Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#261

Post by MarkMc » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

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…

> So a best case scenario is factor of 3 improvement

Isn't the best case scenario that we replace cow-grown beef with lab-grown beef - that is, improved energy efficiency of 50/3 = 17 times?

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#262

Post by nitwit005 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

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.

I have to doubt this kind of thinking. Sure they may not have personally butchered a cow, but your typical human will happily crush insects, or poison and trap various pest animals. Plus the usual hunting and fishing.

If it was still necessary to personally cut the heads off chickens to get chicken meat, I suspect you'd see virtually every household doing so.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#263

Post by breatheoften » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

cwbrandsma wrote: post #127

tdeck wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a meat eater I fully agree. If it's going to be made of vegetables, fine. But I'm put off by foods pretending to be something they're not.

One of my worst meals ever was a vegetarian Asian meal in Salt Lake City. The dish was “Chicken...” something or other. The “chicken” was tofu shaped like a chicken wing with feathers. No where on the menu did it say the place was vegetarian. I have nothing against eating tofu. I enjoy tofu. But the bait and switch ruined the meal for me.

Best Thai restaurant outside Thailand I’ve ever been to is called Plumeria in San Diego — it’s completely vegetarian (optional egg) with meat-like substitues.

I never order chicken satay as an appetizer (even in Thailand) as I usually find it bland, the texture too dry, and generally boring — but I will always order the “chicken” satay from Plumeria ... better than meat.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#264

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:43 AM UTC

anonu wrote: post #259

jniedrauer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a tangential note, I wish it were possible to buy foods specifically because they contain GMOs. I intentionally avoid buying foods labeled "non-GMO" in a feeble attempt to vote with my wallet.

I concur with the sentiment. Isn't GMO to create foods that require less pesticides? So wouldn't that be a good thing if there are less chemicals used on our foods, seeping into our soil and water supply? I never really understood why people are so scared of GMO.... I can see GMO foods being owned by the likes of Monsanto, earning healthy royalties on seeds that cannot bear offspring. I think there should be a GMO op…

Not really, Monsanto GMO roundup ready crops are crops specifically modified to be able to take larger amounts of their roundup pesticide, leading to more chemicals being sprayed on our food.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#265

Post by samatman » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #187

redisman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seitan and tempeh are by far the tastiest "substitute meats" because they don't really try to morph into a "nugget" or a "burger" but just show what that plant protein is like at its best

Surprised you lump those together. Seitan is the best, but I've never found a tempeh recipe we can tolerate.

I’m in Indonesia at the moment, where tempeh is a food, not a ‘meat substitute’.

I enjoy it quite a bit, it has a mild mushroomy flavour and a nice texture.

Consider frying it and serving with a coconut curry sauce or a sambal. Don’t think of it as meat or use it as a meat substitute, that’s setting up for failure to enjoy.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#266

Post by headbiznatch » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:51 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #189

arawde wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a staunch lover of meat I am fundamentally against meat substitutes. I love vegetarian dishes and eat them often, but I will not touch a meat substitute if I can avoid it. Many asian foods include tofu and that’s fine. My reasoning is that if a dish is supposed to be vegetarian, or it just doesn’t include mat because it doesn’t need to, then keep it vegetarian. Veggies are delicious. Why ruin a perfectly good dish…

I know meta-discussion on HN is frowned upon, but seriously, I just have to ask those who down-voted this comment: why? Just... why? What is the problem with this sentiment with respect to its contribution to this thread?

If it helps, I think this is a reasonable point (don't try to fake the meat, just skip it - i've thought it myself often).

I haven't commented in here in SO LONG, and I know I will pay for the insurrection of asking the invisible commenters to justify yourselves, but I just can't help it because I do not understand how down-voting this is justifiable in any way with respect to content moderation.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#267

Post by nitwit005 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:54 AM UTC

People have deeply held ideas about food. It's often directly tied to their personal ethnic or religious identity. Notice how many holidays and traditions have special foods, and how much effort often goes into it.

Here in the US there are people who would genuinely shoot you if you tried to get rid of Thanksgiving turkey. I don't see that changing in the next 100 years or so.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#268

Post by haisch » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:55 AM UTC

There are various moral dilemmas that are brought up when discussing diet involving animal foods:

1) Environmental impact 2) Animal suffering 3) Nutrition

Often times people focus on number 1 in spite of number 2 or 3. What if moving away from animal foods in our diets causes an increase in heart disease, cancer and overall mortality?

https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases...

With 3% of emissions coming from cattle, the average person could do more by driving their car less, avoiding transatlantic flights and having less children. Just having one less child is equivalent to 60 people on the vegan diet.

https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire...

I am skeptical of any imitation meat until they can guarantee to provide the identical nutritional profile of real meat. In the meantime the best we can do is buy locally sourced, grass fed foods that are net zero emissions.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#269

Post by yesenadam » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:59 AM UTC

xnxn wrote: post #221

meowface wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think your premise is correct. The data I can find[1][2] suggests that vegetarians and vegans are principally concerned with animal ethics. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257659/ [2] https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/10062622/data/veganuary-infogra...

I briefly looked at those links. The first one, "Beliefs and Attitudes toward Vegetarian Lifestyle across Generations", says in the introduction

"Younger people significantly agreed more with the moral reason and with the environmental reason. People ages 41–60 significantly agreed more with the health reason. [i.e. not in absolute terms, just compared with other age groups]

A study publish[sic] in 1992 found that the highest number of vegetarians, 46 percent, chose a vegetarian diet for health reasons, 15 percent chose to be a vegetarian for animal rights reasons, 12 percent for friend/family influence, 5 percent for ethical reasons, 4 percent for environmental issues and 18 percent indicated other reasons.."

Their study:

"The objective of the study was to examine whether reasons to adopt vegetarian lifestyle differ significantly among generations. ...This cross-sectional, observational study was completed at Andrews University which is a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) institution of higher learning. SDA represent a unique population known for their wide range of dietary habits. This conservative religious group prohibits the use of alcohol, tobacco, and pork and recommends that members adhere to lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. ...Participants were drawn from a large undergraduate introductory-level nutrition class that is open to students from all academic directions."

So, 609 people at a Seventh-Day Adventist college who'd signed up for a nutrition class. That seems a super-bizarre, unrepresentative group to study for the purpose. And in Figure 1, the "Health" reason seems to be the strongest reason given, for every age group.

The other link is to a picture, which seems to be an Australian event, Veganuary, I guess trying to get people to sign up to be vegan in January? Anyway, that says people who signed up for that gave 43% "animals" and 39% "health" reasons, 10% environment, 8% other. They're mostly not vegetarians or vegans, it also says in the picture.

Neither of those two, and particularly not the first, seem to suggest that vegetarians and vegans are principally concerned with animal ethics - even if one assumes they're what they're not, perfectly representative of the beliefs of the entire population of the planet, or your country, or whatever region you're talking about. Still, they were interesting, thanks.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#270

Post by sureaboutthis » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #205

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.

Which is why one needs to be cooking for themselves as I have while eating my--coincidentally enough--made from scratch spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight.