Coming from a Chinese upbringing, America's meat culture has always been a weird dichotomy from my perspective. You ate meat or you ate salads; tofu's a meat substitute; etc etc.
Meanwhile, in most Asian countries you wouldn't think of meat in that capacity. You can eat completely vegan meals for a week and no one would notice. Some dishes mixed meat WITH tofu because tofu's not a meat-substitute, it's its own thing.
I wouldn't claim that it's a more "moral" culture for it though. No one except the Buddhists gives a damn that "meat is murder," my family once killed a chicken in our backyard and ate it that night and our only problem with it is that it's more convenient to just buy the meat.

Kind of got some motivation backwards here, as the American not-meat developed as a response to the consumer's stunning ability to refuse to step out of their comfort zone.

"Look, you can have your whoppers and eat veggies. Happy?"