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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’

#371

Post by tomcatfish »

navigatesol wrote: post #339
megaman821 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be in the know. What on earth is in a Jack In The Box taco?

It's not really about being in the know, it's common sense. Could McDonald's survive if they were selling garbage meat? I mean,it's possible. But why not just serve 100% ground beef exactly like you say you do, and charge consumers accordingly and make billions of dollars over many decades.

> Could McDonald's survive if they were selling garbage meat?

It seems like they could, since it appears many commenters here think so (there is no PR cost to serving bad meat if everyone thinks you are)

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

#372

Post by kevinmchugh »

icxa wrote: post #299
tptacek wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonalds does in fact use 100% USDA-inspected beef, with "no fillers, additives, or preservatives", and explicitly does not use mechanically separated meat. It's not "organic", but then, most beef isn't.

Then I am happy to say I am happy for their recent changes, this certainly wasn’t the case a few years ago when I wrote them off, and even more not the case 10 years ago when I was still in the industry. I think it should be promoted as an example that consumer pressure and expectations can cause companies to change for the better. I will say I remain skeptical on exactly how they can go from the ammonia wash + chemi…

Only the quarter pounder is fresh beef. The rest is frozen. If you look at places that review fast food, they unanimously applauded the fresh beef quarter pounder - they did have a discernible difference in quality.

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

#373

Post by inscionent »

fromthestart wrote: post #321
inscionent wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every experience I've had with "no meat, no meal" has also been associated with a heavy dose but "I'm a man". YMMV

Perhaps because vegans and vegetarians are substantially more likely to be thin and, well, less traditionally manly, both in appearance and in values. It's a different set of cultural values and it isn't invalid just because it differs from yours.

Having a meal with no meat doesn't make one vegan/vegetarian.

> vegans and vegetarians are substantially more likely to be thin and, well, less traditionally manly, both in appearance and in values

I can point you to many fat vegans, and I've heard this 'need meat' BS from guys who were literally 135 lbs, soaking wet, so.... exactly this kind of attitude that 'meat makes you manly'.

Who said that I disagreed with those values, that is a poor assumption on your part.

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

#374

Post by tptacek »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #270
kevinmchugh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to minimize cost, you're better off buying the right quantity of meat to begin with rather than buying preservatives. Freezing is hugely deleterious to ground beef quality. It changes the texture irrevocably. The two major differences between fast food burgers and fast casual burgers are frozen/fresh and cooked in advance/cooked to order. All the more expensive, more lauded burgers like Five Guys, Sh…

Isn't is possible that the cost of preservatives could be less than the cost associated with splitting your orders into more deliveries?

Isn't it possible that someone could just do research and work this out, rather than trying to derive it axiomatically?

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

#375

Post by tptacek »

windexh8er wrote: post #322
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the first half of that comment and not the second? Local chicken is generally "better" than supermarket chicken. That doesn't make supermarket chicken "shitty"; supermarket-grade chicken is necessarily what most people are going to eat, most of the time. It has for more than half a century been our standard, and our standard is better than what preceded it. You can always do better. But I'd like to see a…

> You can always do better. But I'd like to see a well-grounded argument that KFC-grade chicken is somehow "shitty". I'd say if you buy your meat from a local butcher and you know the actual source of the meat, then you'd likely say that raising chickens in high capacity growth sheds doesn't put out what many would define as quality birds. [0] The chicken is likely fine for consumption, agreed. But if you were born,…

I'm a little lost here. I agree: heritage birds that are free to roam uncrowded pastures will taste better than CAFO chicken. What's your point? A dry-aged ribeye also tastes better than a bottom round steak. If you're eating dry-aged ribeyes (or heritage chicken) every day, you're wealthy. Congrats, but most people don't have that option.

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

#376

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

tptacek wrote: post #84
_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 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…

>Can you make a clearer, better-cited case for "low cost chains serve meat that could barely even be called meat"?

Taco bell famously admit a few years ago that their beef filling was only 88% beef.

CBC did an investigative report in Canada recently that revealed subway's chicken was only 50% chicken. [0] The rest being a smörgåsbord of fillers. The 4 other chains studied in the tests didn't do much better.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-chicken-fast-fo...

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

#377

Post by jcampbell1 »

tptacek wrote: post #170
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…

I appreciate you have some first hand experience here, but this is a very HN-style axiomatic argument --- "restaurants must have issues with meat going bad that ordinary people don't, ergo their meat must somehow be mummified with preservatives". Isn't it in fact the case that fast food restaurants have, relative to supermarket consumers as an entire cohort, extremely high and predictable turnover? A neighborhood sus…

> I'd trust any well established sushi place with ahi and salmon than I would my own fridge.

FYI, in the US it is common to mummify fish with carbon monoxide. It preserves the fish's color despite age. The best way to stop oxidation is to add a reducing agent!

I don't think CO is a problem, but it is a hack restaurants use that consumers are unlikely to be aware of which masks the visual indications of freshness.

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

#378

Post by ceejayoz »

camel_Snake wrote: post #268
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…

This[1] paper has nothing to do with KFC or their chicken per-se, but it did make me steer clear of fast food burgers for a long time. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18995204 TLDR: "Meat content in the hamburgers ranged from 2.1% to 14.8% (median, 12.1%)."

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/42a903e2-451d-40ea...

Those numbers should be right about what you'd expect.

> Meat and poultry are composed of naturally occurring water, muscle, connective tissue, fat, and bone. People eat meat for the muscle. The muscle is approximately 75% water (although different cuts may have more or less water) and 20% protein, with the remaining 5% representing a combination of fat, carbohydrate, and minerals.

The protein/fat balance should be expected to be a bit off from straight muscle cuts, as it's typical for a burger to have fat added to the mix in.

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

#379

Post by grillvogel »

crazygringo wrote: post #250
_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…

> 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. I wish this urban legend would die. Fast-food beef and chicken at major chains is no different in quality from what you buy at the supermarket. A McDonald's burger is 100% ground beef and salt, no "additives" or "fillers". And Taco Bell ground beef is ~90% bee…

last i checked, soy, oats, etc were not spices

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

#380

Post by tptacek »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #376
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…

>Can you make a clearer, better-cited case for "low cost chains serve meat that could barely even be called meat"? Taco bell famously admit a few years ago that their beef filling was only 88% beef. CBC did an investigative report in Canada recently that revealed subway's chicken was only 50% chicken. [0] The rest being a smörgåsbord of fillers. The 4 other chains studied in the tests didn't do much better. [0] https…

Unless McDonalds is committing fraud by listing chicken breast fillet (and no other proteins) in the ingredients for its grilled chicken sandwich, this is likely measurement error.

I have no idea what Subway is selling. Subway squicks me out, as does Taco Bell.

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