Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 528 posts

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

#191

Post by astura »

wil421 wrote: post #133

Why do American (and presumably westerners) vegetarians want to replace meat? I hated vegan and vegetarian food for song long until I ate meat free Indian food. It was always the meat replacements like veggie patties and tofurkey type products that turned me away. Indian food doesn’t have some weird mystery replacement I find on almost every vegan or veggie dish. I had a conversation with and Indian colleague who liv…

Vegans and vegetarians aren't as much of the target market for these products as you think.

The market for these products is really omnivores who enjoy meat yet would prefer it to be made without the animal suffering and ecological footprint of meat if such a thing were available. You're never going to get the sort of market share these companies are looking for with only vegans and vegetarians - there simply isn't enough of them.

The vegetarian-curious also really don't need people bullying them about their food choices, that's unnecessary

> I hated vegan and vegetarian food ... it was always the meat replacements like veggie patties and tofurkey type products that turned me away... weird mystery replacement I find on almost every vegan or veggie dish

Completely unfair characterization of "vegan and vegetarian food." I've been a (western) vegetarian for close to two decades and commercial meat replacements are not an have never been a large part of my diet. I eat them MAYBE a few times a year, pretty much exclusively at cookouts.

That being said, that seems to have changed with the Impossible Whopper - that tastes pretty good and has a nice texture, I can see myself ordering that again.

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

#192

Post by icxa »

devinhelton wrote: post #173
icxa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the meat you buy in the grocery store goes bad after a few days, and (here is where I think parent is being slightly intellectually dishonest) while it is true that the fast food companies certainly source their meats from authentic, standard-holding institutions, that's only the beginning. That isn't to say the rounds of processing and preservation that occurs afterwards. You can't just buy a McDonalds chick…

That is why McDonalds undergoes the painstaking process of sanitizing their meat with an ammonia wash (prompted by the 90's nationwide beef e-coli outbreaks that resulted in serious litigation against popular burger joints), then adding in artificial flavorings back in to make it taste like a burger again (furthermore this is how McDonalds achieves that "miraculous" feat often described here when this topic comes up…

Full disclaimer: Info coming from a variety of sources: some documentaries which I know have their own inaccuracies, some my own personal experience in food service, and specifically working at McDonalds, and some having an ex-girlfriend of 3 years who was the district manager of another international large fast food burger chain, so by chance that gleaned me a lot of insight into the inner workings of fast food burger chains (he was previously a DM of several Golden Arches)

I haven't read this page recently (it certainly has changed much), but on skimming through, none of the terminology McDonalds uses on their website are meaningful in the sense that the standards there is no official definition and could not be distinguished between similar competitors that make similar claims besides simply what they say, and, more importantly, there is no regulated term between what constitutes beef being “pure” or “not pure” or otherwise put. It’s just some “thing” they say about their beef and we have to take them up on their word. Now if they said “we use USDA organic ground beef” that might have some teeth. It’s the same thing between a bag of candy telling you they no longer use artificial flavors and now use “natural” flavors.

Now the question of do I believe they have changed? Possibly. Do the burgers taste different? No, so common sense tells me you don’t drastically change your process like this and still get the same tasting burger from 20 years ago.

But I will actually do something uncommon here and admit I could be wrong, and have an outdated understanding of their process.

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

#193

Post by saagarjha »

Kaveren wrote: post #139

I can't understand how people enjoy this fake food. It just can't match the original taste. This sort of food is extremely unhealthy, and vegans will never be able to get the protein they need to survive. We should not encourage the appeasing of certain niche markets, the radicals must be made to realize that normal KFC is just a fact of life.

> vegans will never be able to get the protein they need to survive

There are millions of vegans around the world who can "survive" without meat: they just get their protein from other places.

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

#194

Post by matthewmacleod »

ghaff wrote: post #182
colobas wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plant-based burger. Lab-grown meat is made from animal cells

The "lab-grown" term is [EDIT: sometimes and apparently incorrectly] used for plant-based meat substitutes like Impossible Burger. It probably shouldn't be, but it is.

I honestly don’t think there can be any argument there. Plant-based meat substitutes have been around for a long time, are emphatically not “lab grown meat”, and I have never heard anybody refer to them as such. That’s a distinct category which has also been receiving a lot of attention in the past few years.

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

#195

Post by Djvacto »

nightski wrote: post #131
roywiggins wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No doubt. But until we quantify it throwing out baseless assumptions is ridiculous either way. It can't just be said "Beyond Meat" is better for the environment without any numbers or data to back that up.

There have been studies. Here is one done by the University of Michigan (I believe specifically about Beyond, since they commissioned the research or something like that). http://css.umich.edu/publication/beyond-meats-beyond-burger-...

It's been a while, but I remember findings signalling something like 30% less emissions?

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

#196

Post by Tade0 »

szatkus wrote: post #6

Is there any plans to expand Beyond Meat, well, beyond USA?

From your comments I gather you're Polish.

Krowarzywa offers Beyond burgers.

29-34PLN - depends on the location.

Also if you're in Warsaw then "Restauracja Zielona" in Arkadia has them as well.

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

#197

Post by skykooler »

siffland wrote: post #190
telesilla wrote: post #103

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…

I am probably misinformed, but i thought the amazon buring was allegedly due to making more farmland?

Most "farmland" in the Amazon is used for cattle grazing.

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

#198

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

jakob223 wrote: post #148
jghn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I imagine that that difference is going mostly to recoup R&D costs at e.g. Impossible right now, who is making the patties.

for now I expect you're correct. But in the long run it should ideally have really nice margins. Once Beyond and Impossible get a version that is as close as it needs to be, they can start focusing on supply chain and stuff like that.

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

#199

Post by sterkekoffie »

yters wrote: post #120
dymk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in big bold all caps letters on the front is “PLANT BASED MEAT”

What does that even mean? Is it meat made from animals that eat plants? Is it plants that grow muscles? The one thing this does not communicate is that the contents are not meat.

Sweetmeat and coconut meat are both not animal muscle, while fish, which is animal muscle, is not meat. Distinctions like 'meat' and 'milk' (and pretty much any culinary term) take on meaning according to our conventions and dietary norms, and if plant-based meat grows to fit the same dietary niche as animal meat, people will call them the same thing.

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

#200

Post by rodgerd »

astura wrote: post #146
VectorLock wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you give it a name that alludes to it being meat you're setting the product up for failure because people will ofcourse compare it to meat and since its not meat they will judge it as "worse."

Soy milk is an entirely different product than animal milk and they don't taste at all similar, yet I'm ok with it being called "soy milk" because "soy-based beverage that looks similar to milk" just doesn't roll off the tongue.

The use of "milk" for e.g. almond milk dates back to the medieval era. Despite big dairy's current propaganda run, the term doesn't belong to cow juice.
Post reply on HN