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Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

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Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#101

Post by Cederfjard »

ashelmire wrote: post #62
tehlike wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the fastfood chains based in united states have much better quality abroad.

That's definitely not true. McDonald's and Burger King were both markedly worse in my experience. A shame in-n-out isn't abroad, and haven't found a Taco Bell or Wendy's yet. Not that I would really go out of my way to eat fast food overseas now that I'm an adult... I don't even eat these things in the US. There's wide variability within the US anyway. I've noticed that affluent suburbs tend to have great fast food,…

I mean, where are you comparing to? Anecdotally, in Sweden, I have a friend who used to work for a huge slaughterhouse/meat distributor (pardon me if there is a better term). According to him, the beef that was sold to McDonalds was only high quality. This was around ten years ago, mind you.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#102

Post by ghaff »

adrianN wrote: post #68
koolba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it might help them cut down on calories and improve their health image. Which is “less gross” is highly objective. > I wonder what impact it'll have on climate change when McDonalds stops buying real beef. Would be a nice longbet, “ McDonald’s will stop selling beef burgers by 20XY ”. I’d be on the “no” side of that bet.

They will eventually stop selling beef burgers made from real cows. Lab grown meat will replace them. I don't know enough about the current state of lab grown meat to give an estimate for XY, but it seems inevitable to me.

Ground meat is almost certainly the lowest bar for substituting. I'd argue the artificial meat is already pretty close (although probably at a higher cost, at least at the low end). There are probably gourmet burgers that are still better--though high-end meat cuts are at least somewhat of a waste in a burger.

Somewhat amusingly, I first had an Impossible Burger not knowing that it was not real "meat." I didn't find out until a few months later. It tasted like a perfectly good burger to me.

[ADDED: Lab-grown is apparently more accurately used to specifically refer to food made from animal cells. I guess "plant-based" meat is the more common term with "meat" distinguishing from traditional vegi-burgers in the grocery freezer.]

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#103

Post by telesilla »

I'm preparing a large dinner for an organisation at the moment and decided that we'd make the menu vegan/vegetarian (we use a wonderful Italian caterer, so flavour isn't going to be missed). When I mentioned it to some omnivore colleagues, they asked why and I shrugged and said "the Amazon is burning". They shrugged back and said, makes sense. It's not many years since I would have expected complaints at not catering a meat option. I feel progress is being made.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#104

Post by tptacek »

acollins1331 wrote: post #86
tptacek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you make a clearer, better-cited case for "low cost chains serve meat that could barely even be called meat"? KFC serves (primarily) whole muscle chicken†, and the general US appetite for "dark meat" chicken is so low that we've been accused of "dumping" it on other countries and messing up their markets --- KFC seems to have no trouble sourcing its inputs effectively. KFC's suppliers include all the major chicke…

It's been setting the standard for shitty meat though. Try a Tyson breast and one from a local farm and you don't even need to taste it to know it's different.

I've invested money in a local butcher in Chicago and source pretty much all of my protein from another one closer to me. I'm familiar with the locavore argument and agree that the quality is higher. There are still higher levels of quality to be reached by sourcing heritage birds, and you can optimize for flavor even more by sourcing game birds. Where do you draw the line? I'd rather eat a local farm chicken than a Tyson breast, just like I'd rather eat a dry-aged ribeye than a wet-packed eye of round. That doesn't make the eye of round somehow inedible or "barely meat".

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#105

Post by pkaye »

Someone1234 wrote: post #87
_bxg1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure their nuggets are a huge seller

They are, but they don't contain much chicken meat. 40% of the filler is meat and the rest is "other"[0] (fat, tissue, spicule, etc). Including the breading the majority of the weight of a chicken nugget isn't chicken meat. Contrast this with Chick-Fil-A's nuggets, which are 100% chicken breast meat (with thinner breading to boot). [0] https://www.motherjones.com/food/2013/10/whats-chicken-nugge...

McDonalds changed it to use white boneless chicken a few years back.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#106

Post by xvector »

nightski wrote: post #91
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

Watch when it has zero impact on climate change because the extensive ingredient list on the beyond meat burger which requires a huge supply chain shipping products all around the country along with a complicated manufacturing process requiring energy ends up having a similar environmental impact to simple animal farming.

Even if the environmental impact is nil, I'm fine with the reduction in suffering imposed on tens of billions of animals a year. The scale of suffering created by the meat industry is unfathomable so I think this is a step in the right direction regardless.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#108

Post by xvector »

kyrra wrote: post #97
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

> ... can be both cheaper ... Impossible Burger patties are actually more expensive. For example, Burger King: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meatless-fast-food-burgers... > The meatless burger is $5.99, around a dollar more than the regular Whopper with meat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US heavily subsidize meat costs?

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#109

Post by roywiggins »

nightski wrote: post #91
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

Watch when it has zero impact on climate change because the extensive ingredient list on the beyond meat burger which requires a huge supply chain shipping products all around the country along with a complicated manufacturing process requiring energy ends up having a similar environmental impact to simple animal farming.

The supply chain on meat is pretty extensive. Modern animal farming is basically an industrial process that happens to use flesh-and-blood as host organisms for meat.

Re: Beyond Meat and KFC partner to test fried plant-based ‘chicken’

#110

Post by jghn »

kyrra wrote: post #97
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating how all these fast-food chains are jumping on artificial meat. It makes perfect sense: meat is expensive and difficult to work with, so low-cost chains like these have been serving really disgustingly low-quality meat for quite some time now; in some cases it could barely even be called meat. Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it migh…

> ... can be both cheaper ... Impossible Burger patties are actually more expensive. For example, Burger King: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meatless-fast-food-burgers... > The meatless burger is $5.99, around a dollar more than the regular Whopper with meat.

Unless I missed it in TFA, it doesn't say that the raw materials (the meat) are more expensive but rather that the product is more expensive. If a fast food chain can charge more for cheaper materials, that's a double win for them.
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