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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

#81

Glad this version is made without gluten, unlike the current Impossible Burger. In the mean time, Beyond Meat has been my goto burger for a few months.

I think Impossible (even v1.0) is more meat-like, but I actually like Beyond better. I like the ever so slightly stiffer chew and legume undertone. When I go to my favorite Seattle burger place (Lunchbox Lab) I go for the Beyond version and it's awesome.

It's great that there are meatless options almost indistinguishable from real meat. It's also great that there are tasty options which resemble meat only slightly. And everything in between. The more the merrier.

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

#82
Whether accurate or not, lots of opinion swirls around the effects that eating soy has on testosterone levels in men. Even if these plant based "meats" are indistinguishable in flavor and texture, they might end up losing to lab grown meat in the long run because of concerns like that.

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

#83
post #76
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snack food. I'd love a snack food producer that only makes really healthy products that taste amazing, but which doesn't actually market anything as being healthy. They don't have to mimic existing snacks and probably shouldn't - nobody wants a "fake" snack when they're feeling gluttonous. I'm not ideologically vegan, but I do think vegan food science could lead the way here.

Hmm, but I take it these snacks should be different from, say, olives, or biscuits with avocado, or something like that? And if so, in what way? (And of course, in the non-healthy category, there are things like crisps or popcorn for when you're actually gluttonous.)

Different in such a way that people who pride themselves on binging on junk food because they're all grown up and you can't tell them what to do will be tricked into eating healthy anyway.

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

#84
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

When I cook, I cook around my choice of meat. If I'm making something vegetarian I have a completely different mindset.

Compare the use of vegetables in American cuisine versus vegetarian Indian cuisine.

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

#85
post #35
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?

Think of the difference between Indian vegetarian food vs. tofurkey, imitation bacon, etc.

There are vegetarian cultures that have refined their cuisine over thousands of years to be nutritionally adequate and delicious. Western vegan food tends to just be imitations of non-vegan Western food and it's unfortunate.

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

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 --…

The rolling hills of Wales and northern England are never going to be great for crops, but they are perfect grassland for feeding cattle and lamb. The grass hills are beautiful, it would be a great shame to see them converted to crops. I would argue they won’t be, and therefore the cattle raised on them is effecient.

The problem as I understand it is that while cattle are often raised in such places - grazing on open grass plains which could not support other crops - they are usually transferred to feedlots later in their life, where a significant portion of the nutrients used to support them come from corn, soy, etc, which do come from croplands.

So in our current system it does appear that cattle, even if they occupy some grassland space which could not be more efficiently used, do inevitably use resources which could be more efficiently used to feed humans directly.

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

#87
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest other plant protein sources, like soy or pea. Wheat, in particular, has a terrible amino acid profile for humans [0]. Aside from making it so that anyone with coeliac can't consume their burgers, it's just not as effective for humans as animal protein. Pea and soy, however, are nearly as effective and much better for the earth/environment. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3887888

The Impossible Burger is designed to use environmentally friendly ingredients that can scale. I don't understand what your issue is.

I’m suggesting they simply use different plant protein to do so.

Would you consider wheat protein to be the only kind that can scale? If so, why?

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

#88
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.

Just out of curiosity, are you vegan/veg? I hear this point of view a lot online but I’ve rarely heard it within the vegan community where people are usually pretty honest about craving junk food/burgers etc every now and again. Not trying to call you out, genuinely curious.

I'm neither but I have been vegetarian for extended periods of time. When I've lapsed out of vegetarianism it's been because it's easier for me to throw together a satisfying meal with meat. If I take about twice as long I can make an equally satisfying vegetarian meal. When I try going vegetarian again I'll be sure to get better at throwing together meals first.

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

#89
post #46
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.

Being born in India, I've had the privilege to eat vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal. While I welcome 'impossible' meat replacements, it is funny that the meat reduction movement is looking at such impractical and immature products instead of simpler solutions such as bringing veg friendly cuisines to the fore. I am opposed to advocating for cold-turkey veganism though. Milk products and e…

Food is a cultural and emotional issue. As much as some people like to try new dishes, others prefer to stick to what they know and love, give or take a few variations. What you eat may be part of your identity and culture, and giving that up for something foreign that's supposedly better isn't easy. Seemingly small steps are an easier sell.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 --…

The rolling hills of Wales and northern England are never going to be great for crops, but they are perfect grassland for feeding cattle and lamb. The grass hills are beautiful, it would be a great shame to see them converted to crops. I would argue they won’t be, and therefore the cattle raised on them is effecient.

Decreasing meat consumption would dramatically decrease the amount of land amount used for crop agriculture, not increase it. 85% of the UK's landmass is grazing land and crops grown specifically as animal feed[1].

In 2010, the British livestock industry needed an area the size of Yorkshire just to produce the soy used in feed. But if global demand for meat grows as expected, the report says, soy production would need to increase by nearly 80% by 2050. [2]

From a completely theoretical standpoint, if humans were to stop consuming meat we would actually need to close 1000's of crop farms, not open them on rolling hills, even when accounting for our dietary increase in plants. I'd therefore argue that it's a shame the land has to be used for agriculture at all. Better would be to maintain them as national parks and the like.

[1]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017...

[2] (PDF WARNING) https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-10/WWF_Appet...

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