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> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole I think this is wrong, and you're missing where the market is. From what I've read, th

by sho_hn 4y ago

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole I think this is wrong, and you're missing where the market is. From what I've read, the meat alternatives actually sell primarily to meat eaters who feel like they should occasionally substitute meat for health reasons or variety. Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested.

gpderetta 4y ago
But if you are a meat eater that want to eat healthier, you'll be very suspicious of what appear very heavily processed food and just eat actual vegetable-looking food. That's at least the case for me. Note I'm not saying that these meat substitutes are actually unhealthy, they just look very suspicious to me.
- nicpottier 4y ago
  I mostly avoid meat for environmental reasons rather than health reasons. So Impossible and Beyond are nice alternatives. you shouldn't be eating hamburgers super regularly either way so the healthiness of alternatives really doesn't matter to me.
- xeromal 4y ago
  If I'm eating vegetarian, it's probably indian food. They know how to make it tasty and still resembles vegetables and lentils
nasmorn 4y ago
I stopped eating 99% of the meat I used to eat. I didn't stop liking burgers. So has one of my daughters. Both our concerns are ethical. I would 100% eat bacon if it was vegan and tasted like actual bacon.
- girvo 4y ago
  There are some vegan bacons where I am in Australia that, while they aren't bacon, are close enough in a BLT to leave me happy. But like a lot of these alternatives, the trick is you need to add the fat yourself: use a fair bit more olive oil than you would with actual bacon, and it rehydrates it and gets the taste and texture way closer :)
slfnflctd 4y ago
> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise Not all of them! I don't buy meat for myself any longer, and am trying to get away from dairy. However, my childhood furnished me with possibly lifelong cravings for jerky, burgers, nuggets and sausages-- all of which the meat substitutes totally satisfy now. I'm very glad for these options! Now I just need a good cheese substitute and I can go mostly vegan (I will still likely eat meat & dairy when it comes to leftover food that would otherwise be thrown out, though; my desire to avoid waste is greater than my desire to avoid those things because my body will be garbage all too soon no matter what I do anyway... life is far too short to justify being a purist imo).
xeromal 4y ago
The problem is that these fake meats are worse for you than grass-raised beef.
- girvo 4y ago
  Are they? I use Meet Co products a few nights a week in the various stir frys and pastas and such that I make, and got my blood test results in last week. And I am incredibly healthy at least by all the normal markers (and amusingly have too much iron saturation despite not supplementing it, which is weird, likely a genetic thing that they're screening me for now, that my vegan diet is probably keeping in check through coincidence). Is there something I should read on this topic?
  - adastra22 4y ago
    I don’t know what studies have been done in these products; they are too new and their processing steps are trade secret. But in general every processing step removes/denatures nutrients and increases the likelihood of toxic side reactions. And fake meat products involve a LOT of processing steps. Think of it this way: every molecule in a cut of beef is something that was safe to be in a cow, and is generally safe for humans too. That’s true of beans and peas too. But every processing step denatures the organic matter further through a sequence of noisy organic chemistry reactions with lots of byproducts. Each inorganic processing step is making carcinogens and such, in trace amounts. A raw beef steak is 99.99% stuff that you have been evolved to eat. A beyond burger is probably 98-99% ok. But that extra 1-2% is very important to your health. Unfortunately this isn’t something required to be studied by the FDA, so it isn’t.
- drewg123 4y ago
  My cholesterol levels beg to differ. When I became vegan, my LDL/HDL ratio dropped from 1.9 to 0.8, triglycerides dropped by 35%. My doctor told me she's never seen such a turnaround without statins.
rjbwork 4y ago
I just substitute meat for legume or dairy based products. For instance, I love black bean burger patties and paneer. If I want to eat meat, I'm going to eat meat. Not some weird frankensteined up soy bullshit.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested. This was my experience. A month or two after dropping animal products, my body just stopped asking for them. I couldn’t care much less if I ever had meat or cheese again. I’ve got a massive repertoire of other stuff I crave instead now.
kuschku 4y ago
I've been vegetarian since 2011. I never liked the shitty bean burgers or saitan sausages. But in 2018, some flexitarian friends showed me these new meat replacements, like Rügenwalder's veggie lineup, Nestle's Incredible Foods and later Beyond. And it's only at that point that I started including meat replacements in my meals. Now we're including at least one type of meat replacement a day. And 9 of my closest friends have got pretty much the exact same experience. We're all between 20 and 30 years old.

by sho_hn 4y ago

gpderetta 4y ago

But if you are a meat eater that want to eat healthier, you'll be very suspicious of what appear very heavily processed food and just eat actual vegetable-looking food. That's at least the case for me. Note I'm not saying that these meat substitutes are actually unhealthy, they just look very suspicious to me.

nicpottier 4y ago
I mostly avoid meat for environmental reasons rather than health reasons. So Impossible and Beyond are nice alternatives. you shouldn't be eating hamburgers super regularly either way so the healthiness of alternatives really doesn't matter to me.
xeromal 4y ago
If I'm eating vegetarian, it's probably indian food. They know how to make it tasty and still resembles vegetables and lentils

nasmorn 4y ago

I stopped eating 99% of the meat I used to eat. I didn't stop liking burgers. So has one of my daughters. Both our concerns are ethical. I would 100% eat bacon if it was vegan and tasted like actual bacon.

girvo 4y ago
There are some vegan bacons where I am in Australia that, while they aren't bacon, are close enough in a BLT to leave me happy. But like a lot of these alternatives, the trick is you need to add the fat yourself: use a fair bit more olive oil than you would with actual bacon, and it rehydrates it and gets the taste and texture way closer :)

slfnflctd 4y ago

> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise Not all of them! I don't buy meat for myself any longer, and am trying to get away from dairy. However, my childhood furnished me with possibly lifelong cravings for jerky, burgers, nuggets and sausages-- all of which the meat substitutes totally satisfy now. I'm very glad for these options! Now I just need a good cheese substitute and I can go mostly vegan (I will still likely eat meat & dairy when it comes to leftover food that would otherwise be thrown out, though; my desire to avoid waste is greater than my desire to avoid those things because my body will be garbage all too soon no matter what I do anyway... life is far too short to justify being a purist imo).

xeromal 4y ago

The problem is that these fake meats are worse for you than grass-raised beef.

girvo 4y ago
Are they? I use Meet Co products a few nights a week in the various stir frys and pastas and such that I make, and got my blood test results in last week. And I am incredibly healthy at least by all the normal markers (and amusingly have too much iron saturation despite not supplementing it, which is weird, likely a genetic thing that they're screening me for now, that my vegan diet is probably keeping in check through coincidence). Is there something I should read on this topic?
- adastra22 4y ago
  I don’t know what studies have been done in these products; they are too new and their processing steps are trade secret. But in general every processing step removes/denatures nutrients and increases the likelihood of toxic side reactions. And fake meat products involve a LOT of processing steps. Think of it this way: every molecule in a cut of beef is something that was safe to be in a cow, and is generally safe for humans too. That’s true of beans and peas too. But every processing step denatures the organic matter further through a sequence of noisy organic chemistry reactions with lots of byproducts. Each inorganic processing step is making carcinogens and such, in trace amounts. A raw beef steak is 99.99% stuff that you have been evolved to eat. A beyond burger is probably 98-99% ok. But that extra 1-2% is very important to your health. Unfortunately this isn’t something required to be studied by the FDA, so it isn’t.
drewg123 4y ago
My cholesterol levels beg to differ. When I became vegan, my LDL/HDL ratio dropped from 1.9 to 0.8, triglycerides dropped by 35%. My doctor told me she's never seen such a turnaround without statins.

rjbwork 4y ago

I just substitute meat for legume or dairy based products. For instance, I love black bean burger patties and paneer. If I want to eat meat, I'm going to eat meat. Not some weird frankensteined up soy bullshit.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested. This was my experience. A month or two after dropping animal products, my body just stopped asking for them. I couldn’t care much less if I ever had meat or cheese again. I’ve got a massive repertoire of other stuff I crave instead now.

kuschku 4y ago

I've been vegetarian since 2011. I never liked the shitty bean burgers or saitan sausages. But in 2018, some flexitarian friends showed me these new meat replacements, like Rügenwalder's veggie lineup, Nestle's Incredible Foods and later Beyond. And it's only at that point that I started including meat replacements in my meals. Now we're including at least one type of meat replacement a day. And 9 of my closest friends have got pretty much the exact same experience. We're all between 20 and 30 years old.