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>To the second point, you say meat provides "far more" nutritional value than any plant. Maybe, maybe not. (I think "not", but I'm open to being wrong about tha

>To the second point, you say meat provides "far more" nutritional value than any plant. Maybe, maybe not. (I think "not", but I'm open to being wrong about that.) Every anthropologist: Human brain development skyrocketed and were able to maintain them when meat became a regular staple to their diet. Just pick any documentary or book on the evolutionary development of humans. Any! I'm tired of hearing this same bullshit argument that, "Maybe meat isn't good for us. The science isn't there that it's any good." Yes it is! There's millions of years of scientific evidence that shows meat is what made us the technological masters we are today! Where's the science that meat isn't good for us? I want to see that first. And don't give me the epidemiology of a McDonald's junkie and lay that as claim of "all meat eaters". They're as much of a carnivore as a second rate vulture. Then there's that old study that claimed dietary fat is worse than consuming sugar because, dun dun dun, they were paid off by the sugar industry. Do a fair comparison of some folks that are straight edge (no alcohol, smoking, vices, etc). Some herbivores, some omnivores. It's even better if they grow/raise their own food. That's when you'll see who's right and who's wrong. The one thing I agree with vegans is the fact they want people to get the processed trash out of their diet. The reliance on ultra processed foods for a majority of our diets has been causing more harm than good. These plant based burgers... yea... fruits right off the branch.

fossuser 6y ago
I think this is a strawman. It can be true that meat provides a lot of good nutrition. It can be true that the human cooking/eating of meat led to better nutrition and development in ancient times (when people ate less of it). It can also be true that in the modern world you can get that nutrition without meat and there may be other good reasons to do so (animal suffering, environment, ability to feed more people, more easily, potentially fewer heart related diseases). These things don't have to be in conflict. I don't think the comment you replied to was suggesting they were.
- hirundo 6y ago
  It may be that the extra nutritional benefits of meat can be matched by plant products. But the Beyond Meat offerings do not achieve anything close to that. They are made of highly processed industrial ingredients that are designed to approximate the texture of meat but not the nutritional profile. Pea proteins are not as complete nor bio-available as meat proteins, and the fatty acid profile is very different (and IMHO very inferior). To the extent that your purpose is greater health for yourself rather than less suffering, these products don't provide good value.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I don't think being a health food is Beyond Meat's (or Impossible's) goal and it really shouldn't be. I think they're trying to get the experience of eating meat right, they don't care (much) about the health profile. I think that's the right approach for them. Some others are trying to grow actual meat (Memphis Meats), in that case you'd get the same nutritional profile without the suffering if they can pull it off.
  - nate_meurer 6y ago
    The incomplete protein thing is a myth [1]. With anything close to a normal diet with a sufficient quantity of protein, the completeness of that protein has no effect on your physiology. Completeness becomes important only in severely deficient diets, where essential amino acids remain deficient for days or weeks. Likewise, bioavailability is not an important consideration in any reasonable diet. Your body can use only a finite amount of protein daily, and the vast majority of people in the developed world consume more protein than they can use. Increasing the availability of that protein only requires the body to excrete more "unused" nitrogen. What makes you think the fats in beef are superior to those in Beyond or Impossible? 1 - https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-latest/the-myth-of-complementary-protein/ https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-latest/the-myth-of-compl...
    - qwt 6y ago
      > The incomplete protein thing is a myth A vegetarian advocacy site now counts as a source against meat? If that doesn't count as bias, then I don't know what does. > With anything close to a normal diet with a sufficient quantity of protein, the completeness of that protein has no effect on your physiology. Completeness becomes important only in severely deficient diets, where essential amino acids remain deficient for days or weeks. Leucine is a key AA in muscle building [1]. Try finding a reasonable plant based diet with enough leucine. Not only this will be incredibly tough, but it would introduce a myriad of plant toxins and pesticides. > Likewise, bioavailability is not an important consideration in any reasonable diet. Your body can use only a finite amount of protein daily, and the vast majority of people in the developed world consume more protein than they can use. Let's ignore for a moment this utterly false for protein [2], and just point out the superiority of meat in providing bioavailable vitamins. Let's take a trivial and essential nutrient such as vitamin A as an example. A serving of beef liver contains the an abundant amount of the most active form of vitamin A - retinol. Plants such as carrots, on the other hand, only produce precursors such beta-carotene, that must be converted to retinol. Unfortunately, some people are incredibly poor converters of beta-carotene, and must rely on the complete form of the vitamin [3] > What makes you think the fats in beef are superior to those in Beyond or Impossible? That's a separate can of worms. Let's just say that I would much prefer to eat saturated beef fat over seed oil derived slop. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418071/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418071/ [2] https://academic.oup.com/af/article/9/4/18/5575466 https://academic.oup.com/af/article/9/4/18/5575466 [3] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1193S/4577160 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1193S/4577160
grawprog 6y ago
>The one thing I agree with vegans is the fact they want people to get the processed trash out of their diet. Except, i don't think i've yet met a vegan that doesn't consume ultra processed soy and or gluten based products. All these meat alternatives are ultra processed to make them resemble meat. They're made of ultra processed protein and vegetables, spices and additives to improve taste, colour and texture and to allow them to keep whatever shape and form they're pressed into. The creation of alternative meats is highly industrialized process that creates ultra-processed food products. The single number one thing humans could do to reduce pollution from agricultural production is to stop relying on global imports and exports for so many things and focus on small scale regional production. Reduce the overall amount of mass scale industrial agriculture. Because whatever's being produced, meat, plant or otherwise, the methods being used to produce them and the scale they're being produced on is the problem. Reduce the waste all along the supply chain, reduce the global footprint, go back to less productive but more sustainable production methods and focus food imports and exports as locally as possible. Rely on regional trade before global.
- dekhn 6y ago
  Here's a perfect example of the ultra processed vegan food: https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/other/bacn-pieces-bacon-flavored-bits https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/other/bacn-piec... It's not surprising that the ingredients list is similar to Doritos: Textured Soy Flour, Canola Oil, Salt, Caramel Color, Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Lactic Acid, Yeast Extract, Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate (Flavor Enhancers), and FD&C Red 40. It's basically and engineered umami delivery system.
  - PretzelPirate 6y ago
    Those are bacon bits and aren’t targeted towards the vegan market. I may have missed the joke, but this isn’t a great example of what vegans usually eat.
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  > Except, i don't think i've yet met a vegan that doesn't consume ultra processed soy and or gluten based products. Yea, the term "vegan" is pretty silly and meaningless, since it only describes what you don't eat. I'm fond of the whole-foods-plant-based diet (which is a vegan diet) and is more in line with what you're describing—eating real food. Avoiding processed junk. While I think eating local is a decent rule-of-thumb good thing, it's also overly-simplistic. Bananas are often used as an example. They're obviously not local to the U.S., and are shipped from long distances. But the environmental impact of bananas is minuscule (not to downplay the other political and agricultural issues with banana plantations).
havelhovel 6y ago
I thought the argument was that fire allowed us to process meat and acquire the calories needed to be more productive. Regardless, your argument seems to be that eating meat is better than starving. That isn’t an argument for eating meat. It’s an argument for food security. Guess what food security depends on. Reduced emissions.
estaseuropano 6y ago
The agricultural revolution - settling, understanding the seasons, plant selection and breeding - are much more important factors to where humans are today and the rise of civilisation and modern population scales than animal husbandry. That was part of the story but I've not seen any researcher arguing that domestication of the cow was more important than grains. But anyway there is no doubt animal meat is nutritious. The question is not xis it nutritious" or "was it important for humanity in the past," the question is where we go from here. Even if you can make a cogent argument that it was essential to humanity's rise that doesn't provide an argument (or vegans might say a justification) that we still need animal meat in 2050. Arguably constant warfare and burning coal was what drove technological prowess in Europe to bring us a long way to today's world, but would you argue we still need those? Slavery was essential to the rise of America, does that make it right to continue? Colonialism made Britain rich and rose many Brits out of poverty, does that mean Britain should continue exploiting India? Domestic violence and marriage of underage girls was a common and essential feature of human societies every where, does that justify continuing them these today? Arguments based on past practice hold no moral or scientific sway over our future.
tashoecraft 6y ago
Just because meat helped develop humnans to have large brain growth does not mean it is the best thing for humans. Evolution prioritized different things. Living longer and healthier past the age of 30 are not things that would have been affected. You're going to believe what you want, but the meat/dairy industry are truly diabolical in what they produce and how they do it. From the conditions of animals, to how they treat them, to even how they treat their human workers are just bad up and down. How many people grow and raise their own food? We need comparisons that work on a global scale. I believe some amount of high quality meat and dairy can be good for you, but we as a species consume way to much and it's just been going. Our fish intake is absolutely devastating for our oceans. The amount of cows, chickens and pigs we slaughter is also extremely detrimental. These plant based burgers are a start. Beyond claims no GMOs where as Impossible openly embraces gmos. Nutrition science is difficult, but hopefully we're progressing, and I think reducing meat consumption will improve peoples diet on average.
nate_meurer 6y ago
> Every anthropologist: Human brain development skyrocketed and were able to maintain them when meat became a regular staple to their diet. Just pick any documentary or book on the evolutionary development of humans. Any! Go ahead and cite one of those sources. It's curious that all the rest of the world's carnivores missed out on that skyrocketing brain development. I agree with you about the sugar industry though. They're worse than big tobacco.

fossuser 6y ago

I think this is a strawman. It can be true that meat provides a lot of good nutrition. It can be true that the human cooking/eating of meat led to better nutrition and development in ancient times (when people ate less of it). It can also be true that in the modern world you can get that nutrition without meat and there may be other good reasons to do so (animal suffering, environment, ability to feed more people, more easily, potentially fewer heart related diseases). These things don't have to be in conflict. I don't think the comment you replied to was suggesting they were.

hirundo 6y ago
It may be that the extra nutritional benefits of meat can be matched by plant products. But the Beyond Meat offerings do not achieve anything close to that. They are made of highly processed industrial ingredients that are designed to approximate the texture of meat but not the nutritional profile. Pea proteins are not as complete nor bio-available as meat proteins, and the fatty acid profile is very different (and IMHO very inferior). To the extent that your purpose is greater health for yourself rather than less suffering, these products don't provide good value.
- fossuser 6y ago
  I don't think being a health food is Beyond Meat's (or Impossible's) goal and it really shouldn't be. I think they're trying to get the experience of eating meat right, they don't care (much) about the health profile. I think that's the right approach for them. Some others are trying to grow actual meat (Memphis Meats), in that case you'd get the same nutritional profile without the suffering if they can pull it off.
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  The incomplete protein thing is a myth [1]. With anything close to a normal diet with a sufficient quantity of protein, the completeness of that protein has no effect on your physiology. Completeness becomes important only in severely deficient diets, where essential amino acids remain deficient for days or weeks. Likewise, bioavailability is not an important consideration in any reasonable diet. Your body can use only a finite amount of protein daily, and the vast majority of people in the developed world consume more protein than they can use. Increasing the availability of that protein only requires the body to excrete more "unused" nitrogen. What makes you think the fats in beef are superior to those in Beyond or Impossible? 1 - https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-latest/the-myth-of-complementary-protein/ https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-latest/the-myth-of-compl...
  - qwt 6y ago
    > The incomplete protein thing is a myth A vegetarian advocacy site now counts as a source against meat? If that doesn't count as bias, then I don't know what does. > With anything close to a normal diet with a sufficient quantity of protein, the completeness of that protein has no effect on your physiology. Completeness becomes important only in severely deficient diets, where essential amino acids remain deficient for days or weeks. Leucine is a key AA in muscle building [1]. Try finding a reasonable plant based diet with enough leucine. Not only this will be incredibly tough, but it would introduce a myriad of plant toxins and pesticides. > Likewise, bioavailability is not an important consideration in any reasonable diet. Your body can use only a finite amount of protein daily, and the vast majority of people in the developed world consume more protein than they can use. Let's ignore for a moment this utterly false for protein [2], and just point out the superiority of meat in providing bioavailable vitamins. Let's take a trivial and essential nutrient such as vitamin A as an example. A serving of beef liver contains the an abundant amount of the most active form of vitamin A - retinol. Plants such as carrots, on the other hand, only produce precursors such beta-carotene, that must be converted to retinol. Unfortunately, some people are incredibly poor converters of beta-carotene, and must rely on the complete form of the vitamin [3] > What makes you think the fats in beef are superior to those in Beyond or Impossible? That's a separate can of worms. Let's just say that I would much prefer to eat saturated beef fat over seed oil derived slop. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418071/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418071/ [2] https://academic.oup.com/af/article/9/4/18/5575466 https://academic.oup.com/af/article/9/4/18/5575466 [3] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1193S/4577160 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/96/5/1193S/4577160

grawprog 6y ago

>The one thing I agree with vegans is the fact they want people to get the processed trash out of their diet. Except, i don't think i've yet met a vegan that doesn't consume ultra processed soy and or gluten based products. All these meat alternatives are ultra processed to make them resemble meat. They're made of ultra processed protein and vegetables, spices and additives to improve taste, colour and texture and to allow them to keep whatever shape and form they're pressed into. The creation of alternative meats is highly industrialized process that creates ultra-processed food products. The single number one thing humans could do to reduce pollution from agricultural production is to stop relying on global imports and exports for so many things and focus on small scale regional production. Reduce the overall amount of mass scale industrial agriculture. Because whatever's being produced, meat, plant or otherwise, the methods being used to produce them and the scale they're being produced on is the problem. Reduce the waste all along the supply chain, reduce the global footprint, go back to less productive but more sustainable production methods and focus food imports and exports as locally as possible. Rely on regional trade before global.

dekhn 6y ago
Here's a perfect example of the ultra processed vegan food: https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/other/bacn-pieces-bacon-flavored-bits https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/other/bacn-piec... It's not surprising that the ingredients list is similar to Doritos: Textured Soy Flour, Canola Oil, Salt, Caramel Color, Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Lactic Acid, Yeast Extract, Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate (Flavor Enhancers), and FD&C Red 40. It's basically and engineered umami delivery system.
- PretzelPirate 6y ago
  Those are bacon bits and aren’t targeted towards the vegan market. I may have missed the joke, but this isn’t a great example of what vegans usually eat.
the_gastropod 6y ago
> Except, i don't think i've yet met a vegan that doesn't consume ultra processed soy and or gluten based products. Yea, the term "vegan" is pretty silly and meaningless, since it only describes what you don't eat. I'm fond of the whole-foods-plant-based diet (which is a vegan diet) and is more in line with what you're describing—eating real food. Avoiding processed junk. While I think eating local is a decent rule-of-thumb good thing, it's also overly-simplistic. Bananas are often used as an example. They're obviously not local to the U.S., and are shipped from long distances. But the environmental impact of bananas is minuscule (not to downplay the other political and agricultural issues with banana plantations).

havelhovel 6y ago

I thought the argument was that fire allowed us to process meat and acquire the calories needed to be more productive. Regardless, your argument seems to be that eating meat is better than starving. That isn’t an argument for eating meat. It’s an argument for food security. Guess what food security depends on. Reduced emissions.

estaseuropano 6y ago

The agricultural revolution - settling, understanding the seasons, plant selection and breeding - are much more important factors to where humans are today and the rise of civilisation and modern population scales than animal husbandry. That was part of the story but I've not seen any researcher arguing that domestication of the cow was more important than grains. But anyway there is no doubt animal meat is nutritious. The question is not xis it nutritious" or "was it important for humanity in the past," the question is where we go from here. Even if you can make a cogent argument that it was essential to humanity's rise that doesn't provide an argument (or vegans might say a justification) that we still need animal meat in 2050. Arguably constant warfare and burning coal was what drove technological prowess in Europe to bring us a long way to today's world, but would you argue we still need those? Slavery was essential to the rise of America, does that make it right to continue? Colonialism made Britain rich and rose many Brits out of poverty, does that mean Britain should continue exploiting India? Domestic violence and marriage of underage girls was a common and essential feature of human societies every where, does that justify continuing them these today? Arguments based on past practice hold no moral or scientific sway over our future.

tashoecraft 6y ago

Just because meat helped develop humnans to have large brain growth does not mean it is the best thing for humans. Evolution prioritized different things. Living longer and healthier past the age of 30 are not things that would have been affected. You're going to believe what you want, but the meat/dairy industry are truly diabolical in what they produce and how they do it. From the conditions of animals, to how they treat them, to even how they treat their human workers are just bad up and down. How many people grow and raise their own food? We need comparisons that work on a global scale. I believe some amount of high quality meat and dairy can be good for you, but we as a species consume way to much and it's just been going. Our fish intake is absolutely devastating for our oceans. The amount of cows, chickens and pigs we slaughter is also extremely detrimental. These plant based burgers are a start. Beyond claims no GMOs where as Impossible openly embraces gmos. Nutrition science is difficult, but hopefully we're progressing, and I think reducing meat consumption will improve peoples diet on average.

nate_meurer 6y ago

> Every anthropologist: Human brain development skyrocketed and were able to maintain them when meat became a regular staple to their diet. Just pick any documentary or book on the evolutionary development of humans. Any! Go ahead and cite one of those sources. It's curious that all the rest of the world's carnivores missed out on that skyrocketing brain development. I agree with you about the sugar industry though. They're worse than big tobacco.