: post #10

The US meat and dairy industry have asked for similar bans as well. The problem is, consumers aren't actually confused. Different names will used if need be and consumers will continue the trend of reducing their meat consumption for environmental, health, or ethical reasons.

> Different names will used if need be and consumers will continue the trend of reducing their meat consumption for environmental, health, or ethical reasons.

Consumers are not reducing their meat consumption. Instead meat consumption is increasing:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-production-tonnes?ta...

> As a global average, per capita meat consumption has increased approximately 20 kilograms since 1961; the average person consumed around 43 kilograms of meat in 2014. This increase in per capita meat trends means total meat production has been growing at a much faster than the rate of population growth.

As is production:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-production-tonnes?ta...

Worldwide.

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#283

Post by sagarm »

tommit wrote: post #189
morsch wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How significant is it as a source of commercial fertilizer? A rounding error, from what I can tell. An article on the situation in Germany gives it the potential to replace 5% of phosphate, if all of the bonemeal was used, and currently, barely any of it is used that way. https://idw-online.de/de/news642547

It isn't. Not to mention that 80% of the soybeans are used to feed livestock anyway[0]. This is a bullshit argument, as most tend to be when it comes to this topic. [0] https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/food_practice/susta...

But when we're all vegetarian, where will the bullshit come from?

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#284

Post by todorus »

k8si wrote: post #144
SllX wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the “you’re holding it wrong” argument re-contextualized as “you’re just shopping wrong”. Unfortunately that is not always the case. I don’t know about the parent but I accidentally bought a “Chick’n Burrito” that was right next to the meat burritos. It did not taste like chicken. Could it have been avoided had I been more careful? Sure! On the other hand vegan dishes taste better than fake meat dishes and I real…

Again, vegans almost always have to read the ingredients/labels, on every processed food product they plan to consume. The little 'vegan' icon on the back is new and not consistently used. Choosing a plant based lifestyle is A LOT more burdensome than not doing that. I know because I've switched back and forth many times and am married to a vegan. Whey, casein, random cream, honey, they're in everything. Even so: rea…

Again: "you're holding it wrong".

Just because a plant based lifestyle is burdensome, doesn't mean people think it should be. And by that reasoning neither should any other diet. So I don't get why the projection of your experience onto the experience of others is so necessary

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#285

Post by cheese_goddess »

nemo44x wrote: post #129
kjkjadksj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been confused. I went to what I thought was a health food restaurant and ordered iirc a chicken sandwich. Received gardein which if you’ve had it is like a 1990s tier veggie burger aka not good. The cheese on it was also fake american cheese which itself was never cheese to begin with, but they still called it cheese despite it being nothing like cheese in taste or texture and only vaguely in color. At leas…

> The cheese on it was also fake american cheese which itself was never cheese to begin with, That’s not true. American cheese is built on cheese but adds butter and cream and sodium citrate to it as an emulsification. The product is a sort of cheese based product of varying quality of rather poor (common) to essential (any good hamburger). So maybe it’s not cheese on it’s own, but it is a product of cheese and the c…

Copying from an earlier comment of mine, "American cheese" or "processed cheese" is often (but not always) a blend of materials none of which begins life as cheese:

> Typical formulation for Analogue Pizza Cheese, from Fundamentals of Cheese Science:

  Ingredient               Level added (g/100g Blend)
  Casein and caseinates    23.00 
  Vegetable oil            25.00   
  startch                  2.00    
  Emulsifying salts        2.00    
  Flavour                  2.00    
  Flavour enhancer         2.00    
  Acid regulator           0.40
  Color                    0.04
  Preservative             0.10
  Water                    38.50
  Condensate^              7.00
^ Upon cooking the blend to about 85°C using direct steam injection, condensate equivalent to about 7.0 g is absorbed by the blend.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27169697

The list above is for "analogue pizza cheese" but that's just the most common use of this kind of "cheese": as pizza topping.

So, in a way, "vegan cheese" is not the worst kind of thing in the market that's labelled as "cheese" while not even close to the real thing.

Btw, many people who are not vegan or vegetarian eat this stuff and think it's cheese. I mean because it's on pizza. And it kiind of melts, right? What else do you expect to find sort of melting on top of pizza? Cheese!

So, yeah, 100%, you can totally and absolutely fool consumers by emulating the look, taste and feel of a real foodstuff. But usually that's because those consumers are so used to eating fake stuff anyway that they have forgotten what the real thing tastes like... if they ever even tasted it.

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#286

Post by nemo44x »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #285
nemo44x wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cheese on it was also fake american cheese which itself was never cheese to begin with, That’s not true. American cheese is built on cheese but adds butter and cream and sodium citrate to it as an emulsification. The product is a sort of cheese based product of varying quality of rather poor (common) to essential (any good hamburger). So maybe it’s not cheese on it’s own, but it is a product of cheese and the c…

Copying from an earlier comment of mine, "American cheese" or "processed cheese" is often (but not always) a blend of materials none of which begins life as cheese: > Typical formulation for Analogue Pizza Cheese, from Fundamentals of Cheese Science: Ingredient Level added (g/100g Blend) Casein and caseinates 23.00 Vegetable oil 25.00 startch 2.00 Emulsifying salts 2.00 Flavour 2.00 Flavour enhancer 2.00 Acid regulat…

I make American cheese all the time. 90% of the ingredients are cheddar cheese. Lots of good burger joints do this too. But yes, there’s very bad versions as you’ve described.

The main idea is to take a mild cheddar and tame it further while changing its texture and to make it melt nicely. This is why any other cheese on a hamburger is inferior.

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#287

Post by remuskaos »

antholeole wrote: post #246

Does anyone who used to be a meat eater and switched to the plant based meat alternatives like impossible burger actually believe that they are similar? I’m attempting to go vegetarian. Prior to my switch, I used to consume large amounts of meat (partially because I enjoy the taste, and partially because I lift weights often and the protein is easy) but man oh man those plant based alternatives are just nowhere near…

I've been a vegetarian for almost twenty years now, so my memory is a bit faded and the vegetarian and vegan products have changed a lot in that time. My experience is that it greatly depends on the type of product.

I've never, ever eaten a vegetarian burger patty, steak or Schnitzel that tasted like what I remember. Many still taste good, but I think for things like steak the texture is as important as the taste, and I don't think there is anything that believably emulates the texture of steak.

Things are different for sausage and thin sausage slices that you can put on bread, like salami. Especially the vegetarian salami tastes and feels exactly like I remember, and there is a large selection of vegetarian or vegan sausage replacements. Those are great, though I don't understand why they're more expensive than the actual meat products.

What I really miss though is gyros. No vegan gyros has even come close, and I've tried a lot. Probably again because texture matters just as much as taste. I'll just have to live without it.

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#288

Post by Klonoar »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #266
Klonoar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...no, in this case you are absolutely shopping wrong. Pay attention to the labels.

If it says, "milk" or "cheese" or "beef" I absolutely should not have to read the label. These things were made by farmers thousands of years ago, and have fairly simple "recipes". If you want to sell some vegetables or vegetable oil to vegans, I would have thought that vegans would go for it without the unappetizing association with dead, smelly, greasy animal carcasses. Why does vegan food have to resemble the thin…

Even if something is milk, cheese, or beef, do you just... pick it up without looking at what the product is, or where it came from or is sourced from? Read the labels. It is not hard. You exist in a world with other humans who use words across a range of things and it's on you to know what you're buying.

>Why does vegan food have to resemble the things that vegans avoid?

First off: it's not just vegans who buy or are interested in this stuff. People can find it beneficial from a sustainability point of view.

Second, people like the originals! We have rich culinary history with recipes and tastes that people don't necessarily want to give up, but may want a more sustainable/cruelty free/[insert your reason here] alternative.

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#289

Post by kcplate »

JohnPrine wrote: post #255
Ekaros wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go further. I would even eat provably humanely produced and safe human meat. Unlikely we will get there due to how complicated the safe part is. But still, I don't see it anyway different from other mammal meats.

Excuse me, what?

I think they are a fan of the “long pig”

Re: France bans veggie ′steaks,′ ′sausages′ to describe vegetarian products

#290

Post by remuskaos »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #178
squishy47 wrote: post #176

A lot of the other threads seems to talk about being tricked into buying a vegan product rather than the animal one. To me this seems like regulation is needed in deceptive packaging, not the product naming. Maybe products should have a logo for "contains animal product" as well as the veg/vegan ones? and make it waaaaay bigger, i shouldn't need vision pro max ultra to see those bloody logos!!

I think a universal vegan/vegetarian label would be great.

I've seen a green V symbol on many vegetarian products, so I've assmuned there already is?
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