The Vegan Thread

If it helps somebody transition to veganism by recreating their favourite food accurately enough for them not to miss it that can only be a good thing!

Not sure about this.

I get the / your point, still I'm not convinced this will work / I'm not sure this is the "way to go" in the first place, to be honest.
Why waste so much energy on realisticly recreating meat dishes.

I think this seems to help a small percentage of people transition to a vegan diet.
It's expensive most of the time though when you eat out, more expensive than real meat.
It takes a lot of time to prepare usually if you do it yourself (make seitan "steaks" etc.)
It tastes mediocre at best if you go for convenience vegan alternatives from the supermarket.

I think it only seems to help people transition to a vegan diet because they won't last anyway (they will go back to eating meat sooner or later) if they don't develop compassion for the animals, to make it short.
It's a good thing people "try veganism" - for whatever reason really, the animals won't care - and you could argue these products help more people try it, but I do also think a lot of them will quit - and in their head they'll remember the negative experience of: it being too expensive (vegan burger more expensive compared to McD, it being too much hassle (ain't nobody got time fo' that), or to mediocre-tasting (shit TSP / TVP products from the supermarket etc.) - so this can actually be counterproductive.

Alternatively they could eat hundreds of asian / indian dishes that are vegan anyway, taste awesome, and are not expensive and easy to cook -
and leave with the feeling of "this tasted awesome - I didn't even miss eating an animal at all, actually", rather than "this was somewhat ok, but it doesn't really compare to the real thing".