opinion
Vegetarian diet
There are more and more meat-free products in the supermarkets – and that’s wonderful!
There are more and more products for vegetarians and vegans
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“Meat substitutes” are still a strange trigger for some people: according to them, vegetarians should only eat lettuce. Luckily nobody has to do that these days, because the meat-free range is growing all the time.
To get straight to the point: I am a very frugal vegetarian. Probably inevitably, because I stopped eating meat around 1995, when I was about ten years old, and back then there were only the very first semi-ambitious meat substitutes on the market. Strong-smelling sausages in jars, from the health food store, or dried soy schnitzel in the look of cat food, both at exorbitant prices, of course. I still thought all of it was great when my parents, who, thank God, were very relaxed (meat-eating) on this point, did me a favor and occasionally brought something like that with them as an extra treat. If not, I was also happy with the basics: My favorite food for a long time was “rice with broccoli” – I say yes: frugal – vegetables, pasta, cheese bread – I didn’t need anything extravagant.
At family celebrations I was happy with the vegetable side dishes while everyone else got their roast, at the Schützenfest I could do without the currywurst and got the toast side dish with extra Hela spice ketchup and mustard instead. Top. Why am I writing this in such detail? Because it doesn’t take any special clairvoyant abilities to foresee that the first few Facebook comments below this text will be something like this: “If you want to be vegetarian, you should eat vegetables.”, “Why do you want to make meat out of something , which isn’t meat?”, “Meat substitutes are artificial and unhealthy and gross, as opposed to delicious antibiotic pureed chicken pressed in pig intestines.”
Vegetarians like substitutes but don’t need them
Not vegetarian or vegan needs meat substitutes. Believe us, we survived the last 20 years, when these things were still a rarity, just fine without them. Vegetables are great, we love vegetables, they make up at least 80 percent of our diet. We don’t miss anything. But you know what? If there are meat substitutes that are tasty, made with solid ingredients (we do read ingredient labels on packets, from fair experience), and are reasonably affordable, why not buy them when we feel like it? Few people become vegetarians because they don’t like meat products – but because they know how meat products are made. So if you can make something delicious without killing animals, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
And in the meantime, corresponding products no longer only seem to be of interest to classic vegetarians and vegans. Many people who actually eat meat but want to reduce their consumption occasionally treat themselves to vegan sausages or vegetarian schnitzels – and find that they are really tasty these days. In addition to such “typical” substitute products – cold cuts, “meat” sausages, sausages, schnitzel, nuggets, etc. – there are now more and more imaginative ready meals. Frosta, for example, even has vegetarian “chicken” fricassee, and Iglo has just expanded its “Green Cuisine” range with more creative and delicious options. And with vegetarian fish fingers (which are delicious)!
A change that could not have been foreseen
I am happy about this change in the supermarket shelves, which also reflects a social change. I would never have expected either of these ten years ago, but I’m glad I was surprised. It is now possible for me to cook “quite normally”, almost every “meat” dish can now be cooked with vegetarian products, and in most cases the taste would not even be noticeable. However, such products are still the exception for me, something “special”, but I’m glad that vegetarians and vegans now have this much larger selection – and that it’s now also much easier for everyone else, sometimes too have meat-free days.