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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

#351

Post by turtlecloud »

lustysocietyorg wrote: post #348
intended wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, 10 years later, there will be fads and forwards which talk about eating "Natural" protein, not this fake stuff. 15 years later, there will be science talking about how micro nutrients are missing from meat substitutes and how a natural, healthy and balanced diet is necessary for human beings.

The nutrition science in 2019 is clear and has been clear for decades. A high carb low fat low protein whole food plant based diet with (cheap) vitamin supplements and maybe linseed oil: - is the healthiest diet. - is the cheapest diet. - is the most efficient and environment friendly diet. - is the most ethical diet with regard to immoral animal suffering caused by humans.

Well that’s the complete opposite of the keto diet which is high fat low carb and is the top diet in America in 2019

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#352

Post by lustysocietyorg »

turtlecloud wrote: post #351
lustysocietyorg wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nutrition science in 2019 is clear and has been clear for decades. A high carb low fat low protein whole food plant based diet with (cheap) vitamin supplements and maybe linseed oil: - is the healthiest diet. - is the cheapest diet. - is the most efficient and environment friendly diet. - is the most ethical diet with regard to immoral animal suffering caused by humans.

Well that’s the complete opposite of the keto diet which is high fat low carb and is the top diet in America in 2019

Yes. It shows again that marketing and personal fantasy trump science and truth in the USA and probably elsewhere too.

But not eternally. Science will prevail eventually.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#353

Post by viraptor »

colechristensen wrote: post #332
viraptor wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which has its own problems unfortunately, given that it's basically everywhere now ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971... ) and it damages DNA ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22331240/ ). So basically everything's terrible and we're all going to die...

The problem being that the signal to noise ratio is very low as to whether or not there are harmful effects. Normal exposure to glyphosphate in people is very low and at those levels you are exposed to many different substances even in wholly natural food. Compounded with that is there are very few people doing research without an agenda. You also have to realize that "organic" in the US doesn't mean treatment-free c…

Yeah, I get these are small proportions. I'm definitely not recommending "organic" produce/meat. I meant that whatever we try to do at this point seems to be "let's use a little bit of this carcinogen which is spreading everywhere in tiny amounts so we don't have to use more of a different toxic substance". It feels depressing that these are our choices.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#354

Post by bluecalm »

turtlecloud wrote: post #351
lustysocietyorg wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nutrition science in 2019 is clear and has been clear for decades. A high carb low fat low protein whole food plant based diet with (cheap) vitamin supplements and maybe linseed oil: - is the healthiest diet. - is the cheapest diet. - is the most efficient and environment friendly diet. - is the most ethical diet with regard to immoral animal suffering caused by humans.

Well that’s the complete opposite of the keto diet which is high fat low carb and is the top diet in America in 2019

How is keto a top diet in America? Vast majority of people in America get majority of their calories from carbs.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#355

Post by Vinnl »

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

I'm not sure if they'll be universally cheaper than meat. There's a lot of diversity in meat substitutes in the Netherlands, and you already see quite a price difference between the "high-end" meat substitutes, and the basic store brand soy burgers. We seem to be going in the direction where there are "inferior" meat substitutes, and high quality ones that are considered better than at least cheap meats.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#356

Post by Accacin »

nearbuy wrote: post #341
ngngngng wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunting is most likely the best option from an animal ethics standpoint. Although it doesn't scale well. But make that point to a vegan and suddenly they're vegan primarily for environmental concerns.

Why is hunting better than being vegan?

As someone who doesn't eat meat or dairy I've heard the argument that the environmental impact would be less than a vegan that lives in a city.

The argument being that a hunter is killing an animal that lived naturally is less of an environmental impact than getting food packaged and sent across the country, etc.

I'm not sure I agree, but it's the most plausible argument I've seen for not being Vegan.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#357

Post by Illotus »

belorn wrote: post #227
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…

Energy efficiency is interesting, but it is important to see the whole picture. Maybe we should be using a land efficiency rating instead? Take reindeer meat as an extreme case. Their energy efficiency from converting lichens to meat is not going to be 100%, but the alternative use for artic land are quite few. Applying the same line of thought, we can find examples also for beef. There are cattle farms here in Swede…

With reindeers it is probably highly dependent on region. For example in Lapland of Finland there are way too many reindeers than the environment can support, so they are largely kept in pens during winter and fed protein feed, hay, collected lichen, dried feafy branches etc.

Plus Finland produces about 2 million kilos of reindeer meat per year, so it is really miniscule part of the diet.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#358

Post by belorn »

greglindahl wrote: post #328
belorn wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy efficiency is interesting, but it is important to see the whole picture. Maybe we should be using a land efficiency rating instead? Take reindeer meat as an extreme case. Their energy efficiency from converting lichens to meat is not going to be 100%, but the alternative use for artic land are quite few. Applying the same line of thought, we can find examples also for beef. There are cattle farms here in Swede…

Typical cows in the US gain 50% of their meat mass at the feedlot, mostly from eating corn. Also, large parts of our natural environment are degraded by running too many cows on it, including a lot of "protected" areas. So sure, you can find whatever example you want.

The typical car is diesel and the typical power plant is coal. A lot of typical cases is the worst case scenario or close to it when it come to the environment, because they prioritize the cost aspect over everything else.

Here is a nice policy theory for you. Lets imagine that with magic we could removed all the cost associated with slaughterhouse for the farmer. We could change the whole meat production in Sweden to operate exclusively on land not suitable for any other food production, and that without changing meat prices. The difference between the economics for a highland cattle farm and a cattle farm using feed from farms is by my understanding significant less than the cut that the slaughterhouse take.

It might not be very applicable to the US since large part of Sweden is forests, but it is not hard to find areas in the US which are not suitable for farming. From a land efficiency perspective, I suspect a lot could be done which isn't currently done because of the economics involved.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#359

Post by zimpenfish »

darkpuma wrote: post #278
nabla9 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most of the preprocessed meat maybe. I've never put chicken in my meatballs. And meatballs are easy enough to make that for the life of me I can't figure out why anybody would buy them premade. Make a large batch and freeze them yourself. They'll be a thousand times better than the trash you can buy at the store.

> I can't figure out why anybody would buy them premade

People who don't have a kitchen big enough for cooking in bulk like that? People without freezers? People without that amount of free time? People don't really like food? People with motion disabilities? I've probably missed out some groups.

Re: Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

#360

Post by darkpuma »

zimpenfish wrote: post #359
darkpuma wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the preprocessed meat maybe. I've never put chicken in my meatballs. And meatballs are easy enough to make that for the life of me I can't figure out why anybody would buy them premade. Make a large batch and freeze them yourself. They'll be a thousand times better than the trash you can buy at the store.

> I can't figure out why anybody would buy them premade People who don't have a kitchen big enough for cooking in bulk like that? People without freezers? People without that amount of free time? People don't really like food? People with motion disabilities? I've probably missed out some groups.

>People who don't have a kitchen big enough for cooking in bulk like that?

By "bulk" I mean an oven tray or two. I'm not rocking an commercial kitchen here.

>People without freezers?

Where do they put their frozen meatballs from the store?

The time is amortized, if you don't like food then you shouldn't care anyway, and I really doubt most people buying frozen meatballs from the store have disabilities.

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