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As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.
by sethbannon 13y ago
As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.
- TillE 13y agoI've gone back and forth a couple times between omnivore and strict vegetarian, and personally I've concluded that meat isn't particularly exciting. It's just convenient and fairly cheap. If this winds up being cheap, great. Regardless, I still prefer an interesting spicy black bean burger to anything made with ground beef.
- jckt 13y agoDo you mind explaining why you don't find meat particularly exciting? I personally have nothing much against vegetarians -- in all honesty my current diet (cheaper) is probably closer to that of a vegetarian's -- but whenever they dismiss meat as "uninteresting" they all seem to actually be quite ignorant of meat, and that they all seem to have ever bought theirs out of a styrofoam, shrinkwrapped package from a supermarket rather than a good butcher. But yes, a nice spicy black bean burger sounds interesting!
- nmcfarl 13y agoHaving known some vegetarians who claim meat is uninteresting and have had a good farm raised and wild caught meat in their pre-vegetarian days, I don't think this is a case. I think for some people meat, and pretty much of all food, is fairly uninteresting it is pretty much just a way to fuel their body. They take fairly little joy in their meals - which seems a bit incomprehensible - but it seems to be the way it is.
- snogglethorpe 13y agoCertainly meat can be exciting, but in many cases, and especially in modern western culture, it seems to be used as a crutch, in a sort of "just throw in some meat and you're done" way. For instance, I've found vegetarian Indian restaurants vastly more interesting than Indian restaurants that rely on meat. It's not that I hate meat (I don't, and I'm not a a vegetarian), but the former sort simply seem to offer more interesting food, with a much wider range of flavors. Note the stereotypical Airplane-meal question (where the actual dishes are quite different): "Chicken or beef?" I know they're just trying to be efficient, but this question seems to capture society's attitude: that once you know the type of meat involved, eh, the rest is just pointless detail. So while meat can be a wonderful and interesting part of a meal, I think it would be better if it lost some of its overwhelming dominance, and became just another ingredient.
- jckt 13y agoNice note about the meat-orientated culture. To add to that, though, historically (and I find this, as you pointed out, a mostly Western thing, since coming from a southern Chinese culture I know that meats aren't elevated above other foods, ever) I'm pretty sure the role of meat in the dish's name is simply because every time anyone around the Renaissance era--foundation of Western cooking--would have made a huge deal about slaughtering a cow, and such names of dishes simply stuck with us since then. I wonder how meat came to be so dominant though. Funnily enough, when the Old World found the New World they found a land so plentiful in meat, instead of jumping up in joy certain parts of society actually started to find meat disgusting. So maybe it's not really just a Western thing, but meat's dominance is mostly a New World thing: According to http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visualizing-a-nation-of-meat-eaters http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/06/27/155527365/visual..., USA, Canada, Australia and NZ are far ahead of everyone else in per-capita meat consumption. And it doesn't seem to be correlated with per-capita GDP either. This might also means that meat's dominance is also very recent, and not universal even in modern Western culture. Maybe it's simply a matter of who has an older history of eating traditions, traditions that are responsible for toning down the meat-mania?
- sp332 13y agoWhile I agree about Indian food in particular, vegetarians can be pretty boring too. http://fightland.vice.com/blog/ottavia-bourdain-goes-vegan http://fightland.vice.com/blog/ottavia-bourdain-goes-vegan
- snogglethorpe 13y agoEr, of course―boring is easy―but that link isn't a very good way to make the point... truly cringe-inducing. 😵
- msrpotus 13y agoI had good meat before I became a vegetarian but it's just not a food I really enjoy. I enjoyed high-quality meat but it just wasn't a taste I was ever especially attached to.
- coherentpony 13y agoFor ethical reasons? Interesting. Have you considered eating free range chicken? Or perhaps Halal meat?
- jamesbritt 13y agoThose don't get around the act of killing.
- coherentpony 13y agoI understand that. My point was more with the fair treatment of animals and respect for animal life, rather than the killing of animals.
- Falling3 13y agoHalal does nothing fair or respectful for the animal. And if you think free-range means anything significant (for 95% of the cases), think again.
- coherentpony 13y agoI'm sorry, free range depends on the country in question and I should have been more specific. I was talking about UK regulations, but I can understand your point regarding US regulations, if that was indeed your point.
- illuminate 13y agoI don't think you understand how little regulations have to do with veg*nism.
- coherentpony 13y agoAlright, I give up; I have clearly misunderstood something.
- raldi 13y agoAs someone who eats meat all the time, I also couldn't be more excited. First this stuff will be an inferior meat substitute. Then it'll be an equivalent meat substitute. Then it'll improve upon nature itself, and we'll be eating things that taste ten times better than bacon, and fifty times better than steak, and it will all be without a twinge of guilt.
- jared314 13y agoThat sounds like the path of artificial sweeteners. If history is any guide, there will also be a backlash where its artificial nature will be equated with poison for your body.
- zevyoura 13y agoAs long as they only suppress demand enough to lower the price and not prevent development, I say let them complain.
- Falling3 13y agoHopefully it doesn't go down that path. I've never had an artificial sweetener I found halfway decent.
- lololomg 13y agoI thought so too but I got used to it and now I prefer it to sugar. Your brain just got to adjust.
- sp332 13y agoI think the best is a combination of acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) and sucralose (Splenda). It doesn't taste like sugar, but it's nice and sweet and they cover each others' aftertaste pretty well. Jone's Soda uses it for their diet drinks.
- illuminate 13y agoProgress is always demonized by people who worship the naturalistic fallacy.
- alex_doom 13y agoI would say the fast food industry is probably more excited. If the costs ever got below current beef prices.
- illuminate 13y agoGood. It'll be objectively better for the world.
- brooksbp 13y agoAs someone who doesn't eat meat for health reasons, I couldn't be more put off by this.
- Falling3 13y agoWell, I'm extremely excited about the impact this might have on the rest of the population. And I'd be ecstatic to have a more ethical alternative for my pets. Personally, I have no plans of going back to meat - even lab-grown.