Vegan substitutes for meat are generally processed foods. That must mean that veganism is less healthy because of a reliance on this processing.
The truth is that 37% of Americans get fast food on any given day, according to the CDC. If you deny them that, it's only because you're priviledged. So which is it? So, if you don't want to be so uppity, you have to accept the fast food, but then you don't get to pretend that carnists eat all natural clean food, and that vegans all eat some weird goo. Isn't the stereotype even of vegans being all uppity with eating a "whole-foods plant-based diet"? So it seems weird to then turn around and claim that your food is more uppity being less processed and more of a whole-foods diet.
And if the problem is in the meat patty substitute of a burger, say, then isn't it weird to then put your not-processed burger on a bun (a processed food) and add cheese (processed food) and sauce (a processed food)? So I guess you can't eat any of these things. But wait I thought veganism was supposed to be unnecessarily restrictive? So which is it?
Quite often, vegan foods such as soymilk are classified by some as "highly processed foods", even though it's basically soaked and filtered soybeans... with some vitamins added. On the other hand, milk is classified as "unprocessed" because it comes from cows that were loaded with antibiotics and supplements themselves, and then the resulting milk was then also filtered and pasteurized... and then it had vitamins added. And this is now not a "processed food". Similarly, if you press beans with a binder like flaxseed, it's suddenly a "processed" burger. when the same isn't said when you substitute beans and legumes for meat. This is just playing tennis without the net. Cooking a vegan food is "processing it" but doing the same to a non-vegan food is "natural".
If cooking your meat is processing it. Are you now about to go on how eat raw chicken and getting food poisoning is healthier than cooking your meat because it's "less processed"?
But no one would say (barring unusual circumstances) that taking a multivitamin is somehow less healthy because now you're introducing something processed. So,this is just bad health advice based on some idealized version of how cavemen lived (and therefore "that's how we're supposed to live") or some other fictional idealization that carnists have. If you disagree, see how much processing of ingredients is done to make your Lipitor that you're taking after eating how evolution "taught you to"?
No one is forcing you to eat a particular veggie burger or other food. If you don't want to eat something just don't eat it. There are plenty of alternatives such as beans, soybeans, lentils, etc. that can be great sources of protein and have only a single ingredient and no processing beyond cooking.
Let's just ignore all of this. The claim that carnists are required to make is that you cannot be healthy on a vegan diet. If you had some epidemiological data, you would just show it instead of resorting to odd arguments about how vegan food "seems" bad for you.