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Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat's plant-based burgers aren't healthier

73 points by SirLJ 7y ago

nextstep 7y ago
Veganism is not a health choice for most vegans, it’s an ethical one. Plant-based foods use fewer resources per calorie and do not require cruel treatment of animals.
- fao_ 7y ago
  > Plant-based foods use fewer resources per calorie and do not require cruel treatment of animals. They kind of have to at some point, otherwise you're using artificial nitrogen to top up the soil and that's not just bad for the soil but is also depleting a limited resource (The nitrogen comes from what IIRC is, a single mine). I remember reading about some farmers that managed to buck the usual statistics by getting around half a thousand chickens to an acre of farmland -- the chickens acted as a natural form of pest-control for the farmland, and their shit and corpses (when they died) provided a natural source for the NPK needed to feed the soil. The thing is, vegans forget that plants, etc. have all evolved with death as part of the equation. Animal death is required in some form, to supply the micro-organisms in the soil with the proper nutrients. Anyone who has studied farming and agriculture knows that the ideal isn't to eliminate animal death (something that is pretty much impossible unless you want to destabilize the ecosystem and starve your plants), but try to minimize it and ensure that the death is not wasted. I think this mistake in understanding goes back to school, where children are taught that if you give plants soil, water and sunlight, they will grow. They could take that opportunity to talk about the NPK cycle, the billions of micro-organisms in the soil that need to be fed to provide the plants with nutrients, the fact that dead animals help feed the plants and the micro-organisms, etc. Not teaching children about this when children are capable of understanding it is a disservice given that for many people that is the only schooling that they will ever have on farming and agriculture.
  - xgulfie 7y ago
    You realize most of the atmosphere is Nitrogen, right? I would not call it a limited resource. Clovers and other cover crops also fix hydrogen.
    - mykowebhn 7y ago
      Atmospheric nitrogen is very common. Nitrogen that is in a form that's usable by plants is not so common. Many plants in the Fabaceae family, of which clover is a member, fix nitrogen, not hydrogen. I think that's what you probably meant.
      - xgulfie 7y ago
        Yeah I meant to say nitrogen but said hydrogen
    - captainredbeard 7y ago
      Are you implying that nitrogen depletion in the soil is a non-issue?
      - xgulfie 7y ago
        Is fertilizer runoff a non-issue? I guess if I'm putting my point together I'm trying to say "we can figure out how to grow crops without this much cow waste". If in 30 years meat consumption goes down dramatically, I'm very skeptical that we'll be growing feed corn to feed cows we dont eat, then use their waste to grow other plants.
        captainredbeard 7y ago
        I’m not sure that replacing corn fields with pea and canola fields is going to make a difference wrt farming practices.
  - CarVac 7y ago
    You don't mine nitrogen, you mine phosphorus.
- captainredbeard 7y ago
  If you let ruminant livestock graze in a carefully managed pattern instead of feeding them grain (grown and transported from miles away), it improves the land and reduces the amount of pollution: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI Cattle are not very efficient at converting grain to protein. It’s about 7:1. Pork is 2:1, in comparison. Poultry is close to 1:1.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    If all livestock were raised in this way there would be nowhere near enough of them to feed current demand for meat (not saying that's a bad thing). Allan Savory holds a very fringe view not supported by scientists in this field, which you wouldn't know from his TED talk.
  - bjoli 7y ago
    Don't forget that not all lands are good carbon sinks. The Swedish department of agriculture claimed in a report (nr 25:2010 iirc. In Swedish ) that the vast majority of Swedish grazeland would not meaningfully decrease carbon emissions regardless of grazing systems
  - niklasolai 7y ago
    You forget the part where the animal is brutally killed at the end. Organic, grass feed, factory farming, they all end the same for the animal.
sdfasdfasdfsdfw 7y ago
Their goal was to make a 100% plant-based alternative to meat that tastes like meat. Plenty of other reasons to not eat meat. Humaneness toward animals? climate change? Also, regardless of above, not 100% onboard with the premise. I'll be interested in long-term studies. Impossible has been around less than 10 years.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
"Barclays concluded that when it comes to plant-based citizens, many are "thinking that they are healthier than what they really are."" I'm assuming this was retranslated --from burger to citizen
- aitchnyu 7y ago
  Spell checks for fat fingers seem more likely if you compare the first 3 letters of each word: C and B - one key away, I abd U - neighbours, T and R - neighbours, I and G - far away.
scotchbonnet 7y ago
To me this conclusion does not fit with a few points: quality of fats, overall quantity of fat, protein quantity, and fiber. I'm not making any overarching conclusion about what is healthier, but I do think the article's conclusion is pretty weak.
anreekoh 7y ago
1. Surely there are other chemical compounds that are present in the fast food meats and not the plant based meats, and vice versa, but that aren’t listed in the article’s table. 2. The plant-based meats are intended to imitate real meat as much as possible, and I would imagine an intuitive way to do this is to include the same amount of ingredients as on the table presented. 3. “Healthiness” is probably unfortunately best measured through a large and well intentioned study, and not objectively by comparing a limited list of ingredients.
- qyv 7y ago
  I know for a fact that McDonald's beef burgers, at least in North America, have a single ingredient: beef. They go directly from source grind to patty maker to freezer, nothing is added.
  - anreekoh 7y ago
    Sorry, I meant that the chemical makeup of beef is distinct from that of plants. I wasn't referring to additives. I meant the proteins/enzymes, etc.
bpatel576 7y ago
I didn't even realize that the companies mission was to create a product that was "healthier." I always assumed that it was to create something that was more sustainable...
xipho 7y ago
I mean this is obvious, right? Salads on fast-food menus have more fat and other "bad stuff" than burgers thanks to cheese, dressing etc. Your FF faux burger is still fried, cheesed, sauced etc. Next please.
bambax 7y ago
> Nutrition is a major reason that people are giving plant-based burger a try Not really sure about that. Current meat "production" involves destroying the planet at an accelerated pace while treating animals in the most horrible way imaginable (and even beyond imagination).
- eof 7y ago
  I think saying “a major reason” is fair and accurate, but I agree that the it seems people are, in general, much more concerned about the ethics of industrial farming as it relates to animal cruelty, as well as beef being such a large contributor to co2.
  - gpvos 7y ago
    While I think that's true for many people, I would like to have actual data about whether the wide public is more swayed by environmental/ethical or health concerns. Many companies are marketing this from a health angle, and they may know more than you and me. (Another possibility, which I'm not discounting, is that they think everyone is as cynical as they are.)
    - lprubin 7y ago
      According to this survey, 68.1% of people's main reason for going vegan was "for the animals" while "health" was only 17.4%. https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-global-survey-results https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-gl... That being said, the question was "What is the main reason" so people who said "for the animals" might also care a lot about health.
      - gpvos 7y ago
        Going vegan (which I understand as deciding to only eat vegan from now on) is a much larger decision than just giving a plant-based burger a try in order to reduce your meat consumption somewhat.
- 7y ago
psychometry 7y ago
There's more to "healthy" than calories and cholesterol. What a trash article.
- gwd 7y ago
  Yeah, I was quite disappointed. Dietary cholesterol doesn't cause arterial cholesterol. "Fat" is a necessary nutrient, and there are different kinds -- polyunsaturated vegetable fats are different than saturated fat (found in beef); and even though saturated fat is considered "unhealthy", the actual scientific evidence for that designation is pretty shaky. And then, what about fiber? What about the mix of proteins and amino acids? Vitamins and minerals -- in particular B vitamins, which are difficult to get from non-animal sources? So much potential just to say, "It's got fat and salt, so it's just as bad."
MisterBastahrd 7y ago
They weren't meant to be and never claimed to be. You aren't going to replicate a beef patty without a ton of fat.
mark_l_watson 7y ago
My wife and I really enjoy both IF and BM burgers - just be sure to not overlook them! They do contain a lot of fat from vegetable oil but they are very low in cholesterol. I will trade more sodium for the advantages for me of reducing cholesterol. They really taste good. We like them on good rolls, purple onion, tomato, lettuce, and whatever sauce we feel like. Fantastic tasting burgers. There is also the advantages of not killing animals. My wife and I have just spent two years living in Illinois (returning home to Sedona Arizona next week) and our rented home is beside a pasteur and let me tell you that cows run around like dogs, playing together, and generally have different personalities - we notice which ones tend to start the running around playing/games and which ones join in after the game starts. I think most people in order to make themselves feel better imagine cows and steers as being dumb animals with no soul or consciousness. Not so. I am not a strict vegetarian, but personally I feel better about reducing my meat intake.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  I didn't do any history research on the subject but my own conspiracy theory suggests that the whole "humans have soul, animals don't" thing was invented to justify the natural world destruction.
  - doitLP 7y ago
    Human-centric worldview and “only humans have souls” goes back to the dawn of recorded history. We often lived in closer confines with animals, often sleeping together for warmth, protection and to watch for predators. However killing animals for food was the way humans stayed alive when food was scarce as we pushed further into habitats that weren’t temperate. If anything I guess that the “only humans have souls” story arose as a necessary psychological protection mechanism for people who raised and got to know their animals and then had to slaughter and eat them. Same way people also try to dehumanize the enemy in war in order to not be crushed by the knowledge of killing another human being. Then once we stopped spending so much time with animals it was easy to continue the narrative since we don’t spend time observing them close up anymore and getting to know them personally.
52-6F-62 7y ago
I’m pretty sure this was already known and talked about. I think the reason it’s reiterated is many people do associate “no meat” with “more healthy”, whether it’s in error or not. (There’s even a big fad here in TO of fatty deep fried vegan foods!) The article is likely not tuned or intended for the audience of HN, but for people who don’t pay attention to the details of nutrition more. On a side note, I tried the Beyond Meat patty when they showed up at my grocery out of curiosity. It caused me terrible GI problems for about 3 days. Never again for me (sparing any details). Only suggestion I could find as to why was potentially the high amount of canola oil. That and I rarely eat processed foods, so I’m not sure how much that was a factor.
alkonaut 7y ago
Reasons I’d eat (more) vegetarian 1. Climate 2. Ethics ... 10. Nutrition/Health
hallihax 7y ago
Speaking as somebody who does enjoy a vegan boiger - 'health' and 'nutrition' are not things I'm looking at when I want a burger. This whole debate is one big straw-man. I'm a vegan. I don't need burgers. I might want burgers, but they don't form a part of a standard diet just in the same way any kind of burger probably shouldn't form part of anybody's regular diet. If you're eating processed food - there's a considerable chance that whatever it is you're eating - vegan or otherwise - is neither nutritious nor healthy. It probably tastes good though, which is why you want it in the first place. Ultimately it boils down to this: if I'm eating a burger, then nutrition and health are more or less irrelevant - I'm after taste. I think the lives of animals are more important than my taste-buds, so I eat plant-based burgers. It's not really any more complicated than that.
- sametmax 7y ago
  Precisely. And if you have enough veggies and vegans around you, you know that they can eat as much junk food as everyone else. Sugar is vegan, after all.
  - hallihax 7y ago
    I'm guilty myself - my city has exploded with vegan stuff over the last couple of years and my waistline has expanded in-line with it :P
  - seandougall 7y ago
    Some sugar is vegan. Most isn’t, though most vegans I know conveniently ignore that: [1] [1] https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-sugar-vegan/ https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-sugar-vegan/
    - skummetmaelk 7y ago
      Considering sugar to be non vegan just because it has possibly been filtered using animal derived coal is not far away from considering products made by workers who consumed meat to also be non-vegan.
notacoward 7y ago
Whether intentionally or no, Kate Taylor is doing the meat industry's work for them. Pretty much nobody seems to think that plant-based burgers are interesting primarily because they're healthier. See any other top-level comment for examples. Who benefits from a story putting plant-based burgers in a bad light by "refuting" a claim nobody made or cared about? There are many answers, but "the public in general" is not one. Even if the effect is not deliberate, this kind of click-bait seems a bit irresponsible.
- tootie 7y ago
  Per the article, most consumers are interested in plant burgers specifically for health concerns. I don't understand why you'd dismiss that as irrelevant. And unless this article is factually incorrect, the reporting is entirely fair. You can't get mad because you don't like it.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    Per the article, which cites one highly dubious data point to support that claim.
  - dymk 7y ago
    The article provides no source for the “most consumers” claim. Journalists aren’t immune to making stuff up. Why would you blindly trust it?
bane 7y ago
And they're really great with swiss and mushrooms with a side of garlic fries. Speaking as somebody who isn't even the slightest bit vegetarian, at near enough the same price as a regular low-end-to-average burger, I'll order it instead because they taste better and have slightly better mouth feel to me. It doesn't beat a really high-end burger yet, but those are usually more expensive than even an IF or BM choice. To be honest though, I support them because I want to support the general concept of high-end science being applied to food. After all, if we ever get off this rock and up into the stars, this is likely to become the direction our food comes from.
scriptproof 7y ago
> Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are continuing to tweak their recipes. The Impossible Burger 2.0, for example, launched earlier this year and was designed to be substantially healthier (and tastier) than the original, with less fat and sodium. The last sentence cancels the whole purpose of the article. Sodium is the main concern and new recipe use less sodium. Problem solved.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dpflan 7y ago
Currently plant-based burgers are not healthier but are nearing taste-equivalency, but surely it is easier to modify a plant-based burger recipe to increase "healthiness" than to modify a beef burger (make a healthier cow...?). [even mentioned at the end of this article] So if they are health-equivalent, now compare the next variables: impact on climate, impact on animal welfare, etc.
deboflo 7y ago
Why is this post even listed here? Business Insider is not a credible news source. They are a corrupt media organization owned by the shady Axel Springer SE. They have strong ties to powerful short sellers.
- elcritch 7y ago
  Link?
- klez 7y ago
  Then please flag it and move on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- chris_wot 7y ago
  Perhaps, but I think you might be going a bit overboard. However, I would like to see the original study data, and who commissioned it. That said, perhaps it does make sense that there is too much sodium. This sort of thing should be listed on ingredients, but I don't know what laws there are in the U.S. about this sort of thing.
elil17 7y ago
This article makes a false equivalence between being low calorie and being healthy. The challenge for many vegans (and vegetarians) is getting enough energy each day, so it’s actually healthy for plant based options to be highly caloric.
- skripp 7y ago
  I agree with the first sentence, but the second one makes no sense to me. Loads of energy in pasta/noodels, rice, potato, plant based oils etc etc. Getting all amino acids and various nutrients in sufficient amount sure, that is a problem. Energy is not.
  - elil17 7y ago
    The issue is not that high calorie vegan and vegetarian foods don’t exist, it’s an issue of convenience. Fast food restaurants, for all the hate they get, are really important sources of food for people who are too busy to cook. Unlike normal people, vegans can’t just stop at a chain restaurant and order a filling meal. Most vegans I know have to be exceedingly deliberate to make sure they eat enough because it’s so hard to find affordable vegan food unless you cook it yourself.
- niklasolai 7y ago
  That´s false, most people are overweight. It´s not that vegans/strict-vegetarians have a problem to get enough, its omnivore that have a problem with to much. The only diet that have a healthy BMI on average is vegans/strict-vegetarians.
peterwwillis 7y ago
Oh. They have some extra salt. Well I'm sure glad this make it to the front page to stimulate my intellectual curiosity.
segmondy 7y ago
I'm not a vegan, never had IF or BM, but I believe that if they taste as good as the real thing, they will be healthier for mother earth. It takes a lot of resources to raise beef.
newscracker 7y ago
Just like people don’t eat burgers for health (with a side of fries or a supersized portion), these aren’t primarily meant for health either. They could be a lot healthier than conventional burgers, and they certainly are when you look at the comparison chart. > When it comes to calories, fat, and protein, the two options are pretty similar. Plant-based burgers have less cholesterol...However, the plant-based burgers tend to have more sodium... Seriously, sodium is one thing that these brands could easily reduce, compared to other aspects, without compromising much on the taste. This article is a big nitpick on one tiny part. Are these being marketed as being way healthier? I thought the main selling point of these alternatives is against climate change and the disastrous effect that current animal agriculture has on it (then come animal cruelty and health). We’d probably be better off if people like the author adopt these alternatives and cut their sodium intake from other foods.
tmaly 7y ago
I hate to attack the messenger but businessinsider is an affiliate based site that generates revenue with clickbait titles.

73 points by SirLJ 7y ago

Veganism is not a health choice for most vegans, it’s an ethical one. Plant-based foods use fewer resources per calorie and do not require cruel treatment of animals.

fao_ 7y ago
> Plant-based foods use fewer resources per calorie and do not require cruel treatment of animals. They kind of have to at some point, otherwise you're using artificial nitrogen to top up the soil and that's not just bad for the soil but is also depleting a limited resource (The nitrogen comes from what IIRC is, a single mine). I remember reading about some farmers that managed to buck the usual statistics by getting around half a thousand chickens to an acre of farmland -- the chickens acted as a natural form of pest-control for the farmland, and their shit and corpses (when they died) provided a natural source for the NPK needed to feed the soil. The thing is, vegans forget that plants, etc. have all evolved with death as part of the equation. Animal death is required in some form, to supply the micro-organisms in the soil with the proper nutrients. Anyone who has studied farming and agriculture knows that the ideal isn't to eliminate animal death (something that is pretty much impossible unless you want to destabilize the ecosystem and starve your plants), but try to minimize it and ensure that the death is not wasted. I think this mistake in understanding goes back to school, where children are taught that if you give plants soil, water and sunlight, they will grow. They could take that opportunity to talk about the NPK cycle, the billions of micro-organisms in the soil that need to be fed to provide the plants with nutrients, the fact that dead animals help feed the plants and the micro-organisms, etc. Not teaching children about this when children are capable of understanding it is a disservice given that for many people that is the only schooling that they will ever have on farming and agriculture.
- xgulfie 7y ago
  You realize most of the atmosphere is Nitrogen, right? I would not call it a limited resource. Clovers and other cover crops also fix hydrogen.
  - mykowebhn 7y ago
    Atmospheric nitrogen is very common. Nitrogen that is in a form that's usable by plants is not so common. Many plants in the Fabaceae family, of which clover is a member, fix nitrogen, not hydrogen. I think that's what you probably meant.
    - xgulfie 7y ago
      Yeah I meant to say nitrogen but said hydrogen
  - captainredbeard 7y ago
    Are you implying that nitrogen depletion in the soil is a non-issue?
    - xgulfie 7y ago
      Is fertilizer runoff a non-issue? I guess if I'm putting my point together I'm trying to say "we can figure out how to grow crops without this much cow waste". If in 30 years meat consumption goes down dramatically, I'm very skeptical that we'll be growing feed corn to feed cows we dont eat, then use their waste to grow other plants.
      - captainredbeard 7y ago
        I’m not sure that replacing corn fields with pea and canola fields is going to make a difference wrt farming practices.
- CarVac 7y ago
  You don't mine nitrogen, you mine phosphorus.
captainredbeard 7y ago
If you let ruminant livestock graze in a carefully managed pattern instead of feeding them grain (grown and transported from miles away), it improves the land and reduces the amount of pollution: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI Cattle are not very efficient at converting grain to protein. It’s about 7:1. Pork is 2:1, in comparison. Poultry is close to 1:1.
- lozenge 7y ago
  If all livestock were raised in this way there would be nowhere near enough of them to feed current demand for meat (not saying that's a bad thing). Allan Savory holds a very fringe view not supported by scientists in this field, which you wouldn't know from his TED talk.
- bjoli 7y ago
  Don't forget that not all lands are good carbon sinks. The Swedish department of agriculture claimed in a report (nr 25:2010 iirc. In Swedish ) that the vast majority of Swedish grazeland would not meaningfully decrease carbon emissions regardless of grazing systems
- niklasolai 7y ago
  You forget the part where the animal is brutally killed at the end. Organic, grass feed, factory farming, they all end the same for the animal.

sdfasdfasdfsdfw 7y ago

Their goal was to make a 100% plant-based alternative to meat that tastes like meat. Plenty of other reasons to not eat meat. Humaneness toward animals? climate change? Also, regardless of above, not 100% onboard with the premise. I'll be interested in long-term studies. Impossible has been around less than 10 years.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

"Barclays concluded that when it comes to plant-based citizens, many are "thinking that they are healthier than what they really are."" I'm assuming this was retranslated --from burger to citizen

aitchnyu 7y ago
Spell checks for fat fingers seem more likely if you compare the first 3 letters of each word: C and B - one key away, I abd U - neighbours, T and R - neighbours, I and G - far away.

scotchbonnet 7y ago

To me this conclusion does not fit with a few points: quality of fats, overall quantity of fat, protein quantity, and fiber. I'm not making any overarching conclusion about what is healthier, but I do think the article's conclusion is pretty weak.

anreekoh 7y ago

1. Surely there are other chemical compounds that are present in the fast food meats and not the plant based meats, and vice versa, but that aren’t listed in the article’s table. 2. The plant-based meats are intended to imitate real meat as much as possible, and I would imagine an intuitive way to do this is to include the same amount of ingredients as on the table presented. 3. “Healthiness” is probably unfortunately best measured through a large and well intentioned study, and not objectively by comparing a limited list of ingredients.

qyv 7y ago
I know for a fact that McDonald's beef burgers, at least in North America, have a single ingredient: beef. They go directly from source grind to patty maker to freezer, nothing is added.
- anreekoh 7y ago
  Sorry, I meant that the chemical makeup of beef is distinct from that of plants. I wasn't referring to additives. I meant the proteins/enzymes, etc.

bpatel576 7y ago

I didn't even realize that the companies mission was to create a product that was "healthier." I always assumed that it was to create something that was more sustainable...

xipho 7y ago

I mean this is obvious, right? Salads on fast-food menus have more fat and other "bad stuff" than burgers thanks to cheese, dressing etc. Your FF faux burger is still fried, cheesed, sauced etc. Next please.

bambax 7y ago

> Nutrition is a major reason that people are giving plant-based burger a try Not really sure about that. Current meat "production" involves destroying the planet at an accelerated pace while treating animals in the most horrible way imaginable (and even beyond imagination).

eof 7y ago
I think saying “a major reason” is fair and accurate, but I agree that the it seems people are, in general, much more concerned about the ethics of industrial farming as it relates to animal cruelty, as well as beef being such a large contributor to co2.
- gpvos 7y ago
  While I think that's true for many people, I would like to have actual data about whether the wide public is more swayed by environmental/ethical or health concerns. Many companies are marketing this from a health angle, and they may know more than you and me. (Another possibility, which I'm not discounting, is that they think everyone is as cynical as they are.)
  - lprubin 7y ago
    According to this survey, 68.1% of people's main reason for going vegan was "for the animals" while "health" was only 17.4%. https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-global-survey-results https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-people-go-vegan-2019-gl... That being said, the question was "What is the main reason" so people who said "for the animals" might also care a lot about health.
    - gpvos 7y ago
      Going vegan (which I understand as deciding to only eat vegan from now on) is a much larger decision than just giving a plant-based burger a try in order to reduce your meat consumption somewhat.
7y ago

psychometry 7y ago

There's more to "healthy" than calories and cholesterol. What a trash article.

gwd 7y ago
Yeah, I was quite disappointed. Dietary cholesterol doesn't cause arterial cholesterol. "Fat" is a necessary nutrient, and there are different kinds -- polyunsaturated vegetable fats are different than saturated fat (found in beef); and even though saturated fat is considered "unhealthy", the actual scientific evidence for that designation is pretty shaky. And then, what about fiber? What about the mix of proteins and amino acids? Vitamins and minerals -- in particular B vitamins, which are difficult to get from non-animal sources? So much potential just to say, "It's got fat and salt, so it's just as bad."

MisterBastahrd 7y ago

They weren't meant to be and never claimed to be. You aren't going to replicate a beef patty without a ton of fat.

mark_l_watson 7y ago

My wife and I really enjoy both IF and BM burgers - just be sure to not overlook them! They do contain a lot of fat from vegetable oil but they are very low in cholesterol. I will trade more sodium for the advantages for me of reducing cholesterol. They really taste good. We like them on good rolls, purple onion, tomato, lettuce, and whatever sauce we feel like. Fantastic tasting burgers. There is also the advantages of not killing animals. My wife and I have just spent two years living in Illinois (returning home to Sedona Arizona next week) and our rented home is beside a pasteur and let me tell you that cows run around like dogs, playing together, and generally have different personalities - we notice which ones tend to start the running around playing/games and which ones join in after the game starts. I think most people in order to make themselves feel better imagine cows and steers as being dumb animals with no soul or consciousness. Not so. I am not a strict vegetarian, but personally I feel better about reducing my meat intake.

perfunctory 7y ago
I didn't do any history research on the subject but my own conspiracy theory suggests that the whole "humans have soul, animals don't" thing was invented to justify the natural world destruction.
- doitLP 7y ago
  Human-centric worldview and “only humans have souls” goes back to the dawn of recorded history. We often lived in closer confines with animals, often sleeping together for warmth, protection and to watch for predators. However killing animals for food was the way humans stayed alive when food was scarce as we pushed further into habitats that weren’t temperate. If anything I guess that the “only humans have souls” story arose as a necessary psychological protection mechanism for people who raised and got to know their animals and then had to slaughter and eat them. Same way people also try to dehumanize the enemy in war in order to not be crushed by the knowledge of killing another human being. Then once we stopped spending so much time with animals it was easy to continue the narrative since we don’t spend time observing them close up anymore and getting to know them personally.

52-6F-62 7y ago

I’m pretty sure this was already known and talked about. I think the reason it’s reiterated is many people do associate “no meat” with “more healthy”, whether it’s in error or not. (There’s even a big fad here in TO of fatty deep fried vegan foods!) The article is likely not tuned or intended for the audience of HN, but for people who don’t pay attention to the details of nutrition more. On a side note, I tried the Beyond Meat patty when they showed up at my grocery out of curiosity. It caused me terrible GI problems for about 3 days. Never again for me (sparing any details). Only suggestion I could find as to why was potentially the high amount of canola oil. That and I rarely eat processed foods, so I’m not sure how much that was a factor.

alkonaut 7y ago

Reasons I’d eat (more) vegetarian 1. Climate 2. Ethics ... 10. Nutrition/Health

hallihax 7y ago

Speaking as somebody who does enjoy a vegan boiger - 'health' and 'nutrition' are not things I'm looking at when I want a burger. This whole debate is one big straw-man. I'm a vegan. I don't need burgers. I might want burgers, but they don't form a part of a standard diet just in the same way any kind of burger probably shouldn't form part of anybody's regular diet. If you're eating processed food - there's a considerable chance that whatever it is you're eating - vegan or otherwise - is neither nutritious nor healthy. It probably tastes good though, which is why you want it in the first place. Ultimately it boils down to this: if I'm eating a burger, then nutrition and health are more or less irrelevant - I'm after taste. I think the lives of animals are more important than my taste-buds, so I eat plant-based burgers. It's not really any more complicated than that.

sametmax 7y ago
Precisely. And if you have enough veggies and vegans around you, you know that they can eat as much junk food as everyone else. Sugar is vegan, after all.
- hallihax 7y ago
  I'm guilty myself - my city has exploded with vegan stuff over the last couple of years and my waistline has expanded in-line with it :P
- seandougall 7y ago
  Some sugar is vegan. Most isn’t, though most vegans I know conveniently ignore that: [1] [1] https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-sugar-vegan/ https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-sugar-vegan/
  - skummetmaelk 7y ago
    Considering sugar to be non vegan just because it has possibly been filtered using animal derived coal is not far away from considering products made by workers who consumed meat to also be non-vegan.

notacoward 7y ago

Whether intentionally or no, Kate Taylor is doing the meat industry's work for them. Pretty much nobody seems to think that plant-based burgers are interesting primarily because they're healthier. See any other top-level comment for examples. Who benefits from a story putting plant-based burgers in a bad light by "refuting" a claim nobody made or cared about? There are many answers, but "the public in general" is not one. Even if the effect is not deliberate, this kind of click-bait seems a bit irresponsible.

tootie 7y ago
Per the article, most consumers are interested in plant burgers specifically for health concerns. I don't understand why you'd dismiss that as irrelevant. And unless this article is factually incorrect, the reporting is entirely fair. You can't get mad because you don't like it.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Per the article, which cites one highly dubious data point to support that claim.
- dymk 7y ago
  The article provides no source for the “most consumers” claim. Journalists aren’t immune to making stuff up. Why would you blindly trust it?

bane 7y ago

And they're really great with swiss and mushrooms with a side of garlic fries. Speaking as somebody who isn't even the slightest bit vegetarian, at near enough the same price as a regular low-end-to-average burger, I'll order it instead because they taste better and have slightly better mouth feel to me. It doesn't beat a really high-end burger yet, but those are usually more expensive than even an IF or BM choice. To be honest though, I support them because I want to support the general concept of high-end science being applied to food. After all, if we ever get off this rock and up into the stars, this is likely to become the direction our food comes from.

scriptproof 7y ago

> Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are continuing to tweak their recipes. The Impossible Burger 2.0, for example, launched earlier this year and was designed to be substantially healthier (and tastier) than the original, with less fat and sodium. The last sentence cancels the whole purpose of the article. Sodium is the main concern and new recipe use less sodium. Problem solved.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dpflan 7y ago

Currently plant-based burgers are not healthier but are nearing taste-equivalency, but surely it is easier to modify a plant-based burger recipe to increase "healthiness" than to modify a beef burger (make a healthier cow...?). [even mentioned at the end of this article] So if they are health-equivalent, now compare the next variables: impact on climate, impact on animal welfare, etc.

deboflo 7y ago

Why is this post even listed here? Business Insider is not a credible news source. They are a corrupt media organization owned by the shady Axel Springer SE. They have strong ties to powerful short sellers.

elcritch 7y ago
Link?
klez 7y ago
Then please flag it and move on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
chris_wot 7y ago
Perhaps, but I think you might be going a bit overboard. However, I would like to see the original study data, and who commissioned it. That said, perhaps it does make sense that there is too much sodium. This sort of thing should be listed on ingredients, but I don't know what laws there are in the U.S. about this sort of thing.

elil17 7y ago

This article makes a false equivalence between being low calorie and being healthy. The challenge for many vegans (and vegetarians) is getting enough energy each day, so it’s actually healthy for plant based options to be highly caloric.

skripp 7y ago
I agree with the first sentence, but the second one makes no sense to me. Loads of energy in pasta/noodels, rice, potato, plant based oils etc etc. Getting all amino acids and various nutrients in sufficient amount sure, that is a problem. Energy is not.
- elil17 7y ago
  The issue is not that high calorie vegan and vegetarian foods don’t exist, it’s an issue of convenience. Fast food restaurants, for all the hate they get, are really important sources of food for people who are too busy to cook. Unlike normal people, vegans can’t just stop at a chain restaurant and order a filling meal. Most vegans I know have to be exceedingly deliberate to make sure they eat enough because it’s so hard to find affordable vegan food unless you cook it yourself.
niklasolai 7y ago
That´s false, most people are overweight. It´s not that vegans/strict-vegetarians have a problem to get enough, its omnivore that have a problem with to much. The only diet that have a healthy BMI on average is vegans/strict-vegetarians.

peterwwillis 7y ago

Oh. They have some extra salt. Well I'm sure glad this make it to the front page to stimulate my intellectual curiosity.

segmondy 7y ago

I'm not a vegan, never had IF or BM, but I believe that if they taste as good as the real thing, they will be healthier for mother earth. It takes a lot of resources to raise beef.

newscracker 7y ago

Just like people don’t eat burgers for health (with a side of fries or a supersized portion), these aren’t primarily meant for health either. They could be a lot healthier than conventional burgers, and they certainly are when you look at the comparison chart. > When it comes to calories, fat, and protein, the two options are pretty similar. Plant-based burgers have less cholesterol...However, the plant-based burgers tend to have more sodium... Seriously, sodium is one thing that these brands could easily reduce, compared to other aspects, without compromising much on the taste. This article is a big nitpick on one tiny part. Are these being marketed as being way healthier? I thought the main selling point of these alternatives is against climate change and the disastrous effect that current animal agriculture has on it (then come animal cruelty and health). We’d probably be better off if people like the author adopt these alternatives and cut their sodium intake from other foods.

tmaly 7y ago

I hate to attack the messenger but businessinsider is an affiliate based site that generates revenue with clickbait titles.