It seems like this viewpoint comes from carnists seeing very expensive mock meats and thinking that those mock meats are the only way veganism can be enjoyable. After all, these are people who are okay with animal exploitation simply because of taste pleasure, so the fact that they think veganism can only be "worth it" if they have big bucks to always eat things that taste very similar to meat isn't surprising.

It's gotta be this. The concept of meat-based diets being cheap and vegetarian/vegan diets being expensive was so alien to me when I first encountered it. Probably because of my immigrant background where the stereotypical "poor food" was lentils, rice, potatoes, bread. I'll confess total ignorance on the price of meat, but it seems inconceivable to me that it would be any cheaper considering the comparatively enormous input costs of its production.

I can only really speak to what I know, but I wonder if there's further layers to the class/cultural differences. I went vegan when I was 18 and had to cook for myself and reckon with the disgusting nature of meat. But if I had the money to blow >£2 a meal on ready meals, that wouldn't have happened. And in that case, it would have been financial privilege isolating me from the reality of my consumption. And being poor removed the possibility of that isolation. I dunno. But I do know that the idea of eating even imitation meat makes me feel physically sick after those teenage experiences.