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I'm not sure why this is a surprise, meat hardly has taste and fresh raw meat is like chewing on a piece of rubber. The point has always been to process the stuff (such as by denaturing proteins) and to add condiments, and that applies to lots of foods. If anything, humans need to improve horrible tasting food because humans aren't carnivores. Carnivores have way fewer tasting receptors, 2 and human umami receptors are mediocre.

It's in the mind.

In 2023, Rosenfeld co-authored a study finding that people who more strongly believed in humans’ right to eat meat, milk, and eggs were more likely to expect vegan burgers and ice cream to taste bad.

Precisely. Prejudice at the taste level. Or framing, if we want to be more neutral. The smell and taste of cheese is based on the same chemicals as the smell and taste of stinky feet (and there are some similarities to armpit sweat too): Foot Odor: Why Do My Feet Smell? | UPMC HealthBeat. Cheese smells like feet.

What matters here isn't the product, it's the expectations. Which is also why animal-meat corporations have tried to coerce supermarket stores to segregate the products, thus creating a prejudice in the meat eaters. It's not about confusing the animal milk or meat products with a plant-based product, it's about priming the customer to expect a very different experience.