Why do vegans want imitation meat?

#veganism

(I've been vegan since ~2020.)

This question comes up sometimes. Vegans don't want to eat animal products, so why do they want to eat something that looks/tastes like animal products?

There could be several ways to answer this. Let me try to answer it in a slightly abstract way that is a breakdown of my instinctual thoughts.

What really is the experience of eating a particular food item? I'd say there's two main parts:

1. The intangibles -- the culture around the food item, the people you usually share it with, your own experiences and associations with the food item, and facts of the food item related to how it was made and where it came from, and its impact on your health.
2. The direct tangible experience -- the flavor/taste of the food, its appearance, its texture, its smell. Everything related to your sensory experience of the food while (or before) you eat it.

Allow me to briefly imagine a hypothetical vegan person and a part of their journey. Imagine they spent much of their life enjoying a particular non-vegan, animal-based product. Most vegan substitutes or recipes could fit as an example here -- we could talk about direct meat (e.g. ground beef, replaced with imitation ground beef e.g. from the Impossible or Beyond brands) or a more complex recipe (like a lasagna made with vegan cheese instead of dairy cheese).

Suddenly (or gradually) this person^[1] becomes vegan, and they give up this food item. If we're talking about "vegan" in the strict sense of the term (as it is generally understood), then it means the person likely became vegan due to ethical concerns related to animal agriculture and the treatment of animals, and came to a decision to not put their money towards people/corporations that promote and directly cause suffering and death to animals when it is not necessary to do so to maintain a fully healthy human diet. The person likely came to the realization that the brief pleasure they experience upon consuming animal products does not justify the amount of suffering that the animal experienced throughout its lifetime, the pain of its death, and the shortening of the animal's normal lifespan, in order for the person to have that food experience.

The person likely feels that they made the right decision to move away from animal products.

Yet, when thinking about the experience of food, the reasons for going vegan only touch one part of the list of food-related experiences we described above (the intangibles of where the food came from what had to happen for it to get to your plate).

There is so much more to the experience of these food items that they used to enjoy before they decided to go vegan and give them up. Appreciation (and cravings!) for the flavors and textures of that food don't just disappear. The person may miss eating the food, even though they rationally understand why they've given it up and feel good about continuing to do so.

Vegan substitutes, including mock/imitation meats, can provide the familiar flavors and textures which the person enjoyed, without carrying the background of harm and suffering toward animals which are the reasons the person stopped eating the animal-sourced items.

Are the imitations always perfect, or even great (or even good)? Well, sometimes the imitations can be pretty good, and dare I say indistinguishable from the animal counterpart^[2]. And sometimes the imitations are not great, or even straight up bad-tasting or just a poor imitation of what they're claiming to imitate. But the point is that the mimics get us closer to the food item we are missing, even if it's not perfect.

To an extent, the merit of an imitation is up to personal taste, and also I feel a more productive outlook of poor imitations would be to consider the evolving nature of food science and recipe exploration (the imitations will get better and better) rather than taking it to mean that imitations are inherently bad-tasting.

Additionally, regarding the intangible experiences of the culture around the food item and the people you share it with -- it can be challenging for a vegan to find themselves suddenly displaced from these cultural and social associations. Suddenly they may no longer feel comfortable partaking in the food-based gatherings their friends or family hold. A vegan substitute can help get them a little closer to the experience they are fond of partaking in.