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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

#171

Post by rglover »

jameslk wrote: post #131

Since we're making predictions here, I predict that shortly after we adopt meat substitutes, we'll start to question what's inside them. Then the conversation will change from meat substitutes being good and healthy to something akin to the GMO debate about meat substitutes not being natural. And just like GMOs, whether it's actually bad for you or not won't matter. This debate will be a proxy war between Big Meat an…

I love how your mind spiraled with this and even came to a headline of "meatless masses."

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#172

Post by phonypc »

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.

Funnily enough, it's the more expensive casual restaurant chain burgers that tend to contain textured soy protein and other things. Fast food is pretty much always 100% beef as others have pointed out.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#173

Post by meowface »

jameslk wrote: post #131

Since we're making predictions here, I predict that shortly after we adopt meat substitutes, we'll start to question what's inside them. Then the conversation will change from meat substitutes being good and healthy to something akin to the GMO debate about meat substitutes not being natural. And just like GMOs, whether it's actually bad for you or not won't matter. This debate will be a proxy war between Big Meat an…

>I also predict that meat substitutes, if made cheaper than meat, will be deemed inferior in quality (cheap = inferior, because psychology) and reserved for those who cannot afford real meat (the "meatless masses").

I think there will be such a period, but eventually it'll swap.

Both because more affluent people will tend to be more pro-animal welfare and so synthetic meat will be more associated with the successful, and because eventually (probably distant future, but who knows) all the meat substitutes will just taste better than real meat and anyone who's ever had a meal won't be able to deny the reality.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#175

Post by subpixel »

princeb wrote: post #74
subpixel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think where seitan excels is where the meat it is substituting is heavily seasoned and in smaller pieces. I’d never eat a seitan log as a Thanksgiving turkey substitute, but ironically one of the things you discover when you begin to substitute meat is that a lot of “classics” are flavorless. Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh can be bland and rubbery, which is why they are fried or smothered in sauces as a rule.…

> most fish flesh can be bland and rubbery yikes. i think you will have a better experience eating in a seafaring culture - the british, french, norwegians, coastal china, japan, even new england? i think something is quite wrong if you think cod, haddock, sole, tuna, and salmon all taste the same.

I didn't say all fish taste the same. But I maintain that once you have decided to stop eating meat, it becomes more fun to experiment with different textures of meat substitutes once you consider carefully how different meats are vs how we imagine meats to be.

FWIW I grew up in Japan and live in New England. I know from fish. Good fish is hard to substitute but it can be done, e.g. Sichuan food is great with the fake stuff. But most fish eaten in America is in fact bland and rubbery (most of it is eaten at places like Red Lobster).

PG's essay is about companies inventing the perfect tuna steak substitute. My point is you can use a lot of existing substitutes, in the right dishes.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#176

Post by mratzloff »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #52
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…

There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world. I think there is a ton of literal hatred for vegans and vegetarians, who tend to position themselves as morally superior to meat eaters and brag about how they are kinder and gentler than meat eaters, often while being openly cruel people. They are frequently seemingly oblivious to the glaring contradictions between their self image and thei…

You hear the same kind of thing about atheists. Consider that the few outspoken individuals you meet who are like this are rare and most people in that group are just quietly trying to live their lives. They're not seeking an argument or your approval, and you aren't even aware of most of the people you know who fit into that group. So your known encounters with that group are rare, and you carry your own personal bias, so any negative experience is magnified.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#177

Post by meowface »

arawde wrote: post #103
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'm on the opposite side of this. I've eaten meat for the first 23 years of my life, but my current partner is vegan. A large part of our relationship has been discovering that vegetables are actually good to eat when they're not an afterthought to a meal. I go out of my way to try the meat substitutes now, because I'm holding out that one of them will actually be good enough for me to show my carnivore friends. For…

At risk of sparking an ethics debate, why do most people who turn vegetarian out of conscientiousness seem to very disproportionately do it for environmental reasons?

I mean, on one hand, it makes complete rational sense, because it's self/species-interest: reduced meat consumption should decrease the effects of global warming and other issues, and you want a world that you and future generations of people can safely and healthily live in. I get it.

But are you then still not doing it for selfish reasons, or at least species-selfish reasons? If hypothetically some new technology could suck all of the excess carbon out of the atmosphere and replant things and otherwise 100% negate all of the environmental effects of all the different kinds of meat production, would you and other vegetarians with similar motivations no longer feel any reason, or ethical obligation, to be vegetarian?

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#178

Post by CharlesW »

spqr0a1 wrote: post #156

In general I’m bullish on biotech but best case for tissue culture meat still leaves me sceptical. Most of the hype focuses around beef substitutes, beef cattle is about as inefficient as animal agriculture gets at ~3% efficient on an energy basis of edible parts. Dairy jerseys and laying hens are both ~12%, with meat chickens ~15%. The best replicating eukaryotic cell culture I know are certain yeast at 50%. So a be…

> Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.

Can that be true? Animals from U.S. factory farms generate >1 million tons of manure per day (open-air lagoons of animal waste are a special treat) and are responsible for an impressive percentage of methane emissions.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#179

Post by elgenie »

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.

The target market niche for meat substitutes is very plainly not former vegetarians who don’t like the taste of meat.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#180

Post by subpixel »

hprotagonist wrote: post #13
subpixel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think where seitan excels is where the meat it is substituting is heavily seasoned and in smaller pieces. I’d never eat a seitan log as a Thanksgiving turkey substitute, but ironically one of the things you discover when you begin to substitute meat is that a lot of “classics” are flavorless. Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh can be bland and rubbery, which is why they are fried or smothered in sauces as a rule.…

>Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh are bland and rubbery, which is why they are fried or smothered in sauces as a rule. Come visit. I'll bake you a chicken, and i only need about 6 ingredients to change your mind. (salt, pepper, chicken, butter, thyme, dijon mustard optional). Turkey has never been a favorite of mine, but I had an exceptionally good one that was salted and peppered and then cooked in a big green eg…

What tastes good is salt, pepper, butter, thyme, dijon mustard, not to mention garlic, root vegetables, and more salt. I eat chicken, I have enjoyed it - all I'm saying is I've learned that going without chicken is doable, not by abstaining but by substituting.

It's not apples-to-apples. Chicken tastes different than something that is not chicken. Having experienced both, I really prefer the not chicken.

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