I can't WAIT until meat-substitutes become the norm rather than the exception, can't you?

@helenS

These things are undeniable tasty...well except for mushrooms lol

But the fact is that as a species, we [i]love[/i] meat. We're evolutionarily driven to love meat. We're not going to stop eating it just because there exist other tasty things.

But if we could enjoy the experience of meat which we love via a meat-substitute...well [i]that's[/i] why meat substitutes.

@Pikachu People love meat because they are [u]trained[/u] to love meat. It's a [u]learned[/u] thing. Nothing to do with biology, in my opinion.

@helenS

Not sure that's true. Certainly it can be a cultural thing but meat is generally a dense protein and fat source, things which are relatively rare in nature.
I think the fact that the consumption of meat is found in virtually every culture across geography and time suggests an evolutionary predisposition towards seeking out and consuming meat. The effect being that we enjoy it because enjoyment is just a physiological motivation which inclines us to pursue a given activity or resource.

@Pikachu Here are some figures for Germany: in the late Middle Ages yearly meat consumption was about 100kg/person. In the 19th century it had dropped to 14kg/person. In the 20th century it increased again to 88kg/person, and is on the decrease again now.
It depends very much on circumstances that are totally unrelated to human evolution.

@helenS Really? Not biological? Then why are we able to digest it?

You can say we are "trained" to love ANY food, but were the Palaeolithic hunter/gatherers so trained? No. They had no choice but luckily were physiologically equipped for that.

We have to eat to survive, and biologically we can eat meat as well as we can eat plant parts - give or take appropriate preparation.

We may [i]choose [/i]not to eat certain foods, for our own reasons, but what really matters is that our diet gives us all the proteins, minerals and vitamins we need.

@ArishMell Yes of course - we are free to choose.

@helenS That's an erroneous conclusion that doesn't account for availability varying during those times or many other possible factors. Anthropologists generally agree that it was our inclination toward and ability to eat meat that allowed us to develop such large brains. So it really is evolutionaly and physiologically encoded in us.

@helenS

I think you're mistaking the rates at which we consume meat for the enjoyment of meat...

@NodandaWink Yes, 250,000 years ago. Now, where we have that large brain, we can use it and stop eating much meat. Some high quality "organic" meat from time to time is ok, in my opinion.

@helenS That's an avoidance tactic. I was addressing your assertion that love of meat is learned and not a natural impulse. I described one reason why science believes it is wired into our DNA and you changed the argument to be about whether or not we can do something different with that drive. Weak.