10 ms·

The most interesting thing about this particular announcement is that it may normalize plant-derived meat-substitutes among the typical fast-food-burger eating

by danans 8y ago

The most interesting thing about this particular announcement is that it may normalize plant-derived meat-substitutes among the typical fast-food-burger eating population, and not just the mostly-vegetarian folks (like myself) who will spend $10 on an Impossible Burger at a fancy sports bar. Within a decade this might just be normalized, and nobody will make much of it.

tracker1 8y ago
It's already snuck in with a lot of fast food taco meats. Soy and Legume allergies aren't that uncommon... I don't mind as long as its' clearly labelled... I have a problem when it's labelled as "beef" or left to ambiguity.
- meowface 8y ago
  As a vegetarian with an allergy to all legumes, including soy, life is rough sometimes.
thinkcontext 8y ago
I agree, this could be big. The health implications could be a driver of this, consider how many people there are with high cholesterol that should be eating less beef. And then think about how many health driven alternative products there are, eg diet soda, margarine, alt-milks, etc that really can take off in the mainstream once big budget marketing gets behind it.
- supuun 8y ago
  iirc margarine is really unhealthy tho
  - thinkcontext 8y ago
    Whether that is true or not is (unfortunately) less important than big marketing saying its healthier.
- tracker1 8y ago
  There is no correlation to dietary cholesterol and blood serum cholesterol. It was a misdirection bought and paid for by the sugar industry. The same goes for saturated fats (more so the vegan religion than big sugar). As to margerine, it is emphatically NOT better for you than real butter or lard/tallow. Seed oils are probably third in line behind sugar and grains as the biggest causes of human dysfunction.
- caymanjim 8y ago
  The cholesterol in = blood cholesterol fallacy is one of the greatest nutrition crimes in history. Low fat/high carb diets are the primary culprit, along with genetics. Replacing meat and dairy with vegetables may have environmental and ethical benefits, but it doesn't have health benefits.
  - PerfectElement 8y ago
    So heart disease is the #1 killer because people don't eat enough meat? This is nothing but a conspiracy theory that somehow became popular in HN. Mainstream science continues to support that a diet high in whole plants is the best way to prevent heart disease.
    - caymanjim 8y ago
      Not because people don't eat enough meat. Because people eat too much sugar, and refined carbs (pasta, flour) are effectively sugar. That's where body fat and cholesterol come from. Meat is largely neutral in this regard. Cholesterol in your blood is produced by your liver. Only a trivial amount of dietary cholesterol becomes cholesterol in your body. When people replace meat with low-fat, high-carb, vegetable-derived alternatives, they're consuming a diet that is far worse than a meat-heavy diet. Whole vegetables are good.
      - tracker1 8y ago
        To those downvoting the above comment... The following video is a bit long, but does go over quite a bit of the misdirection/misinformation from the large pharma and agriculture industries. A lot of this has been relatively well documented. There has never been any reliable study or controlled experiment indicating that dietary cholesterol or saturated fat are the causes of anything negative. Sugar and refined grains have a MUCH higher correlation (higher than even early smoking studies). High fructose intake in particular has been a leading issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=jcnd3usdNxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=jcnd3usdNxo
        8y ago
int_19h 8y ago
Yep. I'm not at all a vegetarian, but I will definitely try it, and if it's as good as they say, I see no reason to not prefer it. There's a small subset of the population for whom meat consumption is some kind of cultural statement, but most really only just care about taste, I think. If the same taste can be had in a healthier package and without killing anything, it's a win-win.
- tracker1 8y ago
  "Healthier" is speculative at best. Often there's less fat than would occur in natural highly available protein sources. And added fats definitely have a different nutritional profile. The amino/protein profile is also going to skew, and there are other issues as well. Soy and legumes are pretty common allergens for people, and the effects mild enough early in life that some may not realize it's actually legumes (mostly soy) that is the problem. I got used to the side effects and was only at 42 when it started to get bad enough that I found out via elimination diet.
- danans 8y ago
  > There's a small subset of the population for whom meat consumption is some kind of cultural statement There are actors in the cultural discourse that are already trying to make large scale meat consumption a cultural authenticity issue, especially if you read some of the nativist criticism of the Green New Deal [1] I don't think that line of manipulation will go away, as it always will have some cultural currency with a subset of the population, but eventually the economics of the meat substitutes will win out, and "real meat" will become more of a special occasion thing, like truffles. 1. https://www.eater.com/2019/3/1/18246220/aoc-green-deal-burgers-backlash-creepshot https://www.eater.com/2019/3/1/18246220/aoc-green-deal-burge...
  - henrikschroder 8y ago
    There are people out there "rolling coal", which is such absolute insanity that I lack words, so of course there will be a cultural backlash to meat substitutes as well.
- henrikschroder 8y ago
bluetwo 8y ago
That would be cool. I am not vegetation but suffer from gout, so I eat much less meat than I used to. Ground beef is particularly bad for gout, so I would order this in a second given a choice.
henrikschroder 8y ago
No, the implications are even bigger than that, because the normalization and adoption will drive costs down. And when meat-substitute burgers are cheaper than meat burgers, and taste as good, they will become the default, and that is going to make a huge dent in the animal industry, which is all sorts of awesome, because the animal industry is all sorts of terrible. Right now, I'm seeing Beyond and Impossible substitutes at burger restaurants, and it always comes with a couple of dollars surcharge, because it is more expensive. Imagine the day when the meat patty comes with a surcharge, because the substitute is cheaper! I am always soapboxing about this, but the only way we can meaningfully address environmental or ethical concerns, is by doing it through the economy. The "best" choice has to also be the cheapest choice, because then people will as if by magic choose that most of the time, unlike when you only have people's conscience to motivate them, then the wallet still rules most of the time.
- TOGoS 8y ago
  > the only way we can meaningfully address environmental or ethical concerns, is by doing it through the economy. Well, that or by abolishing capitalism. Which we'll have to do anyway, given that "there's no competitive advantage in not wrecking the planet." But yeah if we can get everyone to switch to Impossible burgers that could definitely buy us some time. :)
  - ahmedalsudani 8y ago
    Or you can tax the negative externalities to account for environmental damage and still allow people to be free.
    - kjdndisneinj 8y ago
      Nothing about abolishing capitalism implies that people will not be free. Arguably they could be more free. Not every socialist state needs to (or should) emulate the USSR. You should try reading The Conquest of Bread.
      - 8y ago

by danans 8y ago

tracker1 8y ago

It's already snuck in with a lot of fast food taco meats. Soy and Legume allergies aren't that uncommon... I don't mind as long as its' clearly labelled... I have a problem when it's labelled as "beef" or left to ambiguity.

meowface 8y ago
As a vegetarian with an allergy to all legumes, including soy, life is rough sometimes.

thinkcontext 8y ago

I agree, this could be big. The health implications could be a driver of this, consider how many people there are with high cholesterol that should be eating less beef. And then think about how many health driven alternative products there are, eg diet soda, margarine, alt-milks, etc that really can take off in the mainstream once big budget marketing gets behind it.

supuun 8y ago
iirc margarine is really unhealthy tho
- thinkcontext 8y ago
  Whether that is true or not is (unfortunately) less important than big marketing saying its healthier.
tracker1 8y ago
There is no correlation to dietary cholesterol and blood serum cholesterol. It was a misdirection bought and paid for by the sugar industry. The same goes for saturated fats (more so the vegan religion than big sugar). As to margerine, it is emphatically NOT better for you than real butter or lard/tallow. Seed oils are probably third in line behind sugar and grains as the biggest causes of human dysfunction.
caymanjim 8y ago
The cholesterol in = blood cholesterol fallacy is one of the greatest nutrition crimes in history. Low fat/high carb diets are the primary culprit, along with genetics. Replacing meat and dairy with vegetables may have environmental and ethical benefits, but it doesn't have health benefits.
- PerfectElement 8y ago
  So heart disease is the #1 killer because people don't eat enough meat? This is nothing but a conspiracy theory that somehow became popular in HN. Mainstream science continues to support that a diet high in whole plants is the best way to prevent heart disease.
  - caymanjim 8y ago
    Not because people don't eat enough meat. Because people eat too much sugar, and refined carbs (pasta, flour) are effectively sugar. That's where body fat and cholesterol come from. Meat is largely neutral in this regard. Cholesterol in your blood is produced by your liver. Only a trivial amount of dietary cholesterol becomes cholesterol in your body. When people replace meat with low-fat, high-carb, vegetable-derived alternatives, they're consuming a diet that is far worse than a meat-heavy diet. Whole vegetables are good.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      To those downvoting the above comment... The following video is a bit long, but does go over quite a bit of the misdirection/misinformation from the large pharma and agriculture industries. A lot of this has been relatively well documented. There has never been any reliable study or controlled experiment indicating that dietary cholesterol or saturated fat are the causes of anything negative. Sugar and refined grains have a MUCH higher correlation (higher than even early smoking studies). High fructose intake in particular has been a leading issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=jcnd3usdNxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=jcnd3usdNxo
      - 8y ago

int_19h 8y ago

Yep. I'm not at all a vegetarian, but I will definitely try it, and if it's as good as they say, I see no reason to not prefer it. There's a small subset of the population for whom meat consumption is some kind of cultural statement, but most really only just care about taste, I think. If the same taste can be had in a healthier package and without killing anything, it's a win-win.

tracker1 8y ago
"Healthier" is speculative at best. Often there's less fat than would occur in natural highly available protein sources. And added fats definitely have a different nutritional profile. The amino/protein profile is also going to skew, and there are other issues as well. Soy and legumes are pretty common allergens for people, and the effects mild enough early in life that some may not realize it's actually legumes (mostly soy) that is the problem. I got used to the side effects and was only at 42 when it started to get bad enough that I found out via elimination diet.
danans 8y ago
> There's a small subset of the population for whom meat consumption is some kind of cultural statement There are actors in the cultural discourse that are already trying to make large scale meat consumption a cultural authenticity issue, especially if you read some of the nativist criticism of the Green New Deal [1] I don't think that line of manipulation will go away, as it always will have some cultural currency with a subset of the population, but eventually the economics of the meat substitutes will win out, and "real meat" will become more of a special occasion thing, like truffles. 1. https://www.eater.com/2019/3/1/18246220/aoc-green-deal-burgers-backlash-creepshot https://www.eater.com/2019/3/1/18246220/aoc-green-deal-burge...
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  There are people out there "rolling coal", which is such absolute insanity that I lack words, so of course there will be a cultural backlash to meat substitutes as well.
henrikschroder 8y ago

bluetwo 8y ago

That would be cool. I am not vegetation but suffer from gout, so I eat much less meat than I used to. Ground beef is particularly bad for gout, so I would order this in a second given a choice.

henrikschroder 8y ago

No, the implications are even bigger than that, because the normalization and adoption will drive costs down. And when meat-substitute burgers are cheaper than meat burgers, and taste as good, they will become the default, and that is going to make a huge dent in the animal industry, which is all sorts of awesome, because the animal industry is all sorts of terrible. Right now, I'm seeing Beyond and Impossible substitutes at burger restaurants, and it always comes with a couple of dollars surcharge, because it is more expensive. Imagine the day when the meat patty comes with a surcharge, because the substitute is cheaper! I am always soapboxing about this, but the only way we can meaningfully address environmental or ethical concerns, is by doing it through the economy. The "best" choice has to also be the cheapest choice, because then people will as if by magic choose that most of the time, unlike when you only have people's conscience to motivate them, then the wallet still rules most of the time.

TOGoS 8y ago
> the only way we can meaningfully address environmental or ethical concerns, is by doing it through the economy. Well, that or by abolishing capitalism. Which we'll have to do anyway, given that "there's no competitive advantage in not wrecking the planet." But yeah if we can get everyone to switch to Impossible burgers that could definitely buy us some time. :)
- ahmedalsudani 8y ago
  Or you can tax the negative externalities to account for environmental damage and still allow people to be free.
  - kjdndisneinj 8y ago
    Nothing about abolishing capitalism implies that people will not be free. Arguably they could be more free. Not every socialist state needs to (or should) emulate the USSR. You should try reading The Conquest of Bread.
    - 8y ago