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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’

#491
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…

I've presumed that the reason Taco Bell uses the word beefy was because they can't legally call it beef. Much like cheap "cheese" is a processed dairy product and not actually labeled as cheese.

It's usually labelled processed cheese product, and there's really nothing scary about it. It's cheese (actual, normal cheese) emulsified with some form of milk.

I occasionally make my own (with tastier cheeses than you get in commercial products) for its melting characteristics.

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

#492
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish this urban legend would die. It won’t die because it makes yuppies feel superior to the plebes who eat at McDonalds. My wife once encountered a lawyer at a prominent DC firm who literally sneered at the idea of eating McDonalds. I think of her every time we drive through to get an Egg McMuffin.

Look at the fat, salt and sugar content of what you're eating from McDonald's It's no closer to food than Doritos or Coke are.

Fries and Coke are fries and Coke.

But the burger is certainly food according to anyone's definition. Get a quarter pounder with cheese and tell me how that's nutritionally any different from a burger you make at home with standard supermarket ingredients -- ground beef, hamburger bun, american cheese, ketchup, pickles, onions. Yet nobody complains about that at a neighborhood, family or church cookout.

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

#493
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish this urban legend would die. It won’t die because it makes yuppies feel superior to the plebes who eat at McDonalds. My wife once encountered a lawyer at a prominent DC firm who literally sneered at the idea of eating McDonalds. I think of her every time we drive through to get an Egg McMuffin.

Look at the fat, salt and sugar content of what you're eating from McDonald's It's no closer to food than Doritos or Coke are.

A typical meal from McDonald's would be much higher in protein than a meal of doritos and/or coke. Probably better micro-nutrient profile too, although my no means would it be good.

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

#494

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…

>we use a wonderful Italian caterer, so flavour isn't going to be missed A non meat dish is still going to taste like a non-meat dish. Perhaps your colleagues were just being polite and avoiding treading into politically charged territory after you brought up the Amazon. Personally I'm a picky eater and vegan/vegetarian dishes simply do not compare to meat. I'm sure others feel similarly. Though for one meal I suppos…

I’m vegetarian and I take a bite of meat all the time, especially if it’s something special.

None of it is as good as great vegetarian food. Sure the top top top shelf stuff is probably as good. But the average meat at a restaurant or someone’s home is no better than great veggie food.

That said average veggie food sucks. If you are eating in the average-or-below segment then yes meat is probably better. In the good-to-great segment it’s not.

Veg food does require more work, which is a big part of why a lot of people/chefs don’t bother. Meat is basically perfect as-is. You just have to not fuck it up. Veggies require you do some chef work.

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

#495
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 burg…

On their ingredients page ( https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/hamburger.html ) it says that the patty consists of: "100% Beef Patty. Ingredients: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Beef; No Fillers, No Extenders. Prepared with Grill Seasoning (Salt, Black Pepper)." That seems pretty clear to me. USDA defines beef as flesh of cattle. If there is anything but "flesh of cattle" in the patty, McDonald's is committing frau…

USDA has a pretty wide definition for what constitutes as ground beef[1]:

> After a months-long evaluation, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) determined in December that BPI’s signature product—the offering famously called “pink slime” in an ABC News exposé that got the network in a lot of trouble—can be labeled “ground beef.” Legally speaking, it’s now no different from ordinary hamburger, and could even be sold directly to the public.

[1] https://newfoodeconomy.org/bpi-pink-slime-ground-beef-usda-r...

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

#496
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…

You will be surprised how much less healthy cheap plant based food can be than meat... Now you get human pesticides (the ones sprayed on plants), GMO and plant pesticides (the one plants have developed against mammals) on top of the low quality crap that was previously called meat.

GMO isn't a problem. Anyone who says it is is trying to sell you something.

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

#497

I think the fake meat movement will go the way of Margarine. Initially it's celebrated as a feat of engineering and as the healthy alternative to meat. After about 10 to 20 years however, we'll see cancer and heart disease rates going up. And then the billions of dollars spent in health care will pile up, but nobody will readily admit it, because the fuck up will be even bigger than with Margarine. After all, Margari…

Do you have some reason to believe that meat is healthier, or is this speculation?

Yes, it's called evolution.

We could do the same with plant based meat or whatever processed garbage gets sold in its name. We can let millions of people eat that day in and out and watch if they die out of heart disease and cancer over the next decades.

Feel free to sign up.

Personally not going to turn myself or my family into lab rats for these grandiose world changing goals.

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

#498
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that eating fake meat is like eating plants is ... similar to thinking that crack cocaine has similar effects with coca leaves. I expect more from HN :-)

And you’re thinking fast food meat is similar to what we ate for millions of years ... ?

Plant meat is not sold as an alternative to fast food meat, it's sold as an alternative to meat.

It will exactly go the way dessert corn flake breakfast has gone over the decades. A highly taste engineered food, loaded with chemicals and macro nutrient stuff which will give you a lot of diseases on the longer run.

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

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number one reason is that we've eaten red meat for millions of years, literally. Given fake meat is new and I'm not seeing it in stores nearby yet, I'm going to assume a fair comparison will take another decade, after the studies and the meta analysis show up. Until then the burden of proof is not on me ;-)

When you say something brand new and made from vegetables must cause cancer I think the burden of proof is absolutely on you, and so far you haven't given a single reason why that might be true.

Well if you want vegetables, you might as well skip this whole ceremony and straight away eat real vegetables. It's not that hard to make a vegetable sandwich.

The problem is you are selling processed vegetable mash with salts, chemical preservatives, conditioners and oil as meat.

It's not meat. It is, what it is. Processed vegetable trash. Sell it that way, and its perfectly fine. People can eat it if they want. Let's not signal this as some healthier alternative.

For more information read: Ship Of Theseus.

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

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number one reason is that we've eaten red meat for millions of years, literally. Given fake meat is new and I'm not seeing it in stores nearby yet, I'm going to assume a fair comparison will take another decade, after the studies and the meta analysis show up. Until then the burden of proof is not on me ;-)

As opposed to plants?

There are tons of plants that are not healthy to eat at all. Or can be processed in a way that makes them unhealthy, or even dangerous to eat. See: tobacco.
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