3 ms·

The thing is, this stuff is more expensive than normal meat, and if you go by bio availability of the nutrients, a fraction of the same nutritional value as act

by novok 4y ago

The thing is, this stuff is more expensive than normal meat, and if you go by bio availability of the nutrients, a fraction of the same nutritional value as actual meat. And if they replace meat consumption then it puts even more stress on the agricultural land that can actually grow vegetable crops, which is only about a quarter of all farm land. So either way, it wont work that well in it's current state.

yyt554 4y ago
> The thing is, this stuff is more expensive than normal meat That's only because we are "subsidising" meat production cost through immense animal suffering. Once you have regulations that make the animals we keep in captivity have a somewhat good life, then meat price goes through the roof and those alternatives are the only reasonable option for the non-rich. > And if they replace meat consumption then it puts even more stress on the agricultural land that can actually grow vegetable crops, which is only about a quarter of all farm land. And where do you think the animal food is grown? Instead of feeding it to animals, make veggy dishes out of it. It's true that some land can't be reasonably used for growing and harvesting crops, and keeping animals there which turn this into high quality protein is the best option, but that's only for certain regions on the planet.
- novok 4y ago
  I buy ethically raised %100 pasture raised ground beef at ~$6/lbs from whole foods, and a 1 lb packet of "beyond burger" is even more expensive than that at $11/lbs (!) at the same shop. There is barely any profit margin in beef, while beyond burger does have relatively healthy one at that price looking at the ingredient list and price. I can also buy a quarter cow for $8/lbs locally raised similarly. %100 pasture raised is how you think it is, eating grass in some field for %100 of it's life, protected from predators, which is pretty much the type of life it would have in the wild with less stress. Not to mention it's better nutritionally than the standard %75 pasture raised / %25 grain finished beef you buy at a costco.
drewm1980 4y ago
Impossible burgers take an order of magnitude less land to produce than beef. They're not made of vegetables. Beef fat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease. Putting soy in a veggie burger results in way more nutrition than putting soy in a cow.
- novok 4y ago
  Vegetable or edible plant food is a bit of splitting hairs, they require the same kind of agricultural land that can sustain vegetable crops. Looking at the ingredient list of beyond burger, it's mostly grain and vegetable based, and of that the bulk of it is rice & peas along with 3 kinds of plant oil: "Ingredients: Water, Pea Protein†, Expeller-pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Dried Yeast, Cocoa Butter, Methylcellulose" (there are a bunch of ingredients that are less than %1 that I'm excluding) On top of that, there is a vast amount of land you will never be able to use for vegetable crops, and the ONLY way you will get food out of it is ruminant grazing. Removing that from the food supply is going to create price shocks and even more soil depletion as food demand concentrates on that %25 of land left. On top of that, animal food production takes a lot of uneditable plant material and turns it into something human edible, which subsidizes vegetable prices. Without that either plant prices will go up. This focus on plant only nutrition reminds me of 'environmentalists' shunning nuclear power, and in the end cause more damage to the earth via increased coal power production in the end, like Germany. While the actual answer is nuclear and solar power. Cows and other ruminants are the nuclear power of food. > Beef fat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease. That is fairly outdated science, it's quite the opposite actually! In 10 to 20 years, your doctor is going to start singing the praises of saturated fat and it's going to be quite hilarious. You can look up research papers today.
baandam 4y ago
It is all magical and ideological driven thinking that ignores scale. Solve one problem and pretend the solution that works at a micro scale has no issues scaling up. I am completely down to eat bugs even but eating bugs at a scale anything close to meat in general is a laughable amount of bugs. We would probably need 10 times the long haul trucking to ship that many bugs around.
- yyt554 4y ago
  No, in ground-up form you can ship much more bug protein than meat because you are transporting a lot of water (and refridgeration tech) with that meat. Not to even speak of transporting animals, especially live ones, which is a suffering desaster in and of itself.
  - novok 4y ago
    If water weight is the case, you can dehydrate the meat already? Beyond / impossible burger is shipped wet, and most unprocessed raw plant food is shipped wet too.

by novok 4y ago

yyt554 4y ago

> The thing is, this stuff is more expensive than normal meat That's only because we are "subsidising" meat production cost through immense animal suffering. Once you have regulations that make the animals we keep in captivity have a somewhat good life, then meat price goes through the roof and those alternatives are the only reasonable option for the non-rich. > And if they replace meat consumption then it puts even more stress on the agricultural land that can actually grow vegetable crops, which is only about a quarter of all farm land. And where do you think the animal food is grown? Instead of feeding it to animals, make veggy dishes out of it. It's true that some land can't be reasonably used for growing and harvesting crops, and keeping animals there which turn this into high quality protein is the best option, but that's only for certain regions on the planet.

novok 4y ago
I buy ethically raised %100 pasture raised ground beef at ~$6/lbs from whole foods, and a 1 lb packet of "beyond burger" is even more expensive than that at $11/lbs (!) at the same shop. There is barely any profit margin in beef, while beyond burger does have relatively healthy one at that price looking at the ingredient list and price. I can also buy a quarter cow for $8/lbs locally raised similarly. %100 pasture raised is how you think it is, eating grass in some field for %100 of it's life, protected from predators, which is pretty much the type of life it would have in the wild with less stress. Not to mention it's better nutritionally than the standard %75 pasture raised / %25 grain finished beef you buy at a costco.

drewm1980 4y ago

Impossible burgers take an order of magnitude less land to produce than beef. They're not made of vegetables. Beef fat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease. Putting soy in a veggie burger results in way more nutrition than putting soy in a cow.

novok 4y ago
Vegetable or edible plant food is a bit of splitting hairs, they require the same kind of agricultural land that can sustain vegetable crops. Looking at the ingredient list of beyond burger, it's mostly grain and vegetable based, and of that the bulk of it is rice & peas along with 3 kinds of plant oil: "Ingredients: Water, Pea Protein†, Expeller-pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Dried Yeast, Cocoa Butter, Methylcellulose" (there are a bunch of ingredients that are less than %1 that I'm excluding) On top of that, there is a vast amount of land you will never be able to use for vegetable crops, and the ONLY way you will get food out of it is ruminant grazing. Removing that from the food supply is going to create price shocks and even more soil depletion as food demand concentrates on that %25 of land left. On top of that, animal food production takes a lot of uneditable plant material and turns it into something human edible, which subsidizes vegetable prices. Without that either plant prices will go up. This focus on plant only nutrition reminds me of 'environmentalists' shunning nuclear power, and in the end cause more damage to the earth via increased coal power production in the end, like Germany. While the actual answer is nuclear and solar power. Cows and other ruminants are the nuclear power of food. > Beef fat clogs your arteries and causes heart disease. That is fairly outdated science, it's quite the opposite actually! In 10 to 20 years, your doctor is going to start singing the praises of saturated fat and it's going to be quite hilarious. You can look up research papers today.

baandam 4y ago

It is all magical and ideological driven thinking that ignores scale. Solve one problem and pretend the solution that works at a micro scale has no issues scaling up. I am completely down to eat bugs even but eating bugs at a scale anything close to meat in general is a laughable amount of bugs. We would probably need 10 times the long haul trucking to ship that many bugs around.

yyt554 4y ago
No, in ground-up form you can ship much more bug protein than meat because you are transporting a lot of water (and refridgeration tech) with that meat. Not to even speak of transporting animals, especially live ones, which is a suffering desaster in and of itself.
- novok 4y ago
  If water weight is the case, you can dehydrate the meat already? Beyond / impossible burger is shipped wet, and most unprocessed raw plant food is shipped wet too.