Why eat fake meat at all, why not just eat vegetables?
Short answer: Because most people aren't vegan, and a swap they'll actually accept beats a sermon they ignore. Free meat substitutes cut real meat-eaters' intake by ~63g a day.
No lectures, no demand to change values, just free plant-based substitutes made the easy option. A swap people accept beats a sermon they ignore.
RE-MAP randomised controlled trial (PMC9071457)
The objection
“If you’re not eating meat, just eat actual vegetables. Why bother with weird processed imitations?”
The answer
Plenty of vegans agree with you, since beans and rice cost less and skip the packaging. If lentils work for you, eat lentils. Nobody’s forcing a burger on you.
But this site isn’t only talking to vegans. It’s talking to the billions of people who like meat and have no intention of giving up the taste or the ritual of it. For them, “just eat vegetables” has been the message for fifty years, and meat consumption kept rising. Telling someone to want a different thing rarely works; handing them the same thing without the animal does.
The evidence backs the swap. In a randomised controlled trial, simply providing people with plant-based meat substitutes cut their meat consumption by around 63g a day at four weeks, with no lectures, just an easier default. The research on meat reduction is consistent: familiar formats lower the barrier, because they don’t ask people to abandon a food culture overnight.
So “fake meat” is best understood as a bridge rather than the destination. A sausage that fits into the same Sunday fry-up, the same barbecue, the same kids’ dinner, removes the friction that “go and eat a salad” never could. One meat-eater who switches their weekly mince spares more animals than ten vegans arguing about whether the burger is sufficiently artisanal.
The goal was never to make everyone love kale. It was to take the animal out of the meal, and for most people the realistic route runs through something that still tastes like dinner.