Bravery has nothing to do with it. It tastes good, and there's no harm to any animals. So why not eat it? Denial for the sake of denial is not a virtue.

If you keep relying on meat substitutes, you haven't let go of meat entirely, and it would be easy to get back to meat eating.

That's like saying that if you enjoy shooting people in video games, then you're one step away from shooting people in real life. I've been eating fake meats for almost a decade now, and I've never been tempted to eat real meat.

I know how horrible and senseless factory farming is, and I have images of the slaughtered seared into my memory from vegan documentaries. Why would I go back to that when I can have substitutes that are just as good, if not better?

[+] Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com -7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't really answer the question of why, but the sample set of people I know who switch to vegetarianism and veganism bears out that the ones who rely in fake meats much more frequently switch back than those who focus on learning to cook foods that don't imitate meat.

On the counterargument, I did miss cheese quite a bit, and learning to culture my own vegan cheeses hasn't led to buying animal milk cheeses again, so ymmv

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your anecdote is meaningless as your sample size is not statistically significant.

[–] Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It wasn't meaningless, and I went out of my way to make clear the sample size wasn't statistically significant.

The point was that the parent comment implied there was no reason to start eating meat again after making a moral choice not to. My anecdote shows that some people do anyway, therefore there must be a reason.

That in my experience they tended to be the people who relied on meat substitutes was presented as an observation of interest, not as hard evidence of universal truth.