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If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is around 2-4 times the price of meat equivalent and to me it is no surprise, that people aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product. Now people say, well if we all had bought it, mass production would already reduced the price significantly. I don't think people are paying new cooking methods and food processing reactors here. There are more people involved, more complex ingredients, more processes, more shipping and more energy. That is why it is much more expensive.

viraptor 4y ago
> one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute 25 times of cattle feed, sure. But there's a lot of selection and mixing of various plants for taste. It's not a simple replacement.
maxerickson 4y ago
Using modern farming practices it's about 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversion_ratios_for_livestock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversi... (Disliking and thus moving away from those practices is a goal some people have, but they are the dominate method of meat production at the moment, so it's the reasonable comparison)
pard68 4y ago
I raise cattle (one day for a living, but now a side job and for my enjoyment). Your read on the feed is very true for the feedlots, not trying to discredit that, because if you buy your beef from a feedlot than this is very much the case -- chances are if you don't know where you beef came from, then it came from a feed lot. If your packing says "Grass Fed" than it just means they spent most of their lives in a pasture before being shipped to a feedlot for a miserable last three months of life, so chances are you probably don't know where your cattle came from, even if you're going on the packaging in a grocery store, and it's actually grained to some extent. There are a few exceptions to this, even in stores. If you buy from Whole Food and get their brand beef, it's grass-only. I know the largest rancher selling to WF, we're friends -- my teeball team beat his teeball team in the season finals last summer. I mostly raise dairy cows, but if you're going to go through the effort to raise one sort of breed of cattle, it's trivial to add in an even lower maintenance cattle as well. As a result I have three or four animals in my pasture right now who are getting ready for freezer camp. My neighbors are all beef ranchers, I am the exception. But none of us are feeding grain to our cattle. My area sells a massive amount of grass-only beef. We have the luxury of this being basically free for us to do and then having found a niche market willing to accept a lot more money for their beef if it was raised right and fed right. I don't sell my beef the way most folks do, so unless you know me personally, you've never eaten my animals or had our farm's dairy products. All that to say, there are very good alternatives to feedlots. My beef cattle only need supplemental food (aka more than the green grass in my pastures) between December and April. I did the math, it costs me $140 / year to feed out cattle and it takes two or three years for an Angus to be butcher-weight. That's $420 on the high end for a grass-only steer that'll dress to like 600lbs of beef. I'd get by with even fewer days feeding except I also own and breed Appaloosas and horses are much harder on the pastures than cattle. If I ran two herds my cattle would keep the pastures in grass until about January -- and with this warm weather I know folks who have YET to feed hay! But with my horses mixed into the herd it means that the grass is killed if I keep them on it -- horses have top and bottom teeth, they can cut grass clear to the dirt but cattle only have bottom teeth and they'll leave about 1/2" of grass on each blade, meaning the grass can continue to regenerate all winter if it's wet and warm enough.
atoav 4y ago
> There are more people involved, more complex ingredients, more processes, more shipping and more energy. That is why it is much more expensive. I am myself not a big fan of those fake meat products, but you have a source for that. I'd assume economies of scale matter, because economies of scale matter everywhere?
silon42 4y ago
A big problem is also that it can't be independently produced by small local farmers. (and then there's patents)
spaniard89277 4y ago
Turns out beating nature is pretty hard. Cows look basically like processing plants. They produce food, fertilizer and energy (biogas).
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Quite the opposite. Animal farming is proven to be incredibly inefficient.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  Depends on your metrics. If you consider land and water use as a factor they are very inefficient. In terms of nitrogen (for fertilizer etc.) we get most of from the air these days (via the Haber-Bosh process). Manure also has a cost as a source of water pollution and food contaminate. The CO2/NOX emissions are a downstream cost. We are paying for these as externalities and subsidizing the industry via our taxes in turn.
- honkler 4y ago
  there is no bird that flies faster than a boeing. Nor a bird that flies higher than a rocket.
- ben_w 4y ago
  After 5000 years of selective breeding, cows aren't that natural any more.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    By that logic, nothing is(including us).
goodpoint 4y ago
No, you are forgetting that meat is heavily subsidized while low-impact food is not.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I do not want to pretend that it is not part of the equation in US, but I am genuinely unsure how big a factor it is and if the argument makes sense. Anecdotally, people in my social circle go for food that is socially acceptable in that circle. If 'low impact' food became a thing, price would have less influence on it ( kinda like every teen has to have an Iphone -- I am exaggerating a little - or when driving a small sedan in US means you are poor ). There are all sorts of minor dynamics that are underexplored in that arena.
317070 4y ago
If your story is true, it is remarkable it is not universally true. E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned. [0] The vegetarian equivalent has been cheaper there than the real meat thing, although the process for both is not very different in the EU than in the US. [0] https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/07/26/plant-based-now-cheaper-than-meat-in-the-netherlands-vegan-burgers-are-on-average-78-cents-cheaper-per-kg https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/07/26/plant-based...
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  That’s the average for vegan products. Soy/tofu/cardboard Patties bring the average down but the recent products that try to replicate the taste of meat are still a premium product.
  - 317070 4y ago
    No, the article I linked mentions it's a comparison between equivalents. So burgers vs burgers and chicken pieces vs chicken pieces. Unless you mean the vegetarian chicken pieces don't taste like chicken but like cardboard, that is fair. Then again, supermarket chicken also tastes like chicken flavoured cardboard. It's not a premium product either.
  - timeon 4y ago
    > Soy/tofu/cardboard Patties Basic legumes and veggies are much cheaper.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > If your story is true, it is remarkable it is not universally true. Not really. > E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned. Meat prices relative to non-meat food prices are much higher than in the US (taxation on a lot of the things that drive the additional costs of meat play a role here.) So, yes, it stands to reason that plant-based meat substitutes, using similar process that adds similar (proportional) cost to the raw materials (actual production costs and margins) would remain more competitive with real meat than it is in the US. And with a number of EU countries (and I think there are EU-wide proposals, as well) discussing “meat taxes” as part of climate efforts, that’s quite possibly going to get more pronounced.
kikokikokiko 4y ago
It's hard to beat the efficiency of a biological machine that turns grass into meat all by itself. Meat is the most nutrient dense (and unsurprisingly, most delicious) food there is, since we're basically made out of the stuff and it has pretty much everything a human being needs to eat right there. Fake meat, electric cars, "green" energy, it's all good and "cost effective" as long as not too many people decide to switch to it and the government keeps subsidizing the upper echelon of the population that wants to indulge in such virtue signaling behaviour. Good ridance to all those chemical infused "meat" alternatives.
- beambot 4y ago
  If you factor in beef subsidies, then plant-based "meat" is already at or nearly competitive... > The United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidization reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5 https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/ https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
legitster 4y ago
I think the problem with those calculations is that the grain fed to cattle can be incredibly low quality and efficiently grown/harvested (not to mention subsidized). So it's probably a much lower ratio than 1:25 if you factor in plants that are actually high in protein and calories.
- akiselev 4y ago
  A lot of the grain fed to cows is distillers grain [1] and brewer's spent grain [2], which is basically industrial waste that would otherwise go to compost. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_spent_grain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_spent_grain
hagbarth 4y ago
Plant based alternatives are very price competitive where I live (in Denmark). They’re more expensive than the cheapest ground beef, but more affordable than grass fed or organic.
Reubend 4y ago
> it is no surprise, that people aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product You hit the nail on its head. I think there's still hope for meat substitutes if they can improve their flavor while also lowering their price. But I'm not holding out hope for that.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Mainly because of meat subsidies, though. They don't need to compete when governments all over the world hand them billions.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    At least in the US, at first glance it looks like corn and soybeans receive much higher subsidies than livestock.
- leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
  Or the powers that be collude to drive up the price of meat, removing the choice from people because they know better.
- n4r9 4y ago
  Not sure where you're located, but in the UK the supermarkets stock stuff like this: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-beef-burgers-227g2-pack/4088600455532 https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-... https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetarian-mozzarella-1-4-lb-burgers/JAR685 https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetar... They taste delicious and are absolutely competitive with meat burger prices.
  - Lio 4y ago
    I find the "chicken" pieces to be the best meat substitute. They're not exactly like chicken but if you treat them as their own thing then they're a perfectly good substitute in things like stir fries. Quorn bacon substitute rashers are also pretty good in a fry up. Again, they're not bacon but if you treat them as their own thing, very enjoyable. Not sure anything substitutes for a good steak or nice bit of cod yet but that's only an occasional treat for us anyway.
Nowado 4y ago
US livestock subsidies are in dozens of billions. Whole sector seems to have revenue in lower hundreds of billions (harder to get exact data, please correct me). Even without premiums target audience is willing to accept, subsidies of 10-20% of sector revenue are pretty hard to beat.
- gadders 4y ago
  Is there any part of agriculture that isn't subsidised?
- belorn 4y ago
  From the first google search on US farmland subsidies: " Who Benefits Most From Farm Subsidies? Farm subsidies don't benefit all farms equally. According to the Cato Institute, farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat receive more than 70% of farm subsidies. These are also usually the largest farms. From an other source: "Corn growers received the most product-specific assistance with $2.2 billion in subsidies. That was only about 4.4% of the $50.4 billion in total corn production that year. Soybeans rank second in subsidies. While the US soybean industry produced $41.3 billion worth of products in 2017, it received $1.6 billion in subsidies in 2016, representing 3.9% of production. The US sugar industry produced $2.5 billion worth of product in 2017 and received $1.6 billion in subsidies, according to the report. The support amounted to 63.5% of the value of total production." - https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162 https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162 - https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says/ https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...
- j-pb 4y ago
  Same in the E.U. we have billions of subsidies for milk and meat. Many countries like germany also have a tiered VAT system, where basic foods are taxed lower, there is a base line tax and some luxury items are taxed higher. Thanks to lobbying meat and cow-milk are taxed as basic foods, while vegan alternatives are taxed as luxury items.
  - hobom 4y ago
    That is not true. All food in the supermarket is taxed the same.
onion2k 4y ago
If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. That would only be true if the cost of the patty was only thing that impacted the price to the consumer, but everything else like transporting the thing to a store, paying the store staff to sell it, paying for marketing, branding, etc, paying taxes on it, are essentially the same regardless of whether the patty is made of cows or plants. A patty that costs 0.25c to make could be reduced to 0.01c to make, which would reduce the price in the market from 5.99 to 5.74...
samuli 4y ago
86% of feed is grown on land [1], which is not suitable for growing human food crops. [1]: https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-more-people-be-fed-if-crop-land-was-used-for-food-for-human https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-mor...
- goodpoint 4y ago
  This is plain false. Please find reputable sources.
  - adwn 4y ago
    > This is plain false. Please find reputable sources. Do you have reputable sources for that statement being "plain false"?
- bennettdams 4y ago
  You're quoting a literal farming foundation, so here is a neutral source: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habitable-land-is-used-for-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habi... "If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. Of all the land we use for agriculture, 77% of it is used for livestock." These 77% are only responsible for 18% of the produced calories and 37% of the produced proteins. So, if you leave out water consumption and most importantly animal walfare, eating meat is the worst thing you can to for the environment (when talking about food).
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Nothing said here refutes the parent comment. It turns out that a lot of land is really shitty for growing stuff that isn't a weed (without adding a ton of chemicals to the environment), and humans don't eat weeds. Cows, sheep, pigs, and chicken do. I doubt that 86% of that 77% is truly unsuitable for farming human food, but I wouldn't be surprised if 30-50% of it was.
ben_w 4y ago
> If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. Products can fail even if everything promised is delivered. This is why the supermarket Tesco gave up on trying to enter the USA market. Or why I can't get Quorn here in Germany even though I personally think it's a much better taste and texture than any of the Rügenwalder Mühle brands. Or why I can get Sauerkraut juice here, but not in the UK.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
Fake meat isn't just inferior to real meat. It's inferior to just plain old vegetables. It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits. They're not trying to cook the best vegetable dishes. They're not trying to cook dishes that use less meat. They're not trying to expand your palettes and reintroducing liver, sweetbreads or other weird cuts. All these "green" products convince you to not do the most important things: REDUCE and REUSE.
- 10u152 4y ago
  Never thought about it but you’re spot on. A big roasted field mushroom with a dash of balsamic and perhaps some feta cheese is 1000% tastier than a weird processed vegetable patty.
  - i_am_proteus 4y ago
    A real good way to do it is to saute some thin-sliced shiitakes and creminis in a pan with salt, pepper, and a shallot; once you get a good fond, put the shrooms in between two slices of bread with a bit of cheese (fresh mozzarella is a good one here, so is gruyere), deglaze the pan with butter, and then throw the sandwich in the pan until it's done the way you like your grilled cheese. I call it "beyond beyond meat."
- wrldos 4y ago
  Completely agree with this. As a vegetarian I'd really prefer to eat meat over the synthetic meats. The reason being the texture, flavour and nutritional value isn't there. They're also expensive, covered in horrible packaging, don't keep very well and are difficult to cook. 99% of the important bits of a dish don't come from making something meat-like but cooking something that isn't bland and uninteresting. And you don't need fake meat to work around that.
- m4tthumphrey 4y ago
  I have been a pescatarian (eat fish, no meat) since 2018. For me, this has almost nothing todo with being healthy and all about the animal welfare (yes I eat fish but to me, a fish and a pig are two very different things). But, sometimes I just fancy a McDonalds Big Mac (McPlant), or chili nachos (Quorn, Meatless Farm) , or a dirty burger (Impossible, Beyond). I know its not healthy, I know its not good for me but it just satisfy my meat eating days craving every now and then. The rest of the time I eat delicious unprocessed veggies, rice, beans etc. There is a place for these meat substitutes but should they be eaten all of the time; no. Education around veggies is the key for solving the meat production issues.

viraptor 4y ago

> one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute 25 times of cattle feed, sure. But there's a lot of selection and mixing of various plants for taste. It's not a simple replacement.

maxerickson 4y ago

Using modern farming practices it's about 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversion_ratios_for_livestock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversi... (Disliking and thus moving away from those practices is a goal some people have, but they are the dominate method of meat production at the moment, so it's the reasonable comparison)

pard68 4y ago

I raise cattle (one day for a living, but now a side job and for my enjoyment). Your read on the feed is very true for the feedlots, not trying to discredit that, because if you buy your beef from a feedlot than this is very much the case -- chances are if you don't know where you beef came from, then it came from a feed lot. If your packing says "Grass Fed" than it just means they spent most of their lives in a pasture before being shipped to a feedlot for a miserable last three months of life, so chances are you probably don't know where your cattle came from, even if you're going on the packaging in a grocery store, and it's actually grained to some extent. There are a few exceptions to this, even in stores. If you buy from Whole Food and get their brand beef, it's grass-only. I know the largest rancher selling to WF, we're friends -- my teeball team beat his teeball team in the season finals last summer. I mostly raise dairy cows, but if you're going to go through the effort to raise one sort of breed of cattle, it's trivial to add in an even lower maintenance cattle as well. As a result I have three or four animals in my pasture right now who are getting ready for freezer camp. My neighbors are all beef ranchers, I am the exception. But none of us are feeding grain to our cattle. My area sells a massive amount of grass-only beef. We have the luxury of this being basically free for us to do and then having found a niche market willing to accept a lot more money for their beef if it was raised right and fed right. I don't sell my beef the way most folks do, so unless you know me personally, you've never eaten my animals or had our farm's dairy products. All that to say, there are very good alternatives to feedlots. My beef cattle only need supplemental food (aka more than the green grass in my pastures) between December and April. I did the math, it costs me $140 / year to feed out cattle and it takes two or three years for an Angus to be butcher-weight. That's $420 on the high end for a grass-only steer that'll dress to like 600lbs of beef. I'd get by with even fewer days feeding except I also own and breed Appaloosas and horses are much harder on the pastures than cattle. If I ran two herds my cattle would keep the pastures in grass until about January -- and with this warm weather I know folks who have YET to feed hay! But with my horses mixed into the herd it means that the grass is killed if I keep them on it -- horses have top and bottom teeth, they can cut grass clear to the dirt but cattle only have bottom teeth and they'll leave about 1/2" of grass on each blade, meaning the grass can continue to regenerate all winter if it's wet and warm enough.

atoav 4y ago

> There are more people involved, more complex ingredients, more processes, more shipping and more energy. That is why it is much more expensive. I am myself not a big fan of those fake meat products, but you have a source for that. I'd assume economies of scale matter, because economies of scale matter everywhere?

silon42 4y ago

A big problem is also that it can't be independently produced by small local farmers. (and then there's patents)

spaniard89277 4y ago

Turns out beating nature is pretty hard. Cows look basically like processing plants. They produce food, fertilizer and energy (biogas).

goodpoint 4y ago
Quite the opposite. Animal farming is proven to be incredibly inefficient.
spicymaki 4y ago
Depends on your metrics. If you consider land and water use as a factor they are very inefficient. In terms of nitrogen (for fertilizer etc.) we get most of from the air these days (via the Haber-Bosh process). Manure also has a cost as a source of water pollution and food contaminate. The CO2/NOX emissions are a downstream cost. We are paying for these as externalities and subsidizing the industry via our taxes in turn.
honkler 4y ago
there is no bird that flies faster than a boeing. Nor a bird that flies higher than a rocket.
ben_w 4y ago
After 5000 years of selective breeding, cows aren't that natural any more.
- gambiting 4y ago
  By that logic, nothing is(including us).

goodpoint 4y ago

No, you are forgetting that meat is heavily subsidized while low-impact food is not.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I do not want to pretend that it is not part of the equation in US, but I am genuinely unsure how big a factor it is and if the argument makes sense. Anecdotally, people in my social circle go for food that is socially acceptable in that circle. If 'low impact' food became a thing, price would have less influence on it ( kinda like every teen has to have an Iphone -- I am exaggerating a little - or when driving a small sedan in US means you are poor ). There are all sorts of minor dynamics that are underexplored in that arena.

317070 4y ago

If your story is true, it is remarkable it is not universally true. E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned. [0] The vegetarian equivalent has been cheaper there than the real meat thing, although the process for both is not very different in the EU than in the US. [0] https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/07/26/plant-based-now-cheaper-than-meat-in-the-netherlands-vegan-burgers-are-on-average-78-cents-cheaper-per-kg https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/07/26/plant-based...

Scoundreller 4y ago
That’s the average for vegan products. Soy/tofu/cardboard Patties bring the average down but the recent products that try to replicate the taste of meat are still a premium product.
- 317070 4y ago
  No, the article I linked mentions it's a comparison between equivalents. So burgers vs burgers and chicken pieces vs chicken pieces. Unless you mean the vegetarian chicken pieces don't taste like chicken but like cardboard, that is fair. Then again, supermarket chicken also tastes like chicken flavoured cardboard. It's not a premium product either.
- timeon 4y ago
  > Soy/tofu/cardboard Patties Basic legumes and veggies are much cheaper.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> If your story is true, it is remarkable it is not universally true. Not really. > E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned. Meat prices relative to non-meat food prices are much higher than in the US (taxation on a lot of the things that drive the additional costs of meat play a role here.) So, yes, it stands to reason that plant-based meat substitutes, using similar process that adds similar (proportional) cost to the raw materials (actual production costs and margins) would remain more competitive with real meat than it is in the US. And with a number of EU countries (and I think there are EU-wide proposals, as well) discussing “meat taxes” as part of climate efforts, that’s quite possibly going to get more pronounced.

kikokikokiko 4y ago

It's hard to beat the efficiency of a biological machine that turns grass into meat all by itself. Meat is the most nutrient dense (and unsurprisingly, most delicious) food there is, since we're basically made out of the stuff and it has pretty much everything a human being needs to eat right there. Fake meat, electric cars, "green" energy, it's all good and "cost effective" as long as not too many people decide to switch to it and the government keeps subsidizing the upper echelon of the population that wants to indulge in such virtue signaling behaviour. Good ridance to all those chemical infused "meat" alternatives.

beambot 4y ago
If you factor in beef subsidies, then plant-based "meat" is already at or nearly competitive... > The United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidization reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5 https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/ https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

legitster 4y ago

I think the problem with those calculations is that the grain fed to cattle can be incredibly low quality and efficiently grown/harvested (not to mention subsidized). So it's probably a much lower ratio than 1:25 if you factor in plants that are actually high in protein and calories.

akiselev 4y ago
A lot of the grain fed to cows is distillers grain [1] and brewer's spent grain [2], which is basically industrial waste that would otherwise go to compost. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_spent_grain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_spent_grain

hagbarth 4y ago

Plant based alternatives are very price competitive where I live (in Denmark). They’re more expensive than the cheapest ground beef, but more affordable than grass fed or organic.

Reubend 4y ago

> it is no surprise, that people aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product You hit the nail on its head. I think there's still hope for meat substitutes if they can improve their flavor while also lowering their price. But I'm not holding out hope for that.

matsemann 4y ago
Mainly because of meat subsidies, though. They don't need to compete when governments all over the world hand them billions.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  At least in the US, at first glance it looks like corn and soybeans receive much higher subsidies than livestock.
leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
Or the powers that be collude to drive up the price of meat, removing the choice from people because they know better.
n4r9 4y ago
Not sure where you're located, but in the UK the supermarkets stock stuff like this: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-beef-burgers-227g2-pack/4088600455532 https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-... https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetarian-mozzarella-1-4-lb-burgers/JAR685 https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetar... They taste delicious and are absolutely competitive with meat burger prices.
- Lio 4y ago
  I find the "chicken" pieces to be the best meat substitute. They're not exactly like chicken but if you treat them as their own thing then they're a perfectly good substitute in things like stir fries. Quorn bacon substitute rashers are also pretty good in a fry up. Again, they're not bacon but if you treat them as their own thing, very enjoyable. Not sure anything substitutes for a good steak or nice bit of cod yet but that's only an occasional treat for us anyway.

Nowado 4y ago

US livestock subsidies are in dozens of billions. Whole sector seems to have revenue in lower hundreds of billions (harder to get exact data, please correct me). Even without premiums target audience is willing to accept, subsidies of 10-20% of sector revenue are pretty hard to beat.

gadders 4y ago
Is there any part of agriculture that isn't subsidised?
belorn 4y ago
From the first google search on US farmland subsidies: " Who Benefits Most From Farm Subsidies? Farm subsidies don't benefit all farms equally. According to the Cato Institute, farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat receive more than 70% of farm subsidies. These are also usually the largest farms. From an other source: "Corn growers received the most product-specific assistance with $2.2 billion in subsidies. That was only about 4.4% of the $50.4 billion in total corn production that year. Soybeans rank second in subsidies. While the US soybean industry produced $41.3 billion worth of products in 2017, it received $1.6 billion in subsidies in 2016, representing 3.9% of production. The US sugar industry produced $2.5 billion worth of product in 2017 and received $1.6 billion in subsidies, according to the report. The support amounted to 63.5% of the value of total production." - https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162 https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162 - https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says/ https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...
j-pb 4y ago
Same in the E.U. we have billions of subsidies for milk and meat. Many countries like germany also have a tiered VAT system, where basic foods are taxed lower, there is a base line tax and some luxury items are taxed higher. Thanks to lobbying meat and cow-milk are taxed as basic foods, while vegan alternatives are taxed as luxury items.
- hobom 4y ago
  That is not true. All food in the supermarket is taxed the same.

onion2k 4y ago

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. That would only be true if the cost of the patty was only thing that impacted the price to the consumer, but everything else like transporting the thing to a store, paying the store staff to sell it, paying for marketing, branding, etc, paying taxes on it, are essentially the same regardless of whether the patty is made of cows or plants. A patty that costs 0.25c to make could be reduced to 0.01c to make, which would reduce the price in the market from 5.99 to 5.74...

samuli 4y ago

86% of feed is grown on land [1], which is not suitable for growing human food crops. [1]: https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-more-people-be-fed-if-crop-land-was-used-for-food-for-human https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-mor...

goodpoint 4y ago
This is plain false. Please find reputable sources.
- adwn 4y ago
  > This is plain false. Please find reputable sources. Do you have reputable sources for that statement being "plain false"?
bennettdams 4y ago
You're quoting a literal farming foundation, so here is a neutral source: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habitable-land-is-used-for-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habi... "If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. Of all the land we use for agriculture, 77% of it is used for livestock." These 77% are only responsible for 18% of the produced calories and 37% of the produced proteins. So, if you leave out water consumption and most importantly animal walfare, eating meat is the worst thing you can to for the environment (when talking about food).
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Nothing said here refutes the parent comment. It turns out that a lot of land is really shitty for growing stuff that isn't a weed (without adding a ton of chemicals to the environment), and humans don't eat weeds. Cows, sheep, pigs, and chicken do. I doubt that 86% of that 77% is truly unsuitable for farming human food, but I wouldn't be surprised if 30-50% of it was.

ben_w 4y ago

> If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. Products can fail even if everything promised is delivered. This is why the supermarket Tesco gave up on trying to enter the USA market. Or why I can't get Quorn here in Germany even though I personally think it's a much better taste and texture than any of the Rügenwalder Mühle brands. Or why I can get Sauerkraut juice here, but not in the UK.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

Fake meat isn't just inferior to real meat. It's inferior to just plain old vegetables. It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits. They're not trying to cook the best vegetable dishes. They're not trying to cook dishes that use less meat. They're not trying to expand your palettes and reintroducing liver, sweetbreads or other weird cuts. All these "green" products convince you to not do the most important things: REDUCE and REUSE.

10u152 4y ago
Never thought about it but you’re spot on. A big roasted field mushroom with a dash of balsamic and perhaps some feta cheese is 1000% tastier than a weird processed vegetable patty.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago
  A real good way to do it is to saute some thin-sliced shiitakes and creminis in a pan with salt, pepper, and a shallot; once you get a good fond, put the shrooms in between two slices of bread with a bit of cheese (fresh mozzarella is a good one here, so is gruyere), deglaze the pan with butter, and then throw the sandwich in the pan until it's done the way you like your grilled cheese. I call it "beyond beyond meat."
wrldos 4y ago
Completely agree with this. As a vegetarian I'd really prefer to eat meat over the synthetic meats. The reason being the texture, flavour and nutritional value isn't there. They're also expensive, covered in horrible packaging, don't keep very well and are difficult to cook. 99% of the important bits of a dish don't come from making something meat-like but cooking something that isn't bland and uninteresting. And you don't need fake meat to work around that.
m4tthumphrey 4y ago
I have been a pescatarian (eat fish, no meat) since 2018. For me, this has almost nothing todo with being healthy and all about the animal welfare (yes I eat fish but to me, a fish and a pig are two very different things). But, sometimes I just fancy a McDonalds Big Mac (McPlant), or chili nachos (Quorn, Meatless Farm) , or a dirty burger (Impossible, Beyond). I know its not healthy, I know its not good for me but it just satisfy my meat eating days craving every now and then. The rest of the time I eat delicious unprocessed veggies, rice, beans etc. There is a place for these meat substitutes but should they be eaten all of the time; no. Education around veggies is the key for solving the meat production issues.