Most people who do not have the ideological inclination are against tofu. Not because it is imported or anything, but because it doesn't taste good and has a terrible texture.
Even the people who originally ate it in Asia are switching up to more meat as they become richer.
I have vegan/vegetarian friends, one of whom is a chef and worked at a pretty good vegan restaurant, and not once have I eaten tofu that I would like to eat again.
It's just bad, but it's one of the cheapest and most convenient ways to get your proteins on a vegan diet, so that's that.
I have had silken tofu that was pretty decent. But I would only eat it if there was no other option.
The vegan restaurant I talked about had an excellent bean/chickpea-based burger that was actually wonderful. That I would like to eat, no question about it. But it was insanely expensive because it took so much effort and so many ingredients/processes (they showed me the recipe; it's crazy how long that took).
In the end, my pleasure from eating that isn't superior to a regular, much cheaper burger. Which is why it always ends up in a precarious moral argument.
As far as I'm concerned, veganism is an ideology for the affluent that allows them to express their perceived superiority, moral or otherwise.
This is weird, most vegan I know spend less than with meat : beans, peas and lentils are bargain and tofu as well. Even local-organic quinoa is the about the same price as the cheapest chicken once watered. Of course there’s fancy expensive restaurants with a different price/taste ratio but that’s not specific to plant based food.
Yes, if you cook everything yourself, it can definitely be less expensive. But not really if you use tofu or any other ready-made meat protein replacement.
In my region, tofu is actually pricier than many animal meats.
For example, it costs more than chicken thighs and around the price of cheap canned tuna (those are often less expensive when bought in bulk and with deals as well).
And if you compute for cost per protein, it is absolutely much pricier. For example, at my local drive, tofu is about 24g of protein per euro, and chicken thighs are 40g of protein per euro. More premium parts of meat are pricier, but then they are not really comparable in terms of protein/nutrition (you need to add tons of stuff to the tofu to be an equivalent).
I'm sure one can find some better deals on tofu and meat replacements somewhere, but the point is that they are not generally available and not very cost competitive. My vegan friend, who was very stingy, had the strategy of only buying the vegan meat replacement stuff when it was on clearance because it was at the expiry date (for some vegans, there is definitely a cheapskate aspect).
But this is not surprising when you learn about how those things are made and how many resources they require. They actually require a lot of processing, a lot of water, and a lot of energy to get made. Add to that the laws of supply and demand, and the economics are pretty bad.
When it comes to restaurants, all the vegetarian/vegan ones are of the fancy/expensive kind; there is just no other way to make the economics work considering the high amount of manual labor involved. This is why you can get a decent “classic” burger for 10-15€, while a vegan one will run you at least 20 €.
However, as you said, it can be cheaper if you cook everything yourself and only buy stuff like beans, chickpeas, lentils, quinoa, etc.
But you pay in another way: with your time, manual labor, and energy for cooking/processing. All those things take forever to cook (and often need to be pre-soaked), require combining to get a full protein panel, and also necessitate the addition of expensive fats to be any good (nuts, olive oil, and the like).
And after all that, you'll get something that still doesn't taste as good as any random meat that you prepared in 5 min in a pan, simply accompanied with pasta/bread/rice, whatever carbs you like.
If you wonder how I know all of that, it's because I did the work. I actually make a mean hummus for my vegetarian friends that I managed to sell at a very typical meat-eating restaurant (it was popular as a starter on grilled bread with pickles). And I have many other vegetarian-friendly recipes. But most people have to deal with pretty bad flatulence/bloating and all kinds of digestive problems like that. I could never make it work for myself, even after following the diet for months at a time.
And if you actually compute the cost and value your time above zero, it makes absolutely no sense, before even talking about any of the pleasure aspect of food.
The reality is, as we moved up the value chain, we delegated the complex and time-consuming aspects of protein production to animals. We have built a very efficient system around it, and it saves time as well as provides pleasure to humans. If the vegan alternative were competitive, they would have come up with something as convenient and economical by now. But it is not the case, and the same thing can be applied to lab-grown meat. I will add that animals do not provide only meat; we use basically every part of them for different things, so the typical vegan argument of animal farming being wasteful is completely bonkers (if the economics were not enough in the first place).
Which is why they systematically focus on morals and have a very annoying proselytizing behavior. But you can't really shame most people into a behavior; they first and foremost protect their interests. Naturally, most people are not convinced, and even if they can't make the argument for a lack of knowledge/skill, they “know”.
I associate veganism with highly religious behavior, and it is clear to me that there is a lot of self-loathing in those I know. It is similar to the self-flagellation of Catholics in a way. I consider it to be a dangerous ideology because it only leads to lower living standards: time-poor and pleasureless. I think that those people want everyone to suffer as badly as them and thus put the “well-being” of animals above those of their fellow humans. That's pretty dumb to begin with, because I can readily observe in my countryside that you can produce meat in a respectful manner.
The alternative to industrial factory farming is not going for the other extreme of veganism.
Please excuse the rant, but I have suffered the moralization and scolding of one too many vegans, and this is actually what sent me on the research path.
The funny thing is that I would be vegan if it made any sense, but alas, it is not the case, and having fled the church, I would rather not have another form of zealotry become popular. The hilarious part is that technically meat-eaters could be considered nasty to animals, but the vegans are often nastier to their fellow humans, short of killing them outright. Anyone who knows the behavior of your typical church lady can probably relate to some extent.
I have vegan/vegetarian friends, one of whom is a chef and worked at a pretty good vegan restaurant, and not once have I eaten tofu that I would like to eat again. It's just bad, but it's one of the cheapest and most convenient ways to get your proteins on a vegan diet, so that's that.