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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

#201

Post by arleny »

landa wrote: post #198

If you think about it, eating meat is really a terrible thing to do. Most people who eat meat would never be able to kill an animal, I suspect. I know I wouldn't. And the conditions in which the poor animals are kept make it a billion times worse. That's the thought that made me switch to being a vegetarian after eating meat my whole life.

Terrible isn't really the right word here. Keeping animals in cruel conditions, terrible. Eating meat, not so much. It's a natural part of the animal ecosystem. I often find that those who hunt are also much more appreciative of animals and thereby more careful with their consumption.

That being said, we're in a position where our consumption (or more importantly, manufacturing for consumption) is out of hand and is causing great deal of harm. I'm all for meat substitutes.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#202

Post by kawsper »

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.

Also cheap dog-food is mostly vegetables or fillers, but that fact never seems to be brought up when vegetarian dogs are discussed.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#203

Post by didymospl »

I'm afraid that in the search for the perfect, drop-in replacement for meat we're in fact heading towards the uncanny valley. People who grew up eating meat won't simply switch over to eating something which taste and look 99% like meat when that 1% tell their brains there's something wrong with their food.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#204

Post by 0_gravitas »

landa wrote: post #198

If you think about it, eating meat is really a terrible thing to do. Most people who eat meat would never be able to kill an animal, I suspect. I know I wouldn't. And the conditions in which the poor animals are kept make it a billion times worse. That's the thought that made me switch to being a vegetarian after eating meat my whole life.

Well yeah but if the whole goal is to minimize suffering in the world as I assume yours is, the lines get very blurry very fast. I would probably not personally beat a Chinese kid that's building my phone too slowly in a sweatshop, yet I still use a phone, and all the other electronics and clothing produced like that; and I'm going to assume you do have some of these products as well. And then of you really wanted to get into it you start having a conversation about "well, what is suffering" "how does something suffer, what are the requirements, when does something become able to suffer, can computers suffer?" (The computer suffering thing is actually one of my favorite conversations to have)

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#205

Post by nabla9 »

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…

Most of the meat in the market is already something else than what people think meat is.

Meatballs may have more than half chicken skin. Burgers contain 25% filler. Pink slime (= lean finely textured beef) is a highly processed meat by-product. In the US its processed with ammonia but that's not allowed in EU.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#206

Post by rcruzeiro »

didymospl wrote: post #203

I'm afraid that in the search for the perfect, drop-in replacement for meat we're in fact heading towards the uncanny valley. People who grew up eating meat won't simply switch over to eating something which taste and look 99% like meat when that 1% tell their brains there's something wrong with their food.

I imagine there will still be a market for natural meat and it will me a premium product. As for the replacements, people are already used to hamburgers and sausages.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#207

Post by biztos »

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 concur but I see a potential third tier: we might have the Meated, the Entomeated, and the Meatless.

With strata within each caste of course. The grass-fed yak-meated vs the factory-pig-meated; the wild-grasshopper entomeated vs the squishy-larva entomeated; and the fresh-veg meatless vs the Wal-Soylent meatless.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#208

Post by patagonia »

>If you made something that was cheaper and tasted better, most carnivores would switch.

Too bad we won’t be able to say we did it for reasons better than “taste good” & “cheap”. Like. Better for the earth and climate. Or. Gasp. Does not facilitate cruel and immoral industrial farming that commoditizes life.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#209

Post by screye »

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.

So much this.

I am a meal eater with a majority vegetarian friends group, so I inevitably cook a lot of veg food.

Greek, Indian, Thai and Chinese customers lend themselves really well to vegetarianism and I'm surprised that it isn't catching on in the US. (Especially Indian)

Meat substitutes don't hold a candle to a single one of these for items.

I've tried the current state of the art in meat substitutes ( impossible) and it's still bad.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#210

Post by thom »

david-gpu wrote: post #123
z3t4 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes taste Raw meat to make sure its fresh. Its pretty much tasteless. Its all about how its prepared.

You can make a brother with nothing but meat and salt and it will be flavorful. That's a big part of why making meat substitutes is so hard.

This is what lifelong meat eaters experience, but I just can't comprehend. There is no meat that on its own is particularly tasty to me. Chicken, at its absolute best, tastes like a disappointing roast chestnut. What's worse is meat doesn't really marinade as well as everyone makes out, so often I'll be enjoying a dish but I keep chewing and realise I just like the sauce and then that fades and - yuck - you're left with meat.

Again, this is my very narrow experience as a vegetarian who lapsed well into adulthood and just didn't learn an appreciation of the savoury flavours involved. Objectively it's clearly people love the taste of meat.

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