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Originally Posted by HappyLC
People become vegetarians and vegans for either health reasons or ethical reasons (or both). I think it's perfectly reasonable and understandable that they would want to try and recreate the foods they've eaten all their lives.
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I think that depends a lot on whether they're craving something similar what they've given up... or if the similar flavor and texture to what they've given up causes them to crave the real thing. If it causes them to crave the real thing, that would be counter productive to their cause.
But it can certainly be a transitional food too, as Bob's friends started out with, and then decided "why eat fake meat?" (For whatever reason - were they eating it because of the lab-created taste because of the taste and texture similar to meat satisfied a craving? Did they give it up because of the irony of going meatless, while intentionally seeking out something that was made specifically to look and taste similar to meat?)
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No, but there are a whole lot of low carb and keto dieters trying really hard to make almonds and cheese taste like bread, lol (fathead dough, anyone?).
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I"m sure this is true for a lot of LC/Keto people.
For me, I was never looking for the
taste of bread. For me, it's a matter of trying to recreate the convenience of bread, because bread tastes like cardboard to me these days. But I do like the convenience of being able to eat a burger or chicken salad without a fork - I like being able to put it in between two oopsies, and pick it up with my hands to eat it.
In other cases, I like having a substitute for a traditional food, but not necessarily because the LC part of the substitute itself gives me a a copycat flavor. For instance, I'll make oopsie stuffing, because the chopped up oopsies provide a similar texture and volume to the cubed bread used in stuffing, but it's the flavor of the savory seasonings, chopped onion, and celery (sauteed in butter) that I add to the stuffing mixture which creates the actual flavor I want. Mashed cauli doesn't serve as a substitute for mashed potatoes in any way other than to provide a similarly textured substance (because mashed cauli sure doesn't
taste like potatoes!) which is a perfect vehicle for some xanthan thickened gravy Admittedly, the xanthan thickened gravy
does taste very similar to flour thickened gravy, but that's primarily due to the flavor of the meat drippings/meat broth.
I do have a few other LC substitute recipes that I use from time to time - usually only at a traditional time of year for that particular food, for a lot of the same reasons mentioned above. The LC versions are also much more satisfying that the foods they replace, because they don't have the carbs of the original, with more protein and fat than the original, which makes them much more satiating than the original.
But it's the same as for a vegan eating fake meat - if a LC substitute just causes cravings for the real thing, that's going to be counterproductive to your goal.