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Beyond Meat: Fake Meat So Good It Will Freak You Out

88 points by krschultz 14y ago

bstewartnyc 14y ago
Great more fake stuff, just what we need.
ebbv 14y ago
I love how every time something like this comes out they ask someone who hasn't had meat in 10 years if it's just like meat. Yeah, because they would know. My biggest problem, though, is if I'm having ingredients that aren't meat, I'd like to have them be good. I've never had fake meat that I would call appetizing. I've had lots of vegetarian dishes that were delightful, but not one included fake meat. I am not vegetarian.
- deleted 14y ago
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- bunderbunder 14y ago
  I think an inescapable problem is that it's hard to get past the framing. A product might actually be a very good food that easily stands up on its own merits. But if it's being carefully processed in a way that attempts to mimic all the cosmetic characteristics of chicken, being labeled as "chikkin", and being served lightly breaded with honey mustard on the side, then it's perpetually doomed to just be an imperfect imitation of chicken.
  - uvTwitch 14y ago
    I'm an omnivore, and if this stuff was equivalently expensive, and sufficiently chicken-like, I'd buy it instead. Real Chicken isn't exactly some holy grail of food, it just tastes good.
  - mberning 14y ago
    I believe that regulations exist to prevent the food industry from marketing non-genuine food items as the real thing. I have heard that chicken wing shaped chicken products cannot be sold as 'wings' but must rather be labeled 'wyngz'.
- lreeves 14y ago
  From the article - "New York Times food writer Mark Bittman mistook the fake stuff for the real stuff". So it seems like it really does taste like chicken.
  - JackC 14y ago
    For those who aren't familiar, Mark Bittman is kind of a foodie god; I'm pretty sure organic wheat springs up under his feet when he walks around. Here's the part of Bittman's article about the fake chicken, from back in March (linked from the Slate article): ... at least one new product is a better-than-adequate substitute for chicken in things like wraps, salads and sauces. I know this because Ethan Brown, an owner of Savage River Farms, came to my house and fooled me badly in a blind tasting. (A pan-European “LikeMeat” project appears to be making progress on a similar product, and others are in the works.) On its own, Brown’s “chicken” — produced to mimic boneless, skinless breast — looks like a decent imitation, and the way it shreds is amazing. It doesn’t taste much like chicken, but since most white meat chicken doesn’t taste like much anyway, that’s hardly a problem; both are about texture, chew and the ingredients you put on them or combine with them. When you take Brown’s product, cut it up and combine it with, say, chopped tomato and lettuce and mayonnaise with some seasoning in it, and wrap it in a burrito, you won’t know the difference between that and chicken. I didn’t, at least, and this is the kind of thing I do for a living. Brown does not see his product as a trendy meat replacement for vegans but one with more widespread use. (His production is at an early stage, but Whole Foods is planning to start using his products in prepared food soon. Retail sales of his “chicken,” which does not yet have a trademarked name, are expected to begin this summer.) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/finally-fake-chicken-worth-eating.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/finally-fak... So it sounds like this is a complete substitute in dishes where you chop up the chicken and add strong flavors, and not really intended to be a substitute otherwise. It's not 90% of the way there in all dishes -- it's 100% of the way there in 75% of dishes. And it's cheaper and takes probably a quarter of the resources to produce. Given the size of the total market, that's a huge deal.
    - MattSayar 14y ago
      This almost sounds too good to be true. I wish they would release more nutritional information about the "chicken." And give it a good name.
- ahage16 14y ago
  "I’m not a vegetarian, and I love real meat, but for various health and ethical reasons, I’ve long tried to cut down on eating animals." He eats meat, just not as often as your average person.
mberning 14y ago
I don't get it. You want all the benefits of eating meat without actually eating meat? I understand people have moral objections to the meat industry, but if you are doing it for health reasons you might as well just eat real meat. Research has shown quite conclusively that pre-historic humans survived on a diet rich in animal products, particularly animal fat.
- uptown 14y ago
  The article spells it out pretty clearly: "Brown’s long-term goal is to offer a product that can satisfy the world’s growing, and largely unsustainable, demand for meat, especially in ballooning markets like India and China." "Meat is environmentally toxic and colossally inefficient, ethically dubious (even if you’re OK with killing animals, raising and slaughtering animals in factory farms is hard to defend), and it’s unhealthy (that’s even true if you don’t eat it—there’s good evidence that the rampant use of antibiotics in livestock production has given rise to drug-resistant infections)." The amount of resources required to raise an animal to the age at which it can be slaughtered for use as food is a very real problem as the natural resources of the world are strained by population growth.
  - mberning 14y ago
    Ok, so rather than feeding people the genuine article let's feed them some laboratory created faux-meat. That sounds like a great way to be healthy. I don't disagree that we need to find more sustainable ways to feed ourselves, but we also need to be feeding ourselves quality food that matches our biological needs. Not whatever is most conveniently and cheaply produced.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      You're making the assumption that the laboratory meet will somehow automatically be worse, and that it is whatever "is most conveniently and cheaply produced". I eat a lot of meat. I could not conceive of giving up meat. Not going to happen. I don't care if I have to slaughter the animals myself to get it. But if there was a high enough quality "laboratory meat"? I'd try it. I'd even be willing to pay more for it in certain circumstances: - Consider custom-adapted marbling. - Arbitrary sized cuts. Want a fillet larger than any real animal? - New types of "meat"? Yes please. - Healthier versions? If they can come up with variations that taste as nice while being better for me, sure, I'll pay a premium for that. While there undoubtably will also be attempts to make cheap replacements, there's no reason to automatically assume that the fact it is "faux-meat" means it can't be just as healthy - or better - than the real thing.
eslachance 14y ago
This sounds very promising. As a vegan, it's pretty hard to find decent alternatives to meat, which I still crave once in a while - I went vegan for health reasons, not ideological ones. This has been getting better with time, but unfortunately a lot of fake vegetarian and vegan meats tend to be unhealthy. In order to get some decent taste and texture, some odd ingredients are often used. Vegan does not equal healthy in all cases. This one sounds pretty good, hope they find their way to Canada and branch out to different meats, too!
- recycleme 14y ago
  I've tried a couple of beef and chicken alternatives that were splendid. The trick was to cook it to my liking. Crispy, wet, etc. I imagine these kinds of foods are ok for transitioning into a vegan. However, I was vegan once, and I took it as an opportunity to discover all kinds of new vegetables and fruits. It was interesting learning to cook with no meat. I had discovered a whole new world of food. Eating fake meat seems a bit nostalgic tbh.
codegeek 14y ago
Hong Kong has restaurants where they have items that are clones of chicken, shrimp,fish etc. but are not actual meat. I tried and it was great. EDIT: Funny thing is that the menu has item names such as "vegetarian chicken" and I am not kidding.
- kitcar 14y ago
  Yup- the secret sauce in most of those clones is something call TVP - textured vegetable protein - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein
- reubensutton 14y ago
  In the UK, I've never found an imitation of fish or prawns, let alone a great one.
  - justincormack 14y ago
    There are crabsticks, an old Uk favourite. They are pretty horrible though....
    - reubensutton 14y ago
      I believe crabsticks are made from reformed fish. Agreed on how horrible they are though.
stuff4ben 14y ago
As a voracious meat eater, I am actually intrigued by the idea of a healthier chicken meat that takes the environment into consideration. If it tastes like chicken, even looks like chicken, is healthier than chicken, and has less of an impact on the environment/climate/conscience, why wouldn't you eat it? Now beef on the other hand...I still am on the fence there. What can I say, I like a nice medium rare, well-marbled, ribeye slightly charred on the outside. I don't think you can ever replace that.
- aerique 14y ago
  In that case, the second best thing would be cutting down on beef consumption and treating it as the luxury it is. So eating that nice medium rare once every two months instead of once a week. (I don't know anything about your consumption, just making a point.)
  - djKianoosh 14y ago
    once a week?! whaaat? I want real beef, every day. No fake stuff please. Yes, be nice to the animals, raise them cage free yadda yadda. But I want the real thing.
    - Jamiecon 14y ago
      Appreciate you're possibly joking, but the problem is that it is not possible to support the entire world in this manner. Assuming we all share the goal of a famine free world, with its people living lives of relative equality, then the excessive consumption of meat in the west is a problem which needs to be addressed. As the parent suggests, treat high quality meat like the luxury it is, and enjoy other foods instead. It's better for you, and better for your fellow humans. I see a future where lab grown meat, and meat substitutes make up the majority of our consumption, and hand-reared, high quality meat is saved for special occasions.
  - stuff4ben 14y ago
    Yeah with the health concerns over eating a lot of red meat (my side of the family has a history of colon cancer) and the fact that it keeps getting more expensive, we've relegated ribeyes to birthdays and our anniversary. So we get a package of ribeyes from Costco maybe 3-4 times a year (we celebrate as many birthdays and anniversaries as we can). Other than that we eat a lot of chicken and pork. We do consume a fair bit of ground beef for hamburgers and spaghetti however. In that case, I probably wouldn't notice the difference between fake beef and the real thing.
truebosko 14y ago
Ingredients in Chicken (that isn't factory farmed): Chicken Ingredients in this: Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Pea Protein Isolate, Amaranth, Natural Vegan Chicken Flavor (Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavoring), Soy Fiber, Carrot Fiber, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Dipotassium Phosphate, Titanium Dioxide, White Vinegar So, it's not terrible but it's just more fake pseudo-meat. What's so hard about buying a soy protein (firm tofu, tempeh, etc.), and just cooking it with spices and herbs like you would a regular piece of meat? Fake food sucks.
- bluekite2000 14y ago
  Have you been to any Buddhist country (Vietnam,Thailand India,etc) and tried any of the faux-chicken/beef/pork/fish dish? It isn't as real as Beyond Meat probably (since it is not made by scientists but thousands of years of practicing vegetarian) but is quite delicious.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    We went to a Chinese restaurant the other day that is known for having vegetarian versions of almost every regular American Chinese restaurant dish. They used some kind of fibrous fake meat for the General Tsaos chicken that was very convincing. Maybe seaweed based?
    - natrius 14y ago
      My guess is seitan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)
  - truebosko 14y ago
    I don't doubt it. They are probably just taking simple soy proteins and cooking them with whatever, just like we would cook meat. Not produced in some lab. I have nothing against this and appreciate it.
- _delirium 14y ago
  It seems the goal is in part to replace the animal-sourced sort-of-fake meat that's already a significant part of the world's diet, with a non-animal source that may be more environmentally friendly to produce. A roasted chicken or a steak is one thing, but a lot of uses of "meat" really only call for some kind of processed product that has a certain taste and texture. Chicken patties at McDonald's, for example, are not actual cuts of chicken meat, but mechanically separated meat that's reformed into a patty that attempts to mimic a certain meat-ish texture. If you can mimic that same chicken-patty texture with a non-animal sourced set of ingredients as the input, I don't see it really as any less natural. (Alas, it does me no good personally, because I'm allergic to soy protein.)
nsns 14y ago
The problem with these alternatives is they are highly processed, the exact opposite of a healthy meal of vegetables, lentils, nuts... That said, the modern industrial slaughter of animals is an ongoing atrocity on an unbelievable scale, worst than anything humans ever did to each other (and can only be deemed acceptable if you vouch for biblical notions of human supremacism). If this helps any, all the best to them.
- ryeguy 14y ago
  There is nothing inherently wrong with processed food. Processed foods could only be considered "bad" if you're actually replacing healthy foods with them. For example, a can of coke isn't actually bad for me per se, it's just nutritionally useless, and it's taking up 100something calories out of my calorie budget for the day that could be used by something with a higher amount of micronutrients in it. I don't think any vegetarian or vegan is going to throw out all their veggies and start eating nothing but meat alternatives as soon as a viable replacement comes out.
  - arethuza 14y ago
    I wonder what would happen if you tried to survive just on coke and micronutrient supplements?
    - ryeguy 14y ago
      You may find The Twinkie Diet interesting: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...
      - arethuza 14y ago
        Great comment on that: "On the up side, he now has a shelf life of 400 years."
  - crescentfresh 14y ago
    My wife has not eaten meat or poultry for over 25 years. I do. Once, we were out at a restaurant and she sampled my pasta+chicken dish and got a piece of chicken into her mouth by accident. She did not like the texture and the flavour, at all. As in, the innateness of both in chicken was not appetizing to her anymore. She will be sticking to her nut and bean burgers no matter how good a fake beef burger tastes (to me).
DannoHung 14y ago
I think I read about this stuff in an earlier article and I'm still wondering: How does it actually chemically respond to heat, water, oil, etc etc. I mean, I suppose its alright if it just works like chicken in a single context (grilled maybe?), but it's not really a meat replacement unless you can rely on it to behave the same as meat for the purpose of recipes. Don't take that as criticism of the product, I'm just curious what it's properties are and if you'd need to revamp your recipes if you wanted to use this stuff.
- autarch 14y ago
  I've tried this at home. I made chicken noodle soup with it and it worked really well. I sauteed it in olive oil in a pan first, then added it to the broth later. It withstood both form of cooking fairly well. It browned in the pan and absorbed some liquid in the broth, but it didn't break down. However, I don't know if this stuff would be grillable. It's not a big chunk like a real chicken breast. It comes out of the package in small chunks. So it'd work great for some recipes but not for things like chicken piccata. However, I highly recommend Gardein for recipes like those. It comes in the form just like chicken breasts, and works great for recipes that require a large flat piece.
  - DannoHung 14y ago
    Interesting. I wonder if any molecular gastronomist chefs have figured out what its parameters are. Anyone wanna try ice cream with frozen chick-a-like chunks?
- smackfu 14y ago
  Practically, different meat substitutes are good at mimicking different prepared forms. So instead of trying to find one that substitutes for chicken in all its forms, it's much easier to find one that substitutes for stewed meat in all its forms and that can be textured / flavored like chicken, beef, etc.
zavulon 14y ago
I've been a vegetarian for 4 years and stopped about a year ago. This sounds great, but it still consists of soy protein, which is not good for men due to estrogen. http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects Not too reliable of a source, I know, but there's a bunch of reputable books that I've read back in the day on this subject that said the same thing.
- powertower 14y ago
  Soy (unfermented) is a terrible idea. http://www.jacn.org/content/19/2/242.full http://www.jacn.org/content/19/2/242.full "Results: Poor cognitive test performance, enlargement of ventricles and low brain weight were each significantly and independently associated with higher midlife tofu consumption." "We hypothesize that regular dietary exposure to soy isoflavones over many years during middle life may be associated with the appearance of accelerated brain aging in later life attributable to chronically sub-optimal neural plasticity."
  - illumin8 14y ago
    This study seems to be counteracted by millions of Asian people that are living well into their 80s, 90s, and 100s, and eat a diet that has quite a bit of unfermented (and fermented) soy in it.
    - deleted 14y ago
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    - powertower 14y ago
      Those diets are rich in fermeted soy and are balanced by additional products that counter the negative effects of soy.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Surely that depends on how much of that population falls on the "low" or "high" side of soy intake as measured by the study. I don't know how much of the Asian population falls into the intake levels this study claims might be negatively affected - do you?
rabidsnail 14y ago
"I forgot I was eating something that didn’t come from a living creature": Does fungus not live?
- shakesbeard 14y ago
  Are you trying to imply that consumption of animals and plants/fungi is the same? What's the point of that argument? I mean, come on, I'm vegetarian and I kill mosquitoes ...
  - krschultz 14y ago
    Never undersestimate HN's penchant for being pendantic
  - rabidsnail 14y ago
    I think it's the same, but then again I'm not a vegetarian. What I'm really trying to imply is that what people decide they're allowed to eat is based on (mostly arbitrary) social norms. Is there anything morally different between being vegetarian and keeping kosher? Aside: Anyone who figures out how to make salmon produce pork will have a license to print money (kosher pork!).
nessus42 14y ago
Beyond Meat is people! It's people!
yread 14y ago
There is also Šmakoun, it's basically just pressed egg white. Here is the inventor describing it The slice is made of pure egg white, that is albumin, which is a source of the most valuable proteins, necessary in metabolism of organs of living organisms. New modern technology of processing of the hen egg white has been developed in the Czech Republic and patented. This technology turns the white into a porous material further processed in pressurised steam chamber. That produces a compact belt of thin layer of material, composed of microscopic fibres. The belt is then rolled into the shape of cylinder, cut into smaller pieces. These are then pressed into the final form of 100-gram slices. Finished slices are vacuum packaged in plastic bags. As final treatment, each bag is re-sterilised in special equipment. from http://www.iufost.org/publications/newsline/Newsline55.html http://www.iufost.org/publications/newsline/Newsline55.html
gfunk911 14y ago
Maybe it's orthogonal, but this article doesn't discuss at all the nutritional advantages and disadvantages of eating meat. It may taste like meat, but the nutritional profile is nothing like meat.
- Scriptor 14y ago
  Also, I'm curious what the actual impact of it is. One of the main arguments against meat is that it takes a great deal more energy and work to create 1 pound of plant food than 1 pound of meat. From what I've seen, beyond meat uses some sort of manufacturing process to create it. How much energy does it take to ship all those materials and run that factory?
  - backprojection 14y ago
    Maybe you can view it as an intermediate step, the next being in vitro meat.
  - jfoutz 14y ago
    It's about 6 times more energy intensive to order chemicals from new jersey and stir them in a vat than it is to ship live cattle to a slaughter house and butcher them. Essentially all the cost of feeding and cleaning the cattle is very low, and storage of raw meat after slaughter is very cheap. Alternatively storing the raw products for fake chicken are incredibly complicated. Furthermore, once the product is produced there is a ton of regulation about its care and handling. What's perhaps most troubling is the risk to workers while producing the product. They require fairly risky industrial tools, and not every manufacturer is really dillagent about providing good guards for people's hands.
    - namdnay 14y ago
      Sources? Anyway, the "chemicals" going into this are a relatively small part, the bulk being the vegetable protein. And how can you argue that storing beans and additives is more complicated than storing cows???
    - 14y ago
mistercow 14y ago
The plan to have it sold at the meat counter is cute in terms of confidence, but suicidal if they want to market to vegetarians. Once you stop associating raw meat with food, it starts looking, well, gross and violent, and the smell is off-putting. Most vegetarians I've known, myself included, try to avoid that section of the grocery store entirely. So while I applaud them trying to compete with meat directly and potentially sniping some carnivorous business, I hope they will also keep a few boxes for me in the hippie section.
- vidarh 14y ago
  I'd think that the market for "I can't believe it's not dead chicken" for vegetarians would be a tiny trickle compared to if they can sell it as "good conscience, and healthier too" to the section of us meat eaters who also find the meat counter off putting.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    It's a bold move, to be sure. Nobody has ever had a fake meat product they were confident enough in to market to meat eaters, and as an ethical vegetarian, I certainly hope it works.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      As a meat eater who happily eats pretty much whatever animal part I'm offered, I hope they succeed too, because I'd love to see a market for meat substitutes that are good enough that I get more delicious meat-like products to choose from that eventually taste better than the real thing.
dhughes 14y ago
Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat? I find it odd a person who is a vegans who finds even vegetarianism too relaxed would even want to eat fake meat. I wonder if the opposite could be done to create a fake carrot made entirely out of meat? Beyond Meat's website has "without the bad stuff (no saturated or trans fat, no cholesterol, no gluten, no antibiotics, no GMOs...and no meat)". How is gluten "bad stuff" unless you have celiac disease?
- recycleme 14y ago
  > Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat? I understand what you're saying, but the short answer is because fake meat is not meat. I don't think it's about not eating what tastes good but it's about not eating meat (or any animal by-products).
smackfu 14y ago
I've had seitan "beef" tips at a good veggie restaurant that would convince almost anyone. Yes, heavily sauced, but the right color and a nice char on them. (And I'm just dating a vegetarian, so I have a good point of reference for real meat.)
wklauss 14y ago
I'm not sure if I'm the only one that feels a little cheated with this article. It reads like PR for the product and Manjoo buries that Stone's Obvious Corp is an investor in BM in the the middle of the text even when he uses Stone's quotes at the beggining.
raldi 14y ago
Why aim to make something indistinguishable from real meat? Instead of stopping when you hit "100% as good as meat" you can keep going, and make something 120% as good, and beyond.
deleted 14y ago
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ajb 14y ago
This could be because we have such low expectations of what actually counts as meat. For example, Jamie Oliver on how chicken nuggets are made (in the US) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs
bluekite2000 14y ago
In Asia, there is a delicacy called dog meat. To maximize profit, cooks use pork instead (sometimes from sick or dead pigs) Then they fake it by adding fermented rice, ginger, shrimp paste to make it look feel and taste like real dog meat. For more info (in Vietnamese) http://goo.gl/g07yF http://goo.gl/g07yF

88 points by krschultz 14y ago

Great more fake stuff, just what we need.

ebbv 14y ago

I love how every time something like this comes out they ask someone who hasn't had meat in 10 years if it's just like meat. Yeah, because they would know. My biggest problem, though, is if I'm having ingredients that aren't meat, I'd like to have them be good. I've never had fake meat that I would call appetizing. I've had lots of vegetarian dishes that were delightful, but not one included fake meat. I am not vegetarian.

deleted 14y ago
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bunderbunder 14y ago
I think an inescapable problem is that it's hard to get past the framing. A product might actually be a very good food that easily stands up on its own merits. But if it's being carefully processed in a way that attempts to mimic all the cosmetic characteristics of chicken, being labeled as "chikkin", and being served lightly breaded with honey mustard on the side, then it's perpetually doomed to just be an imperfect imitation of chicken.
- uvTwitch 14y ago
  I'm an omnivore, and if this stuff was equivalently expensive, and sufficiently chicken-like, I'd buy it instead. Real Chicken isn't exactly some holy grail of food, it just tastes good.
- mberning 14y ago
  I believe that regulations exist to prevent the food industry from marketing non-genuine food items as the real thing. I have heard that chicken wing shaped chicken products cannot be sold as 'wings' but must rather be labeled 'wyngz'.
lreeves 14y ago
From the article - "New York Times food writer Mark Bittman mistook the fake stuff for the real stuff". So it seems like it really does taste like chicken.
- JackC 14y ago
  For those who aren't familiar, Mark Bittman is kind of a foodie god; I'm pretty sure organic wheat springs up under his feet when he walks around. Here's the part of Bittman's article about the fake chicken, from back in March (linked from the Slate article): ... at least one new product is a better-than-adequate substitute for chicken in things like wraps, salads and sauces. I know this because Ethan Brown, an owner of Savage River Farms, came to my house and fooled me badly in a blind tasting. (A pan-European “LikeMeat” project appears to be making progress on a similar product, and others are in the works.) On its own, Brown’s “chicken” — produced to mimic boneless, skinless breast — looks like a decent imitation, and the way it shreds is amazing. It doesn’t taste much like chicken, but since most white meat chicken doesn’t taste like much anyway, that’s hardly a problem; both are about texture, chew and the ingredients you put on them or combine with them. When you take Brown’s product, cut it up and combine it with, say, chopped tomato and lettuce and mayonnaise with some seasoning in it, and wrap it in a burrito, you won’t know the difference between that and chicken. I didn’t, at least, and this is the kind of thing I do for a living. Brown does not see his product as a trendy meat replacement for vegans but one with more widespread use. (His production is at an early stage, but Whole Foods is planning to start using his products in prepared food soon. Retail sales of his “chicken,” which does not yet have a trademarked name, are expected to begin this summer.) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/finally-fake-chicken-worth-eating.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/finally-fak... So it sounds like this is a complete substitute in dishes where you chop up the chicken and add strong flavors, and not really intended to be a substitute otherwise. It's not 90% of the way there in all dishes -- it's 100% of the way there in 75% of dishes. And it's cheaper and takes probably a quarter of the resources to produce. Given the size of the total market, that's a huge deal.
  - MattSayar 14y ago
    This almost sounds too good to be true. I wish they would release more nutritional information about the "chicken." And give it a good name.
ahage16 14y ago
"I’m not a vegetarian, and I love real meat, but for various health and ethical reasons, I’ve long tried to cut down on eating animals." He eats meat, just not as often as your average person.

mberning 14y ago

I don't get it. You want all the benefits of eating meat without actually eating meat? I understand people have moral objections to the meat industry, but if you are doing it for health reasons you might as well just eat real meat. Research has shown quite conclusively that pre-historic humans survived on a diet rich in animal products, particularly animal fat.

uptown 14y ago
The article spells it out pretty clearly: "Brown’s long-term goal is to offer a product that can satisfy the world’s growing, and largely unsustainable, demand for meat, especially in ballooning markets like India and China." "Meat is environmentally toxic and colossally inefficient, ethically dubious (even if you’re OK with killing animals, raising and slaughtering animals in factory farms is hard to defend), and it’s unhealthy (that’s even true if you don’t eat it—there’s good evidence that the rampant use of antibiotics in livestock production has given rise to drug-resistant infections)." The amount of resources required to raise an animal to the age at which it can be slaughtered for use as food is a very real problem as the natural resources of the world are strained by population growth.
- mberning 14y ago
  Ok, so rather than feeding people the genuine article let's feed them some laboratory created faux-meat. That sounds like a great way to be healthy. I don't disagree that we need to find more sustainable ways to feed ourselves, but we also need to be feeding ourselves quality food that matches our biological needs. Not whatever is most conveniently and cheaply produced.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    You're making the assumption that the laboratory meet will somehow automatically be worse, and that it is whatever "is most conveniently and cheaply produced". I eat a lot of meat. I could not conceive of giving up meat. Not going to happen. I don't care if I have to slaughter the animals myself to get it. But if there was a high enough quality "laboratory meat"? I'd try it. I'd even be willing to pay more for it in certain circumstances: - Consider custom-adapted marbling. - Arbitrary sized cuts. Want a fillet larger than any real animal? - New types of "meat"? Yes please. - Healthier versions? If they can come up with variations that taste as nice while being better for me, sure, I'll pay a premium for that. While there undoubtably will also be attempts to make cheap replacements, there's no reason to automatically assume that the fact it is "faux-meat" means it can't be just as healthy - or better - than the real thing.

eslachance 14y ago

This sounds very promising. As a vegan, it's pretty hard to find decent alternatives to meat, which I still crave once in a while - I went vegan for health reasons, not ideological ones. This has been getting better with time, but unfortunately a lot of fake vegetarian and vegan meats tend to be unhealthy. In order to get some decent taste and texture, some odd ingredients are often used. Vegan does not equal healthy in all cases. This one sounds pretty good, hope they find their way to Canada and branch out to different meats, too!

recycleme 14y ago
I've tried a couple of beef and chicken alternatives that were splendid. The trick was to cook it to my liking. Crispy, wet, etc. I imagine these kinds of foods are ok for transitioning into a vegan. However, I was vegan once, and I took it as an opportunity to discover all kinds of new vegetables and fruits. It was interesting learning to cook with no meat. I had discovered a whole new world of food. Eating fake meat seems a bit nostalgic tbh.

codegeek 14y ago

Hong Kong has restaurants where they have items that are clones of chicken, shrimp,fish etc. but are not actual meat. I tried and it was great. EDIT: Funny thing is that the menu has item names such as "vegetarian chicken" and I am not kidding.

kitcar 14y ago
Yup- the secret sauce in most of those clones is something call TVP - textured vegetable protein - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein
reubensutton 14y ago
In the UK, I've never found an imitation of fish or prawns, let alone a great one.
- justincormack 14y ago
  There are crabsticks, an old Uk favourite. They are pretty horrible though....
  - reubensutton 14y ago
    I believe crabsticks are made from reformed fish. Agreed on how horrible they are though.

stuff4ben 14y ago

As a voracious meat eater, I am actually intrigued by the idea of a healthier chicken meat that takes the environment into consideration. If it tastes like chicken, even looks like chicken, is healthier than chicken, and has less of an impact on the environment/climate/conscience, why wouldn't you eat it? Now beef on the other hand...I still am on the fence there. What can I say, I like a nice medium rare, well-marbled, ribeye slightly charred on the outside. I don't think you can ever replace that.

aerique 14y ago
In that case, the second best thing would be cutting down on beef consumption and treating it as the luxury it is. So eating that nice medium rare once every two months instead of once a week. (I don't know anything about your consumption, just making a point.)
- djKianoosh 14y ago
  once a week?! whaaat? I want real beef, every day. No fake stuff please. Yes, be nice to the animals, raise them cage free yadda yadda. But I want the real thing.
  - Jamiecon 14y ago
    Appreciate you're possibly joking, but the problem is that it is not possible to support the entire world in this manner. Assuming we all share the goal of a famine free world, with its people living lives of relative equality, then the excessive consumption of meat in the west is a problem which needs to be addressed. As the parent suggests, treat high quality meat like the luxury it is, and enjoy other foods instead. It's better for you, and better for your fellow humans. I see a future where lab grown meat, and meat substitutes make up the majority of our consumption, and hand-reared, high quality meat is saved for special occasions.
- stuff4ben 14y ago
  Yeah with the health concerns over eating a lot of red meat (my side of the family has a history of colon cancer) and the fact that it keeps getting more expensive, we've relegated ribeyes to birthdays and our anniversary. So we get a package of ribeyes from Costco maybe 3-4 times a year (we celebrate as many birthdays and anniversaries as we can). Other than that we eat a lot of chicken and pork. We do consume a fair bit of ground beef for hamburgers and spaghetti however. In that case, I probably wouldn't notice the difference between fake beef and the real thing.

truebosko 14y ago

Ingredients in Chicken (that isn't factory farmed): Chicken Ingredients in this: Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Pea Protein Isolate, Amaranth, Natural Vegan Chicken Flavor (Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavoring), Soy Fiber, Carrot Fiber, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Dipotassium Phosphate, Titanium Dioxide, White Vinegar So, it's not terrible but it's just more fake pseudo-meat. What's so hard about buying a soy protein (firm tofu, tempeh, etc.), and just cooking it with spices and herbs like you would a regular piece of meat? Fake food sucks.

bluekite2000 14y ago
Have you been to any Buddhist country (Vietnam,Thailand India,etc) and tried any of the faux-chicken/beef/pork/fish dish? It isn't as real as Beyond Meat probably (since it is not made by scientists but thousands of years of practicing vegetarian) but is quite delicious.
- smackfu 14y ago
  We went to a Chinese restaurant the other day that is known for having vegetarian versions of almost every regular American Chinese restaurant dish. They used some kind of fibrous fake meat for the General Tsaos chicken that was very convincing. Maybe seaweed based?
  - natrius 14y ago
    My guess is seitan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)
- truebosko 14y ago
  I don't doubt it. They are probably just taking simple soy proteins and cooking them with whatever, just like we would cook meat. Not produced in some lab. I have nothing against this and appreciate it.
_delirium 14y ago
It seems the goal is in part to replace the animal-sourced sort-of-fake meat that's already a significant part of the world's diet, with a non-animal source that may be more environmentally friendly to produce. A roasted chicken or a steak is one thing, but a lot of uses of "meat" really only call for some kind of processed product that has a certain taste and texture. Chicken patties at McDonald's, for example, are not actual cuts of chicken meat, but mechanically separated meat that's reformed into a patty that attempts to mimic a certain meat-ish texture. If you can mimic that same chicken-patty texture with a non-animal sourced set of ingredients as the input, I don't see it really as any less natural. (Alas, it does me no good personally, because I'm allergic to soy protein.)

nsns 14y ago

The problem with these alternatives is they are highly processed, the exact opposite of a healthy meal of vegetables, lentils, nuts... That said, the modern industrial slaughter of animals is an ongoing atrocity on an unbelievable scale, worst than anything humans ever did to each other (and can only be deemed acceptable if you vouch for biblical notions of human supremacism). If this helps any, all the best to them.

ryeguy 14y ago
There is nothing inherently wrong with processed food. Processed foods could only be considered "bad" if you're actually replacing healthy foods with them. For example, a can of coke isn't actually bad for me per se, it's just nutritionally useless, and it's taking up 100something calories out of my calorie budget for the day that could be used by something with a higher amount of micronutrients in it. I don't think any vegetarian or vegan is going to throw out all their veggies and start eating nothing but meat alternatives as soon as a viable replacement comes out.
- arethuza 14y ago
  I wonder what would happen if you tried to survive just on coke and micronutrient supplements?
  - ryeguy 14y ago
    You may find The Twinkie Diet interesting: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...
    - arethuza 14y ago
      Great comment on that: "On the up side, he now has a shelf life of 400 years."
- crescentfresh 14y ago
  My wife has not eaten meat or poultry for over 25 years. I do. Once, we were out at a restaurant and she sampled my pasta+chicken dish and got a piece of chicken into her mouth by accident. She did not like the texture and the flavour, at all. As in, the innateness of both in chicken was not appetizing to her anymore. She will be sticking to her nut and bean burgers no matter how good a fake beef burger tastes (to me).

DannoHung 14y ago

I think I read about this stuff in an earlier article and I'm still wondering: How does it actually chemically respond to heat, water, oil, etc etc. I mean, I suppose its alright if it just works like chicken in a single context (grilled maybe?), but it's not really a meat replacement unless you can rely on it to behave the same as meat for the purpose of recipes. Don't take that as criticism of the product, I'm just curious what it's properties are and if you'd need to revamp your recipes if you wanted to use this stuff.

autarch 14y ago
I've tried this at home. I made chicken noodle soup with it and it worked really well. I sauteed it in olive oil in a pan first, then added it to the broth later. It withstood both form of cooking fairly well. It browned in the pan and absorbed some liquid in the broth, but it didn't break down. However, I don't know if this stuff would be grillable. It's not a big chunk like a real chicken breast. It comes out of the package in small chunks. So it'd work great for some recipes but not for things like chicken piccata. However, I highly recommend Gardein for recipes like those. It comes in the form just like chicken breasts, and works great for recipes that require a large flat piece.
- DannoHung 14y ago
  Interesting. I wonder if any molecular gastronomist chefs have figured out what its parameters are. Anyone wanna try ice cream with frozen chick-a-like chunks?
smackfu 14y ago
Practically, different meat substitutes are good at mimicking different prepared forms. So instead of trying to find one that substitutes for chicken in all its forms, it's much easier to find one that substitutes for stewed meat in all its forms and that can be textured / flavored like chicken, beef, etc.

zavulon 14y ago

I've been a vegetarian for 4 years and stopped about a year ago. This sounds great, but it still consists of soy protein, which is not good for men due to estrogen. http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects Not too reliable of a source, I know, but there's a bunch of reputable books that I've read back in the day on this subject that said the same thing.

powertower 14y ago
Soy (unfermented) is a terrible idea. http://www.jacn.org/content/19/2/242.full http://www.jacn.org/content/19/2/242.full "Results: Poor cognitive test performance, enlargement of ventricles and low brain weight were each significantly and independently associated with higher midlife tofu consumption." "We hypothesize that regular dietary exposure to soy isoflavones over many years during middle life may be associated with the appearance of accelerated brain aging in later life attributable to chronically sub-optimal neural plasticity."
- illumin8 14y ago
  This study seems to be counteracted by millions of Asian people that are living well into their 80s, 90s, and 100s, and eat a diet that has quite a bit of unfermented (and fermented) soy in it.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - powertower 14y ago
    Those diets are rich in fermeted soy and are balanced by additional products that counter the negative effects of soy.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Surely that depends on how much of that population falls on the "low" or "high" side of soy intake as measured by the study. I don't know how much of the Asian population falls into the intake levels this study claims might be negatively affected - do you?

rabidsnail 14y ago

"I forgot I was eating something that didn’t come from a living creature": Does fungus not live?

shakesbeard 14y ago
Are you trying to imply that consumption of animals and plants/fungi is the same? What's the point of that argument? I mean, come on, I'm vegetarian and I kill mosquitoes ...
- krschultz 14y ago
  Never undersestimate HN's penchant for being pendantic
- rabidsnail 14y ago
  I think it's the same, but then again I'm not a vegetarian. What I'm really trying to imply is that what people decide they're allowed to eat is based on (mostly arbitrary) social norms. Is there anything morally different between being vegetarian and keeping kosher? Aside: Anyone who figures out how to make salmon produce pork will have a license to print money (kosher pork!).

nessus42 14y ago

Beyond Meat is people! It's people!

yread 14y ago

There is also Šmakoun, it's basically just pressed egg white. Here is the inventor describing it The slice is made of pure egg white, that is albumin, which is a source of the most valuable proteins, necessary in metabolism of organs of living organisms. New modern technology of processing of the hen egg white has been developed in the Czech Republic and patented. This technology turns the white into a porous material further processed in pressurised steam chamber. That produces a compact belt of thin layer of material, composed of microscopic fibres. The belt is then rolled into the shape of cylinder, cut into smaller pieces. These are then pressed into the final form of 100-gram slices. Finished slices are vacuum packaged in plastic bags. As final treatment, each bag is re-sterilised in special equipment. from http://www.iufost.org/publications/newsline/Newsline55.html http://www.iufost.org/publications/newsline/Newsline55.html

gfunk911 14y ago

Maybe it's orthogonal, but this article doesn't discuss at all the nutritional advantages and disadvantages of eating meat. It may taste like meat, but the nutritional profile is nothing like meat.

Scriptor 14y ago
Also, I'm curious what the actual impact of it is. One of the main arguments against meat is that it takes a great deal more energy and work to create 1 pound of plant food than 1 pound of meat. From what I've seen, beyond meat uses some sort of manufacturing process to create it. How much energy does it take to ship all those materials and run that factory?
- backprojection 14y ago
  Maybe you can view it as an intermediate step, the next being in vitro meat.
- jfoutz 14y ago
  It's about 6 times more energy intensive to order chemicals from new jersey and stir them in a vat than it is to ship live cattle to a slaughter house and butcher them. Essentially all the cost of feeding and cleaning the cattle is very low, and storage of raw meat after slaughter is very cheap. Alternatively storing the raw products for fake chicken are incredibly complicated. Furthermore, once the product is produced there is a ton of regulation about its care and handling. What's perhaps most troubling is the risk to workers while producing the product. They require fairly risky industrial tools, and not every manufacturer is really dillagent about providing good guards for people's hands.
  - namdnay 14y ago
    Sources? Anyway, the "chemicals" going into this are a relatively small part, the bulk being the vegetable protein. And how can you argue that storing beans and additives is more complicated than storing cows???
  - 14y ago

mistercow 14y ago

The plan to have it sold at the meat counter is cute in terms of confidence, but suicidal if they want to market to vegetarians. Once you stop associating raw meat with food, it starts looking, well, gross and violent, and the smell is off-putting. Most vegetarians I've known, myself included, try to avoid that section of the grocery store entirely. So while I applaud them trying to compete with meat directly and potentially sniping some carnivorous business, I hope they will also keep a few boxes for me in the hippie section.

vidarh 14y ago
I'd think that the market for "I can't believe it's not dead chicken" for vegetarians would be a tiny trickle compared to if they can sell it as "good conscience, and healthier too" to the section of us meat eaters who also find the meat counter off putting.
- mistercow 14y ago
  It's a bold move, to be sure. Nobody has ever had a fake meat product they were confident enough in to market to meat eaters, and as an ethical vegetarian, I certainly hope it works.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    As a meat eater who happily eats pretty much whatever animal part I'm offered, I hope they succeed too, because I'd love to see a market for meat substitutes that are good enough that I get more delicious meat-like products to choose from that eventually taste better than the real thing.

dhughes 14y ago

Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat? I find it odd a person who is a vegans who finds even vegetarianism too relaxed would even want to eat fake meat. I wonder if the opposite could be done to create a fake carrot made entirely out of meat? Beyond Meat's website has "without the bad stuff (no saturated or trans fat, no cholesterol, no gluten, no antibiotics, no GMOs...and no meat)". How is gluten "bad stuff" unless you have celiac disease?

recycleme 14y ago
> Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat? I understand what you're saying, but the short answer is because fake meat is not meat. I don't think it's about not eating what tastes good but it's about not eating meat (or any animal by-products).

smackfu 14y ago

I've had seitan "beef" tips at a good veggie restaurant that would convince almost anyone. Yes, heavily sauced, but the right color and a nice char on them. (And I'm just dating a vegetarian, so I have a good point of reference for real meat.)

wklauss 14y ago

I'm not sure if I'm the only one that feels a little cheated with this article. It reads like PR for the product and Manjoo buries that Stone's Obvious Corp is an investor in BM in the the middle of the text even when he uses Stone's quotes at the beggining.

raldi 14y ago

Why aim to make something indistinguishable from real meat? Instead of stopping when you hit "100% as good as meat" you can keep going, and make something 120% as good, and beyond.

deleted 14y ago

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ajb 14y ago

This could be because we have such low expectations of what actually counts as meat. For example, Jamie Oliver on how chicken nuggets are made (in the US) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs

bluekite2000 14y ago

In Asia, there is a delicacy called dog meat. To maximize profit, cooks use pork instead (sometimes from sick or dead pigs) Then they fake it by adding fermented rice, ginger, shrimp paste to make it look feel and taste like real dog meat. For more info (in Vietnamese) http://goo.gl/g07yF http://goo.gl/g07yF