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Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

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Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#101
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the local diner sells an impossible burger on the menu along with a regular burger. The burger with fries is $5.99. The comparable impossible burger with fries is $11.99 If fries cost $2, then the regular burger costs $4 and the impossible burger costs $10 or 2.5 times the cost of the regular burger. That suggest there's a lot of room for profit for both the company and the retailer. But the key thing is that ther…

Most of the places I know of selling Impossible Burgers used to sell a veggie burger. Looks like an incremental improvement to me.

Back in the 1990's Denny's once had a veggie burger on their menu and they sold a total of 2 dozen I think nationwide. That's how bad veggie burgers were once though of.

Having had more than my share of bad veggie burgers, I've already eaten more than a dozen Impossible Burgers.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#102
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the local diner sells an impossible burger on the menu along with a regular burger. The burger with fries is $5.99. The comparable impossible burger with fries is $11.99 If fries cost $2, then the regular burger costs $4 and the impossible burger costs $10 or 2.5 times the cost of the regular burger. That suggest there's a lot of room for profit for both the company and the retailer. But the key thing is that ther…

Most of the places I know of selling Impossible Burgers used to sell a veggie burger. Looks like an incremental improvement to me.

In San Francisco the Impossible Burger is being sold at places that did not sell veggie burgers (e.g. Gott's at the Ferry Building).

I generally don't like veggies pretending to be meat, and I definitely don't want my veggies to bleed, but I did like the texture of the thing. Unfortunately it really only works with a ton of seasoning to mask the catfood taste.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#103
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed someone can be so hilariously wrong. ~90% of the calories a species takes in get lost going up the food chain. You need to grow ~1000 calories of plants to make 100 calories of beef. >Not to mention plants are nutrient deficient and as a result people have to eat far more of it Source? Also, what specific nutrients are you referring to? Where do you think the energy and minerals an animal has come from? >T…

Cows eat grass, which is just out there, growing naturally. Those aren't calories humans could be consuming; we don't have the right kind of stomaches. You can view a cow as machine for extracting the nutrients in grass into a dense, human-digestible form. Pretty cool. I'm also not sure your "modern agriculture" point stands -- are industrial farming methods sustainable over the long scale? Think about America pre-co…

Maybe it would be better to say "cows would eat grass" but unfortunately >90% of beef comes from cows who don't, and are raised on feed[1].

1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2016/01/29/the-gras...

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#104

It seems to me that insect meat is the way to go taste, nutrition, and cost wise. But people are adverse to eating bugs. To me this seems to be a branding problem. One of the plant based burger producers should advertise that their food is supplemented with natural proteins and lipids, then stuff their plant burgers with ground up crickets or meal worms or whatever. I don’t think people would have as much a problem e…

Show me an insect burger that costs the same as a beef burger and I'll gladly buy it. Alternatively - cut subsidies to meat producers, which will raise prices for animal meat, so the insect burger can be competitive. AFAIK, so far only cricket protein bars exist and they are sold at a huge premium ($4 vs $2) compared to whey protein based bars. As a consumer, I'm just not interested in paying double for an alternativ…

I'd note that whey protein is from milk, not meat. It's often separated in the cheese making process.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#105

As a long time flexitarian (I hate that phrase too), I just roll my eyes at all of these "non-meat initiatives". Impossible and Beyond burgers don't hold a candle to a classic portobello burger. People have made delicious meals without meat since society began, and they didn't rely on "tricking" people into thinking a meal is something else. It's baffling that the marketing department of Beyond and Impossible have tu…

I personally find portobello burgers disgusting, and I'm sure I'm not alone. There's also almost no protein in mushrooms.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#106
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If I liked them" is a much lower bar than "perfect substitute".

And there's possibly an "even if they were more expensive" dimension to such a claim too.

I'll give you that, but if you look at the price of Beyond Burgers and a gourmet burger at the grocery store, they are equivalent. Also to your parent, likeability is orthogonal to being a substitute. You may much prefer Ferrari (or even horse for that matter) to your Toyota, that doesn't mean you would replace it.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#107
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also disagree with - People who want meatless products aren't buying meat so they're an expansion opportunity. I think that's a fair assessment. I think that the desire to eat meat-like products is much lower than a lot of people assume in vegetarian/vegan people. Products like Seitan and other "meat texture" items have always done poorly when compared to vegetarian/vegan offerings that simply omit any meat-like…

This might be true (to some degree) for the recent trend of Western vegetarians, but meat substitutes have a long tradition (over a thousand years) in East Asia due to Buddhist tradition.

Although not many Thais are vegetarians, many do participate in the annual vegetarian festival which comes from Chinese Buddhist tradition. And it is all meat substitutes. There doesn't seem to be much awareness of how to get high quality protein by combining vegetables that contain complementing amino acids. So it's all tofu.

Note that vegetarianism is not a Buddist concept or precept. It is a cultural adaptation in the Chinese version of Buddhism. In fact, vegetarianism was a red herring that the Buddha's jealous cousin used to try to split the sangha.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#108
post #43

Off Topic: another example of egregious capitalization! Is "Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger" easier on the eyes? Or should proper nouns be wrapped in quotes when part of a headline?

Is English not your first language? Titles are supposed to be capitalized

[deleted]

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#109

As a long time flexitarian (I hate that phrase too), I just roll my eyes at all of these "non-meat initiatives". Impossible and Beyond burgers don't hold a candle to a classic portobello burger. People have made delicious meals without meat since society began, and they didn't rely on "tricking" people into thinking a meal is something else. It's baffling that the marketing department of Beyond and Impossible have tu…

How many different places have you had a portobello burger at? When done right (marinated and cooked thoroughly with a little char) they are delicious. But a LOT of places just throw a raw portobello on the grill and give you something rubbery and bland. You bite it and the entire thing tries to slide out of the bun, it tastes like nothing, and has the texture of gristle.

I stopped ordering them unless I’m somewhere very classy, because there’s a 50% of the cook screwing it up. Same for eggplant sandwiches. One too many slabs of raw eggplant.

There’s also no protein to speak of in a portobello. Half a gram, versus 20 grams in an impossible burger.

Re: Canadian meat giant Maple Leaf debuts new plant-based burger

#110
Meat substitutes are the best for infrequent cooking. Chick’n by Tofurkey for example tastes pretty similar to chicken except it pan fries in minutes and lasts in the fridge for months. I think burgers miss the mark because hamburger buns don’t keep but definitely excited by more innovation.
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