If you want to be combative about it, you can always learn up on the history of food and point out all the things that he eats that are "fake".

That cola? You know that's fake, right? HFCS isn't real sugar.

That ketchup you just used? That's fake, you know? Unless it's walnut ketchup (at the very least) or fermented fish kê-chiap, that's fake ketchup.

Bread? Lol. I hope you are aware that bread made with commercial yeast is an imitation of real bread that has been leavened with naturally occurring wild yeast from the atmosphere; it's completely fake.

Oh you want to eat sushi? Yeah, that stuff is fake. Putting vinegar into fresh rice to mimic the sourness from lacto-fermented fish that has been stored in rice is bogus af.

Just try it out for a day and see how tiresome that schtick suddenly becomes when he's on the receiving end of it.

I'll hear people call plant-based alternatives "fake burgers" and "fake hot dogs," but burgers and hot dogs, including both real and "fake" ones, are literally just manmade culinary creations.

Working within the carnist realm, what makes a dead cow hot dog equal in realness to a dead pig hot dog? What about dead bird hot dogs? How do they determine which of the flesh-based hot dogs is the benchmark for "realness?"

I'm special because something suffered to feed me and you can't take that from me with your food that didn't suffer because then my masculinity will be hurt.

• these people

I think it is fair to call a food item fake if it is a vegan option that has the animal/animal product name on it. For example, it is fair to call vegan chicken wings "fake" chicken wings, because there is no chicken in it. However, for a generic item like a sausage, it just has to be some kind of processed protein in roughly cylindrical shape. Vegan sausage is not a fake sausage. You can call vegan cheese fake cheese, because there is no cheese, but you cannot call vegan pizza fake pizza, like dude you can eat it, it is a real pizza.

People's relationship to "real" food is very strange. Vegan alternatives are often clowned out for having additives and stuff (which are usually just regular nuts, veggies, beans or some sort of nut/veggie/bean byproduct) and it's "fake". Carnist foods are also full of additives and stuff (though its often just preservative chemicals or corn, it's always corn) and it's "real". Also I think it's very strange that inventive alternatives are seen as "fake"/"not real", like sour cream from a coconut is just kinda rad as hell to me.

I would have more respect for carnist if they had the courage to actually understand their consumption and go to butcher. Totally not saying it's okay or advocating anything like that, more so I'm saying I wish they didn't have the shield of all systems that obfuscate the animal flesh they consume. They just get their sour cream from store and either actively choose not to think or, to be sort of fair to people, are so conditioned by the various systems of power to not think about how anything they eat is made. It's "real" to them because they don't have to ever think about what makes it "real". Which is both astoundingly lazy and astonishingly cowardly if you ask me.

I have a relative that always says this and it does get grating.

Is there any reason you can't just say vegan or veggie as the prefix here? I don't like ambiguity with foods, especially when it's concerning like labels, health info, menus, recipes (usually not a problem), etc.

I just shrug and say I need to eat it or else my hereditary cholesterol issue gets much worse.

Friend, your dad is a bitch and if you give me his address I have 0 problems catching a charge by breaking his jaw~