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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

#191

Post by areyousure »

sdenton4 wrote: post #187
MK999 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you quantify that at all? How much of a discount is there baked in due to subsidies?

Here's a list written by a guy who wrote a book on the economics of meat production in the US. (Yeah, it's on the PETA web site, but somehow the 'i just really like big Macs' crowd doesn't get around to doing research on food in the same way...) http://www.peta.org/living/food/10-things-wish-everyone-knew... His top-line number is that a $5 burger would cost $13 without various subsidies, funded by $38B or year in su…

The figure of $13 per $5 burger includes other "externalizing" costs and is almost entirely healthcare: https://meatonomics.com/2013/06/24/introducing-a-new-book-ab...

The purported subsidies of $38 billion per year divided by the 50 billion burgers per year that everyone seems to think Americans eat (including this author) is less than $1 per burger.

(But the $38 billion/year is wrong too ...)

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

#192

Post by crowbahr »

pyre wrote: post #128
crowbahr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is getting plants to taste as good as meat.

The real problem is the thinking that "it tastes good" trumps all other concerns. Heaven forbid you develop a taste for "man flesh."

1. Soylent is the majority of my caloric intake, so cut out the passive aggressive bullshit I'm trying to make meaningful contributions here.

2. I'm stating the major hurdles that need to be crossed for mainstream adoption. We will not see major shift without an alternative that people want to embrace both ethically and in flavor. Bacon is obsessed over for a reason; people don't want to give that up. We simply won't see a major shift without meat substitutes tasting like meat.

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

#193

Post by crowbahr »

sanswork wrote: post #68
crowbahr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is getting plants to taste as good as meat.

People who don't have meat based diets tend to not agree that meats taste good(after some time if they were heavy meat eaters before). So the solution is to start kids on meat free diets and keep them on them then within a generation most people won't think meat tastes as good as plants. Problem solved.

I'd love to see studies on that. My personal anecdotal experience has not been that nor has it been that for friends and family who have tried vegetarianism/veganism, but it'd be heartening to see that there is documented proof that we can shift.

I've switched the majority of my caloric intake over to Soylent but I still end up craving meat, for example.

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

#194

Post by agitator »

munin wrote: post #146
agitator wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animals are an extremely inefficient way of producing food: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-80...

Did you read that article? Do you understand the context it's coming from? This article is a call to grass-feed cows, not stop having cows. Humans can process grains just fine. Humans can't process grass, cows can. Cows have four stomachs. Do you? It's way more efficient (perhaps counter-intuitively) for livestock to eat the grass, then turn it into meat, then be killed and have us eat the meat, than it is for us to…

I did read the article and it lists multiple inefficiencies. And I didn't claim that the article was about halting factory beef farming, so I'm not sure where you got that from. There is one line in there about Americans meeting their protein and fat intake requirements if cows were solely fed on grass.

Great rant on humans eating grass, but what does that have to do with anything? No one is saying you need to eat grass. The article is about the direct human consumption of grain vs. production of grain, feeding and growing cows, slaughtering them, shipping them, then consuming them.

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

#195

Post by ceras »

muninn_ wrote: post #4
brohoolio wrote: post #3

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.

I'm willing to bet that this is for two reasons: 1. It's expensive because people with more money are more likely to be vegetarian. 2. We don't pay for the true cost of meat, i.e. green house gas emissions, water usage, transportation costs, etc....

Just to add to this, there's also #3: lack of scale. IIRC Beyond Meat has also stated that with comparable scale they could match the price of similar beef products. Marketing speak or not, I'm inclined to believe it since it's clearly a niche market right now, and vegan products like Just Mayo that have achieved scale like Just Mayo are very cheap -- enough to convince low-end, mass market establishments like 7-11 to default to it.

More evidence: price of tofu is more comparable to meat in places with more Asian and international cuisines. E.g. tofu is cheaper here in at my Manhattan Whole Foods than in my southern hometown's supermarkets, despite most foods being more expensive. Even cheaper in Asian supermarkets.

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

#196

Post by kranner »

soheil wrote: post #180
sanswork wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If aliens arrived tomorrow and took half the humans to another planet to farm their meat would you think that was great for those humans because we are now a multiplanetary species?

That would be terrible, but if they did that to the cows or plants I wouldn't object. Cows don't understand what's happening to them we would! Unless we wouldn't as aliens might already be secretly controlling us and that's why we don't understand "the meaning of life" etc. in which case it's not that bad is it?

> Cows don't understand what's happening to them

I don't believe this is as true as you seem to think.

Supposing someone proved to you with some future subjectivity-detecting tricorder that cows do understand all they go through, will you change your mind about the humane bullet method?

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

#197

Post by jimmywanger »

sanswork wrote: post #167
jimmywanger wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right so that land becomes unproductive land Why? It's perfectly productive once you let some goats on that land and then eat the goats. > And that is fine since we don't need as much farm land to sustain a non-meat society. Should we switch to a completely potato agriculture then? If your argument against meat is waste, then we should go towards whatever crop has the highest yield per acre. Why waste all that acre…

>Why? It's perfectly productive once you let some goats on that land and then eat the goats. Because it isn't needed for food production anymore. >If your argument against meat is waste My argument against meat isn't waste. Less waste is a benefit but not a primary reason. >You're missing the point, which is that we're by necessity creating all this other material that can be used to feed animals as a necessary bypro…

> I've read this a few times and I keep reading it the same way "We produce waste that can be used to feed animals as a bitproduct of producing feed for animals?

My point is that we don't need to produce feed for animals, they do fine just on pastureland.

The way we currently raise grains is problematic enough as it is, requiring huge fertilizer inputs[1] which require petrochemicals. Eating grains is not a sustainable alternative - if we raised grains for human food, might as well feed animals and get some steaks out of it.

>And tons more cleared grassland.

The great plains did not need to be cleared. They were perfect pastures for grazing animals, not the modern monoculture of grains.

[1] (we're running out of phosphorous http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2013/04/01/phosphorus-essential...)

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

#198

Post by jimmywanger »

xexers wrote: post #179
jimmywanger wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So do the animals. Not really. Cows, goats, sheep raised somewhat naturally eat grass and leaves and twigs, things we cannot digest. They can also eat the parts of the tomato that we don't eat, such as the stalks and leaves. If you're talking about feeling animals with grains, the way we grow grains is even more problematic, with huge amounts of petroleum and water inputs.

> Cows, goats, sheep raised somewhat naturally eat grass and leaves and twigs, things we cannot digest That's correct. The problem is, 99% of our animals in america are not raised that way [1]. They are raised eating soy, wheat, and corn. Grass is more expensive, so it's not used. [1]: https://farmforward.com/ending-factory-farming/

> Grass is more expensive, so it's not used.

Nit: grass is less profitable. The expense of grass is nothing, but it takes longer to raise the livestock to pasture weight and the meat is less marbled and gamier in texture, which drives the price down.

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

#199

Post by SN76477 »

bglazer wrote: post #181
nickpsecurity wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious about that too being from Memphis. Which BBQ chain?

Baby Jacks BBQ You're from Memphis? It's so rare to run into another Memphian on HN.

Im in Memphis. PM me for the local slack info.

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

#200

Post by soheil »

kranner wrote: post #196
soheil wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be terrible, but if they did that to the cows or plants I wouldn't object. Cows don't understand what's happening to them we would! Unless we wouldn't as aliens might already be secretly controlling us and that's why we don't understand "the meaning of life" etc. in which case it's not that bad is it?

> Cows don't understand what's happening to them I don't believe this is as true as you seem to think. Supposing someone proved to you with some future subjectivity-detecting tricorder that cows do understand all they go through, will you change your mind about the humane bullet method?

Yes and then I'll use my transporter to beam myself to the past to right all the wrongs.

> cows do understand all they go through Also you seem to be exaggerating a bit, what do you exactly mean by all? Are you talking about their entire life or just when they're about to be slaughtered, because I think for most parts cows have a pretty happy life. The slaughtering could be done more precisely and quickly but that's really just negligence on the part of some bad actors and not something that is inherently difficult to fix.

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