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‘I’d rather eat an actual burger’: plant-based meat’s sizzle fizzled in the US
- unsigner 4y agoI'd rather eat a falafel pita wrap, or a Indian spicy potato burger, or a bean burrito. There's plenty of great vegetarian food, no need to torture plants to become something else.
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoExactly. I'm not a vegetarian, and I won't even consider buying an impossible burger or whatever, but I would love to eat some meat free meals like you described. I'm also really picky about meat and I love vegetables.
- starkd 4y agoIf you're going to go vegetarian, go all the way. No need to be a vegetarian while pretending to eat meat.
- shlant 4y agomock meats make transitioning easier for a lot of people
- Dylan16807 4y agoNo need to pretend anything to want lots of flavor and texture options.
- _glass 4y agoMostly I think the same way. Except sometimes when I go with my friends to McDonalds or Burger King, then it's nice to not be excluded, and have this meaty textures. As I am a vegetarian since 14, now with 37 I really was shocked by the first Beyond Meat burger, I thought they mixed up my order.
- hedora 4y agoI'd add veggie burgers (conventional ones that don't try to be meat) to that list.
- weberer 4y agoYeah, I actually prefer black bean burgers over beef. Its a shame nobody wants to sell black bean burgers except in the frozen isle.
- ryukoposting 4y agoJust wrote a wall of text about it in another comment, but I used to flip burgers at a place that offered both black-bean veggie burgers and Impossible burgers. The veggie burgers sold better, by more than 2:1. I suspect it was because of the price, not the flavor.
- neither_color 4y agoI'm not a vegetarian but the first time I went to Indonesia and tried tempeh I thought it was fantastic and could be used as a substitute protein in so many western dishes.
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoI sent a few years in India. I found the vegetarian emulations of western dishes all pretty unsatisfying vs an impossible or beyond meat version (note: actual Indian food is great, I’m just saying I don’t love McPaneers and even higher end restaurants vegetarian burgers). I did recently see that beyond meat or impossible was looking at offering some products in India and I bet if they get their prices and branding right, they’d do really well there
- ryukoposting 4y agoMy thought exactly. When I was in college, I flipped burgers (real and fake). We sold regular burgers, Impossible burgers, veggie burgers, and turkey burgers. I'd say turkey made up about 1/20 of the burgers I made. Veggie was probably 1/30. Impossible burgers... 1/100? Maybe? It was right next to campus. Vegans were everywhere. My guess is that, as a vegan, you probably don't think to go to a fast-casual place with the word "Burger" in the name, when there's two falafel joints around the corner. Another guess is that, as a college student, you would rather not spend way more to get an imitation, when you could just get the real thing. As a line cook, Impossible burgers are a pain in the ass. You have to handle them with more finesse than normal burgers, or they crumble. We had to run the second flat-top at a lower temperature for them, because they would sear horribly if you ran them at the normal birger/turkey burger temperature. As a result of the lower temperature, they cook slower. Any niche ingredient that rarely gets used inherently causes hiccups in the process, slowing down the kitchen. I tried an Impossible burger on a meal break once. It didn't really taste like a burger, more like "someone mixed some bison with a bunch of black beans and salt," but it still tasted great. The thing is, the normal burgers also tasted great, and they cost less (to the business and the customer). If I wanted to eat plants, I'd go eat plants. I don't feel the urge to eat plants that are pretending to not be plants. That said, if Impossible could undercut ground beef prices, then they might be onto something. Good luck undercutting ground beef prices in the Midwest, though.
- jdmg94 4y agoThe world would be a better place if we abandon the standard US diet
- medo-bear 4y ago> Last week, [Beyond Meat's] chief operating officer was reportedly arrested for biting another man on the nose enough said
- MisterTea 4y agoThat immediatly bought this scene to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11gOV4FhuCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11gOV4FhuCk
- bsenftner 4y agoReading about the unsustainability of the plant based fake meats was all it required for every single person I know who cares about such things to never even try them.
- DoctorOW 4y agoI've not seen this. What source do you have?
- garrickvanburen 4y agoAlso interested in sources
- bsenftner 4y agoI hate our SEO'd world: trying to locate the sources again, there is a full on propaganda war taking place on this issue. It has become full time work to locate reputable sources at this time. Searches give pages and pages of marketing.
- pessimizer 4y agoYeah, there's not a chance. You have to save them when you find them. That's the real benefit of the actual source over the pop science article or press release summarizing it: the real source is going to be typeset into a pdf that you can keep, instead of being a link that changes or rots, or a memory of something that was dropped from search engines or out-SEO'd.
- Bakary 4y agoI am sympathetic to your ideological worldview, but simply claiming that something is common knowledge and being unable to come up with sources is concerning, even in the context of an SEO war.
- Clampower 4y agoPlease provide a source or delete your claim.
- philliphaydon 4y agoI've tried plant based burgers multiple times and it's just not the same. The first time I had an "impossible burger", I didn't actually know it was fake meat, I just assumed it was the name of the burger at the time, I thought it was horrible. I had a different shops "impossible" burger few years later and it was far from horrible, but just doesn't have the same impact as a good burger. Edit: Either it's juicy and the texture isn't right, or the texture is right but it isn't juicy, or the flavour isn't there. It just doesn't taste real enough, in some ways its SO close... /end edit. Wife and I tried some of the beyond meat from the super market and that was once... never again, it was not good, any of it. Its sometimes /very/ salty, even if I don't add salt... (as a side note I donno if it's changed but it's more expensive to buy beyond meat than it is to buy real meat)
- etrautmann 4y agoWeird, not my experience at all. I prefer the alternatives now and for anything requiring ground beef in a sauce it’s indistinguishable
- naravara 4y agoGround meat in a sauce is actually the only situation where it is easily distinguishable for me. The texture doesn’t feel right. It ends up rubbery, kind of like overcooked fish. And it doesn’t impart the same kind of umami depth of flavor. I end up having to supplement with bouillon instead, but then it gets a little too salty.
- Broken_Hippo 4y agoYou don't have to use bouillon, though. There are lots of ways to increase umami: Soy sauce, tomato paste, and ground mushroom powder all work out well, and the last two are low-to-no salt.
- rootusrootus 4y agoMost people do such an awful job of cooking ground beef, just making a gray mush, I could see how the fake stuff wouldn’t be any worse.
- PaulHoule 4y agoI remember Boca burgers, Quorn, and similar products being acceptable in the 1990s. If people are impressed by Impossible Burgers they have a short memory and/or allergic to history.
- Nursie 4y agoThe ones in the 90s were nowhere near as close to beef burgers as these new ones. Quorn has come on leaps and bounds since then, and is a vaguely good chicken substitute, but nothing like impossible or beyond.
- wpietri 4y agoFor me Impossible and Beyond are a big step above Boca.
- casion 4y agoFor me, they taste nearly identical with a different texture. There's a bitterness that they share which overwhelms everything. Most people don't seem to notice it, but I've met a few with the same experience.
- falcolas 4y agoBitterness… Are you a cilantro-soap taster as well? I too notice that things are usually more bitter for me than others find them. Like the lightly flavored carbonated beverages.
- yellowpencil 4y agoVC got their IPO, thats all that ever mattered. it was kind of funny to see the PR campaigns ramp up - placement in news articles, podcast interviews with the founder, partnerships with fast food chains. after the smoke cleared there was never any real demand, just hype. a bunch of people made money, rinse repeat.
- koheripbal 4y agoSocial media hype is cheap to purchase these days. That's why we see so many stupid fads and political outrage hypertrends.
- starkd 4y agoBut they actually got funding to implement these fads. It took a decade of near-zero interest loans.
- starkd 4y agoThat's what you get when you have over a decade of near zero interest rates and easy money. A lot of hyped products and companies that mysteriously don't make any money. We're paying the price now.
- kube-system 4y agoThere was also a lot of cool and important shit that was made due to the same conditions. I hope things turn around asap. Cheap money is good for fake progress as much as it is for real progress.
- mindslight 4y agoOr we could just produce less crap to be wasted, and have healthier work-life balances to boot. It takes an especially foolish kind of monetary environment to manufacture perfectly good e-scooters just to dump them into rivers and onto sidewalks, hoping that enough people tripping over them will create a recurring revenue stream from the coins falling out of their pocket. Plus that whole disenfranchisement of individuals further into renters rather than distributed capital owners.
- jmpman 4y agoI was impressed by the impossible whopper. It was 70% as good as the meat version. If it was half the price, I might order it again. Instead, it’s a premium. Unless you have ethical or religious reasons, why would you pay more for an inferior product? My first purchase was for novelty reasons, but I haven’t been able to justify a second.
- DoctorOW 4y agoI mean why isn't ethical enough? Meat processing is one of the single worst industries for climate change, a surprising amount of the energy production field.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- prepend 4y agoIt seems evident why ethical isn’t enough as we could just eat meat and only consume a nutrient slurry for ethical reasons. There needs to be an economic reason and it doesn’t make sense that an impossible whopper costs more than a whopper. For that price, I’d rather have a sustainably raised, organic whopper that tastes the same or better.
- ianai 4y agoThere probably is enough economic reason if the externalities were properly accounted. If it’s not in the price (and worse-subsidized) there’s no hope of the market reaching a suitable equilibrium.
- prepend 4y agoImpossible meat is substantially subsidized right now and it’s still expensive. I think veggie food is cheaper (rice and beans) it’s just this synthetic fake meat stuff that costs more.
- 4y ago
- vjerancrnjak 4y agomcdonald's plant-based burger is tasteless. size is very small. on the other hand, burger king's rebel whooper is very good. problem I experienced was that staff takes too much time to make it. I have no developed taste for "real" burgers and I still wouldn't eat plant-based ones regularly. at least the pricing is normal, compared to burgers in vegan restaurants that cost 3-5 times more. is meat consumption in fast-food chain the majority of meat consumption? if not, why the need to discuss the global meat consumption in the context of fast-food chains.
- Macha 4y agoTo be fair, mcdonald's beef burgers are pretty weak tasting too
- sokoloff 4y ago> mcdonald's plant-based burger is tasteless. size is very small. That sounds like a Woody Allen quote.
- Dylan16807 4y agoYou have to come at it from a very particular angle to be funny. Otherwise it's just "this neither satisfied my tongue nor my stomach". You don't want a subpar meal to also be small unless you have the spare time and money to get a replacement.
- JasonFruit 4y agoI'm not bullish on plant-based meat taking over the market from real meat; I don't think that's going to happen. But I can see plant-based meat substitutes taking a place as a now-and-then substitute. The Boca Burger is a good example, because it's not meat, it doesn't really pretend to be meat, but it's good food in its own right, and it can serve the same function as meat in a meal despite fooling absolutely nobody. I serve them to my kids and eat them myself when we're in the mood for something that fills the gap of meat but want a lower-calorie choice.
- paulcole 4y agoMy hottest take has been that fast-food restaurants in the US will be 100% plant-based in my lifetime. Whether it’s economics, politics, ethics, or health that drives the decision, something is going to make it happen. My original belief was that one big prion disease outbreak in the US would be the tipping point, but post-COVID I don’t think that’ll do it. Now, I think it’s going to be climate change. I honestly don’t see how animal meat is sustainable for more than another generation or two.
- ssl232 4y agoMaybe people are starting to see through the "plant-based" marketing when they see the 20 industrially produced ingredients on the back of the pack. I for one have been steering clear of seed oils and foods high in linoleic acid that have been linked to a plethora of modern health problems, and most of these products are stuffed full of them and are not remotely natural - no thanks.
- owly 4y agoAgreed. Maybe people could just start eating plants instead of over engineered industrially processed blocks of “food”.
- standardUser 4y agoIf you think humans are going to start eating a more boring, simplified diet, you are missing a major plot line of human civilization, which continues to give us an ever-increasing array of foods in every possible configuration.
- owly 4y agoYou assumed that eating plants over processed corn/pea protein/soy isolate/canola oil blocks = a bowl of raw spinach. There are endless delicious cultural cuisines which are made of only plants, not ultra processed, and certainly not boring.
- shlant 4y ago> seed oils and foods high in linoleic acid that have been linked to a plethora of modern health problems The best evidence we have does not support what are usually low-carb talking points https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD011094.pub3/full https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/fo/c7fo00433h/unauth https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/fo/c7fo0... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7524638/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7524638/
- yellow_lead 4y agoI noticed that plant based burgers are less filling, i think because they contain less protein - 19g vs 26g according to Google. I don't mind the taste though
- c0l0 4y agoSince we had grasped the implications of this graph[0] a few months back, the wife and I finally managed to actually make the jump to drastically reduce our meat consumption, and also mostly replaced dairy products with soy- and oats-based alternatives. I've even had the McDonald's "McPlant" three or so times since then, and must say that it tastes about the same as I recall other burgers' taste with similar toppings. Turns out I'm totally fine with "fake" meat, and I would encourage everyone to give it a shot. [0]: https://coloss.us.to/food_co2.jpg https://coloss.us.to/food_co2.jpg
- loceng 4y agoDoes anyone readily have access to the graph of emissions by each industry so this is seen in context?
- c0l0 4y agoMaybe check out https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
- loceng 4y agoThanks! After scrolling a bit it shows that "Energy" accounts for 73%+ of greenhouse gas emissions. Seems like 100% of effort should be going to energy production for the highest yield, most efficient outcome - and while not increasing the cost of food for everyone which disproportionately causes suffering for the poor; increasing energy cost does the same of course, so it has to be done carefully.
- c0l0 4y agoI disagree. All of our effort should go towards all (relatively) easily attainable reductions of emissions in parallel. Substituting consuming meat with consuming plants is such a thing for me, so I readily do it.
- 4y ago
- indymike 4y agoTwo problems with plant based meat: It costs 2-3x more than the real thing at the grocery store and it is higher in carbohydrate. The carbs are a problem to insulin resistant type 2 diabetics and people in a keto diet.
- loceng 4y agoIt's also now known that adding a 3% concentration of a specific algae/seaweed to a cow's diet reduces their emissions by something like 80%+: "New Long-Term Study Could Mean More Sustainable Burgers" - https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces-their-greenhouse-gas-emissions-82-percent https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces... So the current harm that is used as the primary reason [allegedly] for the push to reducing meat consumption (global climate change) becomes a moot point and actually a relatively very low added cost if needed to start mass producing and farming seaweed to add to a cow's feed; if this isn't part of the conversation of those pushing for beef alternatives, then realize they are ideological and not critically thinking - and may have ulterior motive, even if that's simply trying to generate/drive profit for their own industry of plant-based products.
- pessimizer 4y agoIf it's so easy to adopt that food additive, and it's so effective, we can also do that while trying to go meatless. If the additive works well, and livestock emissions (and runoff) become not a big issue, I'm sure people will happily return to meat (unless the alternatives have become too comfortable.) If it turns out to be hard, we'll be glad that people were pushed toward meatless. If it's easy, it won't ultimately matter that people were pushed toward meatless.
- somehnacct3757 4y agoI like Impossible meat quite a lot, but best in ground beef scenarios. If you're putting it into sloppy joes, hamburger helpers, and the like, it's really hard to even notice the difference. The texture is right and most of the flavor is coming from the other ingredients. It's less flavorful than cow meat as a burger patty, and it's enough of the flavor profile to notice. I'm bullish on these products becoming the default restaurant vegetarian option, topping the last generation of plant-based burger brands. And for them to find success in less meat-forward recipes. I'm bearish on there being some sort of cultural or ethical revolution. That won't happen until it's cheaper than meat.
- DoctorOW 4y agoI agree 100%. I remember joking with a friend that the less meat is in your meat, the cheaper it is until 0 where it's suddenly the most expensive options.
- Dylan16807 4y agoDo you think you'd prefer something that's half meat half cheap filler over impossible/beyond?
- DoctorOW 4y agoMe personally? I don't think so... If I'm taking the hit in taste/texture quality I might as well go all the way. Like drinking water over Coke Zero
- hedora 4y agoDefinitely (though not half and half). We usually put breadcrumbs and eggs in our meatballs, for example.
- Dylan16807 4y ago> Definitely (though not half and half). That doesn't count, then. I specifically mean half or even larger amounts. The point is, the place you go as filler takes over is very different from these products. I'm not saying anything at all about small amounts of additive.
- shafyy 4y agoMcDonald's did a lot of things wrong with their plant-based meat burger. If you want to see it done right, just take a look at Burger King. In Germany, you can now substitute animal meat for plant-based meat in every burger, and on top of that they have very tasty plant-based burgers like the long chicken and vegan chicken nuggets. In Vienna, they've opened their first 100% plant-based location. And yes, Beyond Meat's stock is not doing well, but this doesn't mean plant-based meats in general aren't doing well.
- Clampower 4y agoMcDonald’s Netherlands did the most idiotic approach. They started offering vegetarian burgers that were made of like 80% dairy. So incredibly stupid I still can’t believe it.
- Nursie 4y agoMaybe they aren't as messianic as the marketing copy proclaimed (what ever is?) but impossible mince makes a lot of difference to my life - I'm an unrepentant carnivore that lives with a vegetarian. We cook meals several evenings a week and without a half-decent mince substitute there are a lot of dishes that would feel too much like a compromise to be enjoyable. I enjoy making and eating vegetarian food as well, I think I make a great dahl for instance, but my diet would be less fulfilling without it. Or we'd end up doing more "I have a fish steak, she has a quorn fillet' nights. So I hope that these newer, closer recreations of beef don't disappear. But at the same time none of them is exactly on the mark, so I'm also not that surprised they haven't taken the world by storm.
- Proven 4y ago
- MisterTea 4y agoI never ate one as the idea of fake bleeding meat is grotesque. Meat eating friends who tried it all said that it was either mediocre or gross. Vegan friends didn't care for it at all. So it comes as no surprise to me that eating fake bleeding meat is not popular.
- pessimizer 4y ago> Meat eating friends who tried it all said that it was either mediocre or gross. Mediocre is good. I eat a lot of mediocre meat. If a little bit of msg will get me over the line to "alright American comfort food", I'm in a good place. Vegetarian comfort food usually doesn't get me anywhere. I don't like avocado that much.
- curtainsforus 4y agoIf I'm going to eat vegetables, I want to eat real vegetables, not an assortment of pea protein and flavorers slathered in preservatives that doesn't even taste as good as the thing it's imitating!
- owly 4y agoYes!
- Clampower 4y agoI prefer to eat the vegan whoppers. I’m not vegan but don’t like eating trash meat of bad quality. Hadn’t been to BK in years, now it’s a regular option for me because I’m not disgusted by the bad quality meat and enjoy the occasional easy fast food burger. I also buy Beyond Burgers for at home. I prefer them to many many other real meat burger patties from the super market. Beyond meat is delicious.
- ipaddr 4y agoI prefer eating the wrapper over the burger. Less chemicals.
- NameGenerator2 4y agoI certainly don’t think I’m the target audience for plant meat. As a vegetarian, I don’t actually want my burger to look it taste like meat. I like to know that what I’m eating isn’t meat, and I see no need to blur the lines and enable someone to accidentally serve it to me.
- ThalesX 4y agoI just don’t see any future where I won’t be eating meat. My grandparents and cousins raise farm animals; I’ve helped raise farm animals: horses, oxen, cows, chickens, pigs, goats… What stops a family from raising their own hamburgers? In my vision, it’s a lot cleaner and easier to understand than lab grown meat. I was just talking to my grandpa, in Europe, he was laughing at the news about needing to eat insects in the future, he also mentioned no one he knows would have trouble sourcing meat in any vision of the future. (Edit: downvote me all you want with no comment but this is a part of reality no matter how much you ignore it; good luck convincing generational farmers, that grow their own food, to start getting pre-frozen insect meat or meat alternatives, delivered to them from god knows where.)
- Dylan16807 4y agoGo ahead but that's a lot of expense and/or land needed, and isn't relevant to most people But also it's silly of you to equate "lab grown meat" to stuff that's just different plants processed and mixed.
- toast0 4y ago> What stops a family from raising their own hamburgers? Mostly that they take a lot of space or a lot of feed or both. I borrowed two cows (or loaned a pasture) for a couple of weeks once, and they cleaned it out real fast. A lot of people in single family homes could keep chickens or maybe even goats, but cows are right out.
- hedora 4y agoI don't think people realize how low emissions are for poultry. Also, adding supplements like seaweed to cow diets reduces their emissions substantially. Ultimately, we have to do direct air carbon capture anyway at this point (the climate is already unacceptably screwed up), and doing that will be far more economical and scalable than eliminating long tail carbon emissions. After all, meat production is only a bit over 5% of global emissions. Carbon capture will dwarf that: we're committed to capturing > 100% of current emissions for many years, whether we like it or not. Estimates say carbon capture will cost about a dollar per gallon of gasoline-equivalent emissions. Would people rather give up beef, or pay $0.10-0.05 more per gallon of gasoline?
- starkd 4y ago“But the consumer environment is tough, and this stuff is not cheap,” he added. “It’s going to take time to change cultural practices. It’s not going to happen overnight.” There's a hint of authoritarianism in that statement. 'change cultural practices' confers a sense of social engineering to the intent here. People don't like to be told what to eat. It has to be significantly better than the standard option.
- kashunstva 4y agoI've been vegan for nearly a quarter century. Part of the problem is that deliberately positioning the fake meat products as, well, "fake meat" will forever create unreasonable expectations by way of comparisons. I have only the faintest recollection of what a hamburger, or steak, or fried chicken tastes like but if my experience were more recent, then I would probably reject the vegetarian alternatives if they were positioned as comparable in the market. But I think fast-food places have few alternatives to this practice. Outside of the fast food world, it's easier because restaurants are at greater liberty to not be constrained by the typical ways that animal flesh is shaped and used. It's a shame, because occasionally, those who don't eat animal products end up in social situations where they have to eat at fast-food places and are often left eating nothing.
- ianai 4y agoAs a vegan, agree. I once described benevolent bacon as “you’re not going to think ‘oh wow I totally just ate bacon’ but you might think ‘oh wow I don’t need bacon after that.” And it’s a recipe thing. Just need to get a little creative perhaps.
- ianai 4y agoAlso when I made my own vegan bbq out of seitan (gluten) I can mix the smoke flavor right into the wheat flour mixture. It doesn’t take the 14-18 hours to coax smoke flavor into a bit of meat. Can dial it all right to whatever I want from the get go. But ultimately finding recipes that people want to eat without meat should be a better goal. Feels like a false premise.
- solarkraft 4y ago> But I think fast-food places have few alternatives to this practice Yup. Your practice is certainly a great one and it works for some things and gradual changes, but it probably won't work very well for people who are not very fond of change when they notice it, which is likely most of them.
- cronix 4y ago> Part of the problem is that deliberately positioning the fake meat products as, well, "fake meat" will forever create unreasonable expectations by way of comparisons. I've always thought that was strange. Naming products they consume after the very things a lot of vegans are against. Like if a meat eater made something that looked like lettuce out of meat and called it a salad.
- brap 4y agoBoy was this thing hyped! I remember during the peak hype I was super eager to try it. People were saying it's indistinguishable from real meat and will cause a revolution! Even as a meat lover, I was honestly super excited when [either "Impossible" or "Beyond", don't remember which] burger came to my country. It was the first (and only) time in my life when I was excited to try a vegan burger. This will change everything! I had it at a very nice restaurant. And it was... extremely underwhelming. I remember thinking to myself "really? that's it?". It tasted exactly like those supermarket veggie burgers my vegetarian sister used to microwave in the early to mid 90s. You know, those veggie patties that are obviously not meat, and have too much spices on them to try to mask it and pretend to be something else. Not gross, just meh. An ok side dish at most. I guess it was all about having really, really good PR. Still excited for lab-made meat, though. Maybe some day.
- starkd 4y agoYes, anyone who has been around for awhile should be able to recognize it as nothing more than a soy burger or veggie pattie. It shows the power of marketing to create novelty out of the ordinary.
- CharlesW 4y ago> Yes, anyone who has been around for awhile should be able to recognize it as nothing more than a soy burger or veggie pattie. Out of curiosity: Have you eaten one in a restaurant setting? They're credible ground beef analogs (and are judged harshly since the bar is higher), where soy/veggie patties don't even pretend to be beef. In any case, it was all over once Big Beef's (JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Marfrig) P.R. machines established "fake meat" as the name for beef alternatives.
- phphphphp 4y agoModern fake meats (Beyond, Impossible etc) are unmistakeably superior to legacy fake meat. I don’t know what you were served, or how it was prepared, but if it was indistinguishable from 90s microwave “meat”, it wasn’t representative. You should try a Beyond Meat burger from one of the many restaurants who regularly serve them. I wouldn’t say it’s indistinguishable from meat — and it’s totally fair to hate it — but it’s in a different league to the fake meat of the 90s. I recommend the McDonald’s McPlant, it’s a great representation.
- nsenifty 4y agoUltimately meat substitutes are yet more processed crap. If you want to try to cut down meat, I'd recommend trying any number of cuisines that have culturally evolved largely around plant based foods and sustainable fish. Most cuisines outside Europe-influenced world don't have a hunk of meat as the main event for every meal
- cassepipe 4y agoIn the article, they talk about McDonalds... I don't know about other stores but when I went there as a kid, in Europe, the meat had no taste and its texture was s*t so I don't think the the problem comes from fast food meat being better than plant-based meat. I don't think it's about taste. I think it's about price and about culture. "But the consumer environment is tough, and this stuff is not cheap,” "If I’m spending money in a restaurant, and I’m a meat eater, why would I spend money on plant-based meat? I would rather eat an actual burger,” --> I want the bang for my buck. I think people who to eat in fast/junk food restaurants are : 1. Rather poor so concerned by price 2. Participate in a working class culture in which hard working men lives must be fueled by meat, which is effectively a super-food. So a cultural matter. The sad thing though is that culture demands meat but the quality/taste of the meat provided is shit. I am personally in favor of banning processed meat (the one that's bad for your health) and that non processed meat is reserved to people doing hard physical work while the rest of enjoy our plant based meals :D
- Dylan16807 4y agoIn general, banning most of the population from having a superfood is something I would rate D:
- code_duck 4y agoI don’t think it’s accurate to assume that the majority of fast food customers are low income men with blue collar jobs. It’s more of a broad cross-section of society in my experience.
- cassepipe 4y agoOh I did not mean to say low income men with blue collar jobs are the majority of the customers, I just meant to explain what I think is the reason why eating meat is tied to status in working class culture and how being deprived of it may be lived as a loss.
- beanjuiceII 4y agoI tried impossible burgers and such many times..but over the course of months I stopped and went back to real burgers and wow. You don't know what you're missing until its gone! real burgers are just waaay better. I don't think i'd try fake meats again
- paulryanrogers 4y agoFunny I had the opposite experience. Going back to meat was distasteful. The texture and flavor of the cow was mediocre, regardless of who and how it was made.
- DangitBobby 4y agoI don't think the value proposition was ever that meat substitutes taste better than meat. It's positioned as an ethical alternative which you pay a premium for.
- eternalban 4y agoI gave it a ~try. Uncooked, it looked and smelt like dog food. Went straight to trash.
- bawolff 4y agoI dont even like them, but wtf, most meant to be cooked products are going to seem not great uncooked.
- eternalban 4y agoOk, get a can of dog food and cook it and get back to me :) p.s. I go strictly by "body knows best". If something makes me feel nauseated, I do not eat it, cooked or not.
- direl 4y agoAs a vegetarian, I agree that most of these meatless burgers are somewhere between vile and mediocre. The only one I've enjoyed so far is Linda McCartney's Vegetarian Mozzarella Burger. Grill it for 10-15 minutes or so, adding a slice of extra mature cheddar on top when it's nearly done, then serve in a buttered brioche bun with a sprinkle of salt and pepper on the cheese. It's surprisingly delicious. Besides, there are plenty of alternatives to meat that aren't trying to be meat-like: tofu, seitan, cheeses with high melting points such as halloumi and paneer. Better to enjoy these, than be disappointed with products that attempt mimic the taste and mouthful of flesh.
- Elinvynia 4y agoHello vegetarian, please see "Diary is scary" on YouTube, won't be one for much longer, hopefully.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoYou post this multiple times in these comments and can’t even be bothered to post a link nor summarize it?
- zbrozek 4y agoI feel like the premium pricing for the plant based alternative is a major problem. Personally I think they've achieved "good enough" results, but I rarely eat them because of the cost difference at restaurants. The story is flipped for home cooking, e.g., making mapo or meatballs at home. We actually prefer the plant based alternative there, and lately it's also been the economical choice.
- zdragnar 4y agoEh, I think the fact that they are not healthier (by fat or calorie content, I forget which) is a major deterrent. Admittedly, this is a very informal survey, but of the people I know of who have tried one, all of them claimed that not eating meat was not a big enough motivation to change. They'd rather they also be healthier than they actually are. Cheaper might actually harm adoption. when you compare eating ground meat to an engineered product, making the engineered product cheaper just makes it seem more like processed junk food.
- mandarax8 4y agoIs it not more like processed junk food?
- zdragnar 4y agoI was referring more to what the pricing does to consumer perception- of course, it is very much heavily processed, and not particularly healthy.
- RC_ITR 4y agoGenerally, they are lower in saturated fat, but that’s less of a “lose weight this year” improvement and more of a “reduce your chance of a heart attack in 20 years” improvement.
- ericmcer 4y agoWe really don't know that, and there is a huge difference between eating canola or palm oil and eating beef fat (although we throw them all under a blanket "saturated" label). I would guess beyond is using a variety of seed, palm, and coconut oils to fatten the burgers. Everyone can have their own opinion on this but I believe animal fats are healthier than those seed oils.
- statuslover9000 4y agoLots of people I know dislike the taste of Beyond Meat specifically, but like Impossible and other fake meats. This article seems to be sensationalizing and over-generalizing from a single company’s failure.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agored meat is bad for the environment but there is no conclusive evidence that is bad for you. So while we wait for this final evidence that will prove that read meat is satan, I think it means that its good for you overall because it tastes delicious and eating delicious things is good for mental health
- tomweingarten 4y agoThe negative health effects of red meat are one of the few things in nutrition that we have consistent, overwhelming evidence for. See for instance the studies linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#:~:text=Health%20effects,-See%20also%3A%20Beef&text=Overall%2C%20diets%20high%20in%20red,%2C%20and%20all%2Dcause%20mortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#:~:text=Health%20effe....
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agoNot all red meat is processed meat.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoThe link also talks about unprocessed meat. Just keep scrolling.
- paulcole 4y agoThings that are bad for the environment are bad for all of us and those of us who aren’t born yet. Source: The world.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agoI won't sacrifice myself for the benefit of some Malay or Indian farmer who can now light on fire even more palm oil. The answer to environmental problems can't be leaving quality of life on the table. If you leave a vacuum other people are gonna fill that vacuum . India and China would consider a huge success a scenario in which climate gets worse but there is a reversal in the quality of life metrics: that is Europe and US becoming second world and them taking the spot of first world. A comment such as yours can only be produced by an overtly concerned American or European who is not aware that if you stop fighting for quality of life it's gonna be taken away from you. Then you'll have the worst of both worlds: Low quality of life and climate change still unsolved. It is a huge dichotomy to fight for freedom in Ukraine and then lose the fight for quality of life at home, all because John Kerry and Al Gore tell you to stop being a proud American. These are the same people that don't believe in American exceptionalism and want to destroy NATO so that the West is vulnerable to attacks from India, Russia and China.
- crispyambulance 4y agoI think the expectations are too high for plant-based meat. By going straight for mass-market "burgers", they're putting themselves into a hard situation where they've got to win over disinterested comfort-food-only consumers. Even if it were perfect, it's just not going to work with that market. It's like they're trying use Tesla's approach for cars but skipped over the part where they introduce this stuff to high end consumers like Tesla did with the Roadster. I think plant-based meat would do better if it were introduced in fancy molecular gastronomy haute-cuisine and then more as an ingredient in mainstream stuff than as a mass-market centerpiece menu item like a hamburger would be. That would give it a chance to work itself into food preparations where it really shines and is not merely "a replacement" for the real thing.
- nilespotter 4y agoI'm not surprised, it is just Gardenburger and Boca Burger with obnoxious new marketing. Wake me up when there's lab grown _meat_.
- pittmajp 4y agoBeyond is a world ahead of both of those. The actual problem is that they’re not as good as the impossible that Burger King has seen success with. Fake meat has gotten much better over the past few years, and there are still companies producing the bad versions from decades ago.
- nilespotter 4y ago... so good the stock is in the tank, they're losing FF chain customers and laying off employees. OK.
- RandomWorker 4y agoGenerally what I find is that the bean burgers that are vegan, are just if not more tasty. While the fake burgers try this weird meat taste that doesn’t come close to beef texture. Both bean and meat burgers need to be prepared fresh for optimal taste. It’s like fresh burgers are like the 10x of frozen/pre made burgers. While choosing burgers among the pre-made will always be marginal in gains.
- mmmpop 4y ago> Generally what I find is that the bean burgers that are vegan, are just if not more tasty. ...than? Beef? Your vegan opinion is irrelevant in a conversation about meat and things that are meant to taste like meat, frankly.
- LBJsPNS 4y agoI believe the vegan comment was about the burgers, not the poster. But it's interesting to see your apparent anger towards vegans come roaring out.
- throwaway09223 4y agoI think you're right that a bean burger is more tasty than the processed beef texture burgers -- but neither are anywhere near as good as actual beef. You know what's really good, though? Fake chicken patties. And it's been good for decades. I really wonder what the fixation is on beef patties, when there are other types of much more easily replaceable meat. I also wish we would see more creative partial substitutes. Bean and beef patties? Sign me up.
- nyokodo 4y ago> I really wonder what the fixation is on beef patties, when there are other types of much more easily replaceable meat. The negative environmental impact of beef is much greater than other meats so the potential positive impact is much greater moving food production away from beef.
- stepanhruda 4y ago
- Lammy 4y agoI’m in no hurry to ever try these plant-based meat substitutes again since the coconut oil / cocoa butter “marbling” gives me the runs, like Olé Olestra all over again: https://web.archive.org/web/19990203160042/http://www.zug.com/pranks/olestra/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990203160042/http://www.zug.co...
- tomweingarten 4y agoIf you did a blind taste test between Impossible and Beyond (or the McPlant), I suspect people would pick Impossible nine times out of ten. Writing off all plant-based meat at this point feels a bit like saying the Internet is a failure in 2002 because Yahoo is losing steam.
- solarkraft 4y agoI recently tried a vegetarian (I think vegan, even) burger at a German McDonalds and it tasted more like it contained meat than the meat based burgers they sell. It wasn't even significantly more expensive, I think. There's a good chance I'd choose it again when/if I go to McDonalds the next time.
- m3kw9 4y agoTrying to compare a veggie fake meat to real meat is like trying to market wacking off is better than the real thing
- stepanhruda 4y agoI absolutely love Beyond and Impossible alternatives, they are making it viable to not eat meat while getting an experience in the similar ballpark. My only issue is actually not enough places offer them, or at least not in a variety of dishes. I don’t want to eat burgers multiple times a week, regardless of if they are beef or not.
- allthecybers 4y agoSame here. For whatever reason I prefer an Impossible patty over a beef burger in my regular eating. My brain knows it’s not beef but is equally satisfied with it. I don’t expect everyone to love it like I do. But I started doing it for health and now really like the taste of meat alternatives. A beef burger then becomes a treat, rather than a diet staple.
- linsomniac 4y agoI've been eating more plant based burgers because meat is unsustainable. Carbon emissions from meat are more than all the planes, trains, and automobiles combined. Water required to make 24 hamburgers will fill a pool. Meat is simply an inefficient way of making the calories and proteins we need. I still eat meat, I've just started moving to more plant based products. Mark Rober has a good coverage of this in his video "Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world)": https://youtu.be/-k-V3ESHcfA https://youtu.be/-k-V3ESHcfA
- rchaud 4y agoMeat isn't particularly cheap, especially now. Plant-based meat substitutes are very expensive, and simply cannot take market share to make a dent in meat production, at current prices.
- Isamu 4y agoThis is really the goal of Impossible Foods. It’s to transition to a sustainable future by winning over consumers who prefer meat, and can only be persuaded by taste. I hope they manage to get the price down, then it will be competitive in the long run.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIt's not a charity, their goal is to make money.
- typest 4y agoYou can do both at the same time. If Impossible could actually succeed in making a meat alternative that tastes as good as meat, but is cheaper (e.g. because they don't have to waste a bunch of energy growing an entire animal), then they could be poised both make a ton of money (by being a major player in the global food market) AND help end factory farming/animal consumption (by providing a superior product). Furthermore, this is such a research heavy endeavor, you need upfront capital to fund it, which means it would be hard to structure as a non profit. Structuring as a for profit is the right move, and it doesn't mean what they're working towards isn't a good cause, or that they are somehow ethically compromised.
- karol 4y agoNothing but good news. Fakeness and corrupt impossible promises fade away.
- bumblebritches5 4y ago
- analog31 4y agoKind of an analogy: A number of years ago, my city banned smoking in bars. There was a lot of discussion about the economic impact. The city was betting on non smokers coming out to replace the smokers, maybe even in greater numbers. As a musician who worked in those places, I was optimistic. Instead, the bars just cleared out, and many went out of business. What had happened was that non-smokers had already adjusted their lifestyles as if bars didn't exist, and those lifestyles didn't change. Bar business eventually came back, but it took several years, and the bars themselves reconfigured in terms of things like food offerings and even location. The same thing seems likely to happen with meat. The vegetarians have by and large adjusted their diets to not involve meat. Many of them (some of my family members) actually don't like the taste, and have no interest in trying a meat substitute. My hunch is that market size is not just a function of counting numbers of people, but also, predicting the time scale of how long it will take for people to change ingrained food preferences, recipes, shopping habits, and so forth. And like non-smokers and bars, a lot of vegetarians have largely given up on restaurants.
- colordrops 4y agoThese meat substitutes have allowed my vegan family to eat at places like Denny's, which basically have nothing else on the menu that we can eat. Even with the tides supposedly rolling back, I expect many non-veg restaurants will continue to carry these burgers as an option, and that's still a huge market.
- josephcsible 4y agoI take issue with the word "can". I don't think there are any involuntary vegans, so it's not that there's nothing else on the menu that you can eat, but rather that there's nothing else on the menu that you want to eat.
- colordrops 4y agoOk, well, I didn't open this "can" of worms... But I can murder people. I can jump off a cliff without a chute. I can burn my life savings. "I can't go to the store right now. Why? Because I'll miss my appointment. Well technically you still could go to the store." By your standard, if it's not against the law of physics, then "can't" shouldn't be used. Obviously that's not how it's used idiomatically and colloquially, so there is clearly something other than physical impossibility that drives people to use the word, whether ethics, suffering, or other other frictions. I suspect you've got your own ethical stance and are trying to lay it on me.
- typest 4y agoAs someone who would want to be a vegan but struggles not to eat meat, I've been very interested in Impossible since it started. The idea that you might make synthetic meat that tastes as good as real meat while being cheaper is very alluring -- seemingly, you could eliminate most meat consumption globally. At the same time, over the past few years, I've explored more of the world's cuisines and generally become a better cook. What I've learned (which surely is obvious to many but was not obvious to me) is that the typical US diet is unnecessarily meat centric, and that being a vegetarian is much easier, healthier, and tastier when one basically stops eating typical American meals. Being a vegetarian is much easier when eating Indian food for instance, and it's laughably easy when eating Ethiopian. I'm still rooting heavily for Impossible, because factory farming is a global atrocity. And, it would be really cool if one day, I could eat an Impossible burger that was cheaper and healthier than a regular burger. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, I think that my attempts to be vegetarian will revolve around learning to better cook food from non-American cuisines, foods that are better suited to not having meat.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
- bastawhiz 4y ago> meat that tastes as good as real meat while being cheaper is very alluring Interestingly, it seems that every time I see an Impossible burger on a menu, it's not cheaper. Often it's more expensive, but usually roughly the same price. I'm not sure why this is, but it seems like it's probably holding folks back from eating it regularly.
- typest 4y agoI am really not that knowledgeable about this space, but I would imagine it's because A) there are a lot of subsidies for the meat industry, and B) there are a lot of economies of scale present in the meat industry that do not yet exist in alternative meat industries. Of course, it makes sense that when introducing a new product like this to the market, it is potentially going to be more expensive than existing products. It seems like, in theory, one should be able to make it much cheaper just because producing meat by way of animals is just very wasteful from an energy perspective. However, I have no clue what is required to synthesize such compounds without the use of animals, so I don't know how far away we are from being able to do this.
- standardUser 4y agoI love the modern meat alternatives, but they are comparatively carb-heavy and are replacing one of the few foods I eat regularly that are not carb heavy. That's just not compatible with how I need to eat to feel good and maintain my body weight, so I almost never go for them.
- bawolff 4y agoIm a vegitarian. I tried it once and it was just average at best. It seems like most of the people in love with these types of burgers are meat eaters who wouldn't eat them anyways.
- bryan0 4y agoI really appreciate all of the plant-based options. My take on it is: if I can barely tell the difference then I will buy the product which doesn’t involve killing animals.
- skhameneh 4y agoI've had a few brands and products for plant-based "meat". One brand's products were simply awful and another brand managed to produce a very convincing burger that I wouldn't order again. The convincing burger was acceptably tasty but overly dry and priced higher than their real beef burger. It tasted like "beef", but it didn't taste "good". As products get better, we'll see more adoption, but it will take some effort to overcome the damage done by releasing products that don't fare favorably on their own. The average consumer isn't going to pay more for a product that isn't as "good".
- jamal-kumar 4y agoDid anyone hear how the CCO of beyond meat recently got locked up for BITING AT SOME GUYS NOSE IN A PETTY ARGUMENT? Beyond meat alright - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/20/beyond-meat-douglas-ramsey-biting-nose-road-rage-accusation https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/20/beyond-meat-...
- solardev 4y agoThat wasn't a fight, that was market research.
- __turbobrew__ 4y agoProbably in a death spiral after his stock grants are worth 1/10 as they were before.
- mancerayder 4y agoMaybe my coffee hasn't kicked in yet but I didn't catch in the article the health disadvantages of veganism: the article spoke about health broadly, tackling climate change and it talked about culture war issues. I wonder if the plant-based alternative meat vendors need to admit that animal products contain essential nutrients and that perhaps then they can add them. As someone who's quite active I've found my optimal diet isn't a lot of red meat, but a lot of fish, a lot of leafy vegetables, olive oil as the fat, and generally a LOT of protein with full amino acid profiles (chicken, whey protein-based things like Quest chips and Core Power Protein shakes that are made from real milk). YMMV but that's what I've found as a middle-aged guy who's experimented and does many hours of muscle-destroying activities as a hobby. Veganism doesn't fit into this picture. I could MAYBE tolerate alternative tastes, but I can't risk my health because of a loose ethical goal that concerns all of our (and especially our industry's) behaviors in relation to climate change.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoIt’s easy to eat optimally while plant-based or vegan. Especially for consuming something like fiber which most Americans don’t. I’m a 6’1 210lb casual body builder to boot which seems to annoy people when they find out I’m plant based. What do you think is unhealthy about eating plants?
- DAVer98 4y agoWhat is unhealthily about eating plants you ask? :) Well plants make their own herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and other poisons to stop insects (and us humans) from just going around and eating them. We bathe these plants in our own poisons too like the herbicide glyphosate (known as "Roundup") to keep the wheels on the road. There is a massive subreddit named carnivore centered on resolving auto immune issues caused by plant toxins leaking from leaky guts of their members. Plants may well be causing the majority of auto immune issues in society and the science is slowly catching on. Then there is the problem of stopping plants from rotting before they reach our plates and how to sanitize them. Radiation processes are used here on many plants. Some plants are man made. Lemons for example. Others have been bred and developed to become supersized and full of sugar. While meat is extremely nutrient dense compared to plants. It has not changed in tens of thousands of years. Our bodies are built to eat it. Cows take 1/10th of the water per calorie to farm compared to plants. Cows who have seaweed added to their feed have reduced greenhouse emissions of 80%. Mega corps are going to have a hard time weaponizing meat against us, compared to genetically modifiying plants and messing around with our food.
- miked85 4y agoI've found it interesting that we've been told how terrible highly processed food is, but somehow that doesn't apply to plant-based meat.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y agoVegan are generally bunch of contradictions in other ways also. To each his own.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoAre the same individuals are telling you both of those things?
- miked85 4y agoHow many vegans/vegetarians are proponents of processed food?
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI do not know. But I also am not surprised when people with different economic incentives tell me different things, or even a single person with an economic motive tells me conflicting things to advance their interest.
- TillE 4y ago"Processed" is not one thing. The bad part is usually additives like large amounts of salt. It's obviously not inherently bad to mix a bunch of different ingredients together.
- FiddlerClamp 4y agoI wish they would provide a meat substitute in Canada with a no-sodium-added version. I understand our diet is heavily salted and sugared, but it would be great for those of us on special diets (or caring those who are).
- mistrial9 4y agoI would buy it except that I suspect GMO ingredients. I do not believe spin articles about sales volumes of basic products, at all however.
- waynecochran 4y agoThe American market is not big enough for these "in between" items. Another example are products like Dr Pepper 10 which used some sugar -- I loved it, but these never succeed in the market. Americans are polarized -- we like either 0 sugar or a ton of sugar.
- enviclash 4y agoEvery Cuisine ha straditional beans that everyone has forgotten because they cannot be made immediately ready they just require a bit of mindfulness about the kitchen and the food; they are super healthy if you know how to do it, with a bit of preparation beans (including chickpea) are much better than any meat substitute
- siliconc0w 4y agoThere is a vegan ice cream chain which seems pretty successful because it doesn't try to recreate traditional flavors. Thus, you have no point of comparison and you can't be disappointed. McDonald's should try offering some veggie Indian options, I haven't eaten at McDonald's in forever but it'd make a stop to try a their take on a curry.
- gimme_treefiddy 4y agoMcD India has great options. Some of these chains are actually much better outside the US.
- manishsharan 4y agoI like Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers but I find making those burgers at home very expensive compared to a comparable vegetarian meal. If they could reduce the price, it would be an easy meal for days when we don't want to cook a real meal.
- unity1001 4y agoIm buying plant-based Mediterranean protein food for a while now (in Europe). And I can easily say that most of the selection surpasses the taste of the meat dishes they imitate. So much that one could consider them newly created dishes instead of being meat knockoffs. https://heurafoods.com/ https://heurafoods.com/ This is likely because of the exquisite spice and other ingredient balance. When the protein is plant based, it does not repress other tastes like how meat normally does.
- tinus_hn 4y agoThe simple fact is that humans are omnivores so they are inclined to eat both plants and meat.
- y-c-o-m-b 4y agoI'm a meat eater. Yeah it tastes nothing like meat, but I LOVE the taste of the Beyond Meat burger patty. We make stuffed peppers and put the ground Beyond Meat in it, so so good. I tell people to just think of it as a really delicious vegetable in patty form and not so much a "meat alternative" because it definitely isn't that. If I want a meat-burger I just go get an actual burger.
- noasaservice 4y agoI heard that nosemeat is in season this time of year. At least according to the COO of Beyond Meat agrees that nose is the best, when he bit someone's nose after an accident/road rage incident. https://www.bonappetit.com/story/beyond-meat-coo-bites-nose https://www.bonappetit.com/story/beyond-meat-coo-bites-nose
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoI tried Panda Express’ new vegan orange chicken head to head against their regular orange chicken last week and it’s very impressively close. A little bit lighter feeling afterwards. I hope these companies succeed in the end.
- icedistilled 4y agoI actually quite like the beyond meat burger as a burger or in a tomato sauce, but the impossible burger is to beef like for my taste now. There's going to be all sorts of opinions, but I would not expect any of these meat substitutes to sell well at mcdonalds. It's not typically where people who care about any of the things that lead people to eat less meat typically buy their food. I've eaten there zero times in the last decade+.
- Slava_Propanei 4y ago
- retrocryptid 4y agoI know many people don't experience this, but beyond meat products taste like ass (to me.) But my spouse and child seem to be okay with them. Maybe it's like cilantro; some portion of the population thinks cilantro tastes like soap. Maybe the percentage of people who are genetically predisposed to think either beyond or impossible tastes bad is just big enough to give the whole concept a bad name. But all is not lost. I still like boca burgers with black beans, cheese and peppers.
- retrocryptid 4y agoMeh. I just don't like the idea of eating something that comes with an NDA. I'm not a vegan, but until a recent move grew a lot of my own food. Raising cattle, goats and chickens is more annoying than plants and fish (at least in my opinion) and therefore ate a macrobiotic-ish diet. Not completely meat free, but lower in meat than the typical American. Also, it always seemed to me there were annoying vegans trying to force their ideology on you. I get it that you don't want to eat honey. That's fine. Please don't tell me I'm destroying the world by eating honey. Maybe that Cadillac Escalade is more harmful to the environment than the honey I eat. Very clearly there are decent folk eating a Vegan diet who aren't dicks. I'm not talking about you. Wow. I got off topic here. Guess there was some pent up rage there. To reiterate my original point, I appreciate what Impossible and Beyond are trying to do, but I think open source food is probably more important than something that looks like a beef product I'm not a complete fan of. Ymmv.
- iseanstevens 4y agoSpeaking as an American who likes burgers, but has spent some real amount of time being vegetarian/vegan/unrestricted diet… I like the impossible burgers better than most meat burgers. That is my anecdata. I think it’s quite an accomplishment and can see it being an on-ramp for more people to eat less meat. Which I think is probably good.
- UglyToad 4y agoWould be interested if the article expanded further into the situation in other markets. Just before I left the UK there was a huge and exciting amount of development in the meat substitute market. Some great, some ok, some terrible. From my perspective while I agree there's a bunch of recipes that are purely vegetarian that might taste better and be healthier I also... don't care. I am a bad cook, I grew up eating meat and meat based dishes, I neither have the patience, skills or access to ingredients for cooking vegetarian dishes well. I don't really like vegetables, I'm an incredibly picky eater and you can take these meat substitutes from my cold dead hands. They're not going to revolutionise your life or be the best thing you've ever tasted but as a meat eater for 2 decades and vegetarian for around 1 neither were a lot of meat dishes. Stop mythologising the burger, or sausage. As for health concerns I think the only approach to dietary 'science' is to ignore anything it claims and just eat a good mix of various things until they manage to develop an evidence based approach of any reliability or predictive power. Food and politics are inextricably linked and I guess it makes sense that they're struggling in a market where 'soy boys' gained currency as a thing. People who bought into a study about red clover consumption in Australian sheep are probably not going to make rational decisions about food.
- _nalply 4y agoIt seems plant-based meat falls between two stools: vegetarians and vegans don't need a meat substitute and meat-eaters prefer the real deal.
- spfzero 4y agoThe one thing not unhealthy in a typical fast-food meal is the beef patty. Everything else is sugar, seed oils, grain and starch. You can throw away everything but the patty, scrape off the condiments, and have a small nutritious meal.
- cercatrova 4y agoThis is why I advocate for lab-grown meat (from previous comments I've made here): > One can never convince a statistically significant amount of people to switch to meat, so one must find ways to make the meat itself more sustainable. > It's thinking with the end in mind. Once you axiomatize the ends, you can then figure out the means to get there. ... > The reason I like lab grown meat is not (necessarily) because of reduced suffering, but because in the future, I can get a very high quality cut of meat for much cheaper than today, simply because cuts of meat differ mainly in their amalgamation of fat and muscle cells, and if you control the entire cell cultivation process, well, you can reorder the fat and muscle cells in whatever way you want. > Imagine getting wagyu every day for cheaper than regular cuts now, simply because you don't have to grow an entire cow and massage it its entire life, you can just grow it on a Petri dish.
- diebeforei485 4y agoI find it strange that they didn't focus on tourist-heavy locations and airport locations when rolling this out. Yes, this costs a bit more (although the price will go down with scale and iteration), so they should have focused on locations where people are more likely to pay more. This was a good product, it's unfortunate that they've discontinued it.
- Digit-Al 4y agoI bought a couple of Beyond Meat burgers at the supermarket recently and tried them. Big mistake. The texture was nothing like a real burger and they left an unpleasant pea protein aftertaste in my mouth for ages afterwards.
- jelliclesfarm 4y agoI am hoping for wider availability of affordable cell based cultured meat which is a better alternative. It is not vegan, but I am really curious how it would taste. Ditto with dairy alternatives.
- lupire 4y agoMost recent IPOs are down 70%. CEO biting someone has nothing to do with food popularity. Beyond sells very well in grocery stores, Impossible is still stocked and selling at BK (especially Whopper Wednesday when it is sold nearly below cost), and Panda Express just launched Beyond chick'n. Trader Joe's sells Impossible as well as house brand versions. The only thing slowing down mock meat, which is selling in many varieties by many companies, is the extreme price. Guardian is not a quality news source.
- daveoc64 4y agoThe US market has always been weird for Vegetarian and Vegan products, but here in the UK the "plant based" market has been booming. Virtually every major fast food chain (including McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Papa John's) has at least one completely Vegan meat alternative on their standard national menu. They don't make the odd choice (like in the US) to add non-Vegan cheese or mayo to the products too (like McDonald's did in the US). The pricing tends to be pretty similar to the meat equivalent product. Some of the companies are being very ambitious - Burger King UK hopes that by 2030, 50% of the items on its menu will be plant based. One other thing to note is that many of these chains offer not just "fake meat", but also a vegetable-based option too (e.g. McDonald's offers the Vegan certified McPlant, but it also offers Veggie Dippers, which can also go into a wrap - all Vegan).
- MrMan 4y agoI dont respond to fake meat, I reduced my meat consumption by 95 percent. I just eat vegetables.
- netmonk 4y agoMay be cause plant based diet is unhealthy at least, similar to malnutrion.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago‘I’d rather ride a horse’: automobile’s sizzle fizzled in the US [1905]
- thecolorblue 4y agoThe benefit is food security, which is not immediately apparent. When specific meats become temporarily unavailable due to a hurricane, extreme heat, or supply chain issues, the alternatives will magically taste better.