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First Tasting of Plant-Based Oysters in Berkeley, CA
- peatmoss 4y agoI'm delighted to see any and all advances on technologies that satiate our desire for meat without the ecological impact of meat. That said, oysters are probably the meat least in need of a plant based substitute. Oysters don't really have a nervous system to speak of. Being roughly equivalent to a carrot in terms of capacity to suffer means there isn't really an ethical reason not to eat oysters, unless someone just doesn't like the idea of eating something that is taxonomically in kingdom animalia. And oysters improve the environment where they are farmed. As such, I've been told that oysters are something of a virtue good. That is, the more you buy and eat, the more the environment is improved in the areas where they are grown. Lastly, I don't know about the nutrition of real oysters, but I'd imagine they're pretty healthy—high in protein, low in the kinds of fats that you wouldn't want. They mention potential for food-borne illness with real oysters, so I guess there's that. Kudos for for making this, but their upcoming squid and scallops would seem to have better ecological / ethical comparative advantage for the target audience.
- calvinmorrison 4y agoWell half the time take out places serve imitation crab for costs reasons. Maybe we can start getting cheap foyster takeout
- peatmoss 4y agoIf these can be made more cheaply / improve geographic distribution for landlocked people who want fresh oysters, those are real wins. Especially if cheap foyster takeout is used as a substitute for more ecologically intensive goods like cheap beef takeout.
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoIn what way are these going to be anything like real oysters? They are not real oysters. They will never substitute for real oysters. Do you have any idea of the nutrient value of real oysters? So we satisfy their taste, but deprive them nutritionally?
- tingletech 4y agothe article says they are also working on grown-in-the-lab cell-culture oysters, but they are still ramping that up
- autarch 4y agoImitation crab is fish, not a plant-based substitute.
- wartijn_ 4y agoAccording to the article, the problems are that "Conventional oysters are known to carry risks of foodborne illness and are currently threatened by overharvesting and pollution." They don't link to any source though.
- peatmoss 4y agoI buy the foodborne illness argument, but I'm not sure I agree with where they're going with overharvest and pollution. Pollution is certainly bad FOR oysters, but synthetic oysters neither mitigate pollution, nor does reduced oyster farming lead to more wild oysters in the environment, as far as I know. Oysters can (and I gather often are) grown on structures that facilitate harvest, rather than necessarily competing for space with the wild ones. Plus, seeding oyster growing areas pretty much ensures more propagation of oysters in where they are farmed. And since oysters filter the water, growing fewer oysters (farmed or otherwise) would just increase pollution. Since oysters are pretty easily cultivated, the solution to overharvest is to build more oyster growing structures and increase production... which leads to better water quality, which leads to healthier oyster populations. A virtuous cycle as I understand it. EDIT: I must also confess here that I don't particularly love eating oysters. The irony of my positivity towards oyster farming is not lost on me :-)
- photochemsyn 4y agoYes, oysters and similar molluscs filter the water column and hence improve water clarity... but they're the filter. They may accumulate a wide variety of interesting materials and compounds, such as microplastics, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides and herbicides... and then people eat this equivalent of a swimming pool filter? No thanks. For example: (2008) "Contamination profiles of heavy metals, organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and alkylphenols in sediment and oyster collected from marsh/estuarine Savannah GA, USA", Kumar et al. https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.08.011 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.08.011
- peatmoss 4y ago
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoFertilizers and pesticides don’t count at ecological impact?
- nathias 4y agowe don't all base ethics on the capacity to suffer
- vore 4y agoThis is a fun one-liner, but what would you base your ethics on instead? Basing it on suffering, all things considered, is a pretty solid choice.
- nathias 4y agoComplexity, life, spirit ... Absence of pain is never a sufficent base, otherwise killing as much people as you can (painlessly) would be the highest good.
- Avalaxy 4y ago> but I'd imagine they're pretty healthy How about them absorbing microplastics/PFAS?
- colordrops 4y agoThe oyster thing is a bit of a meme at this point, considering I've seen the same thing about 5 times in the last month. For vegans, avoiding eating any animal is easier than trying to discern which animals can truly feel pain. There are always updates to our understanding about what animals feel, and it's vastly easier to draw a line between kingdoms than to create some fractal border of which animals are ok to eat. Also, people thought newborns didn't feel anything decades ago and performed circumcisions without anesthetic. There isn't a final word on how awareness and pain work and the nature and location of the seat of consciousness, so it's better to be conservative on this.
- Cerium 4y agoBesides - feeling pain is not the only reason people are vegan. I was vegan for about 15 years and it had nothing to do with how animals are kept or killed.
- colordrops 4y agoWhat was your reason for being vegan? And it sounds like you no longer are vegan, why the change?
- Cerium 4y agoI was vegan from when I was about 11 to 25. My family decided to try out vegan eating as a healthy choice, in part due to my dad's high cholesterol. We all felt more healthy and enjoyed the food we were eating. I gave it up when I started traveling to China. I decided that it was more important to me to be able to enjoy the rich culinary traditions and be a part of the communal culture than keep to my diet at the time.
- colordrops 4y agoLOL I was a vegetarian for 6 years then I moved to China and gave that up quickly. I'm now vegan, and I think I could go to China and make it happen now. But I lived there for a while so no longer have a desire to try everything.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
- Hermitude 4y agoWhile plant-based beef and chicken offerings can genuinely claim to reduce the cruelty experienced by those animals, is it really such a bane to the animal world that oysters are harvested for food. I mean, do they scream out in pain when dislodged from their rocky habitats? Still can’t wait to try this product, though.
- greatgib 4y ago
- Insanity 4y agoIt’s more prevalent in North America to imitate, while in EU there are many good vegetarian food options that don’t just try to imitate the meat version. Also generally have not found the “meat replacements” in the US and CA to be that good. But the reason they try to imitate it (presumably) because it is easier to get people to try it.
- ginko 4y agoI was under the impression that locally harvested oysters are basically carbon neutral. Same for mussels and clams. Why would you need a plant-based version of those? Surely it can't for animal welfare.
- chrisseaton 4y agoMany people object to eating or using any animal products at all as a red-line on ethical grounds - that can't be news to you?
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoI also can't imagine most vegetarians or vegans having a strong hankering for oysters. When I first tried an Impossible Burger, I thought it was awesome because it really replicated the taste and experience of a hamburger for me, and, most importantly, it satiated my cravings for meat. I'm struggling to thing of vegetarians that say "I'd really like to go all the way vegetarian but I just can't give up these oysters."
- nine_k 4y agoHarvesting oysters is easy if you live near the sea (like in Berkely, CA). If you live 500 miles from it, you start looking for other options.
- 867-5309 4y agovegconomist is an anagram of vomit cogens, or loosely, "sickness-inducing" just an observation..
- avidphantasm 4y agoI wonder if they also taste like “snot with old silverware rubbed on it” to paraphrase John Hodgman.
- ispo 4y agoWe got comparable and tasty flavours fermenting algae with spices, but the texture... that is another story.
- Zigurd 4y agoI looked up the company behind this. The info on their site is thin and leaves me wondering, but it implies they do both plant-based and cell-culture alternatives to growing and harvesting mollusks. Cell-based mollusk substitutes makes a lot more sense. The market for plant-based mollusk substitutes seems awfully small and the task to make an adequate substitute seems daunting. I have had oysters from different oyster beds that are within sight of each other and every dimension of texture and flavor were different. It's hard to think of a more complex thing to try to imitate. A convincing burger is waaay easier, and the market for a non-cow burger vastly larger.
- ispo 4y agoI am all in for yeast-based food disconnected from natural systems.
- COGlory 4y agoThere's a certain tone to this whole story that makes me chuckle. Far more people are eating pizza and hot dogs and box mac and cheese, but the news story is about making one of the most expensive, elitist, niche foods vegan, like it's some sort of necessary triumph on the path forward for humanity.
- z9znz 4y agoWith respect to the item they have chosen to create, I think there's a solid rationale. Oysters are considered a delicacy, not to mention their fame of being (supposedly) and aphrodesiac. So the oyster is a good showpiece to replace, if you can do it successfully. I still think the whole fake meat business is misguided, but I ranted about that in another comment.
- subroutine 4y agoTrying to sell people a knockoff food 'delicacy' seems akin to trying to get people to buy cubic zirconia instead of diamonds or pyrite instead of gold. That is, the knockoff could be almost indistinguishable from the real thing but people are going to prefer the genuine article anyway. I personally enjoy the oysters at my local fish shop, when i happen to be there on their 'oyster day' and they have them laid out on ice. If it weren't for that, oysters would never enter my psyche; I've never been at the supermarket thinking damn I'm really craving oysters. And if I did happen to see a bag of oysters next to a bag of foysters in the freezer section, you can bet I'm not buying either. I cant be alone on this.
- z9znz 4y agoI think in this case it has some value because of the ritual or the mystique of oysters. There is something about their presentation, their distinctive texture and flavor, and of course the ancient belief that they increase sexual virility. In a supermarket, oysters don't fit. There is nothing exclusive or sexy about most grocery stores. But when you're at a nice restaurant terrace hanging out over the ocean, and you receive a large sculptured platter of ice with 6-12 oysters on the half shell, garnished nicely, it is a special thing. Coke vs champagne.
- 40four 4y agoI don’t see what’s interesting or intellectually gratifying about this at all. It reads like an advertisement for that startup company. What did they technically achieve here?
- chrisseaton 4y agoI would have absolutely no idea how anyone could try to synthesise anything as complex and subtle as an oyster, so I'm interested to hear about it.
- socialismisok 4y agoOysters seem difficult to replicate, and an unusual food to create. I had no idea anyone was working on this, and it's interesting to see such a positive result.
- 40four 4y agoFair enough. But to be fair, the article mentions mushrooms are one of the main ingredients, and I can’t think of a better analogue than that. Even unprocessed, if you took the right species of mushroom, and injected some ‘seafood’ flavor from seaweed, and served it in a half shell, you’d be pretty darn close. I hate to be a Debbie Downer here, but I don’t see how this is very interesting except to try to pump the ‘stock’ of this company that’s marketing said product. On top of that, I don’t understand why folks who swore themselves off of meat products (vegetarians & vegans) insist on this never ending quest to better simulate animal based products? Why is it even something a person who doesn’t eat animal products care about?
- z9znz 4y agoI used to enjoy oysters in the past, before I learned about the significant health risks that come from eating them raw. If you're unlucky, you can be in for a seriously bad health trip. Also knowing that oysters are essentially water filters, it seems strange to "eat the filter". I cannot even fathom eating Gulf coast oysters... Having fake alternatives is nice. However, like the recent topic of the robotic industrial farming weed sprayer, I think it is engineering effort directed to the wrong place. The #1 problem with transitioning from an animal based diet to plant based is the misunderstanding of what plant based diets can be. Ask a traditional meat eater what a vegetarian meal looks like, and they probably envision taking their steak away from the plate and just leaving some broccoli and potatoes. Indeed that's not very enticing. Good vegetarian meals are practically art in terms of their combinations of textures and flavors, not to mention colors. But they take a lot more skill to make, so people rarely encounter them. Instead, everyone is busy trying to replicate meat without meat - namely to replace that steak that was taken off their plate with something that is close to it. Until we reach scale with lab grown meat (which even then I have doubts about long term downsides), no fake meat replacement is really good. They are manufactured, which means there are extra ingredients (or quantities of) that are not good for you. I think the reason for all this effort is that this is business. Companies want to sell you a thing; but a well made vegetarian meal is really just good plant ingredients and skilled preparation. It's hard to package that into a box which can be sold in the grocery store.
- andrew_ 4y agotoo much soy, too many seed oils in fake meat for my liking. but if you haven't tried char broiled oysters, that don't carry the same risks, then you're missing out.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> some even deeming them “restaurant quality.” Counter point - most people didn't think they met the quality bar to serve in a restaurant, which is worrying.
- rosnd 4y agoSame would be true of almost all oyster-based oysters.
- chrisseaton 4y agoSeems likely they served the very best they could produce? And most people thought they were still not something that could be served in a restaurant.
- erehweb 4y agoI would imagine they mean "could be served in a restaurant as a very close substitute to oysters". Mushrooms and seaweed are perfectly edible as-is and can be served in a restaurant, but people would not confuse them for oysters.
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoAs someone who depends on oysters to stay functional in this world, I think this is abhorrent, and against all that nature intended. Are they going to add all the zinc, copper, and manganese that are in oysters? Or the omega 3’s? You all think there’s no consequences to just shifting the world population to plants instead of meat. Well there is. Especially with seafood. There is a genetic basis for some people to eat more long chain PUFAs. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mnfr.202200351 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mnfr.202200351 So how many people are they actually making sicker and pretending like you’re making them healthier by eating this garbage you call food?
- Klonoar 4y agoSo… just eat oysters. Plant based as a term gets conflated with veganism, but veganism is it’s own thing: a plant based world means we just depend less on those other sources, not that they go away entirely.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago> So… just eat oysters. Yeah, I mean why think about anyone else but myself, right? People will believe these plant based oysters are "better for them" when in all likelihood they will be worse for their health.
- Klonoar 4y agoBluntly: your comment is entirely complaining about yourself, or at best people in your situation. Not everyone derives their entire health and wellness from oysters, and they're certainly not critical - I've known people who have gone their entire lives without consuming them.
- ravenstine 4y agoThe problem is not so much the consequences themselves, but that the consequences may never be apparent to the average person. It's a cultural change that is occurring very slowly, and consequences to one's health usually don't manifest until later in life. You don't eat a Beyond Booger and suddenly experience systemic inflammation in a noticeable way. Even when a person's health is gradually failing, they can become accustomed to being obese, lethargic, diabetic, and so on. Even if they go to a doctor, that doctor is unlikely to know anything about nutrition, so they will recommend a combination of contraindicated plant material and pills. The only hope we have is that future generations become hip to things like PUFAs and antinutrients, and that preceding generations stuck believing that meat is bad will become less relevant. Maybe that can happen, but then younger generations still have to contend with the corporate-globalist charlatan complex telling them pure bullshit like meat being bad for the climate and enacting "meatless Mondays."
- bergenty 4y agoIf I had to make this given no priori information I would use okra slime.
- pengaru 4y agoSafe bivalve consumption is so water quality sensitive it seems like a no-brainer that we'd want to maximize regulated levels of harvesting+consumption. If nobody's eating them nobody cares when their waters become too polluted to try.
- Klonoar 4y agoI think I read somewhere that early vegan literature was actually fine with bivalves, and it only changed because some were loud enough about the uncertainty at the time of whether they felt pain or not. Someone should feel free to prove me wrong on the above, but in general vegan or plant based replacements of oysters/scallops/etc make no sense to me. They’re like the mushrooms of the sea.
- kcplate 4y agoOysters are already a renewable foodstuff. You only need one and a string…