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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 dedica

• partiallypro 6y ago
  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?
  • space_fountain 6y ago
    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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
    I have friends that prefer the Impossible breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks to their meat versions so that's what they order.
    • mike_d 6y ago
      Your friends probably don't like the fillers they use. The turkey bacon for example uses ground up cherry pits to bulk it out and reduce cost.
      • nkurz 6y ago
        I think you must be wrong. Here's the ingredient list for Starbuck's turkey bacon: Turkey Bacon [Turkey, Vinegar And Lemon Juice Concentrate, Water, Brown Sugar, Honey, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Seasoning (Natural Flavorings, Sea Salt), Cherry Powder, Evaporated Cane Sugar] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/368/single?parent=%2Ffood%2Fhot-breakfast%2Fbreakfast-sandwiches-and-wraps https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/368/single?parent=%2F... First, they are using "cherry powder", which I'm almost sure is ground cherry flesh, not pits. At least, all the examples I can find online are the fruit (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cherry+powder%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cherry+powder%22), and I'm doubtful that they would be legally allowed to call pits "powder", since most cherry pits are often considered to be poisonous. Second, the ingredients need to be order of weight. There is more salt, potassium chloride and seasoning than "cherry powder". While I'm sure their bacon is really seasoned and salty, this doesn't leave much room for a "bulking agent". And I'd be really surprised that "cherry powder" is cheaper than "turkey", as I recently bought an after-thanksgiving turkey for well less than $1/lb. I'd be betting that the "cherry powder" is either being used as a flavoring, for the color, or to justify some spurious nutritional claim. But if you have more in-depth knowledge that would support your position that it's just cheap bulking agent, I'm happy to be wrong!
    • tguvot 6y ago
      This sounds like a testimony to a quality (or actually absence of it) of starbucks food
  • jdlshore 6y ago
    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 6y ago
    "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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
        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 6y ago
          It's like boiling a frog with the intention of eating it before it jumps out of the pot.
  • maxfurman 6y ago
    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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
    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.
  • throwawayboise 6y ago
    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.
    • metabagel 6y ago
      Impossible burgers are ridiculously close to meat and worth a try. Beyond Burgers are more noticeably different than meat.
  • arcturus17 6y ago
    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.
  • nicoburns 6y ago
    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.
  • GVIrish 6y ago
    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.
  • metabagel 6y ago
    What you’re referring to are sometimes called “flexitarians” - people who will often choose a vegetarian option if it is available, but who will eat meat if no suitable vegetarian option is available.
• brightball 6y ago
  IMO this is the better solution to methane... https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/941030964/adding-red-seaweed-to-cow-feed-could-cut-bovine-flatulance https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/941030964/adding-red-seaweed-...
  • GavinMcG 6y ago
    Headline is "Adding Red Seaweed To Cow Feed Could Cut Bovine Flatulence"
• DamnYuppie 6y ago
  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-cattle-and-calves-in-the-us--since-2001/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison 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.
  • mikepurvis 6y ago
    > 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-methane.html 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-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ http://newzealmeats.com/blog/grain-fed-vs-grass-fed-beef-gre...
    • DamnYuppie 6y ago
• macintux 6y ago
  I always assumed the inefficient grain and water requirements alone would make it worthwhile.
• ngngngng 6y ago
  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-grassfed-beef https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grass...
  • loceng 6y ago
    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.
    • throwaway1777 6y ago
      Not sure why this was downvoted, sacred cow is actually a good unbiased take at regenerative agriculture (including both plants and animals)
  • silicon2401 6y ago
    > 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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
    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.
• com2kid 6y ago
  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.
  • jimktrains2 6y ago
    > 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. Noöne will force it on anyone, but people will experiment and find culinary and economic reasons to use new ingredients.
    • astura 6y ago
      Very good point, for example, I think of dragon fruit as being 100% an Asian food so I was shocked to find out it's indigenous to the Americas.
    • 6y ago
• hannob 6y ago
  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.
  • nightski 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      Except for the cow.
      • fastball 6y ago
        It's only 1/4 of a cow. The cow still has 3/4 to work with.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • rsj_hn 6y ago
          Everyone has to cut back in lean times.
      • leadingthenet 6y ago
        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.
• elktea 6y ago
  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-emissions.html https://aleph-2020.blogspot.com/2019/06/greenhouse-gas-emiss...
  • vortegne 6y ago
    > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant Completely wrong
    • kleton 6y ago
      What is one plant that contains menaquinone or eicosapentaenoate?
      • chickenpotpie 6y ago
        Sauerkraut, buckwheat, fermented soy
      • vortegne 6y ago
        Are you eating a lot of liver? Because if not, you're not getting that much of menaquinone anyway. And there's plenty of it in plant-based foods, as pointed out by the other commenter. As for omega-3, I believe it's been a few decades since we found it in a ton of different seeds, nuts and oils.
• fortran77 6y ago
  > 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 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22657
• kleton 6y ago
  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.
  • metabagel 6y ago
    Cattle drink a lot of water, and the plants they consume require a lot of water. If we want to produce as much food as possible, as well as free up water for human consumption and irrigation, we should probably cut back on raising cattle for food.
• swiley 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    My toddler did the same thing! Just threw it off their high chair trey!
  • lostgame 6y ago
    Similar! I can immediately and clearly tell the difference, like water and vodka! A similar texture, colour and presentation does not the same thing make. It may have been due to the spelling, but I found it utterly fascinating that a dead comment below stated even their toddler was able to differentiate! I didn’t throw it out. I donated it to a friend. I have a basically never throw food out policy.
• therealmarv 6y ago
  You should research on German Ökotest 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 6y ago
    there is no mineral oil in beyond meat: https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/beyond-beef/ https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/beyond-beef/ click 'ingredients'
    • therealmarv 6y ago
      not on purpose. Just google for words: beyond meat mineral oil Öko-Test or see my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26320898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26320898
• frankfrankfrank 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    > 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 6y ago
    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_ 6y ago
    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?
• rsj_hn 6y ago
  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.
• bendubuisson 6y ago
  I'm a vegetarian, but Cowspiracy is not something I would use in an argument, the thing is full of shortcuts and misleading facts...
• _cloudkate 6y ago
  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.
• Chris2048 6y ago
  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.
  • ricardobayes 6y ago
    Don't think it's just marketing though. People always reject change at first - and they are right to do so. This reaction is coded in us. I just hope vegan food items will not go the path of electric vehicles where they are forced on us without choice. (Saying this as a plant-based eater).
    • Chris2048 6y ago
      Well, it might be forced upon us if the market changes such that meat becomes a luxury item again. To be fair, it's currently heavily subsidized, and isn't taxed in proportion to the resources (land/water/carbon) it uses, so we're kinda living outside our means already - the exact same is true of fossil-fuel based vehicles..
• chovybizzass 6y ago
  i don't believe cow farts are a bigger problem than cars.
• YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  >> 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/ https://www.mightyearth.org/ukmeatinvestigation/
  • ip26 6y ago
    But that's exactly the point. People eat 5 million head of cattle at McDonalds annually. Beyond Meat will hopefully need a lot less soy feedstock than cattle ranching for the same burger, so it should be a strong improvement.
  • theptip 6y ago
    > 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 seems like a reasonable prior, if you had no evidence about the specific harms of meat production vs. Beyond Meat. But given the widely documented harms of beef production (devastation of the Amazon for soy feedstock/grazing, GHG emissions, water usage, etc) and the lack of evidence of similar levels of harm from potential replacements like Beyond, I'm curious as to why you're indifferent to potential improvements in the worst parts of the food supply chain. It seems like a non-sequitur; "McDonalds' current practices do harm, McDonalds is considering a new product, therefore new product must do equal harm." It sounds like you do care about the harms; do you have specific evidence/comparisons that indicate Beyond actually is as bad as beef for the environment? My model here is that companies like McDonalds are completely indifferent to the negative externalities they impose on the environment, except inasmuch as they become financial/reputational liabilities. I see no reason to assume that a plant-based alternative must, a priori, be bad, just because McDonalds are rolling them out. As a thought experiment, consider if they had vat-grown beef, produced in each store. This might have the side-effect of halting environmental devastation and reducing CO2 emissions from transportation. Would McDonalds pay extra for this? Probably not. But if it's significantly cheaper than farmed beef, then I think obviously yes, they would use it. I don't think you could make the generic statement "switching to vat-grown alternatives will simply change where the damage is done" without providing a more rigorous analysis of the specific processes involved.
• yrgulation 6y ago
  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.
  • rendered_fat 6y ago
    Is it healthy?
• war1025 6y ago
  > 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.
  • adtac 6y ago
    That argument makes no sense. If I said that the more unleaded petrol is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people, would it remind you of margarine too? Should we go back to leaded petrol? Or coca-cola with cocaine in it?
• megablast 6y ago
  The real game changer will be when they price it cheaper than meat.
  • adtac 6y ago
    That will require government subsidisation, just like how meat and dairy is subsidised.
• actuator 6y ago
  > and not just dedicated vegans. Are vegans actually adopting these? I would have assumed non vegetarians eating fake meat more. A significant part of the world is vegetarian/vegan, so we don't have dearth of just plant based food preparations from there. Isn't it easier to adopt those things for dedicated vegans?
• TheRealSteel 6y ago
  I've spent the last year vegan (only eating meat again this week because I'm in quarantine and can't get vegan food) and I: - Firmly believe that lab grown and plant-based imitation meats will be the thing that makes the world vegan, not somehow convincing everybody to stop eating meat and dairy - Would invest in lab-grown meat for profit if I had money to invest - it just makes sense to me that it will eventually become cheaper to manufacture than traditional meat for obvious reasons, and when it does, the McDonald's marketing machine will be out in full force to convince everyone that lab-grown meat is the manly masculine option (completely different to being one of those 'pussy vegans', right!?) and will succeed massively Beyond is a plant-based imitation meat, not a lab grown meat (which I think will make more of a splash due to their variety and authenticity), but I still think it has its place and wish them success. Even if you don't are about the animal cruelty, animal agriculture is a huge contributor to climate change - far bigger than international flights - and not eating meat is usually the best thing an individual can do to lower their contribution.
• belorn 6y ago
  When it comes to the climate I have two primary problems: 1: We use fossil fuels (natural gas) to create artificial fertilizers. We use manure from cattle to create organic fertilizers. The production of artificial fertilizers is seen as positive for the environment while the production of organic fertilizers is seen as an negative. 2: When we use artificial fertilizers to grow crops which get used to produce bio fuel we call it carbon neutral. Cattle eating grass is in contrast seen as a major if the largest contributor to climate change.
• notnestle 6y ago
  Don’t be fooled, not all plant based foods are good for the planet. Nestle makes them in Israel & sends them with refrigerated air freight around the world. That’s more harmful than a cow...
• waheoo 6y ago
  I don't think you can call it vegan. Millenia of meat eating went into the making of this "meat".
• spicyramen 6y ago
  That doesn't taste as good as meat.
• jb_gericke 6y ago
  Agriculture accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, of which livestock is only a portion (soil and crops are lumped in with agriculture). Focussing on the smallest denominator in reducing emissions is nonsensical (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...). I understand there is a morality aspect at play but it's frustrating hearing the vegan vitriol dolled out without thought for consequence. Meat is by far the most nutrient dense food available to humans. The vegan diet (as in strict vegan, not vegetarian) is incredibly unhealthy. Have you considered the land use required to grow the crops necessary to deliver the same amount of nutrients to a global populace? There's a burgeoning industry growing which conflates health and veganism and snidely appeals to the morality aspect of the vegan diet while dangerously touting non-existent health benefits. The list of ingredients ina a beyond burger is longer than my arm. My advice? Stay away from fast food (vegan or otherwise), eat whole, unprocessed foods much as possible, eat 'mindfully', make your own decisions regarding your health and diet and don't buy into anyone's snake oil/capitalistic agenda.
• kmonsen 6y ago
  I'm not vegan, but I always pick the Beyond/impossible options when they are available. I hardly taste the difference and one less cow had to die for me having a tasty meal. And greenhouse gasses I guess, but for me animal cruelty is the most important.
  • ricardobayes 6y ago
    You are one cool person
    • kmonsen 6y ago
      I am not very cool at all, I just like animals.
• seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  Unless there is a health benefit, why would normal people adopt vegan meat? Impossible meat has just as much fat and other bad things compared to real meat, I’m not sure why would be interested in it. If we replace cattle grazing by more plant growing, what are we going to do with the marginal land that is arable enough for grazing but not for growing things? It’s not like neveda is going to be able to switch from cattle to soy.
  • wortelefant 6y ago
    Which ingredients are you referring to exactly - the lack of antibiotics normally used when raising cattle? Plant-based meat has much less cholesterol, but the main reason should be animal welfare. Why choose to be responsible for the death of a living being, especially if there are healthy and tasty alternative. Unused land should not be a problem, it was not always used for grazing after all.
    • seanmcdirmid 6y ago
      Right m, we could just leave the land to nature. But some people like to make some use out of their (or in the case of the west the BLM’s) land.
  • looperhacks 6y ago
    People who care for animals but don't want to give up the taste of meat come to mind
• acd10j 6y ago
  After reading some of the comments, I am increasingly thinking that People who eat beef/meat regularly will still seek Original/Farm grown/actual cattle beef. And Beyond meat style beef will be used for turning vegetarian people to get taste of beef, so that they can graduate to real beef later. Non Vegetarian people will never accept climate impact their eating habits have on environment.
  • dsomers 6y ago
    I’m not a vegetarian, but I eat a lot less meat now than two years ago primarily because of climate change, but also because it now feels easy because I’ve found meat alternatives like this that I enjoy the taste of.
• moltar 6y ago
  The myth about beef and methane has been debunked many times. If you want a detailed accord please read the Sacred Cow or watch the doc.
• otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  Beef is a net positive for the environment while "vegan" mass-produced cash crops are a net negative. Beef can (and does) graze on natural pastures that would have been otherwise ruined and turned into something useless.
  • perfunctory 6y ago
    If only we ate grass fed beef exclusively. Unfortunately this is not the case.
    • otabdeveloper4 6y ago
      Seems a heck of a lot easier to motivate people to feed their cows on land nobody wants anyways than to invent "vegetarian meat".
      • perfunctory 6y ago
        Unfortunately not. There is simply not enough land to replace all beef with grass-fed beef.
        • otabdeveloper4 6y ago
          Citation needed, because there is a lot of unused land in the world.
  • adtac 6y ago
    Cash crops such as soy that are a mainstay in vegan diets? What do you think most of the cows eat before they're slaughtered for your lunch? A five year Oxford University study done on 38,700 farms showed that if everyone in the world switched to a plant based diet, we would be able to reduce agricultural land by 76% [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29853680/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29853680/
• kvgr 6y ago
  I don't understand this vegan processed food propaganda to push people not eat meat. What would be much more efficient is making laws for more quality meat. US is very weirdly regulated(drugs, healthcare, doctors compared to food quality) Reduce the steroid meat. The prices would go up, the consumption down. If you want to eat meat, you would pay more. I would. I love meat, all types. You don't also have to eat beef every day. Chicken, pork and other types of meat are pretty much equal in quality if you avoid fat cuts for example of pork. I also love bread and vegetables. And I also think it is much better to eat fresh meat and fresh vegetables then heavily processed vegetables, grains and industrially processed oils. There are much more efficient ways to curb down emissions than fighting holy war against meat(coal anyone? trans oceanic shipping).
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > I don't understand this vegan processed food propaganda to push people not eat meat. What's the propaganda angle? This is working the problem from a different end. Yes, we need to increase quality and reduce the amount of steroids/antibiotics used in meat production. Yes, we should stop subsidizing it and let the prices go up. But at the same time, lots of people love meat, so providing a similarly tasting alternative will reduce the demand for meat without forcing people to alter their tastes too much. Mid-term, it helps mitigate a climate problem. Meat production is very energy-inefficient and emission-intensive to such a large degree, that it is a good problem to attack early. Long-term, it also solves an ethical problem. Ever since homo sapiens started to settle down and domesticate animals, we've been very cruel to farm animals[0]. I don't want to push any moralizing propaganda here - it's a touchy topic for everyone now, as way too many groups use it as a weapon, but I think everyone knows there's something to it. It's uncomfortable to touch. But! If we can develop enough meat substitutes, we can just sidestep this problem entirely, and eventually stop farming animals[1]. > There are much more efficient ways to curb down emissions than fighting holy war against meat(coal anyone? trans oceanic shipping). I think a better way than fighting a holy war is to make options available. Which is what Beyond Meat is doing. They're not telling you, "stop eating meat!" - they're saying, "if you'd like to stop eating meat but can't because it's so tasty, try our alternative, maybe you'll like it enough". -- [0] - Factory farming is just extreme end of it, but even the old-school small farms are just animal abuse and torture. [1] - At least for meat. I'm not sure what the story for milk and eggs are, both of which are crucial ingredient to a wide range of foods and chemistry.
• HenryBemis 6y ago
  Marketing-wise, I remember reading about the Oil industry heavily advertising on the benefits of plastic RECYCLING, which helped remove the guilt on oil extraction and plastic production, thus helping the large growth in the business[0]. (APOLOGIES for the below sporadic CAPS - I really have to learn how to write bold/italics in HN) I see the ethical and environmental benefits of eating meat without killing an animal. This makes me wonder the following: -is this to ensure meat-eaters continue to eat meat (for their benefit) without the suffering of animals? -is this to ensure that we eat cleaner/healthier/disease-free meat? [1] -is this to industrialise meat production further with a smaller harmful footprint? -is this to SELL TO VEGANS? (expand the customer base?). If I can break down the vegetarians/vegans into two categories: a) Those who don't want to eat meat because they prefer a plant-based diet (by choice, medical reasons, etc.) and b) Those who do it for ethical reasons - 'meat is murder'. -is this to SELL TO various RELIGIONS FOLLOWERS? I am thinking that around 2-3-4bn people do NOT eat a certain type of meat (or another)(pork, beef) for religious reasons. Imagine selling 'non-beef beef burgers' to 1.5bn people in India, 'non-pork bacon' to 2-3bn Muslims, etc. -how will 'permissible' (halal) meat consumers be affected by this? The 'halal' process defines a ritual that is not possile. Will religion follow/adapt? [0]: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled?t=1614759902332 https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-... [1]: https://www.motherjones.com/food/2015/08/poop-ground-beef-superbugs-antibiotic-resistant/ https://www.motherjones.com/food/2015/08/poop-ground-beef-su... (I was trying to remember the movie.. but I couldn't..)
• shafyy 6y ago
  Pardon me for hijacking the top comment, but I see so much wrong information here that I want to address: 1) Direct emissions from livestock Yes, direct emissions from livestock are around 15% of all GHG emissions globally, and less than that in the US or most developed countries. That's because a lot of developed countries "import" emissions by buying cheap meat from livestock agriculture intensive coutries 2) Direct emissions are just the tip of the iceberg, though The bigger threats from livestock agriculture are land use and loss of biodiversity. Today, around 45% of usable land is used for or by livestock [1]. That's nuts. That land has something called the "opportunity cost of carbon" - meaning how much carbon could be sequestrated there by natural vegetation if it wasn't used for livestock. And that's a lot. One study that was published in Nature estimated that: "[...] finding that shifts in global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 could lead to sequestration of 332–547 GtCO2, equivalent to 99–163% of the CO2 emissions budget consistent with a 66% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 °C [2] Biodiversity is a separate issue than climate change (mostly), but if we start fucking it up more its consequences will be more dire, and it's not on the public's mind currently. Today, 60% of all mammals are cows. Only 4% of all mammals are wild life [3]. Let that sink in. Disturbing habitats of species, planting monocultures and changing the balance of biodiversity leads to the extinction of a lot of species. Humans are at the top of the food chain, and starting to erase species further downstream will lead to non-linear events that will endanger us. And don't get me started about zoonotic diseases. 3) Holistic grazing One comment mentioned that it's better to have cattle on land that's considered "marginal" than not having cattle, arguing that having cattle actually sequestrates more carbon than it emits. Of course, this is total bullshit or we would have some sort of cow pertuum mobile. This sort of livestock agriculture is often referred to "holistic grazing" and is more a cult movement than something rooted in science. Their "research" is often debunked by scientific studies [4]. It's always better to eat plants directly than to process it through a cow or chicken or goat. That's just basics physics. Sources: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4.epdf?sharing_token=lgXbpAbkjFrSjOabh_v66NRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0P77FyzGHe2tktE9ZrHAccCF62Zbhw7v9AoX05gp9lKKfvbGYiWvEkliPbe2e81XovvLyHq-XdiyAuDp2Urehw6kn5U8rgjMFeDp4GZPLLotA9UA4C2XbmuaoSDw0f-0Xo%3D https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4.epdf?shar... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-ra... https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/
• Solstinox 6y ago
  When you see this as the top comment on HN, you realize how good of a job Big Oil has done deflecting their sins onto animal husbandry.