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Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

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Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#31

Interesting to see if the company actually shifts it's culture. My wife is vegetarian so I'm exposed to quite a bit of different sources of veggie protein. My concern is that the fake meat stuff is actually kind of expensive compared to meat. If it was cheaper I can see more folks move in that direction.

It also doesn't taste like meat. I will happily eat a vegan meal that tastes good. I'll eat meat that tastes good. But I just don't see a point in buying a "soy chicken schnitzel" which does not taste like chicken at all. Why should I be interested in that product in the first place? Hopefully one day we'll get to actually replicating the taste properly. Or growing meat synthetically. I'm happy to move to either.

I'm hesitant to believe you've had modern, high quality (or even moderate quality) meat-replacements. My girlfriend is vegan so I've been exposed to an array of options, and there are plenty that I would have never even guessed weren't meat had I not already known. There are members of the vegan community that won't even eat some meat-replacements because it tastes and feels too much like flesh and it grosses them out. Granted, part of that effect likely comes from not exposing oneself to meat for extended periods of time, but the technology really is making rapid progress. Getting some big, mainstream money behind it is only going to accelerate that process.

It doesn't always even come down to technology either, you just have to know some of the methods. Prepare a jackfruit the right way and it becomes delicious seasoned shredded chicken. Textured vegetable protein can become seasoned ground beef just as easily. Yeah, the flavoring plays a big role in those cases (which it often does for meat-replacements, to be fair), but it does in many situations with meat preparation too e.g. adding cumin to make taco meat, marinading your meats, slathering them in BBQ sauce, etc.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#33
post #17

According to random people on the internet plant based protein isn't as good your for cat as animal based protein. Why couldn't that be the same for humans?

Well, you see, one is a cat. The other's people. But more seriously, cats evolved as carnivores and humans as omnivores.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#34

Seems a certainty to me, assuming that eventually the cost of the carbon footprint gets passed down to consumers.

Carbon footprint for meat is significantly higher because you have to grow the plans and feed it to the animals, and moving up a trophic level is usually ~10% efficient. It's much more efficient to consume the plants directly.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#35
post #17

According to random people on the internet plant based protein isn't as good your for cat as animal based protein. Why couldn't that be the same for humans?

Cats are obligate carnivores. They can't synthesize all the nutrients they need from a plant diet.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#36

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

It's not clear to me that humans are going to think of a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food in the next century. We could potentially alter the animals into something that would be hard to recognize, but that'll be an evolution of animal husbandry, not something that will leave us bewildered at animals. What do you see that indicates we're going to make massive leaps beyond what animal life has al…

There's already a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food - plants. Running it through animals before we eat it is the inefficiency.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, on the same token I'm totally mystified that people used horses to pull plows. What the heck were they thinking?

I would argue the difference here is we could just, you know, eat the plants but we don't want to. 36% of US corn goes to feed animals for meat and dairy (3%-40% efficient). [1] There would be significantly more food to go around if the plants were just eaten directly. It would be more like if there were plows at the time that operated on solar but nobody wanted to use them, and instead, decided to tie horses to the…

If we all lived in 3 foot by 7 foot cubes it would cost a great deal less to heat our homes as well. Just because a more optimal way to do things exist doesn't mean anyone actually wants to do it. I enjoy eating meat, thus I will continue to do so.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to do aseptic technique and metabolic regulation rate for less energy than skin+immune system and a liver? Anyone who's ever cultured mammalian cells knows that you toss the medium with most of the carbon source remaining because it's gotten too acidic with lactate. Turns out that livers are a really energy-efficient way of keeping cells alive.

Why not grow pseudo-animals that consist of tiled blocks of muscle + liver + dermis?

Mmmm that phrasing. So appetizing.

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#39

Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/ ) seem likely to totally replace how we…

Actually, a lot of the perennial food crops we do or could eat are adapted to environments containing ungulates or other animals, and there are a number of nutrient problems and pathogen vectors that wouldn't be as much of an issue if the land was being judiciously (rotation) grazed.

What will end up being seen as crazy is locking them all up in a barn and burning fossil fuels to bring the food to them instead of them using their own legs, all for another 20% body mass and giant meat portions (think: steak, chicken breast).

Re: Tyson Foods CEO: The Future of Food Might Be Meatless

#40

What heartens me is that the shift towards plant-base protein can be gradual while still having a large impact. Ingredients like ground beef make up the majority(?) [1] of beef sold and there are already good plant based simulacra on the market [2] with more coming soon. I have my doubts we'll see anything marketable and cost competitive that could compete with larger cuts of meat in the next decade, but I could see…

I thought taco bell and now subway were only just 50% meat. I'm sure they'd go to more filler if they could legally label it as "meat"
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