I think it is also a reason why a lot of vegetarian food options or certain ingredients like tofu in the US are seen as lesser.

Like this isnt a meatless example but how tofu is presented in the west is a good showcase of this disconnect. There are people who dont care for tofu because tofu has been presented to them as a meat fill in. Tofurkey instead of turkey, tofu dog instead of hot dog, tofu nuggest, and etc. And tofu is not meat. It's tofu. So yeah when you replace a Turkey dinner with tofu and are told its just as good or good enough you start associating it as an inferior tasting meat substitute.

But tofu isnt a meat fill in and in fact many traditional recipes use it in conjunction with meat. Tofu is tofu. It is its own ingredient and recipe,and if you use it as such instead of trying to pretend it's something else you can do good things.

Like the same goes for a lot of western vegetarian dishes. Instead of leaning into the flavor profile of the dish or digging up some old traditional meatless recipe(of which many exist even western dishes when you consider lent and meatless fridays were a thing traditionally). And dont get me wrong I understand that someone who went vegetarian or vegan may want to emulate a spicy chicken wing, or a burger, but it feels like a lot of the mainstream western options are all just drop in replacements.