I have had silken tofu that was pretty decent. But I would only eat it if there was no other option.
The vegan restaurant I talked about had an excellent bean/chickpea-based burger that was actually wonderful. That I would like to eat, no question about it. But it was insanely expensive because it took so much effort and so many ingredients/processes (they showed me the recipe; it's crazy how long that took).
In the end, my pleasure from eating that isn't superior to a regular, much cheaper burger. Which is why it always ends up in a precarious moral argument.
As far as I'm concerned, veganism is an ideology for the affluent that allows them to express their perceived superiority, moral or otherwise.
This is weird, most vegan I know spend less than with meat : beans, peas and lentils are bargain and tofu as well. Even local-organic quinoa is the about the same price as the cheapest chicken once watered. Of course there’s fancy expensive restaurants with a different price/taste ratio but that’s not specific to plant based food.
Yes, if you cook everything yourself, it can definitely be less expensive. But not really if you use tofu or any other ready-made meat protein replacement.
In my region, tofu is actually pricier than many animal meats.
For example, it costs more than chicken thighs and around the price of cheap canned tuna (those are often less expensive when bought in bulk and with deals as well).
And if you compute for cost per protein, it is absolutely much pricier. For example, at my local drive, tofu is about 24g of protein per euro, and chicken thighs are 40g of protein per euro. More premium parts of meat are pricier, but then they are not really comparable in terms of protein/nutrition (you need to add tons of stuff to the tofu to be an equivalent).
I'm sure one can find some better deals on tofu and meat replacements somewhere, but the point is that they are not generally available and not very cost competitive. My vegan friend, who was very stingy, had the strategy of only buying the vegan meat replacement stuff when it was on clearance because it was at the expiry date (for some vegans, there is definitely a cheapskate aspect).
But this is not surprising when you learn about how those things are made and how many resources they require. They actually require a lot of processing, a lot of water, and a lot of energy to get made. Add to that the laws of supply and demand, and the economics are pretty bad.
When it comes to restaurants, all the vegetarian/vegan ones are of the fancy/expensive kind; there is just no other way to make the economics work considering the high amount of manual labor involved. This is why you can get a decent “classic” burger for 10-15€, while a vegan one will run you at least 20 €.
However, as you said, it can be cheaper if you cook everything yourself and only buy stuff like beans, chickpeas, lentils, quinoa, etc.
But you pay in another way: with your time, manual labor, and energy for cooking/processing. All those things take forever to cook (and often need to be pre-soaked), require combining to get a full protein panel, and also necessitate the addition of expensive fats to be any good (nuts, olive oil, and the like).
And after all that, you'll get something that still doesn't taste as good as any random meat that you prepared in 5 min in a pan, simply accompanied with pasta/bread/rice, whatever carbs you like.
If you wonder how I know all of that, it's because I did the work. I actually make a mean hummus for my vegetarian friends that I managed to sell at a very typical meat-eating restaurant (it was popular as a starter on grilled bread with pickles). And I have many other vegetarian-friendly recipes. But most people have to deal with pretty bad flatulence/bloating and all kinds of digestive problems like that. I could never make it work for myself, even after following the diet for months at a time.
And if you actually compute the cost and value your time above zero, it makes absolutely no sense, before even talking about any of the pleasure aspect of food.
The reality is, as we moved up the value chain, we delegated the complex and time-consuming aspects of protein production to animals. We have built a very efficient system around it, and it saves time as well as provides pleasure to humans. If the vegan alternative were competitive, they would have come up with something as convenient and economical by now. But it is not the case, and the same thing can be applied to lab-grown meat. I will add that animals do not provide only meat; we use basically every part of them for different things, so the typical vegan argument of animal farming being wasteful is completely bonkers (if the economics were not enough in the first place).
Which is why they systematically focus on morals and have a very annoying proselytizing behavior. But you can't really shame most people into a behavior; they first and foremost protect their interests. Naturally, most people are not convinced, and even if they can't make the argument for a lack of knowledge/skill, they “know”.
I associate veganism with highly religious behavior, and it is clear to me that there is a lot of self-loathing in those I know. It is similar to the self-flagellation of Catholics in a way. I consider it to be a dangerous ideology because it only leads to lower living standards: time-poor and pleasureless. I think that those people want everyone to suffer as badly as them and thus put the “well-being” of animals above those of their fellow humans. That's pretty dumb to begin with, because I can readily observe in my countryside that you can produce meat in a respectful manner.
The alternative to industrial factory farming is not going for the other extreme of veganism.
Please excuse the rant, but I have suffered the moralization and scolding of one too many vegans, and this is actually what sent me on the research path.
The funny thing is that I would be vegan if it made any sense, but alas, it is not the case, and having fled the church, I would rather not have another form of zealotry become popular. The hilarious part is that technically meat-eaters could be considered nasty to animals, but the vegans are often nastier to their fellow humans, short of killing them outright. Anyone who knows the behavior of your typical church lady can probably relate to some extent.
I agree when it comes to veganism. It is more of a religion than a rationale.
I was curious about your claims that meat could be cheaper than tofu, so I made a few notes on my last shopping trip. For comparison, I chose the cheapest cuts of chicken and pork, which happened to be chicken breast and pork butt, both relatively decent cuts, and I compared them to the cheapest package of tofu available to me.
I did not bother comparing against other meats (beef, fish, etc) because all of those are substantially more expensive where I live. Canned tuna may be cheaper, but I rarely eat it, so I also left that out.
So it looks like you're right: some meats are cheaper, or are at least competitive with tofu. But tofu is still near the bottom of the price range for me. Given that you are using €, I wonder if tofu is cheap(er?) for me because the US produces tremendous quantities of soybeans.
Re: your comment about paying with time, I would argue that it depends on whether you enjoy cooking or not. I definitely enjoy cooking. I do it to relax after work. And in my experience, producing tasty tofu is not much work. Pan-fried and salted tofu is already good in my opinion, and it's easy to pair that with a simple sauce (e.g., soy sauce + ponzu) or a stir fry. For a little more work, one could marinade it. In my experience, it requires about as much prep as meat. I spend dramatically less money than most of my peers on food, because I tend to prepare most of my food myself. I also grow a substantial amount of food during the summer months which gets stored for later (e.g., canned tomatoes, squashes, potatoes, etc). Again, I trade some time to do this, but gardening is an activity I enjoy, and so does my wife, so we spend time doing it together.
I do think it is an important question as to which approaches are the most "efficient": with respect to time, monetary cost, energy input, digestible calories, carbon pollution, etc. I listened to a story on the radio recently [1] that made the case that factory farming of meat is better for the climate than organic and so-called sustainable farming. I'm sure that the answer is not simple, but it does have me rethinking my food sources. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation and myth out there about _both_ factory-farmed food and organic food. I tend to see things from an engineering perspective, so I'd love to see more data before I draw any conclusions. It's hard to argue with the basic premise that favoring a vegetarian diet over a meat-heavy one makes better use of the energy from the sun. But I am not a purist and I gave up on a strict vegetarian diet many years ago in favor of pragmatism. It turns out that adding a _little_ meat to a dish can add a lot of flavor, and to a first approximation, you're not eating much meat.
I think the big thing about tofu is that it takes a lot of effort to make it of the excellent kind, so very often you end up with the bland one.