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Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

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Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#31

Post by 24gttghh »

toyg wrote: post #9
nindalf wrote: post #3

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat , most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

Until the people currently destroying forests to grow cattle, start destroying forests to grow ingredients for these burgers. Soil depletion is also a thing. I still remember the argument for biofuel and where it ended up. More options in the mix is always good, but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

I've been under the impression that plant-based proteins take up less land than does animal-derived protein[0][1][2]. I could go on with the citations. So yes, replacing everything with plant-based protein would be vastly better.

Edit: Vastly better than Beef*

[0]https://www.wri.org/resources/charts-graphs/animal-based-foo...

[1]https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899434/

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#32

Post by [deleted] »

toyg wrote: post #9
nindalf wrote: post #3

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat , most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

Until the people currently destroying forests to grow cattle, start destroying forests to grow ingredients for these burgers. Soil depletion is also a thing. I still remember the argument for biofuel and where it ended up. More options in the mix is always good, but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

[deleted]

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#33

Post by cerebellum42 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #20
cerebellum42 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cattle need to be fed too, and they don't turn their food into meat very efficiently. That's why replacing meat with plant based alternatives is (almost) always a huge gain in efficiency, in terms of resource use.

I believe this is an urban legend? Anyway, most crops don't convert to protein any better than cattle.

Crops are also not perfectly efficient, but it's simply replacing two chained instances of inefficiencies with one.

Instead of

Crops -> Animal feed -> Cattle -> Meat -> Eat

you have

Crops -> some processing -> Eat

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#34

Post by picodguyo »

danharaj wrote: post #6

That's really cool. Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors. Imitation can only be playing catch-up. The best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing.

I say whatever sells more non-meat burgers is good. Telling a die-hard meat eater to just eat a mushroom or some eggplant is not going to be effective.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#35

Post by Vinnl »

danharaj wrote: post #6

That's really cool. Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors. Imitation can only be playing catch-up. The best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing.

What kind of vegan food are you thinking of? I mean, things like nuts, beans, etc. already exist. What requirements should "new" food fulfil? Providing the right nutrients?

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#36

Post by Jenz »

the_gastropod wrote: post #25
danharaj wrote: post #6

That's really cool. Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors. Imitation can only be playing catch-up. The best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing.

Hear hear! These kinds of foods I think are handy for people transitioning to a more vegetarian/vegan diet, when they still crave "traditional" foods like hamburgers and hotdogs. But I think they also goof up public perceptions of what good veg* food is.

As a non vegetarian (yet?), I must a agree.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#37

Post by colordrops »

danharaj wrote: post #6

That's really cool. Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors. Imitation can only be playing catch-up. The best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing.

> I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors.

Isn't that most vegan food already? I.e. vegetables

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#38

Post by laurenbee »

SupaFlyak wrote: post #12

Do vegan/vegetarians really want something that reminds them of meat products? Why not just make a good meat-free sandwich that doesn't imitate another product?

I've been vegan for 8+ years and am a fan of the Impossible Burger. I'm vegan for ethical reasons but certainly remember how good burgers/cheese/etc. tasted, so the closer vegan alternatives can get, the better!

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#39

Post by mistercow »

toyg wrote: post #9
nindalf wrote: post #3

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat , most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

Until the people currently destroying forests to grow cattle, start destroying forests to grow ingredients for these burgers. Soil depletion is also a thing. I still remember the argument for biofuel and where it ended up. More options in the mix is always good, but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

Unless the Impossible Burger is exceptionally inefficient to produce, that's still a huge win. An acre of land can produce about twenty times as much edible protein from soy as from beef.

Re: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

#40

Post by tptacek »

alangpierce wrote: post #27
toyg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the people currently destroying forests to grow cattle, start destroying forests to grow ingredients for these burgers. Soil depletion is also a thing. I still remember the argument for biofuel and where it ended up. More options in the mix is always good, but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

Plant-based foods are almost always significantly more efficient to produce than meat since you no longer need to grow all of the food to feed an animal for its entire life. From another article ( https://www.cnet.com/news/impossible-burger-2-0-tastes-like-... ): > But Impossible Foods can produce a burger using a fourth of the water and less than 4 percent of the land -- and emit one-tenth of the greenhouse gases --…

It's easy to win the argument that plant-based foods are more efficient to mass-produce than CAFO meat, but you might need to be careful generalizing; pigs and chickens fed forage and scrap are supposedly pretty efficient as well.

(I have no idea if there's an efficient way to scale beef).

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