Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by nixonpjoshua1 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

zapzupnz wrote: post #446

nixonpjoshua1 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your viable alternative is on the way https://www.fastcompany.com/40559474/this-salmon-burger-tast... https://primeroots.com/ Disclaimer: I am a cofounder of this company, we have recently rebranded to Prime Roots from Terramino

Though the texture of your burger doesn't look quite like what I have in mind, I'm curious to try it. Do you provide to New Zealand? A lot of these products are only available in the States, I find. Aspiring vegetarians and vegans down under have to wait.

We've made a burger first as it's simpler than making a fillet, that will come later. Sadly I do think we will be in the USA before New Zealand. We are planning to release first to those who sign up for our mailing list though, so if you want to try it and other things we are working on then that would be the best way to do so. We don't put out many emails, just using it as a way to make sure the early production goes out to those who care the most.

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

#462

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #344

Djvacto wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experiences, both as a meat-eater for most of my life and about a year of not eating meat, most of the reason you (or I, previously) couldn't stomach that kind of vector is because (at least in my case) it's the difference between thinking about where the meat comes from vs not. I was fully aware of what animals were, and that they died so I could have that food, but I never really tried to think about it. Basi…

I would advise against telling someone who they are or why they feel a particular way, without at least some minimal level of acquaintance. Meat comes from the corpses of animals slaughtered on our behalf. Selfishness does not come from eating it, or from insufficiently valuing the environmental impact of it, or from getting annoyed with people that have made it a cornerstone of their personal religion. I don't feel…

> The person making the claim has no specific interest in me or my prior claims, but is using me as a prop to preach to the more accessible listeners in the audience, and to their own choir. They are treating me exactly as I treat a piece of meat--a thing to be used to advance their own ends, rather than something of inherent value.

I doubt you'd see anyone arguing with you for any reason other than it benefitting them in some way, but it doesn't necessarily have to be because they are treating you "as a piece of meat". For example, I might ask you to reduce your meat consumption because in doing so you reduce your impact on the environment, even though you are a random stranger on the internet that I will likely never meet, because in doing so your actions indirectly have an effect on me.

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

#463

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #202

screye wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal I like a few Indian dishes, so I can appreciate what can be done in the vegetarian space. Even so, I'd find it difficult to believe that any of them could match a properly cooked smoked BBQ beef brisket in flavor or texture. Though I'm sure more than a few would make good side dishes, or work well with the brisket as an ingredient.

> Even so, I'd find it difficult to believe that any of them could match a properly cooked smoked BBQ beef brisket in flavor or texture.

The point is to have a similar abstract value of "tastiness", rather than having the exact same flavor or texture.

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

#464

Post by puranjay » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:28 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #322

puranjay wrote: post #146

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…

That idea doesn't work for me because I know for a fact that I don't really need meat to live a healthy life. My wife is vegetarian, as are my parents, and they're all healthy and happy. All my nutritional needs can be met with vegetarian alternatives.

I eat meat solely for the taste, which, when I get down to thinking about it, is a shallow and selfish reason

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

#465

Post by newnewpdro » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #458

newnewpdro wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more processing a food stuff undergoes the more opportunity there is for it to be adulterated and/or contaminated. Oftentimes it's not even intentional. e.g. An ingredient supplier from China delivers whey tainted with Cadmium, this gets mixed into a protein shake powder. Nowhere on the ingredients is Cadmium and the company producing protein shake powder had no intention whatever of producing Cadmium-laced shake…

> By simply avoiding consumption of chopped lettuce, a minimal amount of processing, one significantly reduced the probability they would be exposed to the e.coli. You seem to have an issue with globalization, not processing.

You seem to have an issue with reading comprehension, considering which sentence you specifically quoted.

What does globalization have to do with chopping lettuce on an industrial scale that disperses pathogens across massive batches?

It doesn't matter where the consolidated lettuce came from, the real problem is that it was processed.

Furthermore, in the example I'm referencing, which was thoroughly covered in the US news as the CDC got involved, we were dealing entirely with domestic suppliers from California and Arizona. But I don't see how that is relevant in the least. The problem is that the stuff was processed in aggregate.

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

#466

Post by nate_meurer » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

stochastic_monk wrote: post #357

nate_meurer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by "optimal performance". Your body needs a finite daily amount of each essential amino acid for tissue growth and repair. If you're an athlete you might need more at times, and some health problems can cause usage of particular aminos to spike, but the requirement is always finite. Consuming more than those amounts has no proven benefit (unless that protein is meant to displace calories from c…

I’ve seen a lot of results regarding net protein synthesis with respect to amino acid profiles, and in general, higher concentrations of specific amino acids were tied to greater synthesis. (Especially Leucine through mTOR.) Is this misleading somehow?

Yeah, leucine is a bit of a hot topic among the intermittent fasting crowd because of its apparent ability to arrest fasting-induced autophagy. Some amount is clearly critical for anabolic signaling, but the evidence I've seen indicates that extra dietary leucine (in excess of typical consumption) has no effect on actual muscle synthesis [1].

There is compelling evidence supporting supplementation of some conditionally essential amino acids such as carnosine (perhaps vis-a-vis beta-alanine) and glutamine. There's also increasing interest in restriction of specific amino acids, namely methionine, for anti-aging and cancer treatment.

But all this talk of supplementation and restriction, outside of what occurs naturally in foods, stands in opposition to the dietary notion of protein completeness. My hope is that it will eventually lead to more appropriate and flexible measures of dietary protein quality.

1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844186

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

#467

Post by gbear605 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #275

be-ez wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of beef does not include the environmental impact so I'm not sure this is a good indicator of the impact of making a product. Beef/Milk in the USA is also subsidized...

Beef is expensive though! I don't think people are reading the grandparent post carefully enough. I think the point is correct. Obviously at the margins there are costs to environmental impact that may or may not be realized in consumer pricing and there's lots to argue about on the regulatory side. But in general, if you have to "equivalent" products shipped and produced in bulk, and one costs 4x as much as another…

Or there are significant fixed costs that have not been amortized - for example, R&D for an entirely new type of burger. It’s very possible that the materials cost (growing ingredients + manufacturing) of the impossible burger is less than the materials costs of a beef burger while still costing more in a store.

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

#468

Post by gbear605 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

white-flame wrote: post #381

puranjay wrote: post #146

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

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 a…

Animals, or at least cows, pigs, and chicken, clearly show a level of consciousness that plants do not

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

#469

Post by gbear605 » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

zornado wrote: post #143

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.

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

Highly processed foods are problematic when they’re unhealthy, which they usually are. The impossible burger seems to be healthy, relatively speaking - it’s not loaded with fats, sugar, and salt, unlike a lot of processed food.

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

#470

Post by toasterlovin » Wed, Jan 09, 2019, 5:41 AM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #467

ajross wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef is expensive though! I don't think people are reading the grandparent post carefully enough. I think the point is correct. Obviously at the margins there are costs to environmental impact that may or may not be realized in consumer pricing and there's lots to argue about on the regulatory side. But in general, if you have to "equivalent" products shipped and produced in bulk, and one costs 4x as much as another…

Or there are significant fixed costs that have not been amortized - for example, R&D for an entirely new type of burger. It’s very possible that the materials cost (growing ingredients + manufacturing) of the impossible burger is less than the materials costs of a beef burger while still costing more in a store.

Not the person you're responding to, but their grand parent. If you look at food costs at the grocery store, it's pretty clear that a plant based burger which is cheaper than a beef based burger is possible in theory. And I actually believe that this will happen eventually, but I was responding to somebody who was stating categorically that these burgers were more environmentally friendly than beef burgers. My point was simply that that's probably not the case today.

And to speak to your point specifically: if it were simply a matter of reducing per-unit R&D costs by achieving economies of scale, they should be selling below cost so that they can grow unit volume. It's hard to achieve economies of scale when your product is more expensive than the competition.