7 ms·

I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar macro-nutrient ratios and whatever

I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar macro-nutrient ratios and whatever micro-nutrients are rare outside of meat. I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd buy it for the environment.

iknowstuff 1y ago
hmm.. you would buy it but aren't? 4 oz raw/patty: Impossible → 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol Beyond → 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol 80/20 beef → 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol (high) Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  I thought sodium was really bad for you though
  - o11c 1y ago
    Salt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
  - eximius 1y ago
    Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
    - teekert 1y ago
      It actually nearly killed my wife’s grandmother. Until some doctor realized she avoided salt like the plague, gave her some and she made a miraculous discovery.
      - teekert 1y ago
        *recovery.
  - TimorousBestie 1y ago
    The beef patty numbers are solely raw beef, they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger. The McDonald’s quarter pounder patty (just the cooked patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is comparable, comes with 210mg of salt. Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren’t as significant as they appear.
    - asdff 1y ago
      >they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger. True for many midwestern homes. This also doesn't include what you need to do to cook a beyond/impossible burger. At least when I've made one, they absorb oil like a sponge. A burger will actually render out fat and doesn't need any oil in the pan. And no I'm not converting to teflon in this lifetime. You will find you want to season them heavily as well as the taste is pretty plain and heavy on the cooking oil used.
randycupertino 1y ago
I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.
  - haiku2077 1y ago
    I remember the veggie burgers they're talking about and they weren't black bean patties. The one I remember had potato with peas in it... god, it was delicious
    - papercrane 1y ago
      It sounds like your describing aloo tikki. It's really delicious and sometimes used as a vegetarian burger patty.
  - itsoktocry 1y ago
    Unless they have some rare condition that doesn't allow them to eat meat, they can satisfy the cravings by having the odd burger. It won't kill them. I honestly don't understand the vegetarian who constantly craves meat.
    - platelminto 1y ago
      It will kill another living thing though. It's not that hard to understand - you know it tastes good but don't want to cause direct suffering.
deanc 1y ago
These meat substitutes are UPF and that’s what you should care about more than nutritional content.
- Snild 1y ago
  "UPF"?
  - RealityVoid 1y ago
    "Ultra Processed Food" - I suspect? I disagree, IMO. It feels like a oversimplification, it's a sometimes useful rule of thumb that works in some cases, but not in others. Definitely not the end all be all of nutrition.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- PaulRobinson 1y ago
  OK, we need to pick something apart here, because I see this a lot and it's annoying. UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you. The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing tricks with the brain's response to it. There are food labs where people are having their brain scanned while they sip different soda formulations, tobacco companies buying food companies to apply their research methodologies, and people figuring out packaging noises and shapes in order to make your old/slow brain excited at the crap you're about to eat (the pringles can is hard to use on purpose, for example). This is all symptomatic of a global food industry that needs you to buy more food, so needs you to consume more food, regardless of nutritional impact. I recommend reading Chris van Tulleken's book and watching (if you can) the documentaries he made on the subject. Yes, the Brazilian paper that started all this said "UPF is harming the health of the nation", but the root cause was not UPF processes, it was food industry processes that often require them to produce UPF. It isn't the UP that makes the F bad, it's that some profitable but bad F needs UP to be viable. It is therefore perfectly possible for meat substitutes to be UPF and healthy, just as some other UPFs are healthy. In fact, arguably they need to be both to survive.
buu700 1y ago
My thoughts exactly. I don't want ultraprocessed junk food that more or less feels and tastes like meat. I want a whole food protein source that's comparably healthful to meat. Products like Beyond and Impossible seem to be designed with the unspoken assumption that meat is junk food that meat-eaters simply lack the self-control to stop eating. Maybe that does represent a common relationship with meat, but for me it's just off-putting when I see things like canola oil in place of a saturated fat like coconut oil so they can market it as "healthier". (But again, all else being equal, I'll still prefer non-UPF.) That's why I'm continually surprised at how little attention Meati seems to get. It's been my go-to protein for a little while now. It doesn't have high saturated fat (or high fat in general) like meat, but that's easy to fix with a little butter. What it does have is high-quality complete protein with high micronutrition, low carbs, and minimal processing. It's a form of mycelium that's fairly similar to lean chicken meat. Not quite as nice as a fatty steak, but it does the job with a lower mortality rate.

iknowstuff 1y ago

hmm.. you would buy it but aren't? 4 oz raw/patty: Impossible → 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol Beyond → 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol 80/20 beef → 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol (high) Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.

bluefirebrand 1y ago
I thought sodium was really bad for you though
- o11c 1y ago
  Salt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
- eximius 1y ago
  Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
  - teekert 1y ago
    It actually nearly killed my wife’s grandmother. Until some doctor realized she avoided salt like the plague, gave her some and she made a miraculous discovery.
    - teekert 1y ago
      *recovery.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  The beef patty numbers are solely raw beef, they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger. The McDonald’s quarter pounder patty (just the cooked patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is comparable, comes with 210mg of salt. Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren’t as significant as they appear.
  - asdff 1y ago
    >they do not include the seasoning required to make it taste like a hamburger. True for many midwestern homes. This also doesn't include what you need to do to cook a beyond/impossible burger. At least when I've made one, they absorb oil like a sponge. A burger will actually render out fat and doesn't need any oil in the pan. And no I'm not converting to teflon in this lifetime. You will find you want to season them heavily as well as the taste is pretty plain and heavy on the cooking oil used.

randycupertino 1y ago

I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.
- haiku2077 1y ago
  I remember the veggie burgers they're talking about and they weren't black bean patties. The one I remember had potato with peas in it... god, it was delicious
  - papercrane 1y ago
    It sounds like your describing aloo tikki. It's really delicious and sometimes used as a vegetarian burger patty.
- itsoktocry 1y ago
  Unless they have some rare condition that doesn't allow them to eat meat, they can satisfy the cravings by having the odd burger. It won't kill them. I honestly don't understand the vegetarian who constantly craves meat.
  - platelminto 1y ago
    It will kill another living thing though. It's not that hard to understand - you know it tastes good but don't want to cause direct suffering.

deanc 1y ago

These meat substitutes are UPF and that’s what you should care about more than nutritional content.

Snild 1y ago
"UPF"?
- RealityVoid 1y ago
  "Ultra Processed Food" - I suspect? I disagree, IMO. It feels like a oversimplification, it's a sometimes useful rule of thumb that works in some cases, but not in others. Definitely not the end all be all of nutrition.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
PaulRobinson 1y ago
OK, we need to pick something apart here, because I see this a lot and it's annoying. UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you. The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing tricks with the brain's response to it. There are food labs where people are having their brain scanned while they sip different soda formulations, tobacco companies buying food companies to apply their research methodologies, and people figuring out packaging noises and shapes in order to make your old/slow brain excited at the crap you're about to eat (the pringles can is hard to use on purpose, for example). This is all symptomatic of a global food industry that needs you to buy more food, so needs you to consume more food, regardless of nutritional impact. I recommend reading Chris van Tulleken's book and watching (if you can) the documentaries he made on the subject. Yes, the Brazilian paper that started all this said "UPF is harming the health of the nation", but the root cause was not UPF processes, it was food industry processes that often require them to produce UPF. It isn't the UP that makes the F bad, it's that some profitable but bad F needs UP to be viable. It is therefore perfectly possible for meat substitutes to be UPF and healthy, just as some other UPFs are healthy. In fact, arguably they need to be both to survive.

buu700 1y ago

My thoughts exactly. I don't want ultraprocessed junk food that more or less feels and tastes like meat. I want a whole food protein source that's comparably healthful to meat. Products like Beyond and Impossible seem to be designed with the unspoken assumption that meat is junk food that meat-eaters simply lack the self-control to stop eating. Maybe that does represent a common relationship with meat, but for me it's just off-putting when I see things like canola oil in place of a saturated fat like coconut oil so they can market it as "healthier". (But again, all else being equal, I'll still prefer non-UPF.) That's why I'm continually surprised at how little attention Meati seems to get. It's been my go-to protein for a little while now. It doesn't have high saturated fat (or high fat in general) like meat, but that's easy to fix with a little butter. What it does have is high-quality complete protein with high micronutrition, low carbs, and minimal processing. It's a form of mycelium that's fairly similar to lean chicken meat. Not quite as nice as a fatty steak, but it does the job with a lower mortality rate.