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While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - T
by sweetheart 5y ago
While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers:
- The texture is off
- Maybe they cook strangely
- Potentially less taste
But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals.
This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible.
Maybe you think the burger tastes different, or has a strange texture, but I certainly won't try to argue that because it doesn't matter. No one needed to die for you to eat it.
- sidlls 5y agoSo many animals die at the blades of the harvester. Also, the reason the argument fares poorly is likely due to the fact that it’s devoid of reason and couched entirely in emotion. Emotion is powerful and important, as it is part of our humanity. But it’s not a good basis for argument, given its fickle and poorly understood nature.
- dqv 5y agoLess animals stand to die at the blades of the harvester when one chooses to stop eating animals altogether. You can't eliminate suffering, but you can take active measures to reduce it.
- sidlls 5y agoOne can also choose to consume meat that is not treated with cruelty. It’s more expensive, but does exist. The “less violence” argument doesn’t hold sway with some. That’s a purely subjective assessment that not everyone agrees with. For example, I don’t consider the slaughter of animals for food to be particularly more violent than the wholesale shredding of plant fibers at harvest.
- andyana 5y agoCuriously, where would you draw the line for violence?
- alecst 5y ago> I don’t consider the slaughter of animals for food to be particularly more violent than the wholesale shredding of plant fibers at harvest You probably think of "violence" differently than most people then.
- sweetheart 5y agoThere is no such thing as slaughter without cruelty. The animals do not want to die, and they are killed. That is _always_ cruel.
- sidlls 5y agoThere is such a thing, for example the slaughtering of an animal for food.
- sweetheart 5y agoIf you watch the footage of pigs being half-stunned, throats slit, and then drowning in a vat of hot blood, and can earnestly tell me you don't see that as cruel, I promise you I will never make that argument again.
- sidlls 5y agoAs if that were the only way to slaughter an animal.
- sweetheart 5y agoIt’s how virtually all factory farms do it, which is the vast vast majority of meat that human beings eat. We should make sure we’re comfortable with it before saying it’s humane.
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- alecst 5y agoMaybe you can say more about what you disagree with, then, rather than writing off the comment as a bad argument. I don't think it was that bad or emotional, personally.
- sidlls 5y agoWhat part of “ without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible” is not emotional? The words “feeling” and “individual” are purely emotional in this context.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI think that many times people have a logical argument (perhaps flawed) underlying their stated positions, but they don't clearly articulate it. Some good-faith discussion can often surface that tacit reasoning.
- shreygineer 5y agoEmotion might not be a good basis for argument, but neither is "X is also non-zero amount bad so why should I stop Y even though it is more bad" Ex: "Donuts are bad for you because they are sugary" "Well, apples have sugar in them too! Should I stop eating them as well?!"
- sidlls 5y agoI was poking holes in the absolutism of the GP’s argument, not arguing as you suggest.
- sweetheart 5y agoVeganism is never about absolutism. Veganism is about striving to do the best possible. Can every single human being go vegan? Probably not. But that vast majority can, while living full, healthy, happy lives. Where is the absolutism?
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago> Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals Isn’t this disingenuous because the endgame will be the genocide of almost all farm animals. If they’re so environmentally unfriendly, can’t look after themselves, serve no purpose because they’re no longer food then why would we let them live and continue to breed them. So there will still be some final suffering until we remove these species from the earth. Obviously we as a race are responsible for creating animals that can’t look after themselves but to hold up the environment argument makes killing them all the greater ethical choice.
- WA 5y agoPut them in a national park.
- potatoman22 5y agoEating plant based meat won’t cause the genocide of farm animals. Quite the opposite, actually.
- dcolkitt 5y agoI guess the difference would be though, that without the demand for meat, those cows would likely never have lived at all. 99%+ of all cows alive are used for human agriculture. From the perspective of any living creature, I generally think of existence as a positive good versus non-existence. I know I certainly would rather come to a violent death at a young age than have never been born at all. I think there's a plausible argument that modern factory farming is so horrific that it's worse than non-existence. But a cow raised with a decent quality of life, and slaughtered humanely for its meat does not seem worse for animal welfare than eliminating the entire existence of the cow. (Of course I realize there's ecological and health arguments for giving up meat, but purely talking along the dimension of animal welfare.)
- SubiculumCode 5y agoIf we all moved to impossible beef, cattle populations would plummet. However, despite popular perception, for most of its life before slaughter, a cow is raised in large open ranges for grazing, like in the California foothills. Only the last parts of their live do they get put into crowded feedlots for "fattening", which might be described as inhumane. Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the California hills, as land owners stop caring.
- tablespoon 5y ago> Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the California hills, as land owners stop caring. Which would be an invasive species.
- SubiculumCode 5y agoindeed. making the thing even more hilarious.
- spicymaki 5y agoTwo things: Cattle are slaughtered within 1-2 years and they are held in feed lots for 1/3 of that time. Cattle slaughtered for veal are caged and do not live in any humane conditions. I would certainly not want to exist.
- nerbert 5y agoI agree with you, that is especially the case for burgers that are usually not made of particularly refined meat. I’m still "old style" and enjoy a piece of steak but less than once a week. I still need to cut down on ham… decrease in meat consumption is rational. It’s mostly a matter of habit, and people hate changing those.
- ipaddr 5y agoBut why would you want to replicate the outcome of a slaughter if that part of the process upsets you? Why make an apple taste like the death of a cow? For me eating things in their most natural forms seems more appealing. I don't know what is in beyond meat but avoiding processed anything seems like a more healthy strategy.
- colordrops 5y agoBecause we are natural meat eaters and still have strong cravings for meat even if we don't eat it. Eating a close facsimile can help those satisfy those cravings and avoid a rebound to eating real meat.
- varajelle 5y agoThis "natural" argument does not make sense. You know what else is natural? Rape. Men are natural rapist, they like to have sex with any woman, if they have carving to do it, its all ok if they do it. ... Aren't we better than that?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- colordrops 5y agoYes we are better than that, and you are better than this at reading comprehension. Please re-read my post and recognize that my point is to avoid killing animals. Your analogy is absurd and the opposite of what I am saying.
- sweetheart 5y agoI like how burgers taste, so I want to eat them. But I don't want an animal to experience horrific treatment and slaughter just for the taste, so I seek it out in plants. That makes sense, no? I can like the salty, fat taste but opt-out of the subjugation and slaughter of another being.
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- proc0 5y agoI get the intention but wouldn't it be better to just forget the taste of it if you're doing so for the sake of the animal's suffering? To put it bluntly, the suffering ends, but the taste of suffering is still delicious...
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoWhat you're saying a little silly, given that if people had decided to stop eating cows 20 years ago, the cow I ate a part of today would never have gotten to exist in the first place. An argument that cows are abused and are better off never existing would be a reasonable one.
- dguaraglia 5y agoThe cow that you ate today most likely lived its whole life in a cage no much bigger than its body, inside a huge facility reeking of feces and death and ate an atrocious diet, only to be killed at the perfectly calculated time to maximize profit. I'm a meat eater. Heck, I hunt (and eat what I hunt) and even I can tell you that your argument is ridiculous.
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoYou obviously didn't read what I wrote.
- dguaraglia 5y agoYeah, I guess I took it the wrong way. I still feel the OG's point about violence against animal is valid.
- inter_netuser 5y agoThe unfortunate part is that there is a non-significant number of people who are allergic to contents of these faux-meats. ..but nobody is allergic to meat. There is a theory that benefits mostly ascribed to keto, are actually due to reduced inflammatory load in the diet.
- sdenton4 5y agoMeat allergies certainly exist. Meet Alpha-Gal syndrome: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20428608 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syn...
- wyager 5y agoAlpha-gal is extremely rare and introduced exogenously (via a tick bite). Natural (i.e. not caused by an identifiable medical condition) meat allergies in humans are exceedingly rare, whereas natural plant allergies are exceedingly common.
- inter_netuser 5y agoEven this syndrome (not an actual allergy but sensitization via tick vector) - is extremely rare. few cases per million. 10% of the mediterranean basin is allergic to some sort of plant food (and that prevalence is growing). Primary allergy is to LTPs, lipid transfer proteins - which means those people be likely allergic to at least one of many components of this burger. In 70-80% cases such reactions are usually systemic and often severe. In short: this burger can put 5-10% of the population in Spain, Italy, Greece on an ambulance.
- easytiger 5y ago> is they require no violence against animals. And you wonder why people can't take absolutists seriously. The marketing power of the moral superiority concept is no new thing. Pivoting the crux of success of your ideology around an incredibly poor burger filling makes no sense either. In the UK restaurants are being allowed to reopen in 10 days. In London there are an incredible density of steak restaurants which happen to already be booked out completely. I think your appeal to squeamishness around slaughtering animals will feel entirely cringeworthy to most emotionally intelligent persons.
- kmonsen 5y agoIt is not squeamishness. I have killed animals for food with my own hands and being part of people killed in war. I would like to not do it when I have the opportunity.
- easytiger 5y agoThe parent comment explicitly and clearly attempts to use an emotionally designed device leveraging people's presumed distaste for distressing animals. An errant assumption.
- mnouquet 5y agoI have killed animals for food with my own hands and don't mind the process. Worst, I prefer a 1000x killing my own food rather than buying highly pre-processed industrial food of dubious quality (and manufacturing process).
- asveikau 5y agoThe person you're replying to has a different opinion from yours and you seem very offended by it. It hasn't got anything to do with lockdown in London, how booked steak restaurants will be there, or how much the "emotionally intelligent people" cringe. This all feels like non sequitur or ad hominem. I eat meat with no plans to stop and I don't have a problem with the comment you're replying to.
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- paranoidrobot 5y ago> they require no violence against animals. While I sympathise with the argument, I think that it's a mistake to push this aspect front and centre. There's a whole lot of people out there who simply like eating meat, and that it means killing an animal is not particularly a problem. The people I've spoken to about Beyond/Impossible and similar fake-meats all tend to think of it as something for vegans/vegetarians, because that's how this type of product has been presented for decades. "Oh, you're having a BBQ? Fred's partner is a veggo, better chuck on some mushroom burgers or something" It's a tough push to convince people that this isn't meant for vegans/vegetarians wanting meat, but a product for meat-eaters wanting to reduce their meat intake, but not necessarily wanting to give up their ability to have meals that taste like what they're used to. Pushing from that angle, I would argue, is likely to have a bigger impact than saying "Think of the poor cow that had to get murdered for your burger!".
- name_nick_sex_m 5y agoI disagree. While there will no doubt be friction, people should be confronted with the reality of their choices; long term we can't preserve their bubble of ignorance, might as well address it now
- vel0city 5y agoI mean, its not always ignorance. I understand meat has massively more impact on the environment in many metrics. I still enjoy meat products and tend to eat them from time to time. There's things I enjoy about those products, even though there are externalities. If there's a product out there which can offset most of those externalities and still satiate that same kind of experience, I'll pay a few more bucks for it. Hopefully, many more similar people to me will as well, and maybe we'll even make it cost effective to offset most of that highly impactful meat eating with something that more people find agreeable. Its way better for the environment if I never purchased a car or even a bicycle and I just walked everywhere. My environmental impact would probably be lower. But in the end I'm going to buy some kind of vehicle, because I enjoy what buying a car gets me. Its way better for me to never eat meat, but in the end I enjoy what eating meat gives me. I can massively reduce my impact on the Earth living naked foraging berries and roots and never traveling farther than I can walk but in the end there are things I enjoy and will end up doing them despite the externalities. I'm going to own an air conditioner and I'm going to run it. This has externalities and would be better for the environment if it was never made and was never run. I'm going to own a refridgerator and run it. This has externalities and would be better for the environment if it was never made and never run. I'm typing this on a computer which will eventually go into a landfill and probably become some trace amount of toxic waste. In the end, I still managed to get usage out of it and find value from it while its useful. The only way to have no impact on the Earth is to never exist. Its nice having the option to do things which give most of the same experience while reducing the externalities. I'll buy the refrigerator which is more efficient. I'll buy the right size AC system for my home to cool it as effectively as possible I'll maintain all my appliances to give as long as a serviceable live as possible. And I'll buy what gives me similar experiences to what I enjoy for food that reduces my impact on the Earth.
- tomglynch 5y ago> But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. In my opinion, the most important thing is that it is considerably better for the environment due to the reduction in emissions, water and land. Don't get me wrong, no violence against animals is a benefit too, but to me it's not the number one reason to try imitation meat.
- pmorici 5y agoWhat is your view on lions, tigers, bears and other meat eating species?
- sweetheart 5y agoIf they ever have the option to live full, healthy lives without eating other animals, I'll hold them to the same standard.
- xdennis 5y agoAt this point I can't tell if you're a parody account or not but I'll bite: how exactly do you plan on forcing omnivorous animals (bears, etc) from eating meat?
- sweetheart 5y agoI don't. Do you think it's likely that obligate carnivores will be able to live full, healthy lives without eating meat? I don't. But you can, and I can. I hold anyone who can live that way to do so, as I see it as a moral obligation to reduce suffering when possible, regardless of species. Do you seriously think I'm proposing that we force these animals to survive on plants alone?
- rickspencer3 5y agoFor my part, I enjoy fast food burgers (think Wendy's, Burger King, etc...). These burger patties are not exactly rare Kobe beef. Once you put that thing on a bun, add cheese, slather it in sauce, etc... I don't find the difference in the patties very noticeable. I notice how fresh the lettuce is more than the patty. I eat plenty of meat, so I don't have an anti-meat agenda. But, for me, for fast food burgers, I may as well choose a less environmentally damaging, and yes, more animal friendly, alternative, because it hardly makes a difference.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoThis is something I don't understand either. People saying things like "the texture and mouthfeel is not like real meat", and yet ground beef burgers vary wildly and are also not like real meat.
- wyager 5y agoThe nutritional profile of a fast food beef patty is actually quite excellent, especially once you factor in the cost. The same cannot be said of the fake meat alternatives.
- rickspencer3 5y agoI am not eating Burger King for the nutritional profile.
- spicymaki 5y agoNutritionally meat alternatives stack up well against fast food beef. With the added benefits of fiber and lack of cholesterol and saturated fat. The costs have to do with scale and government incentives. Plant protein is clearly cheaper to produce than animal protein.
- wyager 5y agoFiber is unnecessary unless you eat too much undigestible plant matter and cholesterol is not as simple as “it’s bad”. Most men are cholesterol deficient.
- gnarbarian 5y agoIt is possible to have so much empathy that your brain falls out.
- PhasmaFelis 5y agoI believe the phrase you're thinking of is "so open-minded that your brain falls out." It's still just a way to put someone down for caring about others, but at least the metaphor works.
- sweetheart 5y agoI don't know what this means, can you clarify?
- Kranar 5y agoNot everyone agrees with you that raising a farm animal and killing it is in and of itself a form of violence. Certainly many forms of factory farming are absolutely abhorrent and should be eliminated, but saying that what many farmers who raise cattle, chicken, pork and a variety of animals, and do so with respect and care are engaging in a form of cruelty and violence is not an opinion everyone shares. An animal lives a life that's part of a cycle, it's born, it grows, it has experiences and serves various purposes/functions over the course of its life, and then it dies. The fact of that animal's eventual death is not in and of itself violent, every animal eventually dies. So how do animals die? They either die from predation, disease, or in this case from a farmer putting it to death; virtually no mammals ever die from reaching their maximum life span out in the wild and the idea that in the absence of farming you'd have cattle and pigs living free and full lives in the wild is simply not a reflection of any real-world environment. I think it's incorrect to focus on one single aspect of raising a farm animal, its death at the hands of a farmer, and using that as sole characteristic of what it takes and what it means to raise a farm animal and judge the entire system based on that one act. I can respect your point of view and I think we'd agree that alternatives that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable are a win, but I can't agree with you that as a matter of principle, raising a farm animal and then killing it is intrinsically violent.
- elktea 5y ago> No one needed to die for you to eat it. Except all those animals + insects that once inhabited the fields
- sweetheart 5y agoMore crops are grown to feed the livestock than people, so if you want to save the field animals and insects, going plant based will save even more.
- fastball 5y agoNot sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses (and more) that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. So if you're growing soy on deforested land as a base for your "cruelty free" burger, it is very possible that this has damaged the original ecology (and killed living things) more than having grazing cattle would.
- tablespoon 5y ago> Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. Exactly. It's not like animal husbandry and meat-eating developed as some kind of ostentatious wasteful consumption. It's a way of converting inedible plants into edible meat.
- sweetheart 5y agoSure, totally, but how many of us live in places where we have access to the cows but not non-animals foods that can sustain us? Virtually none. So while its true that human beings ate meat for good reasons for a LONG time, its not really something that most folks need anymore. Is it true that everywhere we have cows we can also grow soy or wheat or whatever? No, definitely not. Does that matter? No, definitely not.
- ronyeh 5y agoI mostly agree with you and personally love beyond ground "beef". However, it is going to be a long time before we replace meat. The only way is if we can produce it cheap enough that it literally costs an average person more to buy conventional 85/15 ground beef.
- batiudrami 5y agoThe Beyond Beef burgers that my local burger chain (Grill’d) sell are pretty good, too. They’re a little drier than a good beef patty and a bit sweeter, but if you told me it was beef I think I would believe you, albeit not cooked perfectly. My understanding is that popular opinion says Impossible is even closer, though I haven’t tried it personally.
- MPSimmons 5y agoI really enjoy both BeyondBeef and Impossible Burger. My thoughts are that BeyondBeef has a kind of plastic-y smell, but is almost exactly right in terms of color and texture. The smell is not concerning to me, but it is distinct for my palette. I still eat it, and don't mind. Aside from the burgers, I also really enjoy the spicy Italian sausages. There is a slightly different taste than pork-based sausages, but I would never complain about a Beyond Meat spicy sausage in my Italian food. The sweet Italian version tastes almost like a breakfast sausage to me. For Impossible Burgers, I feel like the taste is virtually 100%. I don't actually know, if I were eating an impossible burger on a bun with the fixings, if I could tell you it was an impossible burger. The only thing they would lose on is the texture and maybe the color. The texture is more... chipped(?) than ground beef, so looking at a patty (probably easier with an 8oz than a 4oz) is pretty obvious, but man, the flavor is great. Like I said, I eat either one of them as my first choice whenever they're sold at a restaurant.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoTotally agree on Impossible Burgers. Like the GP, I also try to avoid eating meat due to animal welfare concerns. That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. With Impossible Burgers, though, it really tastes and feels like I'm eating a real burger. It completely satiates my desire for meat, and it makes my body feel "good" from an energy perspective.
- atweiden 5y ago> That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. The same thing happened to me when I first tried going vegan. It wasn’t until I went through a major effort at planning my meals — to the point of making an outright diet plan for myself — that I was able to make veganism work for me. From your description, it sounds like you were eating too little calories.
- King-Aaron 5y agoI have indeed tried them, and they aren't as nice as a real beef burger in my opinion. And as a predatory animal, the fact that something "needs to die" for me to feed doesn't factor into the equation. (Of course, you can certainly reduce cruelty if you move away from a US-style factory farming model). Looking forward to seeing how the technology develops, but yeah. It hasn't changed my habits yet.
- agogdog 5y ago>And as a predatory animal, the fact that something "needs to die" for me to feed doesn't factor into the equation. I'm having a hard time following this... are you saying that you don't think about the reality of killing animals for food because of some biological mechanism outside of your control?
- fastball 5y agoMy interpretation was more: nature doesn't have morality, animals don't have morality, other animals aren't worried about killing each other, the only reason we are worried about it is because we are projecting the horror of death that comes from being a cognizant being onto animals that are unlikely to even have a concept of "death", so it's not a moral conundrum for an animal that has evolved to eat meat (humans) to eat meat. Or, said another way: if animals being killed to be eaten is inherently bad, should we not be trying to replace the diet of all lions on earth with BeyondMeat too?
- King-Aaron 5y agoThis is kind of it. I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad', when I (among others) have grown up in areas where it's a basic part of life to farm/hunt meat for survival.
- agogdog 5y agoAre you saying that it's privileged to be able to avoid killing animals while others must do it to avoid starvation? I think you could be a vegetarian while recognizing that you'd 100% kill an animal if you would starve otherwise. I haven't met anyone who thinks people should die at the expense of an animal.
- wyager 5y agoWhile I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans". We are, at the very least, decades away from having a complete enough understanding of nutrition to safely replace the nutritional value of beef with a substitute fake beef product. Once we accomplish that, there are some second-order effects to worry about, like increasing single-path reliance on complex agrochemical supply chains to meet basic nutritional needs. It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals.
- batiudrami 5y agoAs far as I understand it you can have a perfectly suitable vegetarian diet without much effort (note: vegan is trickier and very hard for babies). If you want to maintain your current meat/“meat” consumption then we are still many years off lab meat being cheap and accessible enough yes. The intent of beyond burger, I think, is not to be a meat substitute every time you would currently eat meat, but instead a nice tasting treat food. Sure, it’s salty and full of saturated fats, but I only have them once a month.
- throwaway81523 5y agoI haven't tried any of these beyond burger things yet. I probably will sometime but I'm squeamish about the concept. It makes me think of Soylent Green or weird funguses or whatever. It's simpler to just use normal ingredients without meat. Corn and beans is a tasty combo that's ridiculously easy to make with an instant pot (electric pressure cooker) and the plants combine to give you complete protein. Dump a cup of dry beans into the pot (20 pound bag from Costco is about 20 bucks and keeps forever), cover with water, close lid and press the "beans" button, and go back to whatever you were doing on your computer. About 40 minutes later (they go by fast since you are paying zero attention to the cooking) there are some loud beeps. Let out the pressure, dump in a can of corn and maybe some spicy pasta sauce, stir and serve. Or do similar with rice instead of corn, add some green vegetables, etc. The above is quite a filling vegan main course for about $1 per person. No need for techno burgers of insect fritters or any of that weirdness. The instant pot is a life changer-- even more useful than a microwave imho.
- Gustomaximus 5y ago> Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. I find this interesting, in that cropping has plenty of violent against animals but one step removed. I have a small cattle property, we run on hill country with diversified ecosystem, mixed grass and bushland. We have a heap of native animals living across the property. And at the end of the day the steers do get sent of for slaughter after 18 to 24 months + we kill feral pigs when they get in large numbers. While cropping properties they tend to be monoculture, very little native animal presence. The spray like buggery wiping out insects with all that flow on effect (and to be fair we spray too, herbicide only and never pesticides and far less frequently). Also the cropping properties tend to shoot 'pests' heavily. We don't mind a few kangaroos and ducks type thing about but cropping properties are very serious about deterring and killing anything that hits their property. And to be clear, I'm not having a go at you. I admire vegetarians for their genuinely caring moral position, and my family actually try to do more vegetarians meals. While at the same time I'm not sure plant based options are so devoid of killing, only the end product is one step removed.
- sweetheart 5y agoI don't get the feel that you're having a go, no worries :) I think there are two parts to this: we can't raise the animals that folks want to eat without _also_ growing plants to feed those animals, so from my perspective it seems that we can apply most or all points about the negatives of cropping to the cropping that is done to support animal agriculture. So if cropping is bad, it's still bad when we do it for the animals we intend to eat. Secondly, and this is argument I don't make often because its _really_ not popular (but you seem like a great person so I'm happy to share!), I just don't think animals exist to provide or serve us. They are their own beings, and we are ours. Personally, I don't care if someone treats their animals like absolute royalty. If we kill them, or we forcibly impregnate them and remove their children so we can have their milk, it's wrong to me. But again, this is not an argument many people are swayed by, so I don't generally mention it.
- masonic 5y agowe can't raise the animals that folks want to eat without _also_ growing plants to feed those animals But... we can raise food and dairy animals on a combination of natural range grazing and agricultural byproducts that otherwise need to be disposed of (e.g. cotton seeds, almond hulls, distillers' and brewers' spent grains, etc.)
- _3u10 5y agoCompared to grass fed beef fake meat generally involves the killing of many more animals, due to the way industrial grains and vegetables are produced. From a cruelty perspective probably the best thing to eat is free range Buffalo, but whale or elephant could potentially be better. Considering how many animals whales kill, especially blue whales, we could be doing the planet a massive service by hunting them to extinction.
- ddlutz 5y agoI tried impossible burger once. Wanted to like it for all the good environmental / ethical reasons. However, it just tasted nutty to me, like somebody had ground up some nuts that had a visual appearance very similar to ground beef. Tasted nothing like meat to me.
- spicymaki 5y agoWell said! I am a vegetarian for much the same reasons. I think that compassion is a solid reason beyond the environmental and health reasons. As technology enthusiasts we should be driving new ways of producing food that cause the least harm.
- beaunative 5y agoThis is probably not a popular opinion, but less environmental impact is actually more desirable to me than "no violence against animals". As far as I understand it, these sort of "animal protection" slogans only serve to make human beings feel better about ourselves, and as such could easily make us forgive (and forget) the massive amount of resources we consumed if not depleted on this earth. Simply by supplying for this huge amount of population, we have taketh away the right of other animal's possibility to have a thriving population. The human race thrived on a bloody ground, and we need to recognize that.
- howlin 5y agoIt seems hard to make sense of your objection here other than as a statement that past acts that might be considered wrong were how we got to where we are today. I don't think it's unreasonable to acknowledge our history while also recognize we shouldn't repeat the wrongs of the past.
- dguaraglia 5y agoBut... that’s actually a product of the industrialization of meat production. It’s like justifying climate change because ‘oh well, we’ve done until now so might as well keep going’. In reality people are OK with violence against animals because when they think about animal products they just picture a slab of meat they pick up from the freezer at the supermarket. If they realized what feeds the process that ends up in that neatly packaged sirloin, I’m pretty sure they’d have a different reaction than ‘meh’. (And again, I fish and hunt so it’s not like I’m some bleeding-heart hippie who can’t take violence against animals. I just think that we should all be less cavalier about meat intake, which after all is a very recent phenomenon)
- beaunative 5y agoHuman beings, by our continued existence, whether you consume animal products or not, have driven the world uninhabitable for a plenty of wildlives. Even if we don't slaugther livestocks anymore, it can hardly be considered an improvement to the wild world
- 867-5309 5y agowe must also remember that these beasts are a product of selective evolution if we had not interfered with this animal, it would have stayed similar to a gazelle humans of course favoured a meat to size ratio and strength over agility, for their food and labour, reducing the creature to the cows we have today
- imgabe 5y agoAll living things die and are eaten by other living things. This isn’t wrong, it is the way nature works. Would you have every living thing just...stay alive forever? That’s not going to happen.
- jamil7 5y agoYour not wrong or anything but I think the general counter argument here is that because something is deemed to have always happened or to happen in nature does not automatically make it right. There’s a term for the argument “appeal to nature” which sort of fits here, you can use this to justify all kinds of things.
- ceras 5y agoThe main moral problem with meat consumption, to me, is not the killing - everything dies, you're right. It's rather how awfully the animals are treated both throughout their leaves, and also (in most cases) the slaughter process. It's really a horror show, and far worse than their natural lives would be. Not a life anyone would willingly be born into. Almost all meat comes from such inhumane factory farms with terrible conditions. For the animals treated the worst (chickens) there seems to be almost no moment of their life without suffering. They're even bred with genes that guarantee pain (due to extremely fast growth and egg laying cycles), because that makes it cheaper. If we had higher standards, this moral argument would be less concerning. But the standards needed to treat animals at least passably well would make meat far more expensive, which is not politically palatable. Better meat alternatives are the best path forward here.
- fogihujy 5y agoYou have a valid point; killing an animal in order to eat it is not immoral, assuming you don't let anything go to waste. Factory farming, on the other hand, has nothing to do with how nature works. It's all about who raises the animals and how. It' the same thing with the environmental aspect. If the animals graze all their lives then it might even have a positive effect on CO2 uptake in the long run, and it definitely is required for some biomes to survive. But, again, factory farming isn't exactly natural. And yes, that applies to vegan food production as well.
- acituan 5y ago> I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. I understand what you mean by violence and I don't want to come across as a stickler just for sport, but if we are taking a hard ethical stance based on principles we need to be precise with categories. Two of which is most important; 1. category of animals include humans 2. category of violence include any suffering inflicted knowingly e.g. being overworked in a sweatshop, psychological violence etc. If we accept above categories, our supply chain, not only for food but for pretty much everything we consume, unfortunately do incur violence on humans. As such, if someone takes a principle on requiring no violence against animals, they must also be concerned with everything they consume or use, not only what they eat. I am not saying they shouldn't not eat meat if they didn't do the other, I am saying they shouldn't claim a position from principle. In fact if they made either these two arguments they would be perfectly consistent; argument of convenience "not eating meat is more convenient than not using an iPhone", or argument of priority "not requiring violence against other animals is more important to me than humans". But still they couldn't occupy a principled stance of no violence against animals.
- __jem 5y agoi don’t understand why you think this is a huge gotcha. most vegans are oriented around harm reduction, not absolute minimization. otherwise, they’d just kill themselves. there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, etc. either way, the causal chain between me and the rotisserie chicken is far shorter than between me and the tiny bit of cobalt in my iphone.
- alentist 5y ago> there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism What do you mean by that?
- imtringued 5y agoHe means that nothing should exist, because life means death, existence means suffering. I honestly don't see the relation to capitalism because consumption is literally just spending for utility and consumption can be absolutely anything, it can be sustainable or not.
- eloff 5y ago> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. When I was about fifteen it occurred to me that while that's true, those animals wouldn't be alive at all without us raising them for food. So it seems to me that the goal should be raising them in good conditions without cruelty. At least to my way of thinking, as someone grateful to my parents that I exist, that's better than no life at all. There are plenty of other solid reasons to eat less meat, but this argument never worked for me. I actually like the beyond burgers. If they weren't more expensive than a beef burger, I'd eat them.
- XorNot 5y agoMass scale pain and torture of food animals, the extraordinarily high rates of psychological injury which slaughterhouse workers experience... Most vegetarianism is not about that animals are killed, it is a protest against the way in which the entire industry functions.
- eloff 5y agoI hope this will get better, I would (and do when possible) pay more for free range, ethically raised meat products. I imagine producers will follow the money if enough people think that way.
- bushidonei 5y agoThat's interesting. Can you give me your job? I mean, there are millions of people all around the world who are living in poverty and you are occupying a job that they could have had. There are many people who commit suicide because they no longer have any economic opportunities. I like how modern people can pretend they don't live in the real world because it is hidden behind abstract complexity. Life is a competition with every living thing. You can pretend that it isn't while you order your uber eats and massively overpriced food, but you are only doing so due to some kind of psychological need. The further you get into the city, the further you get into the lives of rich people, the more you see this "please think of the animals" attitude, because you become so removed from reality that you think the world is completely different to what it actually is. The irony is that you are in the most privileged place, taking the money that other people could have used, and using it to buy overpriced burgers.
- rorykoehler 5y agoThe burgers are full of stuff I wouldn't consider to be food. That's why I don't eat them (regularly at least). I don't think being violent to my own body is a good substitute for violence against animals. Also I actually like their taste and texture.
- unixhero 5y agoAnd hey they taste really good.
- Bancakes 5y agoAnd it's still overpriced. For being a bunch of soy or whatever, I'd expect it to cost a fraction of meat. I'd rather have fewer real burgers than transition to faux food.
- KronisLV 5y agoI actually enjoy trying out a variety of vegetarian and vegan foods for this exact reason - just to see how they compare with the meat based ones and how good they are overall. Frankly, it's gotten to the point where most of the food that i buy myself is vegetarian, just because of how many of those options are out there. That said, it's not a black and white issue, as people sometimes like to view it as - if most people simply treated meat as something to only enjoy rarely (say, once a week or a few times a month) or something for special occasions, then we'd make significant progress in that regard already! Alternatively, perhaps people should see how their meat is made, or try doing it themselves, to get a greater appreciation for the amount of resources that it takes to produce any (as well as maybe get a bit more empathy towards the animals in some ways). Personally, i've gone hunting with my dad, have gutted animals in the forest, helped bring them home, skin them and cut the bones, all just to enjoy some meat. That's not to say that it'd bear much relevance to the lives of most people, but it's certainly a very humbling experience. Edit: In the words of Michael Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'm actually curious about how others view a more moderate stance on the issue of nutrition - one that calls for gradual changes.
- cercatrova 5y ago> Maybe you think the burger tastes different, or has a strange texture, but I certainly won't try to argue that because it doesn't matter. This is the only thing that matters, to the contrary. Previous attempts at fake meat have not done as well as Beyond and Impossible precisely due to the fact that the vast, vast majority people actually don't care where their meat comes from, they only care about the taste. Yes, on surveys they might say they care about not harming animals, but this is not true in practice, they don't put their money where their mouth is by stopping eating meat. Indeed, the true innovation of Beyond and Impossible was focusing exclusively on taste and marketing that up front rather than the moral aspects, because people don't care.
- ur-whale 5y ago> No one needed to die for you to eat it. I wonder what you make of carnivorous animals (cats, lions, tigers and the like)? Should they also subscribe to your weird moral system?
- sweetheart 5y agoWhen they develop advanced societies and agriculture, and dietetic institutions verify that they can live full healthy lives without meat, then yes I’ll expect them to go at least vegetarian
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- giveexamples 5y agoActually I don't mind killing animals for my food. But the environment does matter to me, purely because I selfishly want to live longer and in a better environment.
- baud147258 5y agohonestly I don't really see the point of eating a burger that doesn't taste or feel like a burger. I'd prefer to eat meat less often than try a subsitute
- rtmark 5y agoWhy "Beyond Burgers" and not the dozens (if not hundreds) of meat substitutes that have been available in Europe for more than 25 years?
- bumbada 5y agoIt is very easy to understand. People like Bill Gates who is a big investor in artificial meta are lobbing for normal eat and fish to be banned one way or another. That it, people eating the way they always had eaten have other people wanting to force them to do something. That triggers reaction in the opposite sense. Those technologies should prosper on its own, and they will be if they are cheaper or more nutritious. Over time they will. It is like illustration ideas in Spain. People that read were accepting those ideas on their own until Napoleon came and wanted to impose the ideas by force. The reaction against the invader made those ideas(and the people that supported them) not only to not to prosper but go back(and the people expelled from the country), because they were the ideas of the invaders. I love technology, and as entrepreneur and engineer have always managed innovation. I believe it it the future, but because I know innovation well I also know the drawbacks. Early products tend to have bugs on them. When we create something knew I expect those like Elon expects their new rockets to explode. When those bugs are related to health it means people die. And we don't really know what those bugs are. The world in incredibly complex. For example autism or cancer, leukemia, and allergies in young people are skyrocketing. We know it is related to microorganisms in the gut and we also know that we are killing those microorganism like fungus, bacteria and virus that were beneficial to humans. We started spraying roundup and other products thinking the world was super simple. And it is not, eliminating all insects, fungus and bacteria that were with us for millions of years will have consequences and secondary effects we could not predict. Over time all our food will be grown indoors and cultured bacteria will do everything for us like cotton, vaccines or paper. But trying to accelerate the progress by coercion could backfire.
- tsimionescu 5y ago> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural deaths are far more horrifying than how we slaughter animals, especially in modern times (though even traditional slaughter is nothing compared to starving to death, being eaten alive by insects, being hunted and terrified by a predator etc). So, I think that it is important how the animals are grown (factory farms are absolutely horrible, unacceptable places to live in, and should ideally become illegal sooner rather than later, regardless of the consequences on the price of food). But I really don't think there is any reason to feel bad about the slaughter of animals who have led a decent life, even if it may be shorter than they would expect in nature (the huge proliferation of their species is kind of payment for that, in a way).
- 0-_-0 5y agoI think you could make the argument that it's possible to ethically raise animals in a way where it's a good deal for both sides, as long as an animal suffers less than it would suffer in nature. If causing unnecessary suffering is unethical, then the opposite should be a moral imperative, so this simple mathematical argument leads to the conclusion that ethically raising animals should be morally superior to veganism.
- tsimionescu 5y agoI don't really find this kind of simple ethical calculus convincing, but I would say that a world where some people continue eating meat and keep raising cows, pigs, chicken, sheep, goats and other animals that would die off if they weren't consumed seems better to me than a purely 100% vegan world. On the other hand, as someone's personal choice instead of worldwide decision, I don't think it seems plausible that being vegan is "less moral" than being an ethical farmer.
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- eptcyka 5y agoGiven that my income is dependent on rare earths, which usually are mined by slaves, and the independence of my homeland is directly dependent on the US being a global hegemon, I've got far more serious moral issues to resolve before I'll have time for animals. Don't get me wrong, I love animals, but there are far greater fish to fry first.
- Jzush 5y agoI do have one valid complaint with Beyond Burgers. I am a fan of meat. I like meat. I love a good cheese burger. And Beyond Burgers actually taste fine. Not amazing, not “just like beef” but not bad. I can eat a Beyond Burger and feel satisfied. My problem with Beyond Burgers or Beyond products as a whole is that they STINK! Bad! When cooking. I don’t know why but cooking a beyond burger stinks up my kitchen worse than my cats litter box freshly pooped in.
- csomar 5y ago> but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. You know that plants are also living, feeling beings? Though not sure about being individual but that's highly subjective. The cycle of life is that some trees harvest the sun, and then it's a fish-eat-fish kinda world. Vegan meat is not important because it doesn't kill animals (it'll kill plants, and hence this is purely emotional/subjective). But because it could be very sustainable. There is a reason why Japanese eat vegetables, fish and pork. They have a large population on a tight island. They have to do otherwise. (they also drive very small compact cars/mini-vans).
- NicoJuicy 5y agoDefine violence against animals please? If there wouldn't be an economic incentive to keep animals alive, their land would be reporposed to crops/housing and a lot of animals would be slaughtered pointlessly.
- sweetheart 5y agoVery NSFW and serious trigger warning: https://youtu.be/yPQYxYt3zmI https://youtu.be/yPQYxYt3zmI Here is what I mean by violence against animals
- NicoJuicy 5y agoAnd you think that's the default? You know how many people/farmers actually care about animals? The exception doesn't make the rule. ( My dad was a veterinarian. So I have a lot of personal experience on the subject, under belgian law ofc)
- sweetheart 5y agoThese are all industry standard practices throughout the world. This is how the majority of meat is produced. If you find it abhorrent, then you find most animal products abhorrent.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoThat's not even remotely true. Eg. Europe doesn't want any meat imported from the US. Different standards... Perhaps educate yourself before claiming things.
- sweetheart 5y agoNope, they follow many or all of the extremely problematic standards that are commonplace in the US and Australia. Don’t worry, the EU has published the guidelines for what is considered humane slaughter, so you can verify it for yourself like I did. Also, what did you think of the film? Those are _exactly_ the methods that the EU has approved.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoThis rhetoric only convinces those people who already feel sympathetic to animal-rights arguments. But for example, a significant slice of the world’s population are adherents of religions that downright ordain slaughtering an animal at times, and they will only be alienated by your argument. Consequently, I feel like health and environmental arguments are better ways to get people to limit their meat intake.
- nkozyra 5y agoSee I think Impossible comes as close as you can get right now but Beyond definitely has weird taste/texture qualities. I get an aftertaste with it I do not with Impossible. Beyond sausage (an easier endeavor because of how much work fennel and casing do), however, is excellent.
- entropyie 5y agoIrish person here with a couple of random facts: - Ireland is one of the larger per-capita beef producing countries - Beef lobby is quite powerful - Our local Chipper / Take Away / "Fish & Chips" shop sells Beyond Meat burgers - As a meat eater who grew up on a beef farm, I can say they look and taste amazingly good... 95% as good as a real burger. Most cattle are treated well in Ireland, living outside on fresh grass (live exports aside). My main concerns are global resource depletion, biodiversity, deforestation and climate change. We're beginning to see a real sea change in this meat eating country, meat-free products are popping up everywhere and not just marketed at vegans / hipsters.
- greshario 5y agoCattle are treated well in Ireland, and sheep too (comparatively). However, pigs and chickens are treated terribly, and we have a total cultural blindspot to it. We have nothing to be proud of when it comes to animal welfare.
- entropyie 5y agoNo argument here... my comment was more to say that meat-free burgers can be a success even in a country that has a high opinion of beef... This is a positive development IMHO. If you told Irish people 10 years ago that their local chipper would be selling meat-free burgers, they'd have thought you were mad...
- georgeek 5y agoBurgers and sausages are some of the most detached ways to eat meat. While a steak has bones, a burger is much more abstract. There is probably a good anthropological theory behind this.
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 5y ago> is they require no violence against animals. The argument is interesting and proponents of this idea also make good points generally, but it's also a lie. If we really cared about violence against animals, we wouldn't bring cats home. The simple fact that the domestic cat population has been steadily increasing and ever more rights have been granted to them, that an entire industry of pets food is killing the same animals we used to make burgers to make cat food and nobody finds it problematic, means that we, as humans, do not really care about animals, their well being and their lives. After carefully quantifying cat populations and predation rates (and the uncertainty of both), the scientists calculated that domestic cats pounce on one billion to four billion birds a year in the lower 48 states, as well as 6.3 billion to 22.3 billion small mammals and hundreds of millions of reptiles and amphibians. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/essay-to-save-birds-should-we-kill-off-cats https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/essay-to-...
- fnord77 5y agoevery one of the fake meat products upsets my stomach. I think TVP is the culprit. If I ever decide to forgo meat, I would just skip the fake meat products entirely
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- majani 5y agoActually there are thousands of rats, snakes, moles and other pests that are killed every time crops are planted and harvested. The realities of this world are quite ugly. We've just managed to put a civilized veneer over it
- Thorentis 5y agoWhere do you draw the line between animals and plants? Plants are a form of life. Is it the pain? What is it about animal pain that is morally objectionable? Because humans can feel pain too, therefore animal pain is also bad? Assuming we grant that, what if animals were put to sleep before being killed? Does that then make it okay? I find the whole "violence against animals" argument to be incredibly hand-wavy and without substance.
- string 5y agoI draw the line in that I don't eat anything with a central nervous system. I don't doubt a biologist might make me reconsider my understanding of a CNS, but I've always found it a clear line for me personally.
- dunefox 5y ago> Where do you draw the line between animals and plants? Exactly there: between animals and plants.
- daddylongstroke 5y agoWhat about fungus or other microbes you kill everyday? Are they more animal, or plant? Why?
- dunefox 5y agoNeither.
- zx14 5y ago> Maybe you think the burger tastes different, or has a strange texture, but I certainly won't try to argue that because it doesn't matter. Maybe to you it doesn't matter.
- kiawe_fire 5y agoI ended up becoming vegetarian for a while due to some video that was released years ago of factory farm workers abusing animals. I found myself unable to eat meat without bursting into tears. In time, and in part due to how complicated this ecosystem actually is (as explained by a few other replies here) I ended up settling on eating vegetarian “most of the time” and buying meat sourced from ethical places with better conditions when I do. But it was surprising to me how threatened most people were when I was strictly vegetarian. I won’t turn this into a political debate with my theories why, but nonetheless most of my circle of friends are animal lovers and I would have expected some degree of empathy with my cause, but most of them acted like I was personally going to sneak into their house and steal all their meat from them. That said, I continue to have a great appreciation for the industry of meatless meat. Although at this point, IMO, Impossible Burger is the gold standard, and after trying it once, eating any other burger (including Beyond) just doesn’t cut it.
- shlant 5y agoI think a lot of people have that reaction to something like veganism for a couple reasons: 1. You are a constant reminder of their choices, the impact of their choices and their ability to make different ones 2. Eating food is a very base level need and the idea of moralizing that can elicit strong responses 3. I do think some people are genuinely afraid that vegans will prevent them from eating what they love (similar to democrats taking away guns or something)
- kodah 5y ago> I won’t turn this into a political debate with my theories why, but nonetheless most of my circle of friends are animal lovers and I would have expected some degree of empathy with my cause, but most of them acted like I was personally going to sneak into their house and steal all their meat from them. When I've witnessed these debates they're much like 2a. A vegetarian uses some moralizing and hyperbolic language to express how deeply they care about a cause and people either feel threatened or insulted by the language. To frame that even more concisely, it's like when pro-life people use moralizing and hyperbolic language about abortions in front of people that believe in them or have had one. My general takeaway from watching these issues is that moralizing, hyperbolic language or other subtle uses of shame, guilt, etc do not yield good results and often create backlash in response to the strength and travel that that kind of rhetoric has. Basically, we need to get better about how we talk about those issues if they're to be considered at all. Another common theme is usually one side in this debate has some camp within it's interest that is advocating for cancellation, and if you're not actively talking down cancellation both internally and externally to your interest group then you are perceived as showing by proxy approval via inaction.
- twhizzle 5y ago> But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. The “animal cruelty” angle is probably the least effective tactic to get people to stop eating meat. I do not care that cows are killed for me to eat burgers. I doubt the wolves care what I think when they kill the sheep.
- JeremyNT 5y agoA funny anecdote: my wife and I have removed most meat (apart from occasional fish) from our diets for a variety of reasons (health concerns, sustainability, and animal cruelty). Do you know which concern resonates most with my 10 year old daughter? Absolutely none of them. She is aware of the issues, and appears to be a conscientious person in the abstract, but when confronted with the option of eating an animal in the moment she simply doesn't care at all. Are adults more empathetic? Maybe. But fundamentally I think that by the time something makes it to your plate, it's simply too far removed from where it came from for any of these considerations to resonate with most people. We've considered trying to show her Okja [0] to see if it has any effect on her perspective. I know it was at least partially instrumental in causing me to reconsider factory farming. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okja https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okja
- scotty79 5y agoI don't get why exact taste of burgers is so important to some people. I can stomach burgers from McDonald's if I haven't eaten them in few months. But if I eat them more than one or two times a week they very quickly start to taste like the garbage they are. It's really dreadful form of food and I was assuming people eat it as last resort when they are really hungry. Not that they indulge in them because the specific flavor is so unique and wonderful. I always prefer a wrap. But fries and mcmuffins with egg and bacon are super tasty.
- sizzle 5y agoImpossible meat is way ahead in texture compared to beyond meat when cooked IMO