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Beyond meat works for financial reasons. Sunlight, pea plant, factory, paddy costs less at scale than sunlight, corn plant, cow, slaughter house, factory, paddy
by meekstro 7y ago
Beyond meat works for financial reasons. Sunlight, pea plant, factory, paddy costs less at scale than sunlight, corn plant, cow, slaughter house, factory, paddy.
It does not work particularly well for dietary reasons. The calorie reduction will reduce inflammation if it is not offset by additional excess calories but the omega 3 fatty acid profile will not compete financially with fatty acid profile of algae or grass-fed protein. The beyond meat diet will therefore lead to more inflammation in the general population and increased rates of chronic illness including diabetes and brain disorders.
A moderate amount of protein and fat from Grassfed animals and oily cold water fish combined with moderate low inflammatory carbohydrate starches and loads of vegetables is the optimum human diet.
Every other diet has a negative externality of increased chronic illness. Health outcomes as measured by life expectancy are not better for the average middle income human who survived to the age of 5 in 2019 than they were for the equivalent dataset living 150 years ago in England.
And then you have the vegans. What is more precious? a virus, a amoeba, a bacteria, a prokaryote, a eukaryote, a fungus, a plant, a insect, a arachnid, a cephalopod, an invertebrate, a reptile, a bird, a mammal, a political ally, a community, a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child or a vegan's theory?
Rhetorical question. Human Parents minimise the suffering of their children and expect the favour to be returned in kind.
The choice between animal suffering and decreased probability of the onset of your child's future chronic illness is easy if enlightened. Beyond meat therefore doesn't work for economic reasons and is a fad of unknown duration.
The negative externalities of a vegetarian diet are currently obscured by the corn lobby and any other political factions currently profiting from the sale of inflammatory foods. They love the vegans chipping in. I often wonder if roadkill slowly dying keeps vegans up at night or If they are sleeping through it? And if if they are, how?
As for grassfed animals. Pastured land is marginal for growing starches or vegetables. Solutions are in development for the reduction in nitrate leaching and methane emission. The positive externalities of a low inflammation moderate carbohydrate, moderate protein grass/algae fed diet and the reduction in chronic illness outweigh the negative externalities of the methane. Put nuclear engines in cargo vessels to trade the meat around, methane problem neutralised, global health enhanced.
Food should be judged on it's toxicity to the general population and nothing else. It is the only objective measure and miraculously the economics results in humane farming practice and better human health.
Pretty hard to judge the toxicity of beyond meat and that's why I choose to eat whole ingredients that I process myself. I think they will make some money dependent on flavour, texture, marketing and distribution capability. Although kraft spent 1 billion relabeling their cheese about 10 years back so good luck competing against that. Eventually the human dietary truth will come out and misplaced idealism won't save the business from public knowledge. That could take 20 years but I think the inflammation and dietary literature is going to converge before then.
Bill Gates isn't a vegan.
- cageface 7y agoYour tone is unnecessarily snarky but I don't think you're wrong that these new meat substitutes are probably not as healthy as a more thoughtful plant based diet. I think it's great that they're available but I don't plan to eat them regularly. As for animal protein being necessary for human health, that's not even true in the ideal natural case, never mind the reality of the horror show that today's factory farmed meats have become. If you think you can meet global demand for meat with free-ranging grazing cows then you haven't even looked at the numbers and claiming that feeding cows seaweed eliminates the methane issues means you also haven't actually looked at the numbers there.
- sridca 7y ago> Your tone is unnecessarily snarky I disagree. He or she is one of the few intelligent commenters on this thread that is not mindlessly grasping on to this alarming vegan/vegetarian trend. And lo and behold, they are getting downvoted to oblivion.
- cageface 7y agoHN is a fairly intelligent and educated crowd by internet standards. Perhaps it should give you pause that so many such people not only consider veganism not alarming but actually positive. And dismissing it as mindless doesn't really signal debating in good faith on your part or his.
- sridca 7y ago> HN is a fairly intelligent and educated crowd by internet standards. Yet intelligent and educated people do hold beliefs not based on facts, and are unwilling to be questioned. > Perhaps it should give you pause that so many such people not only consider veganism not alarming but actually positive. It gives me no pause whatsoever as I'm not someone that so easily follows the crowd. I simply take it to be the case that veganism is the flat-earth-theory of 2019. > And dismissing it as mindless doesn't really signal debating in good faith on your part or his. Good faith on my, and others, part and already have come by and been downvoted into oblivion. Have you been watching this thread?