[HN Gopher] Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald'... ___________________________________________________________________ Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut Author : adrian_mrd Score : 418 points Date : 2021-03-02 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (agfundernews.com) (TXT) w3m dump (agfundernews.com) | nafizh wrote: | I feel the price is still quite high for daily consumption. For | example, 3 lbs of impossible ground meat is ~50$, so per pound | comes in about ~16$ (data from impossible website). Real ground | beef, even when you buy high quality will be around 7-8$ per | pound. | tommoor wrote: | It has been high but it's already coming down, I don't know how | permanently. Currently Impossible is: | | - Costco: $16 for 2lbs | | - Trader Joes: $5.99 for 12oz | therealmarv wrote: | This brand was tested by German magazine called "Oko-Test" on | their ingredients. Also not for the first time. It got a BAD | review again because it contains too much mineral oil in it | (could have various reasons, packaging of ingredients or oily | manufacturing machines) and 20g fat per 100g "meat". | | So it's unhealthy on mineral oil (MOSH) which can easily | accumulate in your body and fat percentage. | | One of the sources which you can Google translate: | | https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/food/beyond-mea... | | Another English article: | | http://www.ezineblog.org/2020/12/12/beyond-meat-fails-the-te... | mathgorges wrote: | The fat percentage criticism strikes me as a bit odd. | | At least where I am (USA) ground meat is categorized by its fat | percentage and 20% fat is the standard I usually see in the | supermarket. | | I guess what I'm saying is: 20% is indeed a high fat | percentage, but it's also the typical fat percentage for | conventional meat so it feels disingenuous to use it to | criticize plant-based meats. | pwinnski wrote: | 80/20 is very typical for ground beef, although some people | shop specifically for 85/15 or even 90/10. I find the 90/10 | lacks flavor. | Black101 wrote: | I drain the 80/20 meat after cooking it... so it is | probably close to 90% meat when I'm done | yurishimo wrote: | Yea depends on how you use it. Ground meat cooked for a | casserole, probably too much fat, but 20% fat in a burger | is good. | blackearl wrote: | Totally depends on how you're using it. A burger over flame | needs that extra fat to stay moist or you'll get a sad, dry | burger. Making tacos on the other hand makes it gush out when | eating and grossly congealed when refrigerated. | rarefied_tomato wrote: | The discussion of the fat percentage misses the relevant | concern. Mineral oil, unlike vegetable or animal fat, is a | petroleum product and carcinogen that bioaccumulates in body | fat. | | The oekotest.de link also discusses methylcellulose as a | cause of indigestion (a symptom mentioned in this thread), | and the presence of genetically modified soy. GM crops are a | concern because of their tolerance to high pesticide levels. | p1necone wrote: | The 20% fat does not consist of mineral oil. The mineral | oil content is separate, and from contamination from | machinery etc (presumably much much less than 20%). | atombender wrote: | You may want the primary source, Oko-Test [1], here. Your two | links are really unclear about what they mean. | | It's evident from the Oko-Test article that they are referring | to contamination ("residue" of mineral oil, as they call it). | Unfortunately, the published results are behind a paywall, and | they don't explain in the article just how significant the | contamination is. For all we know, it could be an insignificant | amount. It's also unclear if they tested any meat products for | similar types of contamination. | | [1] https://www.oekotest.de/essen-trinken/Vegane-Burger-im- | Test-... | [deleted] | submeta wrote: | Just when you think there is no hope for this planet and for | humanity something slowly emerges seemingly out of nowhere. | | Fridays for future was one of those developments that caught me | by surprise. Young people fighting for our planet while ,,angry | white men" claiming there ain't no climate change. | | Or take the sudden surge of interest in everything veggy / vegan. | In Germany there is a growing demand for vegan products, and this | demand seems to be very strong, because every grocery store has a | growing number of vegan products lately. | | I turned vegetarian last year not because I hate the taste of | meat but because there are a dozen reasons we should not be | eating meat. Environmental reasons, but also the pain we are | causing these animals, every single day. | marknutter wrote: | What's with the casual racism in your post? | txsoftwaredev wrote: | You can't be racist towards white people. It would only be | racist if the said angry black men. | marknutter wrote: | Only racists say you can't be racist towards white people. | You, for instance. | scottLobster wrote: | You can buy ethically sourced/farmed meat (albeit at a | premium), and farmed fish in particular is quite sustainable. | | I would dispute that there are "a dozen" reasons we should not | be eating meat. There are perhaps a few practical reasons we | should not be eating low-quality mass-market meat (health, | environment, animal cruelty), and a few moral reasons we should | not eat unethically raised meat. And even those reasons are | debatable (what if someone in a 3rd world country can only | afford unethically raised meat? etc) | sparkling wrote: | > In Germany there is a growing demand for vegan products, and | this demand seems to be very strong, because every grocery | store has a growing number of vegan products lately. | | Greenwashing PR | | Talk to any supermarket manager and they will tell you that the | vegan specialty section is a net loss. HQ tells them do keep | it, so they keep it. | mleonhard wrote: | Are you claiming that all grocery stores sell vegan products | as loss-leaders? Can you please share a link to some data on | it? | harveywi wrote: | Why didn't you consider cannibalism? | nine_k wrote: | Obviously, it still causes suffering, and the supply is even | more limited. | mutatio wrote: | Interesting, are there studies in climate change denial | demographics? | jordache wrote: | I tried the impossible whopper. You literally could not tell the | difference between that and a normal beef whopper. I realized a | lot the attributes of these commercial food products are the | additions, like sauce, and toppings that contribute to that | precisely calibrated flavor. | zozin wrote: | HN masses cheering on the success of Soylent Red or Soylent | Yellow?? Just eat less meat if you think meat production is | bad/bad for the planet, don't cheer on meat substitutes, which | are just processed foods made from entirely processed | ingredients. | | Eating meat for every meal is not good for you, but you can bet | that Beyond and Impossible will advertise themselves as something | that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. | | Enjoy your industrial slop, I'll just make a salad and eat meat a | few days a week. | mft_ wrote: | I assume you're being downvoted because of the tone of your | comment, but this is actually a really valuable point: | | > processed foods made from entirely processed ingredients | | There's evidence that suggests the degree to which foods are | processed (generally) correlates with unhealthiness. And | there's also good evidence that meat is unhealthy in various | ways. | | So, it's difficult to know where the balance would lie: | unprocessed meat, vs. processed meat-substitute? | poopoopeepee wrote: | > So, it's difficult to know where the balance would lie | | I would expect that soon someone will come out with a plant- | based meat substitute that is marketed as "Only five | ingredients, made in a kitchen not a factory". | mindcandy wrote: | The founder of Impossible Foods has said that a major motivator | for founding the company is | | 1. Global poverty is lifting. People around the world are | starting to make more money. 2. A big point of pride when your | family starts making money is literally putting meat on the | table. 3. Our current meat production process cannot scale up | to meet that demand. | | But, good luck convincing billions of people coming out of | extreme poverty that they're simply too late and they should | give up on the dream that they can finally have meat too --for | the sake of climate change. They are going to demand | _something_. He believes plant-based meat can reach that scale | at a tiny fraction of the impact if they can make it acceptably | close in quality. | | That's something I can cheer for. | poopoopeepee wrote: | > industrial slop | | Do you have a blender? Everything that comes out of a blender | is industrial slop by definition. Why shame people because they | allow someone to blend and form their food for them? | at_ wrote: | Their stuff is good. Here in the UK every supermarket chain now | has their own vegan ranges putting out stuff almost (admittedly | not quite) as good, priced very competitively. Even a couple of | years ago that simply wasn't case. | | Random stray thought I had earlier is how interesting things are | going to be when we move further away from emulating existing | meat products, and become more comfortable eating plant-based | stuff that doesn't necessarily resemble (or have names that are a | play on) anything else in nature, in the same way Pepsi is just | Pepsi. I'd love to take a peak at what menus are gonna look like | in 20 years, assuming this shift is the real deal. Are we gonna | have to memorise a slapstick sounding list of dozens of | engineered protein sources to get by? (Oomph, tofurky, | shroomdog... and of course, quorn! etc) | thehappypm wrote: | I love the idea of vegan meat alternatives but personally don't | like Beyond's taste. It tastes too much like peas for me, doesn't | get past "uncanny valley". I do like Impossible though -- Qdoba | has it and it's fantastic in a burrito. | dqpb wrote: | How does this compare to impossible burger? I didn't like | impossible burger at all. | ukyrgf wrote: | Impossible is definitely better tasting, but I'm happy to see | Taco Bell is included in this deal (though not in the headline | here on HN). I haven't been there since they got rid of potatoes, | so having a vegan option would make my taco consumption during | lunch break skyrocket. | mrbuttons454 wrote: | They are bringing the potatoes back. | jfengel wrote: | Taco meat [EDIT: in Taco Bell's usage] is a perfect | application, since its texture is already squishy and the | flavor is dominated by spice. Plus, it's wrapped in a shell and | mixed with lettuce and other things. Even a mediocre fake meat | is enough to pass. Beyond Meat should have no trouble producing | a virtually-indistinguishable taco meat. | whalesalad wrote: | Del Taco already has a Beyond Meat taco and it tastes like | shit. | jonwachob91 wrote: | Too be fair though... Everything at Del Taco tastes really | bad. :) | [deleted] | dragonwriter wrote: | > Taco meat is a perfect application, since its texture is | already squishy and the flavor is dominated by spice. | | "Taco Bell ground beef" rather than "taco meat"; this is very | much not true of taco meat generally, including the non- | ground-beef options at Taco Bell or other similar fast-food | taco restaurants. | dec0dedab0de wrote: | _Taco meat is a perfect application, since its texture is | already squishy and the flavor is dominated by spice_ | | Cheap fast food is a perfect application, There are plenty of | higher quality tacos in the world. | redisman wrote: | Well yeah but this is a Taco Bell thread haha | RandallBrown wrote: | Jack In The Box has been using textured vegetable protein | instead of meat forever. Most people don't even realize it's | not meat. | Alupis wrote: | > Most people don't even realize it's not meat. | | Except that it is indeed meat. It contains a Soy filler _in | addition_ to the meat, but it is meat. | | Straight from the Jack's mouth[1]: Taco, | Regular Filling Ingredients: Beef, Chicken, Water, Textured | Vegetable Protein (Soy Flour, Caramel Color), Defatted Soy | Grits, Seasoning... etc | | [1] http://assets.jackinthebox.com/pdf_attachment_settings/ | 108/v... | whalesalad wrote: | 2 for $1 Jack tacos are absolutely phenomenal for the | price. | dannyphantom wrote: | that's awesome; i'd love if Beyond could produce a nice | vegetarian fish substitute as well. also hoping buying some | shares wouldn't be a good short-term investment after their | earnings miss. | endisneigh wrote: | Is beyond meat actually healthier than meat? If you search my | question you'll see the results are hardly conclusive. | | What's everyone's take? | mpalczewski wrote: | A completely natural product eaten by humans for millenia, vs a | new factory produced goo. | | I prefer real food over fake. | mft_ wrote: | This is a reasonable look at exactly this question: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMGV_dBTE-k | | (no affiliation, just a subscriber) | dilap wrote: | Personally, I very much doubt it. | | Meat is an ancient food. We've evolved as hunter-gatheres, with | most of our calories coming from hunting. It would be _very_ | surprising if we were not well-adapted to eating a lot of meat. | Modern hunter-gatherer tribes which eat a lot of meat, like the | Hadza, have excellent health. | | Something like Beyond Meat is novel; it may well be OK, but I'd | certainly exercise a lot of caution before trusting it. | | Another way to look at the question, while incomplete, is just | to look at the breakdown of the nutrients. Per cronometer.com, | here's specimen A: | | https://imgur.com/a/uEWhL7E | | and specimen B: | | https://imgur.com/a/zcAXeya | | Which of those looks healthier to you? | | To me, they look pretty similar, except for A has a lot more | PUFA, and a lot less vitamin B. There is a lot of controversy | about PUFA, but my belief is too much of it is one of the main | causes of disease in people eating "Western-style" diets. | | So I'd guess specimen B is healthier; that's the cow burger. | | (Tangentially, is there a good website to easily share pngs? | Imgur compression is pretty brutal for text stuff.) | throwaway5752 wrote: | "Hunter- _Gatherers_ " | | There is a great deal of misinformation about hunter-gather | diets: https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/what-can-hunter- | gatherers... or | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet- | ha... (I didn't invest much effort in finding illustrative | links, there are many more, and academic research). | | Walking around constantly and digging up/harvesting edible | plants, insects, fungi, possibly carrion, and the occasional | meat (including organs) is much more likely. | | Most of our ancestors' calories didn't come from hunting in | most areas. Those that did had lifestyles so different from a | modern one that it makes no sense to compare them. | nepeckman wrote: | Compared to what meat? Which animal, which cuts, which quality? | Is it healthier than a really high quality meat, prepared well? | Maybe not. Is it healthier than fast food "beef"? Yeah | probably. Either way, environmental and moral concerns are just | as relevant as health concerns when considering diet. | kilroy123 wrote: | I personally don't think so. I'm no scientist. | | I have, however, done a LOT of studying about food because I | have some serious stomach issues. | | What has finally worked for me? Intermittent fasting for 15-16 | hours a day -- eating a low-carb diet filled with veggies. | | I feel a night and day difference eating like this. | | Btw I was mostly vegan and vegetarian for half a decade before | this. | | Take it as you will. | dec0dedab0de wrote: | I think it tastes pretty good, but I would be surprised if it | were any healthier. | therealmarv wrote: | I think it's more unhealthy because it contains too much | mineral oil (search my other comment) according to various | tests of a German magazine. | exabrial wrote: | Personally I avoid their stuff. I'd rather have a locally raised | steak from one of my neighbors who loves their cattle and their | job. | | Eating highly processed food just isn't good for you. | buzzy_hacker wrote: | The vast majority of people don't have neighbors who lovingly | raise cattle for slaughter. | beisner wrote: | To be fair, neither is red meat. Unclear which is worse, | though. | mikeg8 wrote: | Where are the studies that show _grass fed_ red meat is bad | for your health? All studies I 've seen concluding red meat | is a health concern are using _grain_ finished beef. | dukeyukey wrote: | There are studies e.g. | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sacn-iron-and- | hea... | | The vast majority of beef cattle in the UK are fed grass | from pasture most of the year, then hay/silage over winter | when there isn't much grass. The conclusion was the same; | red meat isn't great for you, at least in significant | quantities (90g+ a day). | spark3k wrote: | It's definitely bad for the health of the cow. | spark3k wrote: | I don't understand when farmers say they "love their cattle" | but then industriously kill them at 12% of their normal | lifespan. And repeat. In millions. | | The meat lobby really has a grip on the culture and identity of | the animal consuming public. | hyperpl wrote: | I agree. I once tried beyond meat by accident (some vegans were | visiting and did a switcheroo on me) and it was one of the most | repulsive things I had ever tasted. | cm2012 wrote: | Impossible burgers are way better. Can't stand beyond meat. | Kharvok wrote: | Almost all of livestock farming emissions come from | transportation and powering the processing facilities. | | See Frank M. Mitloehner at UC Davis research on methane emission | from livestock. | chasd00 wrote: | i've had it, it's not bad. It's no bone-in ribeye but it's not | bad. more power to them. | chiph wrote: | Same here. It's totally acceptable for something like a burger | or ground meat "crumbles" for pizza and tacos. It won't replace | a good steak (yet). | | Their problem as a company is that the product is pretty easy | to copy. And the danger there (beyond the threat to the firm) | is that one of the knock-offs will be so bad that it kills the | entire meat-alternative product space because of the bad | reputation. Which would be a shame - anyone who has driven by | the stockyards on Interstate 5 in California would appreciate | reducing our supply on cattle. | whalesalad wrote: | Bummer - the Impossible burger is 100x better than Beyond Meat. | I've tried the stuff at Del Taco too and it is pretty dismal. | Even my veggie sister was disappointed. | dukeofdoom wrote: | Just curious, is there a recipe for a home made version? Last | time, I tried making a burger, I made one with quinoa and almond | flower. Tasted great, but would not say tasted like meat. | barbs wrote: | This is undoubtedly good news, despite what some people in these | comments would have you believe. | | I seriously wonder if some commenters are being paid by big meat | industries to try and sway opinions of richer/more powerful | people? Or perhaps it's just the tendency of HN commenters to be | contrarian. | drewg123 wrote: | This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan | "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by | average people and not just dedicated vegans. | | Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best | things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to | the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the | surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the | documentary "Cowspiricy", or Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates a | Fake Burger to save the world: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-V3ESHcfA) | bendubuisson wrote: | I'm a vegetarian, but Cowspiracy is not something I would use | in an argument, the thing is full of shortcuts and misleading | facts... | chovybizzass wrote: | i don't believe cow farts are a bigger problem than cars. | hannob wrote: | Unfortunately the documentary Cowspiracy is operating with | massively exaggerated numbers (it claims meat is responsible | for more than 50% of ghg emissions, it's explained on the | wikipedia article of the film). | | Real numbers from credible sources are that greenhouse gas | emissions from the meat and dairy industry are around 15%. | Which is large enough to take this problem seriously, but it's | still far away from those claims. | | I think this is harming the case. The problem is big enough to | be passionate about fake meat. No need for exaggeration. | jredwards wrote: | I watched Cowspiracy. It was not convincing. It used numbers | that seemed wildly exaggerated on their face, even before | doing follow-on research. It also seemed designed to be | emotionally manipulative more than informative. Maybe I don't | watch enough documentaries, but it had a youtube conspiracy | theorist vibe to it, rather than a measured, investigative | approach. | nightski wrote: | The 15% is globally also. In the US it's as low as 7% (all of | agriculture is 10% - directly from the EPA website). | | We buy a 1/4 a cow from a local farmer once every six months. | It's a pretty low impact way eat meat. | hamax wrote: | Except for the cow. | fastball wrote: | It's only 1/4 of a cow. The cow still has 3/4 to work | with. | [deleted] | leadingthenet wrote: | The cow wouldn't even exist if it weren't useful to us. | Let's treat them as humanely as possible, while not | pretending they're something they're not. | | If you want to help animals, let's tackle the issue of | rewilding and reforestation more seriously. | _cloudkate wrote: | I share the same take with you! Reading some of the discussions | going on in the comments, I'm surprised anyone thinks this is | anything but good news. Like you said, it means: | | 1. non-vegetarians & non-vegans have more options. This is | great for so many reasons! 2. Demand for beef will go down, | which has a positive effect on the environment. | elktea wrote: | The popular crusade against meat is one of the more misguided. | Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant and the | environmental impacts have been greatly exaggerated. See below: | | Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would only | lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national emissions. | Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a reduction of just | 0.7%. At the same time, both transitions would create domestic | deficiencies in critically limiting nutrients [White & Hall | 2017; Liebe et al. 2020], which is not unexpected given that | Animal Sourced Foods are valuable sources of essential | nutrition [see elsewhere]. | | and methane: "As argued above, this is not wishful thinking as | there is still ample potential for mitigation of biogenic | methane in global food systems. Moreover, the global cattle | population has not been increasing during the last decade, | making its contribution to global warming debatable [Shahbandeh | 2020]. It is, however, true that methane has nonetheless been | suddenly increasing since 2007. Yet, this can be ascribed to a | multitude of potential reasons, incl. geological and fossil | fuel emissions, wetlands, rice farming, and landfills [Gramling | 2016; Nisbet et al. 2016; Alvarez et al. 2018; Rasmussen 2018; | Etiope & Schwietzke 2019; Malik 2021], or a decrease in | hydroxyl radical levels, the main sink for atmospheric methane | [Turner et al. 2017] | | https://aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenhouse-gas-emiss... | tryitnow wrote: | Those items just address the carbon issue (and 2.6% is still | quite a bit), they don't address the issue of the massive | land footprint that livestock requires. | | Where's the evidence that meat provides far more nutritional | value than any plant? | | And there have been a lot of studies showing that high | consumption of red meat and processed meats are not helpful | to health. | | I'm a meat eater and I'd love to feel better about my love of | steak and burgers, but sadly I just don't see the evidence. | bjtitus wrote: | TLDR: There is no "popular crusade" telling people to end all | meat consumption which will somehow leave you nutritionally | deficient. Hundreds of millions of people eat vegetarian | diets around the world and numerous studies show the benefits | of reducing red + processed meat consumption. Replacing fast | food burgers with plant based alternatives could be a good | option for people with decreased availability of plant based | alternatives to meat. | | > The popular crusade against meat is one of the more | misguided. | | The only "popular crusade" is the universal dietary guidance | against the excessively high consumption of red meat in the | western diet. There are mountains of evidence showing links | between higher red meat consumption and increased risk of the | top killers in many western societies (heart disease, colon | cancer, etc.). [1] [2] [3] | | There's a quick summary from the Harvard School of Public | Health for those who don't want to pour through the published | studies: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying- | healthy/whats-the-bee... | | You cite many studies here about the environmental effects of | meat production and exactly 0 citing the nutritional or | health aspects of meat consumption. Meat can contain valuable | nutrients but hundreds of millions eat vegetarian diets | around the world and many other sources (nuts, legumes, fish, | etc.) can provide these nutrients in better forms. All major | health organizations recommend limiting red and processed | meat consumption below what the average American diets | currently consist of. | | Replacing fast foods with plant based alternatives doesn't | seem like a bad thing at all when you consider that meats and | grains are the only things Americans are consuming over and | above the dietary guidelines - at 140% of the recommendations | [4]. Given that Heart Disease is the number one leading cause | of death in the United States, shouldn't we be prioritizing | alternatives which reduce the intake of high-glycemic | carbohydrates? There have been many studies covering plant- | based alternatives which back this up. [5] | | [1] Battaglia Richi E, Baumer B, Conrad B, Darioli R, Schmid | A, Keller U. Health Risks Associated with Meat Consumption: A | Review of Epidemiological Studies. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. | 2015;85(1-2):70-8. doi: 10.1024/0300-9831/a000224. PMID: | 26780279. | | [2] Salter AM. The effects of meat consumption on global | health. Rev Sci Tech. 2018 Apr;37(1):47-55. doi: | 10.20506/rst.37.1.2739. PMID: 30209430. | | [3] Abete I, Romaguera D, Vieira AR, Lopez de Munain A, Norat | T. Association between total, processed, red and white meat | consumption and all-cause, CVD and IHD mortality: a meta- | analysis of cohort studies. Br J Nutr. 2014 Sep | 14;112(5):762-75. doi: 10.1017/S000711451400124X. Epub 2014 | Jun 16. PMID: 24932617. | | [4] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart- | gallery/gallery... | | [5] Vatanparast H, Islam N, Shafiee M, Ramdath DD. Increasing | Plant-Based Meat Alternatives and Decreasing Red and | Processed Meat in the Diet Differentially Affect the Diet | Quality and Nutrient Intakes of Canadians. Nutrients. 2020 | Jul 9;12(7):2034. doi: 10.3390/nu12072034. PMID: 32659917; | PMCID: PMC7400918. | maelito wrote: | > making its contribution to global warming debatable | | The problem is not only rising emissions in the Last decade, | our emissions in 2010 was already way over the climate | budgets. | Voloskaya wrote: | Livestock is a real problem. Using US numbers, which has one | of the most efficient livestock management in the world make | those numbers not too bad at ~4% (that's still a lot, let's | be clear), but when you look worldwide the share of GHG | attributed to livestock is 14.5%, that's definitely bad [1]. | | Even if Beyond Meat will have a bigger impact in the US to | begin with, this will have a worldwide impact. | | [1] https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/using-global- | emission-s... | dnissley wrote: | I think you missed the point -- that if you tried to | replace meat with plants providing the same nutritional | profile, then the impact is far less than anticipated by | most calculations. | raws wrote: | I'm highly dubious of the statement that growing plants | to eat them is lightly less polluting than growing | plants, feeding them to cattle and then preparing the | cattle to eat the meat. Cattle does not sequester CO2 | like plants do and emits greenhouse gases. Also uses way | more treated water. | mikeg8 wrote: | When cattle are raised on well managed pasture, there is | zero transportation between the cattle and feed, where as | _all_ vegetables requires transportation, and more of it | pound-per-pound to reach the nutrient value of beef. | | Cattle only contribute GHG when raised on grain as their | digestive systems creates excessive methane breaking down | corn. If more people understood how cows and ruminants | _should_ work vs how they are currently used in the | industrialized feed complexes, they 'd realize cows are | not the problem, it's how we are using them. | leadingthenet wrote: | Right, but cattle can be raised where growing plants is | impossible, and they can be fed by-products of plant | agriculture that is not fit for human consumption. | | It's really not an either-or, something that I feel is | often lost in these discussions. Eating plants and meat | is complementary, and has been for all of human history. | getty wrote: | It's also becoming possible to grow plants hydroponically | in a highly automated and controlled environment | (warehouse/cattle shed), with up to a 98% saving in | treated water usage, 60% less nutrients required but with | more nutritious crops and no pesticides. This is the case | for High Pressure Aeroponics, which is slightly more | complex than other hydroponic methods. | | https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/ch_3.html | leadingthenet wrote: | That's an interesting point, but isn't it also true that | hydroponics are currently just not a very economically | feasible option? | kmm wrote: | What percentage of cattle actually subsists on otherwise | barren lands, and what percentage is fed soy and grains | explicitly grown for them. | jussij wrote: | There is a big difference is growing plants for human | consumption when compared to growing feed for an animals | and then consuming the animal meat. | | Basic biology says that when cattle eat feed only of | portion of that feed ends up as meat. | | The farming industry actually measures this using a | measure called the Feed Conversion Ratio. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Beef_ | cat... | | For example the FCR for cattle is over 4 meaning for | every unit of animal mass you'll need over 4 times that | mass in feed. | | This basic biology means it is always be more efficient | to grow vegetables for direct consumption than to grow | them for animal feed. | dimitrios1 wrote: | Plus an even larger issue is soil erosion, which reduces | the soil's capacity to act as a carbon sink: | https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/soil-erosion-decreases- | soil... | | Returning to the most sustainable method of raising | cattle, grazing, (such as simply letting cows graze) is | pound for pound the most effective way to greatly reduce | the carbon footprint left by industrialized livestock | production, and restore soil quality. | rtx wrote: | Grasshoppers are better | Spivak wrote: | I'm always kinda confused when people argue that 3.3% of | literally all emissions produced by every activity we as | humans engage in seem like it's a small thing. There's not | gonna be some magic bullet that will reduce our national | emissions by 45% or anything. It's all the result of a bunch | of small things added together. And we're at the point where | plant based meats and dairy substitutes are good enough in a | lot of different use-cases. | | If we cut our use of animal products to just the dishes that | really demand it then we're already way better off. Use milk | for your baking, not your cereal. Don't feel bad about having | a steak but maybe try the veggie chicken nuggets when you get | fast food. | maelito wrote: | Here in France, a relatively small country, people often | say "yes but China" to reject changes. But China is just | the sum of a handful of provinces that make up for the same | number of inhabitants than France. Each of these provinces | could say "yes but the USA". | windexh8er wrote: | Aside from the questionable source laid out here, the | statement that: | | > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant... | | ...is pure nonsense. Vitamins, minerals, fiber. Considering | you can't get _any_ fiber from meat is just the start of how | biased some have been influenced by misinformation. | dkdk8283 wrote: | Real climate change can only happen with the cooperation of | the worlds biggest polluters: China and India. | jay_kyburz wrote: | China's one / two child policy is doing a lot more for the | environment than what we are doing in most western | countries. | | That's a sacrifice I can't image us ever making in our | democracies. | audunw wrote: | > Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would | only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national | emissions. Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a | reduction of just 0.7%. | | ONLY? That's a pretty damn big percentage for such a small | piece of the economy. | | It feels a bit like saying "removal of Ford vehicles from the | road would only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6%" .. or | whatever it'd be. Of course you can make it sound small if | you compere a portion (livestock) of a portion (farming) of | the national economy, to all emissions from the entire | nation. | | Plant alternatives would have their own emissions of course, | but I think there's a more realistic path to zero emissions. | There's some interesting work on reducing methane emissions | from livestock themselves (additives to the feed and such), | but the path is more challenging. | luc_ wrote: | You should flip through some pages of "How Not To Die" by | Michael Greger some time... | diego_moita wrote: | > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant | | Bullshit, the kind of lies that the meat industry loves to | spin. | | Nutritional value is not one single measurable thing. And | even protein contents (meat's most common nutrient) when | measured per gram can be higher in soy and derivatives than | in some meats (e.g: pork but and shoulder). When measured by | calories other legumes (beans, chickpeas, lupini) beat most | meats. | | The only nutrient not often found in plants is B12 vitamin. | But it can be bought cheap as a nutritional supplement. | einpoklum wrote: | I'm no biologist, but even assuming all of that blog post's | sources are reliable - it is still cherry-picking findings: | | * Not counting livestock contribution to GHG, but rather an | estimate of how much removing it would reduce GHG (which is | room for a lot of speculation that is very hard to support). | | * Preferring a figure taken from a single paper by two | individual researchers over the United Nations' official FAO | statistic, which is 14.5% of emissions due to livestock | lifecycle. | | * Focusing on how forestation is challenging, while the | source acknowledge that the de-forestation is very damaging. | | * Ignoring the huge amounts of land necessary for growing | livestock (Example: ~55 times the area for peas for same | amount of protein [1]) | | * Ignoring the question of the distribution of meat | consumption among people in the world today, and the | feasibility of a meat-rich diet for everyone. | | I'm sure there's more, but this is enough not to be very | receptive to the claim of misguidedness. | | PS - Due disclosure: I eat poultry and occasionally other | meat. But I am still worried about the environmental impact | of its production, with the foremost aspect being de- | forestation. | | [1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=15588468 | rsj_hn wrote: | This isn't a crusade against meat, it's a crusade between | Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods as to who will capture the | (niche) alt-beef market. | | McDonald's signed an agreement making BM their preferred | supplier of fake beef, so Impossible is put at a | disadvantage. Absolutely none of this replaces any real beef | with fake beef, or even results in less real beef eaten or | sold. | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | YMMV, but it's much more than 2.6% in the US. Livestock is | 40% of of ag's GHG emissions. | | https://cfpub.epa.gov/ghgdata/inventoryexplorer/#agriculture. | .. | | And ag is ~10% of US emissions | | https://cfpub.epa.gov/ghgdata/inventoryexplorer/#allsectors/. | .. | | So eliminating livestock would reduce emissions by 4%. | | With that said, 4% is still low, but it doesn't account for | all the GHG emissions needed to grow feed for livestock, nor | does it account for other things like transportation of that | feed, energy used in processing by the industrial sector, and | so on. | shepting wrote: | Yes, and much of the non-livestock emissions from | agriculture is from growing plants _to feed to livestock_! | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | And process it, and transport it, and process and | transport the meat after we've slaughtered the livestock. | | Part of meat's increased GHG emissions are because their | are so many more steps in bringing it to market and | because it doesn't last as long. Most plants are | harvested, cleaned/processed, and transported to market. | Livestock generally needs feed, which is harvested, | cleaned/processed, and transported to the livestock, and | after livestock is slaughtered, it needs to be | cleaned/processed, and transported to market, and on top | of that it tends to go bad faster. | yxwvut wrote: | You're conflating domestically produced GHG emissions with | domestically consumed products' emissions. As a toy | example, suppose we grew no animal products in the US and | imported all our meat. Your method would conclude that | switching to plant-based diets would have no effect on GHG | emissions since livestock represents 0% any of our | agricultural GHG emissions. | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | Did you mean to reply to another post? | andbberger wrote: | I'll leave to the other comments to combat the factual | inaccuracies here but - there is an inherent and substantial | efficiency loss in consuming secondary consumers. | | There's no getting around that. | kleton wrote: | It only takes a little bit of bromoform to poison | methanogenesis in rumen. It would actually improve feed | conversion as well. | rtrdea wrote: | HahahahahhHa | vortegne wrote: | > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant | | Completely wrong | brailsafe wrote: | Do you have something more substantial to add? I do imagine | that to match meat on a value per gram measurement, you'd | have to have either spend way more or be lucky with where | you live, but something to check would be great. | Drybones wrote: | You can't just say "completely wrong" when it's clearly | not. | chickenpotpie wrote: | You literally just did the exact same thing | Drybones wrote: | Exactly how? | chickenpotpie wrote: | "That's completely wrong" | | "You can't just say somethings completely wrong | especially since you're completely wrong" | Drybones wrote: | Or how about not commenting to statements that aren't | completely wrong by saying "completely wrong" when that | is clearly debatable. | kleton wrote: | What is one plant that contains menaquinone or | eicosapentaenoate? | chickenpotpie wrote: | Sauerkraut, buckwheat, fermented soy | xwdv wrote: | Pound for pound, it cannot be denied meat provides more | nutrition than the same amount of plants. | krastanov wrote: | Pound for pound of CO2 (or water, or other resources) it | can not be denied that plants provide more nutrition than | meat. | chickenpotpie wrote: | Why is nutrition per pound your metric? Doctors don't | advise that we eat x pounds of food a day. Also this is | easily disprovable. A vegan multivitamin is thousands of | times more nutritionally dense than meat, but i don't eat | 2 pounds of multivitamins a day. | arcturus17 wrote: | Not OP but as someone who lifts heavy weights and often | needs 3-4000kcal a day, but doesn't have a huge appetite, | I do care about nutrient density. To me vegetarian diets | are not practical because of how much food I would need | to eat to hit my macros compared to an omnivore diet. | Voloskaya wrote: | Do your beliefs forbid you from having more than 250g of | food in your plate at a given time? If not that's not | quite relevant. | mdorazio wrote: | This is like saying pound for pound lead is more dense | than iron. It's a useless comparison. Meats have some | nutritional content that plants have less of, and plants | have some nutritional content that meats have less of. | Look up comparisons between beef and broccoli, for | example. | veonik wrote: | Are we also considering the pounds of plants that the | animal had to eat to grow to such a size? I should | imagine it takes quite a lot of food to raise a one ton | cow for slaughter. At least one ton of plant material as | food, right? To produce how many pounds of meat? 750lbs | seems reasonable. | | So if you had 2750lbs of plant food for yourself, vs just | the 750 lbs of meat -- which has more nutrients? | | (I do not know the answer myself, but I can see where it | could be argued that meat is not more nutritious, pound | for pound) | nightski wrote: | Humans can't digest grass. While we do feed cows corn for | at least a portion of their life, it doesn't need to be | as prolific as it is. | | But we also feed them things like beet pulp pellets and | molasses - both of which are by products of sugar | production. Unless we are going to stop eating sugar what | else would you do with this waste? | chickenpotpie wrote: | Humans eat molasses too... | nightski wrote: | Cane molasses. Sorry I wasn't clear - I was primarily | talking about sugar beet molasses which is used for | animal feed. | giantandroids wrote: | This really is a vague statement without defining what | you mean by 'nutrition'. If you're referring protein, | well sort of, however some non meat based products carry | plenty, nuts, black beans (15g of protein per cup).. At | the same time there are plenty of vitamins / minerals in | vegetables that you cannot get from meat. Vitamin C being | a key one. | arcturus17 wrote: | Probably exaggerated and imponderable, as it really depends | on how you would rank such a thing. But it is really | nutritious in that it packs a great density of protein and | micronutrients. | ben_w wrote: | Lentils, tofu, peanuts, and seitan are 25%, 20%, 28%, and | 80% protein by weight. Meat is about 26%, according to | WolframAlpha. Not that you actually need very many grams | of protein each day to be healthy. | arcturus17 wrote: | I find seitan and tofu completely unpalatable, and I | can't rely on eating hundreds of grams of peanuts to fill | my protein needs. Lentils are fine... | | I lift heavy, which I believe is integral to my good | health (the evidence on the health benefits of strength | training is overwhelming). You do need significant | amounts of protein if you lift - this is backed by both | research and empirical evidence. Designing 3000-4000kcal | diets high in protein without meat is entirely possible, | but highly impractical. | simias wrote: | Most serious weightlifters in my experience supplement | their diet with protein shakes or similar, many vegan | formulations exist. It's not super tasty, but I wouldn't | call it "highly impractical". | | Beyond that in my experience "lifter diet" is not exactly | gourmet stuff, unless you really, really like chicken | breasts. | arcturus17 wrote: | I drink about 2-3 day. It leaves anywhere between 2-3.5k | calories of real food to fill. It is highly impractical | compared to brown rice, chicken and veggies, which is one | of the reasons why they will be about the last population | segment to ever adopt a diet without meat. | ben_w wrote: | The diet you're describing also has a _significantly_ | higher calorie intake than most people's exercise level | can balance. If I ate that much, I would be fat not fit. | | (Also: I just picked four ingredients I just happen to | have; there are others). | danans wrote: | > You do need significant amounts of protein if you lift | - this is backed by both research and empirical evidence. | | Specialized athletic hobbies like powerlifting are sort | of irrelevant to discussions involving reducing GHG | emissions by scaling up plant based meat substitutes. | Niches like that aren't the target market. | arcturus17 wrote: | I am for plant-based substitutes anyway. It's a natural | vegetarian diet that I would struggle with. | tomstoms wrote: | About 10% of calorie intake is the protein sweet spot. | Incidentally about the average you would get from a | divers whole foods plant based diet. Meat diets will | struggle to get that low. In fact, the Norwegian | government has stated that it would in fact recommend 10% | because it would be the best nutritional advise, were it | not for the fact that it would be hard to fit into the | common meat based diets of Norwegians. I wish I could | provide a source but have since been unable to locate the | official document Were it was discussed. | nickelcitymario wrote: | > The popular crusade against meat is one of the more | misguided. | | This seems to presume two things: | | 1) That vegans and vegetarians are primarily doing it for the | environment. | | 2) That vegans and vegetarians can't do basic math. | | To the first point, I'd be fully supportive of plant-based | diets even if the only reason was concern over the treatment | of the animals themselves. The focus on the environmental | benefits is really quite new. Vegetarianism has historically | been about animal rights/welfare and/or a commitment to non- | violence. The environmental benefits are simply the cherry on | the cake. | | To the second point, you say meat provides "far more" | nutritional value than any plant. Maybe, maybe not. (I think | "not", but I'm open to being wrong about that.) Nutrition is | one of those weird fields in science where there's not a | whole lot of agreement about anything. However, the vast | majority of nutritionists and doctors are far more concerned | with the lack of fruits in vegetables in the popular diet | than they are with the lack of meat. | | The environmental benefits have probably been exaggerated, | but growing, distributing, and consuming vegetables is | obviously less resource-intensive and less wasteful than | meat. I'm somewhat shocked that this could be a controversial | statement. I'm NOT saying the benefits are so high as to, | say, "save the world" by going veg. There are plenty of | people who make this claim, and I'm very suspicious of it. | | But that's very different from thinking the entire movement | is misguided. EVERY movement exaggerates their claims. That | doesn't make them misguided, simply prone to hyperbole. | | (On a side note: I'm not vegetarian. I simply agree with | those who are.) | mft_ wrote: | I'm a fairly recent convert to being mostly (like, >99% of | my calories, probably) vegetarian actually due to the | health benefits. | | Environmental and animal welfare concerns are nice bonuses, | but weren't enough to make me reach the tipping point, I | guess. | rtx wrote: | Was it baby cow GIFs? | NoOneNew wrote: | >To the second point, you say meat provides "far more" | nutritional value than any plant. Maybe, maybe not. (I | think "not", but I'm open to being wrong about that.) | | Every anthropologist: Human brain development skyrocketed | and were able to maintain them when meat became a regular | staple to their diet. | | Just pick any documentary or book on the evolutionary | development of humans. Any! I'm tired of hearing this same | bullshit argument that, "Maybe meat isn't good for us. The | science isn't there that it's any good." Yes it is! There's | millions of years of scientific evidence that shows meat is | what made us the technological masters we are today! | Where's the science that meat isn't good for us? I want to | see that first. And don't give me the epidemiology of a | McDonald's junkie and lay that as claim of "all meat | eaters". They're as much of a carnivore as a second rate | vulture. Then there's that old study that claimed dietary | fat is worse than consuming sugar because, dun dun dun, | they were paid off by the sugar industry. | | Do a fair comparison of some folks that are straight edge | (no alcohol, smoking, vices, etc). Some herbivores, some | omnivores. It's even better if they grow/raise their own | food. That's when you'll see who's right and who's wrong. | | The one thing I agree with vegans is the fact they want | people to get the processed trash out of their diet. The | reliance on ultra processed foods for a majority of our | diets has been causing more harm than good. These plant | based burgers... yea... fruits right off the branch. | grawprog wrote: | >The one thing I agree with vegans is the fact they want | people to get the processed trash out of their diet. | | Except, i don't think i've yet met a vegan that doesn't | consume ultra processed soy and or gluten based products. | | All these meat alternatives are ultra processed to make | them resemble meat. They're made of ultra processed | protein and vegetables, spices and additives to improve | taste, colour and texture and to allow them to keep | whatever shape and form they're pressed into. The | creation of alternative meats is highly industrialized | process that creates ultra-processed food products. | | The single number one thing humans could do to reduce | pollution from agricultural production is to stop relying | on global imports and exports for so many things and | focus on small scale regional production. Reduce the | overall amount of mass scale industrial agriculture. | Because whatever's being produced, meat, plant or | otherwise, the methods being used to produce them and the | scale they're being produced on is the problem. | | Reduce the waste all along the supply chain, reduce the | global footprint, go back to less productive but more | sustainable production methods and focus food imports and | exports as locally as possible. Rely on regional trade | before global. | dekhn wrote: | Here's a perfect example of the ultra processed vegan | food: https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and- | flavors/other/bacn-piec... | | It's not surprising that the ingredients list is similar | to Doritos: Textured Soy Flour, Canola Oil, Salt, Caramel | Color, Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, | Lactic Acid, Yeast Extract, Disodium Inosinate and | Disodium Guanylate (Flavor Enhancers), and FD&C Red 40. | | It's basically and engineered umami delivery system. | havelhovel wrote: | I thought the argument was that fire allowed us to | process meat and acquire the calories needed to be more | productive. | | Regardless, your argument seems to be that eating meat is | better than starving. That isn't an argument for eating | meat. It's an argument for food security. Guess what food | security depends on. Reduced emissions. | estaseuropano wrote: | The agricultural revolution - settling, understanding the | seasons, plant selection and breeding - are much more | important factors to where humans are today and the rise | of civilisation and modern population scales than animal | husbandry. That was part of the story but I've not seen | any researcher arguing that domestication of the cow was | more important than grains. | | But anyway there is no doubt animal meat is nutritious. | The question is not xis it nutritious" or "was it | important for humanity in the past," the question is | where we go from here. Even if you can make a cogent | argument that it was essential to humanity's rise that | doesn't provide an argument (or vegans might say a | justification) that we still need animal meat in 2050. | Arguably constant warfare and burning coal was what drove | technological prowess in Europe to bring us a long way to | today's world, but would you argue we still need those? | Slavery was essential to the rise of America, does that | make it right to continue? Colonialism made Britain rich | and rose many Brits out of poverty, does that mean | Britain should continue exploiting India? Domestic | violence and marriage of underage girls was a common and | essential feature of human societies every where, does | that justify continuing them these today? | | Arguments based on past practice hold no moral or | scientific sway over our future. | tashoecraft wrote: | Just because meat helped develop humnans to have large | brain growth does not mean it is the best thing for | humans. Evolution prioritized different things. Living | longer and healthier past the age of 30 are not things | that would have been affected. | | You're going to believe what you want, but the meat/dairy | industry are truly diabolical in what they produce and | how they do it. From the conditions of animals, to how | they treat them, to even how they treat their human | workers are just bad up and down. | | How many people grow and raise their own food? We need | comparisons that work on a global scale. I believe some | amount of high quality meat and dairy can be good for | you, but we as a species consume way to much and it's | just been going. Our fish intake is absolutely | devastating for our oceans. The amount of cows, chickens | and pigs we slaughter is also extremely detrimental. | | These plant based burgers are a start. Beyond claims no | GMOs where as Impossible openly embraces gmos. Nutrition | science is difficult, but hopefully we're progressing, | and I think reducing meat consumption will improve | peoples diet on average. | fossuser wrote: | I think this is a strawman. | | It can be true that meat provides a lot of good | nutrition. It can be true that the human cooking/eating | of meat led to better nutrition and development in | ancient times (when people ate less of it). | | It can also be true that in the modern world you can get | that nutrition without meat and there may be other good | reasons to do so (animal suffering, environment, ability | to feed more people, more easily, potentially fewer heart | related diseases). | | These things don't have to be in conflict. I don't think | the comment you replied to was suggesting they were. | hirundo wrote: | It may be that the extra nutritional benefits of meat can | be matched by plant products. But the Beyond Meat | offerings do not achieve anything close to that. They are | made of highly processed industrial ingredients that are | designed to approximate the texture of meat but not the | nutritional profile. Pea proteins are not as complete nor | bio-available as meat proteins, and the fatty acid | profile is very different (and IMHO very inferior). To | the extent that your purpose is greater health for | yourself rather than less suffering, these products don't | provide good value. | fossuser wrote: | Yeah I agree, and I don't think that's Beyond Meat's goal | (or Impossible's) goal and it really shouldn't be. | | I think they're trying to get the experience of eating | meat right, they don't care about the health profile, | you'll have to get your nutrition elsewhere. I think | that's the right approach for them. | | Some others are trying to grow actual meat (Memphis | Meats), in that case you'd get the same nutritional | profile without the suffering if they can pull it off. | hammock wrote: | >you say meat provides "far more" nutritional value than | any plant. Maybe, maybe not. (I think "not", but I'm open | to being wrong about that.) Nutrition is one of those weird | fields in science where there's not a whole lot of | agreement about anything | | No need to look in nutrition, just look at biology or | physics instead. All of the animals with the largest | calorie / day and calorie / kg body weight / day | requirements, eat meat. There is no other way. | | Edit: if you are going to downvote me, provide a | counterexamnple please | LegitShady wrote: | like elephants? giraffes? Hippos? | | I'm not a vegetarian but I can think of lots of large | herbivores. | fossuser wrote: | > "On a side note: I'm not vegetarian. I simply agree with | those who are." | | This was my position for a long time until finally making | the jump at the beginning of the pandemic (vegetarian, will | rarely eat fish sometimes). | | For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other | animals. I thought this way before but it's hard to change | behavior and I liked hamburgers. I think this is the | strongest argument and the environmental or nutritional | arguments feel like side issues to avoid just tackling this | issue directly. The meat substitutes are nice because | they're close enough to satisfy the want at a cook out or | something. | | There's some long reasoning behind it, but basically | 'thoughtful local eating of meat' or whatever just felt | like a rationalization to me. If an alien came down to | earth and loved eating humans, but said they thanked every | human they killed and ate or that the humans had a decent | 20yrs of life before they killed them (and they only ate | local humans), it still wouldn't sit well with me. | | In the above example I was basically the alien that | understood and agreed with all the human arguments, but | still ate human because I liked human burger. Being | vegetarian makes my actions more consistent with what I | think is the right thing to do. | | In theory, you could draw some line at 'well humans and | other more intelligent beings are different because they | have dreams and a plan for their future'. Even if humans | could draw this line perfectly (which I'm skeptical of), | you'd still need to kill the 'lesser' animals in a way | without suffering or fear. I just don't think that's | logistically possible. It's definitely not the way it's | done in practice anyway. | core-questions wrote: | > For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other | animals. I thought this way before but it's hard to | change behavior and I liked hamburgers. I think this is | the strongest argument and the environmental or | nutritional arguments feel like side issues to avoid just | tackling this issue directly. | | For me, this is the weakest argument. Animals are not | people, and agriculturally farmed animals only exist | because of our actions. Cruelty aside, farming and eating | them is hardly immoral (as it is evolved behaviour - we | wouldn't be here to talk about it otherwise). The | suffering of an animal is not the suffering of a human; | and if suffering is our primary concern, there's plenty | of human suffering that still needs dealt with before we | worry about animals. | | > In theory, you could draw some line at 'well humans and | other more intelligent beings are different because they | have dreams and a plan for their future'. | | I don't have to resort to dreams and plans. They're | simply _not human_ and so as someone who doesn't | anthropomorphize them it's easy to simply not care | whatsoever about their emotional state. It doesn't | noticeably impact the quality of the meat. | | I think there are a lot of oversocialized people who | watched too many anthropomorphic movies and cartoons as | kids. Some of them become sexually attracted to such, | some of them just won't eat them anymore. Either way, | it's a strange and divorced-from-reality way to go, seems | to mostly have negative nutritional impact, and no | difference is made in the world as less demand = cheaper | meat = everyone else just gets more. | numpad0 wrote: | > vegetarian, will rarely eat fish sometimes | | > Even if humans could draw this line perfectly (which | I'm skeptical of), you'd still need to kill the 'lesser' | animals in a way without suffering or fear. I just don't | think that's logistically possible. | | So your line sits far above vegetables and below legged | animals with fish near it on lesser side, I see... | fossuser wrote: | I'm not perfect, I probably shouldn't eat fish either. | Maybe I'll stop at some point. | | Just because you don't do something perfectly doesn't | mean it's not worth doing at all. | fastball wrote: | Drawing the line at cognizance is not something you do | "in theory". That is where the vast majority of people on | the planet draw the line. You going one step further | doesn't make the line you've drawn any more objective. | YeGoblynQueenne wrote: | I don't think this is true. People don't care about the | thoughts and emotions of the animals we eat and we can | eat other huamns, just as cognizant as ourselves, easily | enough. Cannibalism is common throughout human history | and there have been even quite advanced societies that | practiced it widely, for instance the Aztecs. | | In any case humans have killed other humans for all sorts | of reasons that do not include eating them, again | throughout history. Why is invading another peoples' land | and killing them to take their stuff any better than | killing them to eat their meat? | fossuser wrote: | It's not that the line is drawn 'in theory'. It's that | they think they've drawn it in the right place (usually | humans on one side and everything else on the other). | | I think this is pretty empirically wrong and I don't | think humans are likely to get it right. | | Even ignoring that, there's still the suffering issue. | | There is objectivity at drawing the line to the left of | neural nets. | jimmygrapes wrote: | If at some point in the future we discovered a way to | identify and measure "suffering" in all creatures, and | (given this) further found that the animals we eat do not | experience it, then what? What if we managed to measure | the opposite of suffering (whatever you want to call | that; I'll go with pleasure for now)? What if the animals | experience quantifiable higher pleasure when raised as | food? What then? | | I'm sure you have thought of these scenarios in some way | and have a more nuanced judgement, as most people I've | talked to have. I'm just curious what are _your_ reasons? | Maybe they 'll convince me! | fossuser wrote: | > "If at some point in the future we discovered a way to | identify and measure "suffering" in all creatures, and | (given this) further found that the animals we eat do not | experience it, then what?" | | Then I'm okay with it (assuming in this hypothetical the | result is true). I'd be surprised since fear/suffering is | a pretty base level thing, but it'd change my mind. | | > "What if the animals experience quantifiable higher | pleasure when raised as food?" | | There's still the issue of slaughtering them and the | suffering/fear associated with that. Maybe you could | argue on net that it's ethical from a utilitarian | standpoint if their happy life outweighs their unhappy | end. I think though, that I'd find it hard to overcome | the negative suffering value they'd incur from getting | killed. | | One thought experiment is imagine a pig that was | historically bred to get happiness from being eaten. Its | life dream is to get killed and eaten and that's its main | purpose/goal in life, its only source of happiness. In | this instance while breeding this animal may have been | unethical, it already exists. Now is it ethical to _not_ | eat the pig? | | I think in the above example I think it'd be fine, but | it's also pretty far removed from reality. | | Reminds me a bit of this: | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three- | worl... | YeGoblynQueenne wrote: | >> For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of | other animals. | | The way I think of it, pigs are very intelligent, more | intelligent than dogs. However, humans are more | intelligent. If pigs were more intelligent, pigs would | eat humans. | | And that's not a figure of speech. Pig would eat us if | they could. They wouldn't stop and think, gee, does this | little baby human girl cry because it doesn't want to be | eaten, maybe I should stop munching on its belly? They | wouldn't stop to think, sheesh, this little blond baby | boy with piercing blue eyes is so cuuute, how can I eat | it? They'd eat us. | | And they'd also eat the cows and the chicken and the | sheep and the fish and everything else we eat. And they'd | kill their babies to keep the cows lactating and to take | their stomachs to make cheese with. And so on, and so | forth. | | So why should I not eat them? What kind of superior | morality am I supposed to claim for myself to think I'm | morally better than a pig? None. A pig would eat me, so I | eat a pig. | | I appreciate that's not a common line of reasoning and | I'm possibly overestimating the nutritional value of | humans, but in any case I don't see any problem with | eating meat, given that I'm an animal and some animals | eat other animals' meat. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | Artificial meat doesn't have to be plant based. It's entirely | possible that we could grow synthetic meat at scale with the | same nutritional profile as the real thing. | yboris wrote: | As I understand, there are places where you can just put cows | and they feed themselves off the land. But there is also a | tremendous amount of deforestation happening because those | lands are then used to grow food for cows that are in other | locations. | | I find it amazing how well avoiding eating meat aligns good | things: | | - less animal suffering | | - less pollution of air, water, and land | | - less waste (inefficient way to get calories) | | - better health (assuming you substitute meat with vegetables | and not highly-processed food) | mdorazio wrote: | I'm less inclined to believe a blog post than I am to believe | published & cited articles. Most estimates I've found put | overall GHG from diet at about 15-20% of total per capita. | And sources like [1] indicate that switching to a plant-based | diet cuts that number in half for western countries (the UK | in this study). That's 3x your number. Granted, meat | substitutes are higher on GHG than eating straight plant- | based meals, so it's probably more like a reduction of 3-4% | from switching to Beyond or Impossible. But as with any GHG | discussion, you have to consider what's actually feasible to | do (ex. changing dietary components) vs. really hard (ex. | reducing energy inputs to manufacturing) and optimize for the | former. | | [1] | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1 | NoOneNew wrote: | So, animals being alive is the general problem now when it | comes to climate? At that, the greenhouse gas problem in | livestock fed artificially large amounts of grains has been | solved by introducing a small amount of seaweed to their | diet. That's been kind of a non-issue for the past few | years as more and more commercial feeds have seaweed | included already. Just because you're not in the | agriculture industry doesn't mean other people aren't doing | actual good and change for the better. | hammock wrote: | >So, animals being alive is the general problem now when | it comes to climate? | | I wonder if Planned Parenthood has ever put out a climate | impact report. | kekebo wrote: | Do you happen to have a source for this? | NoOneNew wrote: | Let me google that for you: "seaweed livestock feed" | | But here, Yale, have a blessed day. God speed. | https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can- | help-c... | throwaway5752 wrote: | That is about "how it can" | | That is about a small scale pilot. It says nothing about | grazing cattle, about scaled up asparagopsis production | necessary to support global beef and dairy cattle | populations, or anything. | | It would be more helpful if you could find what level of | impact that is having, based on the article you linked it | is negligible right now. | tinco wrote: | Are they really? I recently heard in a local TV show that | farmers were not feeding seaweed to cows at scale because | it was more expensive, and the related uncertainties. Was | the information in the show outdated? The Netherlands is | globally known for its high tech agriculture, so I was | surprised they still were not feeding seaweed when the | benefit has been known for so long. | estaseuropano wrote: | From all I have seen (e.f. [1])the seaweed idea was still | in small scale trials as of 2018, please provide some | evidence for your claim that this is now already | mainstream. That said, the focus of this is on _methane_ | as one of the GHG produced by cows. This doesn 't count | CO2 produced by cows or the rest of resource wastage of | the meat industry, from the 7:1 grain:beef ratio to the | huge industry of the barns and slaughterhouses, | packaging, transport, ... All these factors are much | lower with vegetables/grains or even plant based options. | | And that is not to mention the moral side of animal | cruelty in the industry, deforestation for that | Argentinian beef, or the human suffering on the | processing side. | | 1 https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can- | help-c... | dnissley wrote: | The linked blog post contains a couple dozen citations, | fwiw. | codyb wrote: | One estimate probably includes shipping emissions for food | and one doesn't would be my guess. | | Of course, plant based burgers might not reduce total final | product shipping emissions but they might reduce a lot of | the intermediary shipping emissions since cattle require | feed. | | Also, there's that thing where we apparently ship chicken | to china to be cleaned and then back sometimes? That seems | bad, but I don't really know any of the numbers. I can only | assume it's on those cargo ships which use very crudely | refined fuels with little emission caps. | Bang2Bay wrote: | May be anecdotal, but four generations prior to me and myself | have all be vegetarians with no sign of deficiencies. and | many lived 90 yrs + . and I know many families who ate meat | only once a month or approx '10 meals a year'. meat is over | hyped. | tomstoms wrote: | Sorry stopped reading at " Meat provides far more nutritional | value than any plant" | | Edit: Vote it down all you want. The statement isn't getting | any less idiotic | TazeTSchnitzel wrote: | > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant | | Meat provides far less nutritional value than was | collectively contained in the plants used to produce it. | bweitzman wrote: | How are you comparing nutritional value between meat and | plant products? There are literally hundreds of millions (if | not billions) of people that have been eating vegetarian | diets for their entire lives, and these types of diets have | been popular for millennia. | tmotwu wrote: | Those arguments always drive me nuts because they're all so | bro sciencey, and I'm not even vegan or vegetarian. Sure, | meat offers a different set of nutritional value than | vegetables - you can most definitely replace it entirely | with other sources and remain very healthy. Billions of | people have done it for centuries and continue to do so, as | you've said. | novok wrote: | It's not brosciency, it's called bioavailablity. Ex: | Carrots have a lot of a vitamin A precursor in the form | of beta carotene, but the rate it's absorbed compared to | the form commonly in the liver (retinol), is | significantly lower and is reduced even further if you | have certain health problems, including common ones like | diabetes or insulin resistance. | kzrdude wrote: | A counter argument - billions of people subsisted on ok | food for centuries, but somehow in the 20th and 21st | centuries people got taller, smarter and had earlier | puberties because of better nutrition. | | Doesn't that mean there is a quality (and quantity) to | nutrition and not just subsisting, that we need to | examine? And the claim about meat is that it has a | quality that is beneficial. | tmotwu wrote: | Certainly you have to look at causations for that | holistically. People have cooked and eaten meat in the | past as well. It needs to be further studied on the | qualities that has driven our growth in the industrial | age. I think we now have a better understanding of our | bodies and how to gamify our growth, through a myriad of | ways whether or not eating certain amounts of meat and | balancing it with other foods. | dnissley wrote: | Looking it up now I'm surprised to find that the only | country with more than 15% of it's population being | vegetarian is India. So now I'm somewhat skeptical of | this claim. Will definitely need to do more research, but | do you have any sources off hand? To be clear I'm looking | to vet the claim that a vegetarian diet leads to similar | health outcomes compared to a non-vegetarian diet. | tmotwu wrote: | There's really no way to answer those outcomes broadly | because, for the vast majority of human beings, we don't | count our calories or compute the macronutrients in our | food. It's very difficult to see this unless you perform | the study on twins, since birth, maintaining distinctly | separate, perfectly controlled diets. The most consistent | take is looking at it from an anthropological perspective | - plenty of societies throughout history fed on a | vegetarian lifestyle, which continues to persist today. | dnissley wrote: | It would be interesting to see the stats of a country | like India though, where you don't have confounders like | vegetarianism often being a class signal like in the | developed world. Although the more I look into it, the | more I find that "vegetarian" is a pretty loose label | there. | | What societies in the past have mainly been vegetarian? | None except India seem to persist to this day. I hear the | human race took a pretty big hit in the early | agricultural era as far as life expectancy goes. | tmotwu wrote: | Buddhist societies and the sects formed around them | immediately come to mind. | ska wrote: | > How are you comparing nutritional value between meat and | plant products? | | It's impossible to do this really rigorously, as there are | too many unknowns in nutrition still. So this leaves holed | you can drive all sorts of sized trucks through, which | means a lot of argument but not a lot of resolution. | maxerickson wrote: | There's not magic shit in meat, it's mostly water and | amino acids and the remaining fraction is mostly bad for | you. | | (I eat meat all the time, but we know a lot more than | barely anything about nutrition. Figure out vitamin RDAs | in milligrams if you want an example) | ska wrote: | I didn't say we know "barely anything", just that the | unknowns are significant enough to allow a lot of wiggle | room and arguments. Including, for example, the accuracy | of many vitamin RDAs. | DetroitThrow wrote: | I'm shocked that people seriously believe that the | fundamentals of nutritional science are a virtual mystery | or has enough "wiggle room" to make ridiculously broad | claims about diet necessities. We know almost exact | micrograms of iodine we need per day to be healthy. We | have a pretty great idea of what the body needs to | function optimally and are getting a clearer picture | every day. | | Is this why GMOs became such a pariah? | ska wrote: | If what you were saying were true, we wouldn't have | wildly divergent (macro) diet and nutrition claims being | made in cycles without clear resolution. Most of them are | wrong, it seems, but the science is hard. | | You are right we have some pretty good information on | deficiency problems with key things like iodine, B12 | (topical) etc. We have much less understanding of how | even dietary source actually work even with some key | nutrients outside of lab conditions, and beyond that | dietary nutrition is absolutely full of handwaving. We | are nowhere near a clear picture; lot's of people will | tell you we are but they still contradict each other | regularly. This is not a mature science. | elktea wrote: | I'm comparing it by ... comparing the nutrients in each. | There are lots of examples of nutrients in meat that aren't | found in plants (carnitine, b12 etc) and even more where | the type found in plants must be consumed in far greater | quantities and converted to a form we can use (retinol vs | beta-carotene, DHA vs EPA/ALA etc) | | Millions of vegetarians doesn't mean meat is suddenly less | nutritious. | giantandroids wrote: | The B12 in off the shelf beef , chicken is from it being | injected by farmers (along with all manner of other stuff | such as antibiotics). | | The truth is that every living being is low on B12 due to | soil erosion / over farming. So in a way a meat eater is | supplementing B12 by proxy of an animal, where as a vegan | is buying a pot off amazon (and in turn able to get a | much more specific dose). | munk-a wrote: | But hundreds of millions of vegetarians does mean that | eliminating that meat from our diet is extremely | realistic and much more widely affordable. | mythrwy wrote: | By all means, feel free to eliminate meat from _your_ | diet. But "Our" diet is a different issue. | cphajduk wrote: | I'm not sure how the comparison is made, however Vitamin | B12 can only be found in meat and eggs. | | If you do not have supplements or eat this type of vitamin | containing protein, you risk paralysis and death with a 2+ | year absence of the vitamin. | | I wouldn't be surprised if there are other missing | nutrients as well. | kamranjon wrote: | There is plenty of B12 in seaweed and mushrooms and I eat | quite a bit of those - wonder if that's what's keeping me | afloat. | jhickok wrote: | Vitamin B12 can only be found naturally in the amounts we | need in meat and eggs. With the advent of culturing there | are now vegan sources at nearly every grocery store. | yread wrote: | It's ok you can just drink beer (!1l a day) to get B12 | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11464234/ | | (Of course, this study is from Czech Republic where | average beer consumption is something like 0.7l per | capita) | codyb wrote: | I was under the impression alcohol impacted B vitamin | absorption though, so this may not work? | | I looked it up and it seems to be suggested that it does | but I didn't look long enough to find a study. | ska wrote: | > however Vitamin B12 can only be found in meat and eggs. | | That's not quite right. B12 is mostly produced by | bacteria on the surface of plants. We can't synthesize it | an neither can the animals we eat. So if you eat products | of animals that have been eating such plants (or these | days, maybe supplements), there is a source, and | especially in developed countries is often the easiest | one. | | It's an important vitamin, deficiency wise, and for | humans there are 3 practical approaches: eat products | from animals that consume B12 on plants, eat those | plants, or fortify another food more directly. | | The 2nd one sounds like an easy win, but is made harder | by the fact that most processing (e.g. even vigorous | washing ) will remove all the B12 as it is superficial | and water soluble. | | It's also worth noting we don't need much B12, and we | don't need it every day, so managing this isn't very | difficult. | pwinnski wrote: | I've read this before, and yet weirdly, there're | literally hundreds of millions of people on this | planet[0] who've never eaten meat once in their lives, | and somehow they're not all paralyzed and dead before the | age of two. | | I'm not a vegetarian, but maybe we can avoid obviously- | false statements like this. Please? | | 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country | graeme wrote: | Meat and _eggs_. So you need eggs. It's also present in | dairy. | | So the parent's claim is an argument against | unsupplemented veganism, and your counter of | _vegetarianism_ doesn't address that. Massive difference | between the two diets in terms of needing to supplement | or not. | pwinnski wrote: | Oh, you didn't click through, maybe. Or missed that the | linked page included millions of vegans, too, in the same | chart. | | You can sort by any column, and see that the U.S., | Brazil, and Japan have the highest number of Vegans, | while Mexico and Poland purportedly lead by percentage, | though those two are disputed. | novok wrote: | Strict vegans are the only ones that typically have the | B12 issue. Most vegetarians still eat a lot of dairy and | eggs so still get B12 in their diet. Also a lot of foods | are 'fortified' by government regulation to avoid common | nutritional deficiencies that would arise with their | standard diets, so it's hard to take certain things at | face value. | pvarangot wrote: | There's a lot of vegan sources for B12, mostly fermented | stuff like tempeh or powdered yeast leftovers from making | beer. Some plants also have it. They are cheap and | plentiful and usually used in a lot of vegan foods like | "substitute cheese" or people blend them shakes because | they are also rich in other aminoacids. | | You can get all the B12 you need and even more from this | while still being balanced in macro and micro-nutrients. | Also B12 deficiency will usually make you psychotic or | very very tired and to die from it you have to be | completely depleted, if you live in the modern world and | eat products made with fortifried grains, like white | bread, pasta or some breakfast cereals, you will probably | never go below the threshold were you cause damage. | | There's also multiple protein shakes or meal replacement | shakes that sell for like 2 dollars that have enough B12 | for the daily recommended intake which is far far more | than what you actually need as it's based on the old 2000 | calorie diet thing. | [deleted] | hamax wrote: | Most omnivores get their B12 from supplements given to | livestock. | | It's the same supplements but with extra steps. | Spivak wrote: | Look, this isn't the whole picture and it super misleading. | Just because humans survived with a particular diet doesn't | mean that they wouldn't have been healthier had they eaten | meat. You can't just point to historical populations who | didn't have widespread access to animal products and be | like "see they lived." | | I'm not saying your not correct that vegetarian diets are | fine from a health perspective but this isn't evidence of | it. | arrrg wrote: | Don't you have the burden of proof exactly reversed? | mft_ wrote: | It's not just that vegetarian diets are "fine" - there's | actually a wealth of evidence that a meat-free diet is | far healthier - in terms of risk of heart disease, high | blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, and various forms of | cancer, for example. | | https://nutritionfacts.org/introduction/ | Bancakes wrote: | Thhere's also evidence for the contrary. If you care | about any dieting at all and watch your micros and | macros, you will invariably be above average in health. | mft_ wrote: | Really? There's a body of evidence that a meat-containing | diet is _protective_ against heart disease, type-2 | diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer, _versus a | plant-based diet_? | | I'd genuinely be very interested for those sources to be | shared, please... | buckthundaz wrote: | https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/4/734/4690022?lo | gin... | | https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/carnivore- | diet-fo... | nicoburns wrote: | I'm a vegetarian, I think this is true when comparing meat | with whole plant foods. But to be fair the the GP comment, | meat substitute products are almost certainly considerably | less nutritious (micronutrient wise) than actual meat. | Bang2Bay wrote: | for generations we have been vegetarians and many of my | carnivorous friends have told me the opposite. That is | they feel better nourished with plant based meals. | tomstoms wrote: | Exactly how certain is it? | sjg007 wrote: | I know it's McDonald's but if this is a healthier option | cholesterol wise that'd be good.. I mean maybe that's | impossible at McDonald's but -shrug- | akiselev wrote: | _> Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would | only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national | emissions. Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a | reduction of just 0.7%._ | | Methane (molecule for molecule) contributes far more to the | greenhouse effect than CO2 so without knowing how much of | those gases are from transportation versus digestion, it's | hard to tell how much actual impact it has. Focusing on the | GHG statistic also ignores the many other ecological effects | of animal agriculture like runoff and forest clearing that | has significant effects on our carbon stores and oxygen | producers like plankton and trees. | | _At the same time, both transitions would create domestic | deficiencies in critically limiting nutrients [White & Hall | 2017; Liebe et al. 2020], which is not unexpected given that | Animal Sourced Foods are valuable sources of essential | nutrition [see elsewhere]._ | | Cows need more essential amino acids from their diets than | humans do and the overlap between the two needs is almost | 100%. They can't synthesize atomic minerals so they're just a | delivery device for nutrients we'd get from other sources | anyway. Obviously I'm not suggesting we all switch to a diet | of alfa alfa but the whole point of the climate crisis is | that our way of life is unsustainable; something has to | change and I think most people rather it be diet, even if we | lean more on synthetic alternatives, than the total | population. This argument made sense a hundred years ago when | overwintering was a real concern and transportation wasn't | fast enough to deliver unspoiled fresh food so people had to | convert inedible plants to edible food. | | (I'm ignoring the difficulty of getting a large group of | people to switch away from culturally important or locally | available staples, which is what that nutrition argument | hinges on, because that seems to be the weakest link in the | face of an existential threat) | maelito wrote: | > removal of livestock in the US would only lead to a net GHG | reduction of 2.6% in national emissions. | | 100% can be split in so many small sums. Each percent is | worth taking. | ngngngng wrote: | Once we remove that 2.6% though, we'll have a whole new | 100% to fight against. | bnj wrote: | Just chiming in to say that I personally found this | really funny. Similar sense of sarcasm, I guess. | munk-a wrote: | Did you know that while HEPA filters might remove well | over 99% of air particulates once that's done you've | still got 100% of the remaining particulates in the air? | | Did you know that if I steal half of your money you've | still got 100% of your remaining money? | | That is a really weird argument. | ngngngng wrote: | I know hacker news isn't exactly the place for sarcasm | (not to mention sarcasm loss over text) but I couldn't | resist. | max-ibel wrote: | I thought you made a good point, actually. | | I believe its common to just give up a fight like this | because it's really never over, and no single step leads | directly to perfection. Why recycle when some recycling | still ends up in a landfill in India ? Why help a | homeless person when there still will be homeless | tomorrow? | | OTOH, most of us are still getting up every morning and | go to work. | fortran77 wrote: | > Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best | things we can do in the short term for the environment, | | And reducing the amount of food we eat in general! If the 66% | of the U.S. population who are obese or overweight just started | eating no more food than they needed, we'd go a long way to | reducing greenhouse emissions. | | Source: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22657 | swiley wrote: | Maybe. As someone who isn't a fan of the meat production | process and accidentally bought some vegan "meat" due to Amazon | pushing it on everyone it's _not_ the same. I threw it out | because I couldn 't eat it. | bluntfang wrote: | My toddler did the same thing! Just threw it off their high | chair trey! | partiallypro wrote: | Are there stats to back up that non-vegans begin consuming more | vegan based meals if they have the option? And I mean more than | once. A consumer might try it but then go back to normal. At | there good stats on repeat buying on a large scale? | nicoburns wrote: | I don't have any statistics to share with you, but in the | last couple of years pretty much every mainstream restaurant | chain in the UK has added at least one vegan option and few | vegetarian options. And I frequently hear non-vegetarians | saying that they sometimes choose those options (either | because they feel like it's a more ethical choice, or simply | because they like that particular menu option). | | Some people seem to consider meat a necessary part of every | meal. But that number of a relatively small percentage in my | experience. | jdlshore wrote: | Anecdotally, environmental concerns led me to consume less | beef and to try the Impossible burger. I liked it better than | beef and now I'll order it rather than a burger. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | "Conversions" and other voluntary consumption where people | specifically pick the beef they want doesn't really matter to | the bigger picture. | | Plant based meat is a rounding error until it gets good | enough (at an equivalent or better price to ground beef) that | McDonalds and Walmart can cut their low end products without | anyone noticing or caring. People don't understand just much | low end beef sells compared to the mid range products people | might replace with plants (at present). In my experience at | the foodservice level it's easily 50:1, maybe even 100:1. | jdavis703 wrote: | It's ambiguous what you mean by "cut," but Taco Bell has | cut their ground beef with soy based product for years. The | biggest question is how far can meat preparations be | diluted with fillers... I don't think we have to eliminate | meat to have a meaningful impact (e.g. a 50% reduction in | meat consumption would cut about 3% of US greenhouse gas | emissions.) | throwaway0a5e wrote: | That's exactly what I mean by cut. As the filler gets | better (which is certainly the long game for synthetic | meats) you can keep upping the amount as long as the end | user can't tell. You're very right about diminishing | returns and not needing to eliminate meat fully though. | koolba wrote: | It's like boiling a frog with the intention of eating it | before it jumps out of the pot. | maxfurman wrote: | There's an assumption here that, at scale, non-meat options | will be cheaper than raising cows. If the vegan option is $1 | and the meat option is $2, many consumers will choose vegan. | These are big ifs, of course, but it seems possible to me. | loceng wrote: | There will certainly be people who are indifferent and eat | whatever, and be lead/manipulated via the propaganda that | "vegan is healthier" - which arguably isn't true - but eating | high-quality, fatty, red meat is healthy; it's the other junk | people also eat with red meat that causes problems. | jdavis703 wrote: | I'm just a single data point... But I'm not vegan, but I eat | fake meats multiple times a week. In fact I haven't eaten any | real meat in 3 weeks. | arcturus17 wrote: | I'll eat fake meat from time to time but I still eat real | meat the vast majority of time. The main reasons are that | it's only distributed in restaurants where I live, it is less | protein-dense (I lift heavy) and I'm not 100% sure about its | safety. But I would be willing to eat more of it as these | issues are solved. | GVIrish wrote: | My personal anecdote is that I've shifted most of my meat | consumption away from red meat to Beyond Meat burgers, | chicken, and fish. I only eat steak as a special occasion now | where I used to have steak regularly. | | If there are more meat substitutes out there that taste good | and aren't exorbitantly priced I'll absolutely eat more of | them. | space_fountain wrote: | I'm also interested in any stats people can bring up, but the | proliferation of realistic fake meat has absolutely led to me | eating less meat | 8ytecoder wrote: | Every meal without meat is a win in my book. I could be wrong | - I assume most Americans have meat at least twice a day if | not all three meals and also snack on jerky and other | meat/dairy products. So any change will be a win. | thehappypm wrote: | I would think most Americans diet looks something like: | | Breakfast is vegetarian but not vegan, a bowl of cereal | with milk, bagel with cream cheese, coffee with milk, toast | and butter. Even the more involved breakfasts like eggs or | waffles don't necessarily need to have meat, just because | making bacon or sausages is time consuming and most | breakfasts are on the go. | | Lunch usually has meat but maybe not a lot. A few slices of | turkey on a sandwich, a salad with a few strips of chicken, | a bowl of soup with chunks of chicken or beef. | | Dinner has meat almost always, unless you are actively | avoiding it or are eating one of the rare vegetarian | dinners Americans will eat, like cheese pizza. Most dinners | will be something like chicken with mashed potatoes, pasta | with meatballs, stir fry, burgers and fries.. meat is a | centerpiece. | | Snacks are usually unhealthy but vegetarian. Chips, | cookies, ice cream. Jerky is expensive and more of a road | trip/camping food. | RandallBrown wrote: | I have friends that prefer the Impossible breakfast | sandwiches at Starbucks to their meat versions so that's what | they order. | throwawayboise wrote: | I'd like to know that too. I've never tried fake meat, and | have no desire to. If I want to eat meat, I want real meat. I | don't trust industrially processed synthetic foods, and I'd | think we'd have learned by now that they are not worthy of | our trust. | brightball wrote: | IMO this is the better solution to methane... | | https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/941030964/adding-red-seaweed-... | GavinMcG wrote: | Headline is "Adding Red Seaweed To Cow Feed Could Cut Bovine | Flatulence" | YeGoblynQueenne wrote: | >> This is the best news I've heard all week. | | Not meaning to snark, but I don't see the good news. A | manufacturer of mass-produced, low-quality, highly procesed | food has struck a deal with large companies that specialise in | selling exactly that kind of food. That the food in question is | plant-based makes no difference at all. Companies like | McDonalds, KFC and PizzaHut are responsible for the | normalisation of industrial food production that is causing | widespread environmental destruction and they have no incentive | to solve the problems it creates. Switching to plant-based | alternatives will simply change where the damage is done. This | is just typical greenwash. | | As a for instance of how companies like McDonalds encourage | industrial farming and agriculuture tactics that are | detrimental to the environment: | | _A Mongabay investigation, prompted by a report done earlier | this year by the NGO Mighty Earth, suggests that customers | buying chicken from some of Britain's largest supermarkets and | fast food chains may unwittingly be fuelling rampant | deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon and Brazilian savanna._ | | _Tesco, Morrisons and McDonald's buy their chicken from | Cargill, the biggest private company in the world, which feeds | its poultry with imported soy. The U.S. food distributor | purchases its soy from large-scale agribusiness operations that | often burn and clear large swathes of native forest to make way | for their plantations._ | | https://www.mightyearth.org/ukmeatinvestigation/ | war1025 wrote: | > The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it | is to be adopted by average people | | This argument always reminds me of Margarine, which was | promoted for years as having great health benefits, and then we | later find out that it is loaded with trans fats and actually | terrible for you. | therealmarv wrote: | You should research on German Okotest and beyond meat test. I | don't get why things like beyond meat is not more tested. Why | is mineral oil in their patties ??? | savrajsingh wrote: | there is no mineral oil in beyond meat: | https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/beyond-beef/ click | 'ingredients' | therealmarv wrote: | not on purpose. Just google for words: | | beyond meat mineral oil Oko-Test | | or see my other comment | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26320898 | kleton wrote: | If you fly over the country, you will see a bunch of green | circles from center pivot irrigation systems mining "fossil" | groundwater. All the brown spots outside of those circles are | vegetated, but the only way to get human food out of them is | grazing. By necessity there will always be a large amount of | cattle grazing area. Feedlots should be ended as a practice- | wasteful of feedstock and poor quality and nutrition of the | output. | rsj_hn wrote: | The agreement isn't to make vegan meat more available, but to | make Beyond Meat the "preferred supplier" of vegan meat when | they do sell it (so that they don't choose an alternate vegan | beef supplier for their patties but buy all their alt-beef from | BM). | | E.g. this is an industry press release akin to saying "We were | chosen to supply the rubber for the new Toyota Tacoma". People | reading this as McDonald's promising to stop using beef or | replacing beef with the fake beef or even putting the alt-beef | into new dishes are misinterpreting this press release. | DamnYuppie wrote: | I truly don't understand the methane issue. Historically | worldwide the # of ungulates is probably well below historical | averages. It looks like today we have around 98 million head of | cattle in the US. Historically we had bison in excess of | conservatively 60 million. This doesn't even begin to count all | the animals in Africa. Overall wide life is declining. | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison | | The point is the amount of large mammal farts, it appears to be | burps, going on now is probably not that much higher than it | always has been. We have merely swapped out one large untamed | mammal for a more domesticated one. | | EDIT: I should point out I am not advocating for more cows. I | don't think we should be clear cutting forests to raise more of | them. Yet I don't think we should be running to get rid of all | of them either. Historically beef was quite expensive and was | usually reserved for rare occasions or the very wealthy. I can | see a path forward where we keep the herd size constant and let | prices rise. This would obviously drive people to look for | cheaper substitutes. | mleonhard wrote: | Today we are not choosing between raising meat animals and | restoring land to its pre-industrialization state. So the | original GHG emission rate of ancient animals is not | important to our decision. We are choosing between raising | meat animals and raising crops. Therefore the GHG emissions | rate of modern meat animals is important. | tmpz22 wrote: | If we can reduce any source with little to no consequences we | should do it. The point is we're over capacity because we've | added petroleum and other sources, namely large container | ships that aren't going to be constrained anytime soon. | AlexandrB wrote: | This would only be relevant if all other things were equal. | If we can cut methane emissions to below "historical | averages" it will at least buy us some time to get CO2 | emissions in check. | rictic wrote: | Every greenhouse gas counts, whether it's part of the | preexisting baseline or something recent we started emitting. | The goal isn't a return to how things were, the goal is to | keep the temperature from climbing too high too quickly. | xnx wrote: | Burps, not farts, are the primary source of methane: | https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/33/which-is-a-bigger-methane- | so... | dwd wrote: | There's already a solution in the works... | | https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate- | change/flatulent-... | wyre wrote: | For this to scale properly it would need to rely on | creating a new market for seaweed farms with the purpose | of sending to feedlots. I have a hard time imagining this | actually happening. | jdavis703 wrote: | It's not just cow farts. Raising and killing a whole cow is | an inefficient way to extract calories from plants. Even | chicken would be more efficient. | DamnYuppie wrote: | My understanding is that cooked meat has much higher | caloric value than vegetables. | | To be honest if it wasn't so good for us we wouldn't have | evolved to consume it! | wyre wrote: | Cows need to eat thousands of pounds of plants before | they are at a size to get slaughtered and prepared as | food. | | Humans evolved to eat meat as a way to survive through | winter. Early diets relied heavily on gathered foods. | contravariant wrote: | The best I can figure out there _has_ been a massive increase | in global methane levels in the last millenia or so. | | I suppose we could argue about the source but livestock is | the most obvious candidate. | | Edit: Okay turns out fossil fuels are also responsible fro | some non-negligible part of the methane emissions, and it's | not just livestock but all agriculture and the resulting | waste. | telchar wrote: | Prior to the industrial revolution the CO2 in the atmosphere | was significantly less than today, around or under 250 ppm, | so a bit of methane wasn't a problem. Now even the same | amount of methane when added to the 410 or so ppm CO2 we have | today and it becomes a problem. Of we can reduce atmospheric | methane it takes off a bit of the pressure on us to reduce | CO2 levels. | mikepurvis wrote: | > large mammal farts going on now is probably not that much | higher than it always has been | | I believe a big part of it has to do with the feedlot diet-- | when they're eating a high-calorie diet of mostly corn/grain | instead of their natural diet of grass, it puts their | digestive system into overdrive. | | EDIT: I looked into it a bit more after posting this, and it | looks like it's not clear-cut-- for example, it takes a cow a | lot longer to reach slaughter weight eating grass, so even if | they're belching less during that time, it's a long enough | time that it may be a wash, or even worse: | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/climate/beef-cattle- | metha... | | EDIT 2: Here's a piece which makes the original case, | acknowledging greater direct emissions but claiming a savings | that makes up for it from soil sequestration due to grazing: | http://newzealmeats.com/blog/grain-fed-vs-grass-fed-beef- | gre... | twobitshifter wrote: | The corn consumed by cattle includes the corn stalks which | are more or less the same as consuming grass. Corn is after | all in the grass family. The actual kernels of corn | increase the calories versus grass, but it's not like cows | are just eating corn off the cob all day long. They need to | consume tons of roughage to help with their digestion. I | think a good argument is that converting grain and grass to | beef is inefficient - if you could have consumed the grain | yourself, but the nice thing about cows is that they | convert very low calorie foods into high calorie meat that | we can consume. If we had to eat what cows do, we'd be | chewing all day. | jules wrote: | It's the opposite. The reason cows produce more methane is | precisely because they eat grass. | DamnYuppie wrote: | You are better at research than I am. I was wondering the | same thing once I read your comment. | yrgulation wrote: | As a beef "fan" i was amazed by the taste of beyond meat. I am | trying to reduce meat (due to practical moral considerations) | so dont be harsh. Happy to try such alternatives. | macintux wrote: | I always assumed the inefficient grain and water requirements | alone would make it worthwhile. | ngngngng wrote: | Raising cattle can easily become a net negative to carbon | emissions if cows are given slightly more space to graze and | moved around more often. If all cattle were raised in this way | there would be slightly less cattle production but a far more | positive environmental impact than if we all switched to vegan | "meat". | | https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grass... | loceng wrote: | There needs to be a proper discussion, debate, to break apart | ideologies that are perpetuating misinformation or just | simply not taking into account the whole ecosystem; the | documentary Sacred Cow seemed to do a good job to explain it. | silicon2401 wrote: | > less cattle production | | This idea would lose the interest of anybody with influence | over cattle production right here. It's almost impossible to | make people simply want less, but it's more feasible to make | them want something different than what they want today. | est31 wrote: | What you are looking for are subsidies. In the EU you can | get subsidies for not touching a plot of arable land at | all. | pat2man wrote: | I think both solutions work hand in hand. We replace the | lower quality meath with vegan alternatives. This allows meat | producers to focus on higher value, grass fed products. So we | still eat steak but frozen processed meat patties are | replaced with plan alternatives. | atharris wrote: | This is really meat-dependent, ironically - the biggest | thing we could do is cut consumption of steak and other | prime cuts of beef, since ground beef is made out of what's | left after those expensive, sought-after cuts are taken. I | would guess that eliminating ground beef consumption | doesn't really get us anywhere for the environment. | asoneth wrote: | The linked research is interesting and may be slightly more | nuanced than your summary. From their executive summary: | | "The WOP system effectively captures soil carbon, offsetting | a majority of the emissions related to beef production. The | largest emission sources -- from cattle digestion and manure | -- are highly uncertain. We believe the results shown here | are on the conservative side. Accounting for soil carbon | capture is not yet standard practice and the results may meet | with challenges, such as on ensuring long-term storage. In | the best case, the WOP beef production may have a net | positive effect on climate. The results show great | potential." | | It looks like their beef production does produce carbon (and | methane) emissions, they just pair that with the carbon | sequestration due to their land use. I appreciate that they | did this research and published the results. It's an | interesting argument. | | But I'm unsure how well it scales at a societal level. For | one thing there's the opportunity cost of using so much land | for a single pound of beef. More significantly it seems like | one could use their logic to pair _any_ activity with enough | soil-based carbon capture to argue that it 's now a carbon | neutral activity. | | For example, one could argue that dirt biking has "net | negative carbon emissions" if you subtract their tailpipe | emissions from the carbon capture from thousands of acres of | forested trails. | drewg123 wrote: | That study seems to be comparing cropland to pasture. The | problem is that the tradeoff is not between cropland and | pasture, but pasture and forest. Eg: https://www.theguardian. | com/environment/2019/jul/02/revealed... | | Due to increasing demand for meat, we have people burning the | forest and releasing all the carbon sequestered in the trees, | and reducing the efficiency of the land as a carbon sink | going forward. | fastball wrote: | But there are also places in the world where forests are | never gonna grow but are well suited to raising cattle. | dzhiurgis wrote: | And what undeniable value do forest provides? | | I live in NZ where which still somewhat recently used to be | covered in forests. There's tons of pastures and forests | certainly look nice (and native bush is just something | else), but other than that I don't know why forests so | important? Properties with shading are more expensive here, | but that also causes more issues with your rain water | tanks. | InvertedRhodium wrote: | I live in NZ as well - forests provide a myriad of | benefits, the ones you'd probably consider most | importation is the sequestering of co2 and the production | of oxygen (that thing you need to live). Beyond that they | are a habitat in which much wildlife finds a more | suitable environment (forested areas are protected from | birds of prey), act as wind breaks across areas such as | the Canterbury plains, help with retaining topsoil and so | much more. | | The shade they provide your BBQ is literally the least | important role forests play. | DetroitThrow wrote: | The o2 production that forests and rainforests provide | always seems a bit overstated - your surrounding oceans | are even better at that, but algae don't help with | regional smog much, do they? | | Carbon sequestering, wind breaks, increased biodiversity, | topsoil protection, game reserves - they may not seem | huge to the average person, but like you say they are | crucial for our continuity. | duckerude wrote: | > The 2017 data showed that converting annual cropland to | perennial pasture, under holistic and regenerative grazing | practices, had the effect of storing more carbon in the soil | than cows emit during their lives. | | Does this continue storing more carbon, or does it just store | a constant amount of carbon? It reads to me like it's a one- | off reduction in carbon that's already cancelled out after a | couple of years. | frankfrankfrank wrote: | That methane emission meme is not accurate, as simple logic | reveals. The methane produced by cows is not going to be | significantly more than the equivalent produced by the same | amount of plant material left to rot/decompose. One would even | have to reasonably theorize and possibly could even conclude | that the energy the cow takes out of the plant material to | produce milk and meat and heat, actually captures energy that | rotting plant material would have converted into methane. | | An interesting side story about this issue is that it has been | shown a long time ago that ruminants actually enrich the | environment (assuming non-industrial practices) through both | processing the plant material and both converting it into | compost and also seeding it with bacteria, while also trampling | the plant material into the ground and thereby facilitating the | breakdown. That lesson came out of the discovery of Allan | Savory a Rhodesian/Zimbabwean ecologist that desertification | only accelerated once huge herds were culled in an assumption | that the grazing was causing the desertification, rather than | that they were part of the system. | | I encourage you to reassess what you surely are convinced | about. | ornornor wrote: | > ruminants actually enrich the environment (assuming non- | industrial practices) | | Wink wink. What's the ratio of non industrially farmed beef | vs industrially farmed beef anecdotes non withstanding? | mikepurvis wrote: | Follow the foodchain, though-- the "plant material" that | industrially farmed cows are eating is almost entirely grown- | for-purpose corn for which there are substantial inputs in | terms of petroleum-based fertilizers. And even if there | weren't, those same fields left fallow would be capturing the | same atmospheric carbon for plant/tree growth and holding it | for much longer than a crop which is being harvested every | season. | | It's not like the cows are eating exclusively grass clippings | which were just going to be left to rot otherwise. | ceph_ wrote: | This post is disingenuous at best. Want to cite some credible | sources that back it up? | | Methane is produced by decomposition in oxygen deprived | anerobic environments. Like a cows gut or a tidal bog. Grass | rotting in a field will not produce the same levels of | methane as grass digested by cows. | | And that's not even touching on the rate at which it's | released. Are you going to say burning the field is just as | bad as letting it decompose because they both release CO2? | Chris2048 wrote: | I eat less meat because I think quality has declined; as meat | is seen as the default-superior option, quality is less | scrutinised, and has thus lowered. | | As such, either I buy expensive, from a trusted location, I I | stick to something else; Vegan options has been good quality so | far, not that I don't expect this to change in the future. | | Right now highly processed & shaped pink slime (with added salt | + sugar) is sold at unreasonable prices, partly because people | don't know what they are eating (or what it's really worth, | often masquerading at other things), and partly because the | main factor in consumer choice is PR budget - the low cost | cheap meat therefore gets the higher marketing budget. | | My one hope in this space is grocery delivery services becoming | the norm will make it easier for people to scrutinise products | from the comfort of home, with the convenience of a search | engine. | com2kid wrote: | I agree that this is important, and less meat consumption is | good, but I am kind of upset that the entire American culinary | experience is being reduced to "burgers, pizza, and fried | chicken." | | I say that because most of the articles on meat alternatives | are written from the perspective of "if only Americans can stop | eating hamburgers!" | | First off, in terms of global solutions, that isn't going to | fly. Try going to Italy and telling people "we've replaced all | your meat, with a ground beef alternative!" and see how pissed | people get. Countries around the world have culinary traditions | older than America itself. Many of these traditional | preparations of various cuts of meat are a huge part of culture | and history. | | Second off, I, an American, don't even eat hamburgers[1] more | than once or twice a year. And I'm not going to switch all my | meat eating over to meat alternative hamburgers. | | Of course replacing some meat is good, my main complaint is how | so many articles reduce American food to just a few categories. | | I have the same problem when friends come to visit from | overseas, or even friends who've been in America for awhile | (sometimes years!) who have no idea that American food is | anything other than burgers and pizza. | | [1] I eat sausages a bit more frequently, which I could fill | with a plant based alternative. | dheera wrote: | > Second off, I, an American, don't even eat hamburgers[1] | more than once or twice a year. And I'm not going to switch | all my meat eating over to meat alternative hamburgers. | | You're also likely in a privileged class of Americans. | Unfortunately the US government indirectly subsidizes meat. | Hamburgers and fried meat of sorts are staples of the low- | income class. The meat consumption in that class is off the | charts, and at extremely unhealthy levels for both the body | and the planet. | | Ideally, the government should be subsidizing a variety of | healthy vegetables for human consumption, not corn (which | indirectly subsidizes both meat and HFCS). That policy change | alone would fix a lot of nutritional deficiencies, heart | disease, obesity, and numerous other problems. | lemmsjid wrote: | As a fellow American, I also just eat a few hamburgers per | year. I actually prefer non meat burgers to regular, though I | love high quality meat (though I don't it it very often). I | like to primary source stuff and can't find a hard, verified | number in my limited Googling, but as far as I can tell our | consumption is incredibly low compared to the per capita | average (over a hundred per year, into the multi hundreds per | year depending on region). The key is not to get people who | are eating 2 per year down to 0, but to get people eating | hundreds per year down to, I dunno, 10? Either way we can | picture a sustainable economy in which high quality plant | based meals are cheap, and then everyone gets their high | quality meat meals less frequently and for an amount of money | that is commensurate with their ecological impact. | input_sh wrote: | > "we've replaced all your meat, with a ground beef | alternative!" | | I'm sorry but who ever says anything about replacing _all_ | meat? It 's more about having a readily available alternative | and starting to think of meat as a luxury instead of it being | a part of _every_ meal. | jimktrains2 wrote: | > Countries around the world have culinary traditions older | than America itself. Many of these traditional preparations | of various cuts of meat are a huge part of culture and | history. | | Many of these traditions include "new world" ingredients such | as tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, corn, squash, some | beans, &c that wouldn't become common in europe or asia until | the 16th or 17th century. While still older than the founding | of the united states, they're still "newer" than many people | realize. These new ingredients were incorporated into older | traditions just as new ingredients will be. Noone will force | it on anyone, but people will experiment and find culinary | and economic reasons to use new ingredients. | legitster wrote: | I enjoy eating meat and have no plans of going off of it | completely. But we eat so much of it as a culture. | | And when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot | dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat | actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For | something healthier and cheaper too! | | And I know people blast tech companies for focusing too much on | making things flashy and cool, but the people who are making | electric cars and fake meat cool are the ones who are going to | save our asses while we were busy scolding people for not trying | harder to enjoy brown rice. | redisman wrote: | I've turned to mainly a restaurant meat eater. My day to day | protein and fats are mainly from plants now. Especially garbage | fast food meats really don't need to be from animals. If I feel | like a long smoked brisket or carnitas or a steak or game | meats, well there just isn't any meaningful analog so I don't | feel too bad about indulging every once in a while. | scottLobster wrote: | Yeah and the health arguments tend to fall apart when you get | into fast-food/highly processed crap territory, which probably | accounts for a large portion of meat consumption in the | developed world. Eating less of that stuff is probably a good | thing. | | That said quality meat is a good source of various nutrients | and amino acids that can be difficult to get from plant-based | sources, and fish in particular can be farmed very sustainably. | I would never consider cutting meat out of my diet. | exyi wrote: | Beyond Meat is not like tofu or so, it is designed to be | unrecognizable from meat by tasting it - so you won't have to | give on our beloved meat. I also don't want to go with a vegan | diet just because "environment", but having a reasonably priced | substituent which does not contain tortured animals and has | lower env. impact - then just why not. | legitster wrote: | I've consumed a lot of Beyond and Impossible, and it's good! | But still a far way from unrecognizable. | | In fact, one thing they have made me appreciate is how good | some of the "traditional" meat substitutes are. I actually | quite like Boca and Garden Burgers et al! | | Still, the once or twice a year I go to a steakhouse and get | a nice medium rare steak - we're a long, long way off from | that. | blackearl wrote: | I'm sure Burger King's meatless burger is recognizable to | some, but when I tried it I don't think I'd really be able | to tell the difference. It's easier to hide when the meat | is already super processed like fast food meats. | | Agreed that there's still no comparison to a fine steak. | mywittyname wrote: | This reminds me of how my dad would always blast taco bell for | using filler in their beef. But from my perspective, it's | tastes good and the filler makes it cheaper (and probably | healthier). | | I think you're right, most processed meat could be replaced | partially, or entirely with vegetable proteins without anyone | really noticing. The last time I had baked a frozen, breaded | chicken, it tasted like little more than grease and pepper. I'm | certain a plant substitute could be found that would maintain | the flavor of nothingness and be suitable for dipping in honey | mustard. | | The current issue, I think, is price. Vegetarian substitutes | I've seen are more expensive than the meat based products. | mleonhard wrote: | The secret to enjoying brown rice is to add some | sweet/sticky/"glutinous" rice to it. A good recipe: | | 1. 600 g brown rice | | 2. 200 g sticky rice | | 3. Mix the dry rices together. Use a spoon to avoid a sticky | rice layer on the bottom. | | 3. 1200 mL water | | 4. Cook on "rice" mode in a 3-quart Instant-Pot. Makes about 15 | 120 mL (0.5 cup) servings. These freeze nicely in containers. | You can heat one up in 1:30 in a 1500 W microwave. | hammock wrote: | >when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot | dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat | actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For | something healthier and cheaper too! | | Read the labels more closely the next time you eat that hot | pocket or frozen sausage pizza. A large number of these | products have "textured vegetable protein" (TVP), or other meat | substitute in them to pad out the protein on the label and | reduce overall cost to produce. | | For example, here are the ingredients for Digiorno Meat Lover's | (you may have to scroll and click "Nutrition" dropdown. They | call it "TEXTURED SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE": | https://www.goodnes.com/digiorno/products/rising-crust-three... | corban1 wrote: | Thanks vegan meat, now I can enjoy my prime beef steak with less | remorse. Go vegan meat! | pindab0ter wrote: | Aren't Beyond and Impossible ground beef replacements, not | steak and other kind of "whole meat" replacements? | somehnguy wrote: | He was making a way overused and lame joke ala 'others eating | less meat means I can double my meat consumption' | e_commerce wrote: | People hate fake meat. It's also horrible for you. | spacejam88 wrote: | sdfsdf | [deleted] | gverrilla wrote: | lab food will be a very limited trend. | dekhn wrote: | I really wanted to like Beyond Meat, but there's something about | how it smells that seems... off... to me. I really want to go | work there just to play with a GCMS and figure out what component | smells bad to me and remove it. | | Personally, I think the epitome of vegan meat replacement is | Morningstar Veggie Breakfast Patties. most meat eaters I know who | try them say "huh... this is pretty damn good for something that | doesn't have meat in it" | redisman wrote: | We have the same taste buds. Morningstar Hot Dogs are also | really good for that cheapo hotdog experience. | alacombe wrote: | I just slaughtered two muttons over the week end, enjoy your | highly processed fake meat while I enjoy some tasty juicy ribs ! | goatcode wrote: | I wish we were neighbors :) | txsoftwaredev wrote: | How does it compare to Japanese A5 Wagyu? | redisman wrote: | A veggie meat with Wagyus fat content would be... interesting. | lolbrels wrote: | Tried it a single time just to entertain a co-worker. The smell | was putrid and overwhelming - like a mix between ammonia and raw | intestines from a gutted fish. All got thrown away but the smell | lingered in the kitchen for a day or two. | | Just terrible lol. I don't eat at any of these places, but I'd be | interested to see how much is sold. | | Just one of those products where everyone raves about it online | yet I've never heard someone actually talk about it, seen anyone | actually eat it and in my own test it was just awful for even the | least picky eater. Think the hype surrounding this product is all | fabricated. | spacejam88 wrote: | I look at this as good but cautious news. People really need to | be eating more vegetables in their diet, but I just don't think | we need to go to such measures simply to mimic meat, when there | are so many vegetarian options already exist. Remember that there | is a large population of the world that doesn't even eat meat and | that Beyond Meat is not serving those people, even though they | are in the "vegetarian" market. | Ensorceled wrote: | Getting someone eating 4 or 5 big macs a week to switch to 4 or | 5 big beyond macs, served at the takeout they've been going to | for years, is much easier than getting them to switch to | traditional Indian dishes made by nobody that lives within a | three hour drive of them. | arduinomancer wrote: | Ehh I think it's fair to say that encouraging people to eat | more vegetables didn't work. | dec0dedab0de wrote: | maybe if there were more salty greasy vegetable meals that | were cheap and readily available. | LinuxBender wrote: | Is this the same as what is described here? [1] | | [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktgh51E8V1Q | m4tthumphrey wrote: | I stopped eating meat in January 2018 and I can honestly say the | only thing I miss is a Big Mac! This is VERY good news for me and | a long overdue! | | That being said, whilst I do love a Beyond burger, here in the | UK, I was surprised to hear it was Beyond that McDonalds selected | for this. While in Orlando 2 years ago, I tried an Impossible | burger for the first time and it was incredible. The size, | texture and taste would be perfect for McDonalds (Big Mac). | Still, I will be all over this once it hits UK branches! | noneeeed wrote: | I keep seeing people say that Impossible tastes better, bit | Beyond keeps snagging big deals like this and it makes me | wonder if they have either a price or supply-chain advantage. | hahahahe wrote: | A key factor being BYND is a public company and they are | under pressure to produce results. These are largely small | experimental runs. I think the general consensus is that | Impossible is the better product. And my guess is McDonald's | knows this and could be trying to drive down valuation for | Impossible so they can buy it. It's currently valued around | $4-5B vs $9B for BYND. | redisman wrote: | I tried a Big Mac recently and it's really not that great, | pretty dry. The sauce is the amazing part. I prefer getting a | Impossible burger from a slightly more expensive burger place | instead now. Maybe I just need to buy a gallon of that sauce | and pour it on there. | marrone12 wrote: | I prefer the taste of impossible but this is great news for the | category. | rsj_hn wrote: | If you prefer the taste of Impossible, wouldn't you prefer that | Yum brands select them as their fake beef provider? Why is this | good news for the category? | tootie wrote: | I think either beats any frozen beef that gets served at a | cheap fast-food joints while neither comes close to beating | fresh, high-quality beef. They can take over the entire bottom | of the market which is probably the most unwholesome for the | environment. | Spivak wrote: | Eh, the bottom of the market is made from the "bad" cuts of | meat. As long someone wants the good cuts there's no reason | to waste the rest. Nobody's making hamburger out of cuts of | meat that could have been sold as a steak. | enigmo wrote: | most dairy cow meat is used for hamburger, it's rarely sold | as steak or roasts. | spacejam88 wrote: | Speak for yourself. Nothing can beat an oily, greasy In N Out | beef burger with processed American "Cheese" on top of | something that barely resembles beef, but you can't say it | isn't the best thing you've ever tasted! | poopoopeepee wrote: | > In N Out | | In-N-Out is never frozen and is of a higher quality beef | than most other chains, fyi | jandrese wrote: | I agree, Beyond overdoes the fake smoke flavor. But they seem | to be better equipped to scale up than Impossible, they've | beaten them to mass market in almost every location I've seen. | olyjohn wrote: | I bought a package of Beyond Meat. It was right next to the | ground beef, and looked like ground beef. I assumed I could | substitute it for ground beef in my spaghetti. Big fat nope! | I opened the package, and it smelled exactly like dog food. | The smell when cooking it was horrible. It completely ruined | my batch of spaghetti. I don't know how people are cooking | this stuff and enjoying it. Maybe there's some other way to | cook it or season it? As someone who isn't much of a chef, I | don't know what to do with it. Go to your favorite search | engine, search for "Beyond Meat Smells..." and check out the | autofill. I know I'm not the only one. | chasd00 wrote: | put it on a charcoal grill and cook a hamburger. It's | definitely not beef but the taste is ok for what it is. I | think of it like a veggie compromise, not a perfect burger | but not terrible either. | jandrese wrote: | Yeah, the artificial smoke flavor makes it useless for | anything that isn't supposed to taste like it was on an | open flame grill. I tried using the Beyond ground burger | substitute for tacos once and all I could taste was that | stupid smoke flavor. | | The Impossible ground burger substitute is far more | versatile, but harder to find. None of my local grocery | stores carry it. | thekyle wrote: | Actually that's an interesting idea I wonder if Impossible | or Beyond meat have considered selling their stuff as dog | food. I'm sure vegan dog owners would love that. | fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: | Maybe people are getting spoiled product? I regularly use | Beyond and Impossible and usually don't notice any off | smell. Once I got a pack of Impossible from the | refrigerated section that did smell wrong. | JoshTriplett wrote: | I prefer Impossible Burger as a substitute for grounds, but | Beyond Meat also makes things like hot dogs and breakfast | sausage, which Impossible doesn't. | mjamesaustin wrote: | YES, Beyond has some incredible sausage products! I go with | them for sausage and Impossible for burgers. | redisman wrote: | Those sausages are definitely better than the burger patty | to me. I just wish Impossible would get more products out | since their burger patty is the first uncanny valley | leaping veggie meat I've had. | Spivak wrote: | Trader Joe's tofu based chorizo is also in this space and | is amazing as well. If you want something that makes for | good "grounds" but don't need it to literally be hamburger | then a marinated block of tofu will probably get you there. | JoshTriplett wrote: | Yeah, I've had that one, and it's good. Unfortunately, | it's harder to come by because Trader Joe's doesn't allow | delivery and doesn't sell their store-brand products | anywhere else; I've stopped relying on anything from | Trader Joe's store brand for that reason. It also has a | specific flavor profile that works in some dishes but not | others; it isn't a neutral substitute for grounds. | RandallBrown wrote: | Impossible makes breakfast sausage. Starbucks has an | Impossible breakfast sandwich. | JoshTriplett wrote: | That's great to hear, but they don't appear to sell it | publicly yet. It appears to be restaurant-exclusive. | tommoor wrote: | Agreed, impossible is far superior. Impossible is only $5.99 | for 12oz in Trader Joes at the moment | ArchOversight wrote: | It's also for sale at Costco: $16 for 2 lbs which matches the | pricing of the Trader Joes. | chasd00 wrote: | i can get a pound of organic, free range, rocked to sleep | every night by the rancher, ground beef for about that. i | thought Impossible/Beyond was suppose to be significantly | cheaper than beef? I've had it but my wife brought it home | one night so didn't see the price. | rsj_hn wrote: | Butcher box sells you free range, grass fed beef for | $16/pound, delivered to your home. | mywittyname wrote: | Beef is hella subsidized in the USA. Both directly, and | indirectly, through low grazing fees on public lands and | subsidized feeds. | | The grocery store tubes of 73/27 are under $3/lb where I'm | at. Making beef insanely cheap per calorie. | bredren wrote: | Beyond nutritional or environmental reasons to reduce meat | consumption, there are ethical considerations about the | consciousness of the animals we slaughter. | | It doesn't matter how we get people to be less reliant on factory | farms, so long as we do. | | We must examine every avenue that allows us to reduce the | suffering of animals. | BitwiseFool wrote: | Preface: I'm a hypocritical omnivore who likes animals. | | If meat alternatives and lab grown meat become cheap and | indistinguishable from real sources, I predict that within the | span of two generations our descendants are going to look back | on us as immoral savages. I use cognitive dissonance and | distance from how my food is made to get over how horrible | industrial farming is and how brutal life can be for livestock. | They'll wonder how we were able to tolerate such brutality and | all the answers come back to either 'out of sight, out of mind' | or 'it's tasty'. | Spooky23 wrote: | Gross. Replacing meat with coconut oil and pea protein is bad for | the earth and bad for people. | goatcode wrote: | https://youtu.be/eoWvrcvTrZI | unchocked wrote: | All of the sudden - I get it. These co's are dealing with a | really shitty, commodified form of beef that they'd love to | develop an alternative to. So the immediate benefit is they get | to serve vegetarians, but the long term is they can transition | off their price-above-all meat supply chain. | redisman wrote: | Kind of a win-win-win. Companies like it if they can just press | soy or peas and fats into patties, environment likes having | less bottom of the barrel meat farms, animal welfare is better | at the high end farms, maybe the veg patties are a bit | healthier(?). | swyx wrote: | what prevented you from getting it before? this seems like it | was the explicit goal of the meat substitute companies for | forever | umvi wrote: | Impossible meat with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato, etc., | tastes just like a beef burger to me. If impossible patties were | cheaper than beef patties at the supermarket I would definitely | buy them. | psychometry wrote: | There's huge variance in prices where I live. Some grocery | stores sell a pack of two for about $5. If you were buying | sustainable beef from humanely-raised cattle you'd probably be | paying that much, too. | cptskippy wrote: | Rather than trying to encourage people to substitute the | ingredients in their meals, I wish we'd encourage more healthy | habits and work life balance. | | So many people are either pressed for time or incapable of | preparing a decent meal. If they aren't ordering takeout, they're | falling back on boxed or prepared options. | | Simply substituting fake meat for real meat isn't improving | anyone's lives. | barbs wrote: | Can't we do both? | notyourwork wrote: | >Simply substituting fake meat for real meat isn't improving | anyone's lives. | | Is the goal improving lives or solving a supply chain problem | in a scalable fashion? | cptskippy wrote: | I believe it's being sold as the former to customers and the | later to businesses. | | This is just furthering our race to the bottom while we pat | ourselves on the back and say we're the best. | arduinomancer wrote: | You don't think less factory-farming is a good thing? | cptskippy wrote: | This doesn't reduce factory farming it, it just changes it. | hahahahe wrote: | I agree 100%. We need to eat more natural food. Farm our own. | In that sense, I think ag tech will be a big disrupter in the | next decade. | eatwater123 wrote: | Improving cow's lives though :) | cptskippy wrote: | If the demand for beef plummeted over night, they wouldn't | release the cows into a field to live out the remainder of | their lives. | | At best a drop in demand will reduce the population size of | future generations of cows. It doesn't fundamentally change | how they'll be raised or treated. | [deleted] | superkuh wrote: | I wish companies were not able to label and sell these textured | vegetable proteins as "meat". They are great products but they | are not meat and as scale increases and they become less | expensive than meat there will be strong commercial profit | motives to replace real meat with "* meat" for monetary reasons. | | I'd strongly prefer for increased funding to isolated tissue | culture methods. That way we could have real meat without the | environmental or ethical issues. | [deleted] | ausbah wrote: | there was a small push by the meat lobby to do exactly that a | couple years ago [1] | | I think it's a silly form of regulation. there are plenty of | non-milk milk products, or "fruit flavor" things that don't | have any fruit | | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/technology/meat-veggie-bu... | p1necone wrote: | I think it's very silly. I as a consumer would like to buy a | substitute for cows milk that is not animal based. Being | forced to call it "almond juice" or something is just making | my life harder (and not making anyone elses life easier). | | _Nobody_ is going to think that "almond milk" is actually | the same as cows milk and accidentally buy it instead of the | dairy product, so what's the problem? | | (Also, almond and soy milk are not new products, they've been | consumed for hundreds of years in Europe and Asia | respectively) | p1necone wrote: | I've never seen plant based meat labelled in a way that could | trick a reasonable person into thinking it was animal meat. | | I don't see what you'd gain from not allowing the word "meat" | to be used - it's very clearly a product that's trying to | imitate various kinds of animal meat, and I want that | communicated to me efficiently. | leereeves wrote: | On a somewhat related topic, has anyone seen any information | about how well the Impossible Whopper is selling? | silicon2401 wrote: | In hopes of boosting the Impossible Whopper, it's the first | thing I've eaten from BK that I've enjoyed in over a decade. No | hyperbole, it just tastes good whereas to my taste, the rest of | BK food tastes pretty dismal. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | I don't have that data, but I have an anecdote. | | I buy them about 4 times a week on my way to work (its a really | convenient stop and I don't get fries, cheese, or mayo with | it). | | When they were new, they would sometimes be out of stock. But I | haven't encountered that in probably six month or more. They | really seem to be fully supporting the product. So hopefully | that means they're selling pretty well! | judge2020 wrote: | Jan 2020: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/burger-king- | franchisees-... | fl0wenol wrote: | So that's why they added it to the 2 for $6 menu. I got them | all the time when it was on there. | | Anecdata, but ... It's basically the only thing I get from | Burger King anymore. And I'm not vegetarian or anything, I | just had consistent (not the best, but serviceable and | consistent) texture and flavor so I didn't feel like I was | missing out on anything. | | But I wouldn't be down to paying a big premium for them... | that 2 for 6 putting it on the same level as the normal | Whopper made the case. | dfxm12 wrote: | They just missed the start of this Lenten season. I'm fascinated | by what fast food places market when a huge chunk of their | customers won't eat land or air-based meat one a day out of the | week. Is Beyond Meat finally going to topple the fish sandwich? | | As an aside, I did always want to try the Mc hula burger, but | thanks to Vatican II, it was not long for this world and died way | before I was born... | tssva wrote: | I have never tried Beyond Meat and maybe I should give it a try | but I am hesitant because of my experience with Impossible | burgers. Obviously they must taste similar to meat and be tasty | to the majority of people, but to me they taste nothing like meat | and are quite disgusting. I know a few others that have the same | reaction while most people at worse seem to think they taste like | a low quality burger. I wonder what is in them that causes some | like myself to have such a negative reaction to them and how | large that percentage of people is. | dec0dedab0de wrote: | I don't think they taste like meat, but i think they're both | pretty good. | pdx6 wrote: | Impossible burger tastes like it is engineered. It isn't | terrible but in San Francisco, it isn't any less expensive at a | typical non-chain burger joint. I also had digestive issues, | though I have only had it once so I can't claim it was the IB. | | Veggie burgers just seem like a healthier, more delicious | option, and a known quantity if I want to skip the beef. | grecy wrote: | and yet their stock price is down..... this market is hard to | read! | headmelted wrote: | I would think this was less correlated as it's only a contract | for supply. | | In any case McDonalds isn't selling a co-branded Beyond Meat | product, they're selling the McPlant. Beyond Meat's moat looks | very shaky here. | | It seems likely that Beyond Meat is only getting these | contracts as it's a relatively cheap way for McDonalds to test | the substitute market before producing their own alternatives. | It makes no business sense for them to hand over the core of | their product to BM when it's likely they can create something | similar in-house. | arebop wrote: | Can they create something similar in-house? Beyond and | particularly Impossible appear to be far ahead of the | competition in meat substitutes, and presumably they each | have close to 20yr left on their patents. It doesn't look so | easy to rival the leaders in this space. | axlee wrote: | Agreed. The only food items that McDs have not vertically | integrated are sodas, everything else is bound to end up part | of their supply chain. | throwawayboise wrote: | Not sure what you mean by "vertically integrated" they do | not own cattle ranches or potato farms. They buy Heinz or | Hunts catsup, etc. They do have a lot of proprietary | recipes and process, but the ingredients are mostly sourced | from other wholesale producers. | erichurkman wrote: | The cattle ranches and potato farms don't have their | names or logos on the burgers or fries. McDonalds can | swap them out at any time. | | Soda, on the other hand, is Coke's product and brand | completely. | throwawayboise wrote: | Yes, this is hardly different from any other restaurant. | dataflow wrote: | Okay but Pizza Hut literally brands it as Beyond: | https://www.pizzahut.com/c/content/beyond-meat- | pizzas/index.... | | and so does KFC? https://global.kfc.com/press-releases/kfc- | beyond-fried-chick... | | so I think this doesn't fully explain it? | evgen wrote: | Both of those are Yum brands, so it is really a single | deal. Looks like you have one deal that is branded but | chicken and pizza places are not going to drive a huge | amount of visibility into the segment that Beyond wants | (cheap burgers) and I suspect previous comment is correct | regarding McD wanting to test the waters while they work on | their own solution. | [deleted] | LegitShady wrote: | >Beyond Meat's moat looks very shaky here. | | Beyond doesn't have a moat. They make veggie burgers. | | They became super popular when impossible burger started | making the rounds on the news and rode the wave of interest | impossible burger created. | | Impossible burger has a moat - they have yeast produced heme | and I assume some patents on it. | | Beyond meat makes veggie burgers. They have no moat. | OldHand2018 wrote: | Exactly, and Beyond Meat is only the "preferred supplier". BM | probably has to meet quantity and price targets or they are | done. Good luck building up big profit margins. | aphextron wrote: | >and yet their stock price is down..... this market is hard to | read! | | Stocks don't just magically go up forever on good news. They've | run a loss for the last 4 years in a row, and they've missed | their last two earnings by more than half. They're already | massively overvalued as it is. | giarc wrote: | But those factors would have been priced in prior to this | announcement. | mywittyname wrote: | Traders were expecting better news than they got. | xnx wrote: | I believe this good-news press release was timed to counter the | narrative around their unfavorable earnings report. | ksec wrote: | >market is hard to read! | | The stock market guidelines has been the same for a very, very | long time. | | Shares collapse on bad news, fall on good news, and rise on no | news. | Black101 wrote: | And their stock dropped 5% today.... good time to buy! | hahahahe wrote: | This was already discussed last week and it was essentially a | PR stunt. | tryonenow wrote: | Can you elaborate? I was wondering why the stock dropped. | What's the PR stunt and why has the price dropped? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-02 23:00 UTC)