Delicious Meat Free Meat

Amid a long day of studying for what quite possibly is the world's most boring exam (Series 6), I made plans to meet up with an old friend from the Boston days. He is vegan, which I can't help but to give him a hard time about, and likes to do vegan things. So we went to Moo Shoes, which is a vegan shoe store so that he could buy some crunchy shoes for his new job. Then we went to Red Bamboo, a store specializing in turning things that are decidedly not meat (soy) into things that taste like meat. It was surprisingly delicious. It really tastes and has the consistency of chicken. Crazy Asians! (My only complaint is that they didn't have a single spicy dish in a 4-page menu)

I have a few questions from my experience:

1. Wasn't McDonald's the master of the meatless patty? What was so bad about that?
   
2. Are plastic/rubber shoes any more sustainable than leather ones?
1. Cow herding generally means colossally bad land management practices (water, rainforest, to name a few)
2. The methane that bovine produce is pretty toxic to the environment
3. Some find it inhumane to kill animals
4. If they're being killed for food, isn't it better to at least use all parts? Do we do that?
5. (Yes I understand that if you don't kill for food, then you don't have that problem, but damn cows taste good)
6. The rubber industry is riddled with problems ranging from child labor to deforestation to toxic dumping and other environmental degradation
   
7. Plastic is made out of oil. Need I say more?

Those are the things I can think of to at least start. Anyone have evidence one way or the other? It's definitely partially up to your personal preference on the meat eating issue. I used to be a vegetarian -- for 5 years. And then I went to college, decided I needed to try new things, and gained 20 pounds. Maybe that vegetarian thing was a good idea after all.