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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

#381
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.

I love meat but I've always struggled to reconcile my love of eating it with my love of animals. I would be happy to pay a premium if it meant I could get meat-like taste without the guilt

Consider that killing a living thing to eat its body is not unique to "meat", nor is raising it in a controlled environment for the purpose of consumption. Fish (as is sometimes classified separately) and vegetables are living things raised and killed for consumption of their bodies as well.

I believe reconciling all of these as ethically equal (including raising the ethical weight of killing a plant as equal to an animal) is important for sanely dealing with our natural ecosystem of food. The "aliveness" of plants is continually researched and shown in a positive light, and it's hard to draw a clear and reasonable line between "life that is acceptable to eat" and "life that is not acceptable to eat".

When you look at the spectrum of life and how ethically impactful killing it for food is, it tends to follow anthropomorphism and social compatibility with humans, which doesn't seem objective enough to be pursued for widely-accepted ethics, but merely for local cultural acceptability.

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

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love meat but I've always struggled to reconcile my love of eating it with my love of animals. I would be happy to pay a premium if it meant I could get meat-like taste without the guilt

You don't have to feel guilty. It is the disconnection between humans and animals that causes many of those feelings and if you shift your thinking, you can have a much better experience. When you participate in the process of raising, killing, butchering, and eating the animals which are your food you will appreciate them – love them – and the life they had and gave for you to live. Food encased in plastic from a gr…

Unless you can argue that the cows don't mind anything about the way they're treated (including slaughter), then there's reason to feel guilty. If you can live without that (and you can, vegetarians exist), then there's reason to feel guilty about not doing so.

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

#383
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not getting this. Highly processed foods are the source of all problems and people cheer up for synthetic food!

The devil's in the details. Because some processed food is bad doesn't mean it all it.

In this case it certainly looses from straight up beans or lentils. It will straight up win from a regular burger though.

Talking health here. Nothing to back it up, just common sense about cholesterol and different fats.

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

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love meat but I've always struggled to reconcile my love of eating it with my love of animals. I would be happy to pay a premium if it meant I could get meat-like taste without the guilt

I'm not sure if I'd eat this burger, but if lab-grown meat was available and as good as the natural alternative, I think I would definitely switch. Sadly if everyone did this it would probably mean we would only see cows, sheep etc in zoos, rather than grazing in fields.

You should really give them a shot before entirely dismissing them out of hand. Admittedly my opinion is less informed, being a vegetarian, but I love them. My wife loves them too though, and her favorite food is steak.

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

#386
post #286

I unironically can't wait to read release notes about newer versions of my food

Not only this, but we should have continuous integration testing. Each batch of every product should be run through a litany of health and safety tests, and such a thing could be crowdsourced.

Would be cool if first X% of every batch got a discount, provided they submit a simple QA report.

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights So you're against animal anti-cruelty laws? Are you okay with animals like dogs and cats being torture for human entertainment?

Cruelty means e.g. causing pain. We can kill animals without causing them pain.

At a broad enough definition of pain, that is very hard. Many of our farm animals have strong family ties. In order to kill them you have to sever them ties. That hurts. If you see intellegent mammals being reunited after some time apart you will know they reeeeaaly love each other, much like we humans do.

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

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with all that being said, it would still make sense to make sure a burger is a source of complete protein - you know, just like the original article. Closer to optimal food, fewer worries, greater value, etc. etc. So, is the IB 2.0 a source of complete protein or not? I'm asking this from a pure "what's the spec sheet here" point of view.

The problem is that your usage of the phrase "complete protein" doesn't really make sense here. Three impossible burgers do in fact provide complete protein for a whole day, meaning they provide the RDA of all essential amino acids for an average adult. And that would be true even if the burger consisted only of wheat protein. The listed ingredients include protein from wheat, soy, and potato, so it's quite possible…

> that doesn't really mean anything in practice, unless you want to try to survive on just a couple of impossible burgers per day

You're not wrong, but I think you're taking a very narrow view here. There are situations when having a good source of complete protein is important. E.g. you're working out and you need to increase the muscular mass. In that case, you better make sure your main source of protein is indeed complete.

The real world is annoyingly diverse sometimes.

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

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My values are not yours. I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights. This is a fundamental disagreement, the only possible peaceful solution is agree to disagree (I hope we don't come down to the non-peaceful ones)

>I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights So you're against animal anti-cruelty laws? Are you okay with animals like dogs and cats being torture for human entertainment?

Animal cruelty laws also police an active precursor behavior that might easily turn into human cruelty, which is a justification that really has nothing to do with the animals themselves.

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

#390

I'm disappointed they switched away from seitan / gluten protein to soy protein. I just like wheat protein better, it feels better to me. But there's tremendous--and unfounded--pressure to eliminate gluten. Sad.

It's not unfounded ... for whatever reason, it seems very few people are allergic to soy, whereas more than 1% of population (Americans ? not sure) have 'allergies' to gluten.

My daughter has diagnosed celiac disease, so I'm glad for any pressure to eliminate gluten :) I'm also amazed at how many things you wouldn't imagine have gluten :(

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