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How to lower the price of plant-based meat

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Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#61
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any commercial products and has anyone tried it? I do recall some video somewhere of a US restaurant and people said it was reasonable but that could have been plant based.

The company behind Just Egg is vat-growing cultured chicken. It is limited to Singapore for now. See https://goodmeat.co/

I'm intrigued and want to read more about this, but that site is crazy. Takes >10 seconds on my phone to load the 'experience' which is a long-form scrolljacking narrative that starts with the history of the chicken.

Their FAQ page is really interesting, but I can't find a way to link directly to it.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#62
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s natural and organic and proven process that’s been around for thousands of years. Which is a good example how "natural" and "been around for thousands of years" does not equal "is good for the environment".

Cows and livestock are great for environment. They eat plants and clear vegetation and the poop converts to nutrients in soil. People should demand and buy better meat from better farms with better practices.

The ever growing demand for meat is a leading cause of deforestation. Forests remove far more CO2 than grasslands (think 3 dimensions vs 2 dimensions).

Cows require orders of magnitude more land to be devoted to them than plant based food, simply due to the inefficiencies of the sunlight -> plant -> meat -> food production process. If you cut the middle-man out (meat), then the process becomes orders of magnitude more efficient.

This reminds me that if by "better farms with better practices" you mean free-range type farms, then they are actually far worse for the environment because they are less efficient. Eg, you need more land per pound of meat produced.

Cows also produce vast quantities of methane, which is a leading greenhouse gas. The quickest way to slow down global warming would be to cease livestock farming entirely.

Watch the documentary "Cowspiricy" (https://www.netflix.com/title/80033772)

Or for a shorter view, Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates Fake Burger (to save the world) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-V3ESHcfA

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malnutrition is also an externality. I am not sure how healthy these options are but I suspect that substituting minced meat patties, for mashed vegetables glued together with cheap vegetable oils is not an nutritional improvement.

There are plenty of very healthy meat-avoiding people in the world. Malnutrition is also a problem in the world. Malnutrition from people eating fake meat? So far, not a problem.

The question is how feasible it is? Is it a trivial change in lifestyle? Is it more expensive or cheaper? Can you make it work with the basic fare that you find everywhere, or do you need to shop around for plant products that are more exotic?

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#64
post #60
post #30

Interestingly it doesn't even discuss the obvious solution: Let people who buy real meat pay for the externalities. (Interestingly even in places where there's some form of carbon pricing - like the EU - this often doesn't cover a large share of emissions from meat production, as methane emissions are very relevant here - I'm not aware of any methane pricing scheme anywhere.)

As much as I would love to see subsidies ended on animal products, it couldn’t happen overnight without huge backlash. Lowering the subsidies over time and eliminating the power that the animal agriculture industry has over politics would do a lot to increase the number of plant-based eaters.

Depends on how you do it.

There are proposals for carbon tax schemes that go like "we'll pay back all the income from the carbon tax to all citizen directly". You can imagine the same for methane. Pretty sure such a proposal would be popular.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#65
It's interesting to note the names of the companies in the article:

>> In China, Beyond Meat signed five major new partnerships, with Starbucks, retailers Alibaba and Metro, distributor Sinodis, and Yum China (owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell).

>> In the rest of Asia, Thailand’s largest meat company, CP Foods (...)

>> In Latin America, Brazilian agribusiness giant Marfrig (...)

>> In Europe, the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco (...)

>> Dairy giant Danone (...)

>> Unilever shared that a third of its products are now plant-based. (...)

>> Danone declared its ambition to more than double its plant-based sales >> worldwide (...)

>> In the US, Starbucks started selling Impossible breakfast sandwiches, as did >> Burger King, while KFC began a new trial of Beyond Fried Chicken (...)

These are all the very same agribusiness colossi that are responsible for the despoiling of land and the destruction of the environment by the most brutal intensive agriculture and farming methods.

And it's these companies that are expected to solve the problem of mass food production (plant- or meat-based) in a way that does not destroy the environment even more and that respects the health and the nutrition needs of their customers? I find that extremely naive.

Such companies simply want to sell the cheapest, lowest-quality food products for the highest possible profit (Taco Bell! KFC! Burger King!). If they can claim to protect the enviroment, even as they further brutalise it, then all the better for their bottom line.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#66
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say "that won't go well with the voters" but it's not like the EU is a democracy.

The EU is a democracy.

Like the average EU citizen, I don't remember ever voting for anybody who represents me in the EU and I don't know any of the structures of power of the EU or how they work.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#67
post #57
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said it does?

The top poster seems to imply that these are good things.

I am clearly stating that raising cows and livestock for meat are better than industrial crops ground up with food coloring and odd shapes.

Eating cow and livestock meat is better for people and environment.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#68

I disagree with some of the premises. First, I think that the right choice is to pick the right protein for the job, and not choose wheat and soy because of price. Mung beans, for example, are expensive because people aren't growing them. If quantity demanded grows, so will supply and supply chains, which will lower the price. It is possible that mung beans (as an example) are marginally more expensive to grow for so…

> They are saying to go downmarket because it will be cheaper

Ah, yes, the Tesla strategy. Tesla also keeps issuing more shares and has failed to deliver a $20k-$30k Civic/Accord competitor.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#69
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Some vegans/vegetarians don't want their food labelled meat either. However please don't compare the modern industrial meat production with anything like farming from, say, 500 years ago, or with ancient hunting. Modern meat production is brutal (for necessary cost reasons) and hugely destructive to the environment.

There are still sustainable farms, and you can of course encourage more of it by buying your meat from those.

Sure there are, but we don't have enough surface area on this planet to replace industrial meat production with sustainable farms without a vast decrease in output.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of very healthy meat-avoiding people in the world. Malnutrition is also a problem in the world. Malnutrition from people eating fake meat? So far, not a problem.

The question is how feasible it is? Is it a trivial change in lifestyle? Is it more expensive or cheaper? Can you make it work with the basic fare that you find everywhere, or do you need to shop around for plant products that are more exotic?

you wrote:

> Malnutrition is also an externality.

a poster addressed that, and now you have 4 more questions, none related to nutrition - and, hilariously, prefaced by the common but ridiculous "the question is" (implying there's one) rhetorical device.

this style of dialog is really tiring.

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