Point A: never, ever whine about votes. It's lame as fuck. You take the downs and the ups and whining about the downs, or crowing about the ups is just bullshit.

PointB: I agree with the basics of what you said, but you miss a huge factor. Read on if interested.

I agree wholeheartedly that any commer product throwing vegan in front of a word for another food is bullshit. I even agree that the path to good vegan foods is abandoning the idea that meat needs replacing when there's entire cuisines that offer amazing food built around non meat, non animal sources.

It is also important to note that not only am I not vegan, I troll vegans occasionally by calling them religious zealots (because the ones that you run into are lol. The nice ones just live their lives and don't bother anyone.)

However, unless a person is raised without exposure to meat based foods, the truth is that meat is yummy, and a lot of foods that we take for granted and love are either meat based, or contain animal products.

This means that new vegans are trying to figure out how to change their entire life, and need help getting there. And, even as they learn more about plant based diets, they'll be having people they love that still eat meat, and substitutes become a form of good manners. Having substitutes isn't a bad thing. Again, I make fun of the jerk vegans, but being able to choose what kind of ingredients go into what I'm eating is a huge plus.

But how is anyone supposed to run searches for recipes without the word vegan being involved? "Non animal product sausages" is going to bring back wildly different hits than "vegan hotdogs".

The vegans I know (and cook vegan food for) did eventually transition away from a reliance on "replacement" dishes. But it's a process and it's one that means they'll miss some of their old favorites unless they do make these kind of things.

Point C: dude, don't rub your pet peeves on other people. It's rude.