Hi y'all. I didn't read everything, but just wanted to share my personal experience. It's kind of messed up though.
My cousin is a vegetarian not b/c she loves animals but b/c she is anorexic, she is deathly afraid of fat. She also wear leather and fur.
I am chinese and my grandma (RIP) was buddist and vegetarian. We would go to chinese buddhist restarants with fake meat. As it DID NOT taste like meat, it still tasted good b/c of all the sauce.
Myself as an avid meat eater, I could never really enjoy fake meat. It doesn't do real meat justice. If you want something to taste like sausage, eat sausage. I love animals, and yes many are slaughtered inhumanely, but unless we are slaughtering our own meat ourselves (how do we KNOW how they were killed?), we have to deal with how it is done in the industry. It is a business now isn't it?
Also as a foodie, the worst fate an animal can have, IMO, is to be prepared poorly. Have you ever had a bad steak or over cooked chicken? I think about the animal that it came from, and I get sad.
Lastly, my bff (I love her to death) is a vegtarian who hates vegatables, so there is something for everyone. (Lentils and rice is her fave. To me that sounds gross, but to her a big fat steak sounds gross.)
Oh yeah, tofurkey is DISGUSTING! Get Boca brand stuff, not bad.