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Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

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Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#111

Post by labster »

jtms wrote: post #65
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

One thing i’d genuinely like to see more of in the US is easy and sanely priced access to wild game. Deer populations being what they are, and populations of environmentally troublesome species such as feral boars being what they are, it seems like a net win. i would love to be able to get my hands on venison or boar that’s been processed in a USDA-approved way, because the meat’s high quality, the animals had lives…

Deer and pig populations are indeed out of control in many places due to a lack of predators. More hunters are needed. An intriguing example of pest control was a series of videos of wild hog hunting in the most Texan way possible: from a helicopter. Exterminating 80-100 hogs per flight! Hopefully something is being done with all of that pork, but I do imagine regulation makes it very very hard to sell.

This seems like a problem that could be easily solved by reintroducing wolves. Of course, then you have two problems.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#112

Post by SatvikBeri »

thom wrote: post #81

I was brought up vegetarian, and while I gave it up when I got married and had kids, I've never really grown to love the taste of meat. The thing I'm most annoyed by is that nice tasting veggie dishes are often being replaced in restaurants with horrible tasting meat-substitute dishes trying to capture the taste of beef or whatever. This is probably just me against the universe though.

As a meat eater, yeah, agree. My wife and I have reduced our meat consumption by ~50% over the last few years, and we've done it mostly by finding dishes that were veg*n to start with, as opposed to meat substitutes.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#113

Post by sonnyblarney »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #54
JasonFruit wrote: post #27

Maybe it's my rural background and associations, but I see a powerful psychological effect to eating meat from a real animal, and that won't disappear because some meat substitute tastes pretty good. I like falafel, I like shiitake mushrooms, I like a good veggie burger, but there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered a…

Maybe it's my rural background and associations... Almost certainly. People tend to feel that however they grew up is the one right and true way to live. It can be an extremely difficult feeling to escape, even in cases where they actively very much want to leave it behind and live some other way, for example people who were abused and are in therapy and trying hard to find a better way to live.

By 'we' - he means essentially every culture and most humans throughout history.

We are essentially omnivorous by nature.

We mostly all ate meat, not just 'some rural people'.

We literally evolved around it, so it's part of our composition in a very, very fundamental way.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#114

Post by bluedino »

labster wrote: post #111
jtms wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deer and pig populations are indeed out of control in many places due to a lack of predators. More hunters are needed. An intriguing example of pest control was a series of videos of wild hog hunting in the most Texan way possible: from a helicopter. Exterminating 80-100 hogs per flight! Hopefully something is being done with all of that pork, but I do imagine regulation makes it very very hard to sell.

This seems like a problem that could be easily solved by reintroducing wolves. Of course, then you have two problems.

Wolves tend to leave people alone. Bears on the other hand...

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#115

Post by greglindahl »

thom wrote: post #81

I was brought up vegetarian, and while I gave it up when I got married and had kids, I've never really grown to love the taste of meat. The thing I'm most annoyed by is that nice tasting veggie dishes are often being replaced in restaurants with horrible tasting meat-substitute dishes trying to capture the taste of beef or whatever. This is probably just me against the universe though.

I've met a lot of vegetarians and vegans, and they're about 50/50 as to whether they want to eat meat-like things.

And yeah, there are several restaurants I stopped eating at because they replaced perfectly fine veggie dishes with things that were more meat-like.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#116

Post by greglindahl »

maximente wrote: post #107

it seems inevitable that fake meat will reach a texture and taste level that's "good enough" for fast food titans to offer alongside the normal, bargain (dollar menu ish) type stuff. if you add in the economic arguments - fake meat being way cheaper logistically i'm guessing and only going to get cheaper, perhaps order of magnitude levels so - then i would wager that the lower-end options will be the fake meat stuff…

Fast Food Titans have been mixing in soy with meat for a while already.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#117

Post by ams6110 »

redisman wrote: post #44
thaumaturgy wrote: post #16

FWIW I think he's predicting something which is already beginning to happen. Carl's Jr. (Hardees to you midwestern/east coast folks) recently added Beyond Meat patties to their menu ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-beyond-meat-carl-s-jr-idU... ). For a small price extra, you can get a not-farmed-meat burger and they're promoting it pretty heavily. I dropped in a while back, was surprised to see it on the menu, th…

Funnily enough low quality patties like fast food burgers have been using more soy protein as a filler for a long time. Maybe one day they'll be honest and sell it as 50% vegetarian burgers or something.

Source? The fast food restaurants I can think of all claim 100% beef patties.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#118

Post by bluedino »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

One thing i’d genuinely like to see more of in the US is easy and sanely priced access to wild game. Deer populations being what they are, and populations of environmentally troublesome species such as feral boars being what they are, it seems like a net win. i would love to be able to get my hands on venison or boar that’s been processed in a USDA-approved way, because the meat’s high quality, the animals had lives…

Arby’s has done venison sandwiches but of course it’s farmed meat.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin hunters take 300,000 deer each season, each state probably has 4-5 times that total population.

To put that into perspective, the USA slaughters something like 40 million cattle per year.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#119

Post by lukasm »

mattmanser wrote: post #19
tgb wrote: post #8

I think he's wrong about people not having loyalty to meat. There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world. Think of the practically cult-like following bacon has. I recall a thread some years ago on Reddit's r/fitness with someone asking for vegan protein sources due to certain allergies or other health restrictions and it was spammed with dozens of comments along the lines of "bacon" an…

I think you're very wrong and pg is spot on. I remember when Vegan/Vegetarians were sneered at in the UK 25 years ago, but they aren't now. In the space of 25 years it's gone from being rare to see veggie options, to it being the norm to have at least 25% non-meat options on the menu. Attitudes change, and once it's gone, most people will eventually find the idea of rearing animals to kill repellant. If you can deliv…

Restaurants have to have at least one veg option on the menu. This is mostly due to migration from different countries, not Vegans. By offering a veg meal you can serve a halal/kosher/"hindu" dish.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#120

Post by capkutay »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #16

FWIW I think he's predicting something which is already beginning to happen. Carl's Jr. (Hardees to you midwestern/east coast folks) recently added Beyond Meat patties to their menu ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-beyond-meat-carl-s-jr-idU... ). For a small price extra, you can get a not-farmed-meat burger and they're promoting it pretty heavily. I dropped in a while back, was surprised to see it on the menu, th…

I think ground-beef is easier to mimic with vegetarian substitute for whatever reason. Probably because fast food meat is already so weird and processed. Same with vegan sausage/hot dogs versus the meat-based sausage.

Obviously if someone loves eating expensive steak, that would be hard to replace with a vegetarian substitute.

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