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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

#481

Post by Vinnl »

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…

> 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".

How about the line between "life that will likely suffer when prepared for us to eat" and "life that will likely not suffer when prepared for us to eat"?

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

#482

Post by mikekchar »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #310
gadders wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Sadly if everyone did this it would probably mean we would only see cows, sheep etc in zoos, rather than grazing in fields." Eh, not really, as cows and sheep and goats still provide valuable resources. Milk and wools, for example. I'm guessing lots of other things can be taken as they die naturally - leathers and stuff from bones and pet foods and whatnot. Sure, we could eventually engineer ourselves out of needing…

I assume virtually everyone knows but I'll be pedantic anyway: if one wants to reduce the number of animals killed, the milk industry not immune. A cow's natural lifespan is 18-22 years (according to google). The average lifespan of a dairy cow is 4-6 years. A dairy cow has between 2-4 calves in that time. Only 1 is needed for replacement, meaning that for each dairy cow in the herd, you kill a calf every second year. Unfortunately it is not economically viable to slaughter dairy cows for meat (the meat is distributed in a non-efficient fashion on dairy cows). A cow produces about 8,800 litres of milk in a year (which is unbelievable to me), though only when calving. So the number of litres of milk per dead calf is about 5-7,000 (give or take -- it's the middle of the night so someone should better check my math ;-) ). It's surprisingly efficient, but not free.

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

#483

Post by ksec »

vel0city wrote: post #324
logfromblammo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the only kind of vegan proselytizing that I can stomach. If you can make food that tastes as good as meat, with nutrition similar to meat, and sell it at a lower price than meat, I will switch overnight, and never look back. And it would be nice if it came in bulk forms, rather than just as pre-formed patties. I eat ground beef a lot more often than I eat burgers. Until then, good luck with the test kit…

IRT meat substitutes coming in bulk forms as opposed to pre-formed patties, I've had "Beyond Meat" before which comes as a ground beef substitute as well as patties. The prices for Beyond Meat weren't much higher than the leanest ground beef at the grocery store. https://www.beyondmeat.com/

It is currently selling at around $30 /kg for Patties. Retails for Ground Beef goes around $10 / Kg.

I would certainly not call that cheap or even affordable.

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

#484

Post by Vinnl »

CompelTechnic wrote: post #131
bluGill wrote: post #117

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)

Interesting, judging by the other replies, that the opponents in your debate have not agreed to disagree, despite the fact that the underlying differences are deep-rooted enough that any action on their part, especially on an internet forum, is unlikely to make a change.

> the underlying differences are deep-rooted enough

Although I'm not one of the other replies, I do think I'd actually disagree on this point. I used to feel the same way like GP (and still do, to some extent), but my view has definitely softened after learning more. After being presented with some ethical dilemma's, and seeing descriptions of how we actually treat animals, I found out I actually can be affected by the suffering of animals - just not to the same scale.

In other words: even though it might feel like a fundamental disagreement, I've experienced that there can still be room for your opinion to change to at least move somewhat in the other direction.

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

#485

Post by atonse »

Skunkleton wrote: post #451
teh_klev wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dp this often or ever on HN, but....Bullshit, there are far more vegetarian foods available than your typical fish, pork, beef, lamb and poultry (and perhaps "game") dishes. I'm not a vegetarian, but I can certainly say that products based on a previous living animal are certainly not a "subset" of vegetable based diets. What a most ridiculous assertion to make.

How am I wrong? By not eating meat you are making a compromise. Maybe worthwhile, but it still is a compromise.

You're being downvoted because you're missing the point, and trying to argue semantics.

Yes, of course, by the number of individual ingredient options, keeping meat out is a "subset" in the strictest of mathematical definitions, but that is a largely useless argument.

The point is, while this is changing a lot in the US coasts for example, in most other places in the US (and even worse in parts of Europe I've travelled to), the dishes that are actually vegetarian (contain only ingredients derived from vegetables or spices), are a VERY small subset, usually side dishes.

But in Indian cuisine (and probably Ethiopian as the other poster stated), you could have just as much of a variety of dishes that are just made from vegetables, that you wouldn't grow tired of eating mashed potatoes, green beans, and salads.

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

#486

Post by Vinnl »

teh_klev wrote: post #401
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.

UK/EU citizen here (also having written this with a bottle of wine inside me :)) You know, I'm not a vegan, nor even a vegetarian. But as I've gotten older (I'm knocking on 52 - and god damn used to love a nicely cooked fillet steak!) I've found my eating habits tending more towards vegetarian. The last red meat I ate was a year ago...not through health reasons, but because I've kinda gone off it. I still eat some ch…

> if we treat egg layers nice, and if we treat cows nice can't we still have eggs and milk for a while?

Not (really) trying to ruin your life here, but this idea was crushed for me when I realised that only female chickens can lay eggs, and that roosters end up in the shredder as soon as their sex is identified. I guess that's still less suffering than those that are raised for slaughter in industrial farming, but it's still not great...

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

#487

Post by Vinnl »

rebuilder wrote: post #169
Vinnl wrote: post #11

I'm really curious about the "fake meat" products that exist in other countries. In the Netherlands, there's been enormous growth both in the number of vegetarians and in the number of "fake meat" products that have become widely available, and the quality of the latter has improved dramatically. Before, these products were mostly useful for the non-vegetarians wanting to prepare a meal for vegetarians without having…

There's been kind of a boom in vegetarian ready-made foods in Finland. I think it started with Pulled Oats ( https://goldandgreenfoods.com ), but soon after that appeared in stores, several of the major food producers came out with their own vegetarian meat-substitutes, with varying degrees of emphasis on replacing meat and veganness etc. There's even a "healthier" ground pork that has carrots mixed in. I'm not a hug…

Cool, that sounds rather similar to the situation in the Netherlands! It'll be interesting once all these local companies start going international which win out. With a few mergers and acquisitions, at a certain point the best products of each will probably be available in many countries, which would make this even more accessible. Good prospects!

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

#488

Post by matt-snider »

maxxxxx wrote: post #316
atonse wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being of Indian descent, I might be biased. But Indian cuisine is the only cuisine I'm aware of where being vegetarian isn't a compromise in the creativity, quality, and sheer flavors available to you. For other cuisines, where centuries of culinary creativity mostly went towards making meat, this is the only viable approach to weaning us off growing animals for meaty foods.

There are also quite a few German/Austrian dishes that are sweet but are a full meal. Look up "Kaiserschmarrn" or " Zwetschgenknoedel". "Kässpätzle" are not sweet but also a full meal.

I wouldn't consider either German or Austrian cuisines to be vegetarian-friendly. Especially when contrasted with Indian food.

Having a few dishes that simply don't contain meat is a pretty low standard to set. I think good vegetarian cuisine should also make up for the lost nutritional value of meat (e.g. protein through lentils, seitan, tofu, etc), and of course, have the creativity and effort go into making it delicious. In German/Austrian cuisine, I find that often the vegetarian dishes are an afterthought, being more often on par with a side dish, rather than a true main course.

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

#489

Post by matt-snider »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #80
Vinnl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do visit the Netherlands and actually want to try it, they've actually opened a restaurant (I haven't been there, but I assume it's the best way to try it) in the Hague: https://www.devegetarischeslager.nl/restaurant That said, now that they've been acquired by Unilever, you might be able to try them in your own country before too long :) I'm not sure at what point something is high in protein, but [1] lists 2…

Good to know! I work just a block or two down from the Unilever Canada offices in Toronto. Hopefully they'll decide to bring it in.

Toronto actually has a "vegetarian butcher" like this: https://yamchops.com/

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

#490

Post by dabos999 »

There's no science behind meat affects the environment, fakenews as always, what else can you expect from journalists.

Also a meat diet is the healthiest diet know to man.

Too bad so many people are uninformed. For example a meat only diet is the natural cure for type 2 diabetes.

www.justmeat.co

Plants are medicine, not food.

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