Hi

[John Marston]

Hi, I'm new here I suppose.
I've been vegan for about 3 months now, and it's been overall easy so far, and I don't see myself quitting any time soon (my only real regret is not doing this sooner). I went vegan after a friend showed me Earthlings, which easily made me more open to veganism. I then watched some videos and talks, such as Gary Yourofsky's speech, and that pretty much made me vegan on the spot.

My diet consists of a lot of mock meats like Gardein, which I'm trying to lower my intake of and am trying to eat more whole foods like veggies.

Cya 'round.

[Red]

Welcome Mr. Marston (like your name BTW)!
Feel free to chime in any time in discussions, we'll be able to help with any questions you have.

[John Marston]

Thanks, Red. I have a few questions about nutrition.

[thebestofenergy]

Welcome John!

Hope you like it here on the forum, I found it pretty useful myself being a new vegan a few years ago.

If you're looking to implement healthier recipes, feel free to check out our vegan recipes: wiki/index.php/Index_of_Recipes

It might help you out.

[John Marston]

Thanks thebestofenergy. I'm not really into cooking, but I'll have to give those a shot.

[Jebus]

Welcome Jonn Marston.

Good on you for going vegan. I also started heavy on mock meats. Now (after 15 years) I only eat them when I go out, never at home

[John Marston]

Welcome Jonn Marston.

Good on you for going vegan. I also started heavy on mock meats. Now (after 15 years) I only eat them when I go out, never at home

What kind of mock meats did you eat? Was it the processed ones like Gardein or was it moreof tofu and tempeh?
I like tofu but I'm not very good at cooking it well. I'll probably always have a couple mock meats around but again try to make them a lesser part of my diet.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hi John, welcome to the forum! I hope you like it here, please don't hesitate to jump in on discussions.

Good on you for going vegan. I also started heavy on mock meats. Now (after 15 years) I only eat them when I go out, never at home

I'm the reverse: I've been convinced that mockmeat availability and market share influences non-vegans to eat fewer animal products, so supporting those companies as much as possible ultimately results in (effectively) negative animal deaths because of that influence.

If meat = animal suffering and deaths, veggies = roughly neutral, mockmeats = negative animal suffering and death.

Can we have the same effect by taking the money we would have spent on mock meats and donating it? I'm not sure. Maybe with a charity like Good Food Institute, but even then I'm not sure that replaces consumer participation.

I realized how important bulk purchases are for these companies with the Tetrick Just Mayo scandal, where he was paying vegan activists to go out and buy just mayo and do whatever with it (eat it, donate it to a food bank, flush it) so it had high turnover at stores and looked popular. If it's so incredibly important for maintaining presence in stores and getting investment that it makes sense for a company to spend money buying its own products at retail, I have the feeling just buying mockmeats and eating them or sharing them with non-vegans is one of the most reliably effective forms of animal charity. As long as it's not done fraudulently, that is.

[John Marston]

Hi John, welcome to the forum! I hope you like it here, please don't hesitate to jump in on discussions.

John isn't actually my real name haha, it's just a name from one of my favorite video games.

I'll add to discussions when I can.

[thebestofenergy]

I realized how important bulk purchases are for these companies with the Tetrick Just Mayo scandal, where he was paying vegan activists to go out and buy just mayo and do whatever with it (eat it, donate it to a food bank, flush it) so it had high turnover at stores and looked popular. If it's so incredibly important for maintaining presence in stores and getting investment that it makes sense for a company to spend money buying its own products at retail, I have the feeling just buying mockmeats and eating them or sharing them with non-vegans is one of the most reliably effective forms of animal charity.

Oh yeah, it's very important to have revenue flow.
There have been cases in history of companies creating illegal cycles of money to increase revenue.

One of the main reason why they do that, is because revenue is the main factor that's looked at when a company wants to go public, and the main thing that investors go off of and that determines whether something may become popular among investors - and then you also have a stronger consideration that you'll receive from retailers once your revenue shows the demand is high.

One example of this is Crazy Eddie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie), where by cycling the money he had hidden and not declared (selling to himself the money he had stashed in black, back into his business as revenue), he managed to grow his company from 8$ share to 75$ share in 2 years.

It's sure that increased revenue flow is a major asset, and can quite literally make the company or break it.

For buying mock meats, it would be:

Pros:

- proof of concept and market size, by showing the market is big and there are a lot of opportunities, other companies will include vegan options and investors will invest, which only goes to favor further development and accessibility of vegan options (which would lower the barrier of entry to veganism, and reduce recidivism)
- lowering the cost of vegan options directly, by increasing revenue and eventually profit margins with bigger and better production, therefore increasing accessibility

Cons:

- it costs more for now, and the money difference could be used to donate to a charity that would further spread veganism
- it's less healthy than whole foods options, and veganism is under a giant magnifying glass for any imperfections, so being as healthy as possible is a good practice (however, a little amount of mock meats won't do much)

So, overall, it seems like mock meats would be good to buy consistently in small amounts (for health reasons).
But definitely a very good buy as a gift for non-vegans.

I'm not sure if the money difference given to an animal charity would be better, it depends fully on the price of the mock meats where you live - but then again, if the price of the mock meats where you live is very high, the place could very well benefit from a higher demand.

It's really going to depend whether the future food demand will be more whole foods based, or more animal products replacements based.

There's also something to say about which companies you should buy from to increase impact, as with companies that are public or are planning to go public you'll probably have the most effective result.