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

How to lower the price of plant-based meat

us14.campaign-archive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 679 posts

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

#71

Post by wyre »

hannob wrote: post #64
wyre wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A carbon-tax funded UBI would be popular, but ideally wouldn’t funding from a carbon tax go towards sequestering the carbon and other green initiatives instead of giving it back to consumers to spend on high-carbon goods and services?

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

#72

Post by dragonwriter »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #49
orange_tee wrote: post #38

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.

> There are plenty of very healthy meat-avoiding people in the world

Yes, but they don't tend to eat much in the way of highly-processed meat simulants crafted from plants.

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

#73

Post by dabbledash »

Falling3 wrote: post #53
dabbledash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about the meat issue, but I’ve seen women in mother’s groups ask “what kind of milk” people were going to be giving their babies after they were done giving breast milk or formula. Some people seemed to genuinely think that something called almond milk is actually a type of milk in some meaningful sense just because of the name.

Are you implying that children that are weaned shouldn't have non-dairy milk substitutes?

I’m fine with them having non-dairy beverages, but they aren’t “substitutes” nutritionally just because they have milk in the name. If your 1 year old is drinking almond milk (30cal and 1g protein per 8oz) instead of whole milk (150 cal and 8 gr protein per 8 oz), you need to adjust what you’re feeding, just like you would if you were giving any other drink.

The issue is some people seem to assume liquids that are labeled milks are actually like each other in some way that goes beyond flavor and texture.

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

#74

Post by nicoburns »

dehrmann wrote: post #68
ebiester wrote: post #29

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.

Tesla has also proved the market and accelerated the EV roadmaps of most of the other car manufactures.

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

#75

Post by jcampbell1 »

ebiester wrote: post #29

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…

The protein yield per acre for soybeans vs mung beans is 6x. No amount of try hard is going to make mung bean protein close in price to soy.

What gets me is that I can’t even source tofu that is cheaper than chicken. Chickens are very good reactors for turning carbohydrates into protein.

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

#76

Post by dehrmann »

avolcano wrote: post #10
sparrish wrote: post #2

It really shouldn't be called "meat". It should be called plant-based protein or meat-substitute. The definition of "meat" shouldn't change because you press some soy to look like a chicken leg.

I don't really understand this. I've never seen a package of plant-based meat and found myself confused, much in the same way I've never seen a carton of oat milk and thought it contained dairy. What's the concern here?

> I've never seen a carton of oat milk and thought it contained dairy

I have no issues with " milk" products and labeling them like that, but people do get confused about their nutritional profiles, thinking they're substitutes for milk. They're not, and they're chemically different enough that they're not good substitutes for cooking. About the only thing they're good substitutes for is liquid milk, though I hear oat milk foams up well for a cappuccino.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] »

orange_tee wrote: post #63
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #49

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?

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by orange_tee »

maximente wrote: post #70
orange_tee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All the questions are related. I am aware that some people can make it work, but if you remove cheap meat, who do you affect? Poor people. My question is, can poor people also eat a plant based diet with minimal malnutrition risk? All the questions are in reference to that.

All I see about plant based diets say the same shit without answering the though questions. They always say, "it's possible to be a health vegan if you watch your nutrition". Well that says precisely nothing. It is a carefully crafted message to not upset militant vegans.

The impression I get from that message is that it is far easier to be healthy if you don't avoid meat. You don't have to watch your nutrition much. You just have to use common sense.

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

#79

Post by wyre »

orange_tee wrote: post #63
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #49

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?

I’ve been vegan for 5 years. I was raised vegetarian, but I also cooked a chicken the night before I went vegan. It is feasible and as time goes on it gets easier and easier.

Only recently have I started spending more than $200 a month on groceries and that’s because I’ve started weightlifting. I can get by on much less.

Is any change in lifestyle trivial?

I’m able to go to my local grocery store for everything I need. I go to my local Asian market because I like the noodles and spices though, but that isn’t necessary at all.

Food deserts exist but that is a bigger problem with general accessibility to food, and is not a good argument to a plant-based diet, imo.

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

#80

Post by adrianmonk »

hannob wrote: 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.)

This is a thing where some solutions are within the control of some people and some other solutions are within the control of other people.
Post reply on HN