Though that reminds me of the time I bought a real leather couch set that had absolute garbage everything else, the legs broke after a couple of years. Really not the part I was expecting the manufacturer to have cheaper out on...
Similarly, plenty of leather that will disintegrate and flake into trash or crack and peel, especially if not taken care of well.
Meanwhile, I have a 11 year old Vinyl “fake leather” car with no issues, and a 8 year old car with PU pleather that looks nearly brand new. Ironically, the steering wheel is made of real leather and has started flaking in a few small corners.
I’m not sure how any of those anecdotes proves which is more durable or long lasting than the other.
[1] https://mahileather.com/blogs/news/what-is-genuine-leather
There is some amazing vegetarian food out there. Both Buddhist and Hindu cultures have been making amazing vegetarian food for literally thousands of years and they are really good at it.
Also, vegetables are just yummy!
Fake meat, no thanks. Incredible vegetarian and vegan food exists, stop trying to fake it. Same with gluten free foods, almond flour is an amazing ingredient but it is different than flour. It is funny that the keto community had amazing gluten free recipes years before the gluten free communities figured it out.
What should they call it, then? Oat beverage? Soy water? No, that's silly. They are, functionally, milks. That's an apt descriptor.
Ditto for other vegan alternatives.
It varies by country.
On the "Soy milk" wikipedia page, it is said that Germany and Italy use names like "soy drink" or "soy beverage".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_meal
Manure is also fed to cows.
https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g2077
"Poultry litter can be used as a feedstuff... There are currently no federal or Missouri regulations governing the use of poultry litter as a feedstuff"
Poultry litter has been banned as cattle feed since 2001, partially due to mouth and foot disease and BSE and to some extent animal welfare.
A small percentage (usually enlarged designs of particular shapes) are made with sophisticated latex presses, but most are chemically-stripped and treated real leaves (Ficus and suchlike) because it's simply easier to make them in bulk.
I was amazed by this at first — I bought some for a photography project simply assuming that their flexible, slightly springy nature meant they were artifically-made latex. But no: ficus leaves automatically processed in baking soda, essentially. The latex ones aren't even cheaper.
So it's not so much as "the latex ones are cheaper" as "the real leaves are already made of latex, so why artificially make one out of latex?"
What is left from this process in the fake leaf is a mixture of latex sap and processed lignin, I think. It's certainly not only latex.