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Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

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Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#191

Post by arkh »

corysama wrote: post #37
aphextron wrote: post #26

What is it with first-world vegans/vegetarians wanting to eat these extremely processed imitation meat frozen foods? There is an entire tradition of vegetarian cuisine around the world from Rasta Ital, to Hindu Sattvic, Afghani, and Thai which you could learn with just a tiny bit of effort.

I think the goal is more to transition omnivores away from meat. There is a consensus that the meat industry in unsustainable as is. But, there is also a strong belief that trying to convince the world they don't want meat via rational arguments is futile. Thus, we need work-arounds via either plants that mimic meat or changing the meat industry over to vat-brewed meat.

Mimicking is exactly how you get omnivores to not try your product.

You'd like me to try vegan food? Make real vegan cuisine with its own flavors and consistency. Don't try to make fake meat, I won't eat vegan to taste something meat-like. I'll eat it for good tasting vegetables and fruits.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#192

Post by detaro »

arkh wrote: post #191
corysama wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the goal is more to transition omnivores away from meat. There is a consensus that the meat industry in unsustainable as is. But, there is also a strong belief that trying to convince the world they don't want meat via rational arguments is futile. Thus, we need work-arounds via either plants that mimic meat or changing the meat industry over to vat-brewed meat.

Mimicking is exactly how you get omnivores to not try your product. You'd like me to try vegan food? Make real vegan cuisine with its own flavors and consistency. Don't try to make fake meat, I won't eat vegan to taste something meat-like. I'll eat it for good tasting vegetables and fruits.

Different subgroups. Replacement products are interesting for omnivores that want to get rid of meat in their diet. Omnivores that intend to remain such don't really care.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#193

Post by schitzapplebits »

fragmede wrote: post #174
jjeaff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on the type of burger. Occasionally, I enjoy a good In n Out Burger. I don't expect their meat quality is particularly good. "Patty melt" style burgers are generally less reliant on meat quality as long as you can get a good, crunchy, umami seat on the thin mean patty or patties. I suspect the thicker higher end style burgers would be more reliant on the quality of the beef. However, for economic…

In-n-Out burger patties are never frozen and the chain has a number of high-profile chefs as fans. Their beef may be ground and it's fast food, but McDonalds it ain't.

Freezing isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for burger patties with a good amount of fat. I'd rather have that than something that's been sitting around in the fridge for too long. As long as it's frozen very quickly and defrosted properly, freezing is fine.

In-N-Out meat is pretty good; it's just super thin. McDonald's is not good, but believe me, if McDonald's had a good burger patty, and if they wanted to freeze it, it wouldn't be any worse for it.

On the other side of things, In-N-Out doesn't freeze their fries, and they're much worse than the frozen fries from places like McDonald's or Shake Shack's crinkle-cut fries, and it's specifically because they don't do the fry-freeze-refry process critically important for great fries.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#194

Post by 3pt14159 »

mmanfrin wrote: post #65
resf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, do nutrition labels in USA generally not show figures per 100g?

No, and it's really obnoxious, because there are thresholds where content doesn't have to be listed. For example, a package of tic-tacs will say that it has 0g sugar per serving (a 'serving' being one tic-tac), but the whole (small) package will have something like 20g of sugar.

This is one thing I actually think America does right. I'm the type of person to eat a single tic-tac, but even if I acknowledge that there are failures, it's far easier for me to get a rough sense as to how bad eating something is if it lists it's actual content. Ideally there would be both, but having to do 0.85 * 260 just to get the calorie count for this is just annoying.

I do think the design of the labels is completely ridiculous, though. Sugar, trans fats, and caloric count should be made much more prominent and put in red so that uninformed people understand that these are the primary causes of sickness in America.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#195

Post by 19231838921 »

twelvechairs wrote: post #4

Tofu/soy burgers have been around for >20 years already. How is this significantly different? [Edit: way to be downvoted instantly for asking a serious critical question. Remember when hn prided itself on a higher level of discussion than reddit?]

Indeed, in the last couple of years HN has turned into a crude propaganda instrument.

One could as well read the former Pravda.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#196

Post by kazinator »

3pt14159 wrote: post #194
mmanfrin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and it's really obnoxious, because there are thresholds where content doesn't have to be listed. For example, a package of tic-tacs will say that it has 0g sugar per serving (a 'serving' being one tic-tac), but the whole (small) package will have something like 20g of sugar.

This is one thing I actually think America does right. I'm the type of person to eat a single tic-tac, but even if I acknowledge that there are failures, it's far easier for me to get a rough sense as to how bad eating something is if it lists it's actual content. Ideally there would be both, but having to do 0.85 * 260 just to get the calorie count for this is just annoying. I do think the design of the labels is co…

> put in red so that uninformed people understand that these are the primary causes of sickness in America.

The hypothesis here being what? Lack of red highlighting in informative tables is the cause for uninformedness? :)

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#197

Post by sneak »

spraak wrote: post #157
throwaway2016a wrote: post #56

I am extremely eager to see lab grown meat more so than I am eager to see better meat substitutes become mainstream. However, being a meat eater, since the news of this product came out however many months and years it was, I have been wanting to try it. Which is more than I can say for other meat substitutes.

It's hard for me to understand the excitement for lab meat. Can you explain your interest?

It is less resource intensive to produce. Hand-tuned assembly code burger vs transpiled javascript for the hot path (I eat cheeseburgers very often, as do many, many others in the countries I frequent).

You can feed more people with the same amount of resources. 80,000 humans a day die from lack of food. Everything we can do to meaningfully improve food production efficiency is a big win for the species.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#198

Post by NikolaeVarius »

kbart wrote: post #172
mrfusion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And msg is generally considered safe these days?

MSG itself is not a problem. Actually, it is so good, you can use lowest quality products, add some MSG and still get tasty meals. I avoid MSG precisely for this reason - I try to eat quality food and you may never know what's behind it when MSG is used.

Do you also avoid salt,because literally the exact same reasoning could be used for salt or any spices

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#199

Post by jmknoll »

benjaminjackman wrote: post #117
killjoywashere wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend in LA got my brother and I to try impossible burgers (he's pescatarian, I'm vegawarian): we agreed it was not that great.

What does vegawarian mean?

I assumed it was a typo, but apparently its an actual term. Basically vegetarian-friendly. Sounds a bit buzzword-y, but I like the concept.

https://www.greenprophet.com/2009/01/vegewarianism/

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#200

Post by cropsieboss »

shanev wrote: post #133
Taek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? Cows eat plants. The footprint from cows is largely due to the fact that you need 14 pounds of grain per pound of cow, if I remember correctly. Unless these burgers are somehow taking 14 pounds of grain to produce per pound of burger, I think we're in a better place. That said, eliminating cows I still don't think will help the environment. That freed up land will be bought and used for some other purpo…

Cows don't need grain. Grain feeding is part of industrial meat production that is highly detrimental to the environment. Feeding cows grass (and rotating them) though has the total opposite effect. It creates soil that can hold more water and sequester carbon. So it eliminates the need for grain production because cows simply eat grass while naturally fertilizing it. Huge fan of a carbon tax.

No way anyone can feed cows on grass alone if you want to earn big bucks or feed 200M their daily beef steak.
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