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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

#291

Post by henrikschroder »

drukenemo wrote: post #231
tashoecraft wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. So many non vegetarian/vegan people say stuff like this and it’s just wrong. Or they’ll say “why have a fake burger, can’t you just enjoy vegetarian food, why does it have to be a burger? If you want burger just eat one and stop trying to copy meat, innovate on your own”. It’s just people completely missing the point. If you get fake meat close enough in taste/texture/price you’ll move a large amount of produ…

Plant-based food aimed at replacing meat is often a too-many ingredient, industrialised nightmare.

...unlike the animal industry which is just full of fluffy, happy, loved cows who proudly line themselves up to be turned into tasty beef for your pleasure...

Have you seen the animal industry? It's absolutely disgusting. Getting rid of that would be an enormous net win, both ethical and environmental.

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

#292

Post by BlargMcLarg »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #162
tomstoms wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we need research and educational efforts into plant based nutrition instead of pumping all tax money into marketing and subsidies for the meat and dairy industry. Big surprise. I’m raising two perfectly healthy vegan kids. They are above average on most factors that matter and continue to amaze people around us when we tell them they are vegan. There is so much misinformation out there, and extrapolating from case…

Indeed, my understanding of the scientific consensus is that a healthy vegan or vegetarian diet is perfectly possible. However the question is what happens when such a diet is forced on a large fraction of some population, either because meat becomes too expensive, or because plant-based alterantives become much cheaper. Are most people who can scarecely afford good nutritious food right now going to be able to maint…

There absolutely isn't a scientific consensus. If anything, several cases have come up recently to counter the wild acceptance that anyone can live vegan just fine, and further investigation is still necessary. Just recently, the carnivore diet has taken off for multiple people, and even just significantly reducing plant-based foods in favor of animal-based foods is showing to help many people. There's also the theory of anti-nutrients and the importance of genetics which we still don't understand.

If there is one field that's an absolute mess, its nutritional sciences. The only thing one can trust is their own experience with any particular diet, their overall well-being and regular health check-ups. What works for one person can be absolutely disastrous for another.

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

#293

Post by f430 »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #201
jeffrallen wrote: post #114

Umm, just eat the plants instead? I don't get fake meat. It is a solution to the wrong problem. Make a small amount of meat sustainable and respectful of animal wellness. Then make the rest of your diet plant based. Done.

It would work if you completely disregard people's enjoyment and overall experience of eating the foods. (And only think of nutritional composition.)

A lot of people's preference of food comes from its culture that adapted to its immediate natural environment.

For America, the fast food industry was really born out of corporate interests and it is unnatural. It's not that eating meat is wrong but the fast food industry that is responsible for our over consumption and maltreatment of bovine stock to meet the demands.

In countries like Japan, France, Vietnam, fast food hasn't caught on as much as locals prefer their traditional diet. Unfortunately some South American countries have completely given way to American fast food lobby groups, in particular Brazil which comes with a huge cost to public health.

You have poorly educated population, corporate greed and unlimited lobbying powers, with limited public healthcare and you are in a man made ticking bomb.

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

#294

Post by wyre »

drukenemo wrote: post #231
tashoecraft wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. So many non vegetarian/vegan people say stuff like this and it’s just wrong. Or they’ll say “why have a fake burger, can’t you just enjoy vegetarian food, why does it have to be a burger? If you want burger just eat one and stop trying to copy meat, innovate on your own”. It’s just people completely missing the point. If you get fake meat close enough in taste/texture/price you’ll move a large amount of produ…

Plant-based food aimed at replacing meat is often a too-many ingredient, industrialised nightmare.

Is that kinda like how mass produced meat is literally an industrialized nightmare? Or are you just saying that having more than a handful of ingredients is bad?

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

#295

Post by hamax »

Droobfest wrote: post #263
hamax wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definition of meat by merriam-webster: a: FOOD especially : solid food as distinguished from drink b: the edible part of something as distinguished from its covering (such as a husk or shell) The same as with milk. Nobody had problems with coconut milk until dairy lobby started fearing plant milk competition. And when one buys oat yogurt they know exactly what they'll get and what to compare it with. Or do you think…

So if I say 'We should all eat less meat' you immediately understand this to also include eating less plant patties? Or could this possibly be the wrong definition?

Who would you call if your house would have a mouse problem? Exterminator or IT support?

I guess things can have multiple definitions and we can use context to distinguish between them?

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

#296

Post by aylmao »

henrikschroder wrote: post #164
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #143

A tangential topic - I really think that in general calling plant-based things "meat", a terrible idea. It does not promote plant-base diet or meat consumption reduction. It is trying to be what is not. I think it pushes away those who are on the cusp of moving towards plant-base foods. Why? Because the consumer is told it is "meat", so they will compare it to meat. They will compare these patties to a real, prime An…

> I think it pushes away those who are on the cusp of moving towards plant-base foods. I think you are completely wrong. People eat meat because they like the taste and the texture, but at the same time everyone knows that meat is produced by killing animals, and that it's much less sustainable than vegetarian food. If you want to get people to switch to meat alternatives, you have to keep everything that's great abo…

Not OP, but as someone who is not vegetarian/vegan and is from a country with a cuisine that revolves heavily around meat (Mexican) I have to agree with OP.

> If you want to get people to switch to meat alternatives, you have to keep everything that's great about meat (taste, texture, proteins), while removing everything that's bad about meat (slaughter, livestock industry).

I think one thing is making sure it's great, and another thing is making sure it's the same, and you can have something that's great and heavily impacts the market without having it be the same.

Just thinking of a random example where this worked; MDF is very much not wood, but it's pretty great for most things. People still buy a lot of wooden furniture, surfaces, etc but for a lot of use-cases MDF does just fine. MDF isn't trying to have the same weight, the exact same texture, or be as solid as wood. It's another material and it's marketed as another material, not as "replacement wood" or something along those lines.

Thinking of an example where this hasn't worked; Stadia. Google is very much trying to replace consoles and is focusing on AAA games, but the thing is, as it stands today, Stadia is not a console replacement. The way google is positioning Stadia though puts it in the eyes of hardcore gamers who care about the details: the latency, the streaming resolution, etc. Perhaps if they weren't trying to sell it as your next AAA-game console, they would attract a section of the population that just wants to play games easily, and don't care so much about the specifics.

The goal here is to not fully replace the market, but shrink it.

Another point worth making is that it's hard to imagine we can reverse the trend in global warming keeping excessive consumer habits— people need to change too. Sure, electric cars will consume less CO2 and they are an easy short-term solution in a car-centric society, but cities need to be planned better so car use in general decreases. Sure, recycled plastics can reduce or plastic waste, but we shouldn't be producing so many water bottles in the first place. Plant-based "meat" are likewise a step in the right direction, but it's also the case meant consumption is just very high. Trying to offer solutions that don't tackle the underlying problem make hard to guarantee long-term sustainability.

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

#297

Post by TulliusCicero »

jeffrallen wrote: post #114

Umm, just eat the plants instead? I don't get fake meat. It is a solution to the wrong problem. Make a small amount of meat sustainable and respectful of animal wellness. Then make the rest of your diet plant based. Done.

Congrats, you found the solution!

Now we just need to dump a few million into "JUST EAT PLANTS" billboards and I'm sure the problem will be solved!

Silly food companies, don't they know that consumers were ready to drop all meat eating at a moment's notice?

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

#299

Post by TulliusCicero »

bigfudge wrote: post #214
Dylan16807 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just eat broccoli instead? I don't get other foods. Make a small amount of other things sustainable and respectful, then make the rest of your diet broccoli. Done. Almost the entire point of cultivating different foods is to enjoy different flavors and textures. If something is tasty but expensive, in terms of money or the environment, we should encourage the people that try to make it cheaper. There's no reason to w…

I think the point is that we have tried making meat cheap and it created a lot of problems. Until we fix those problems the grandparent comments strategy seems sound.

How is that strategy sound in the least? What's your plan to convert billions of people to stop eating meat?

The objective here isn't to convert a few people on hacker news, it's to convert billions. "Hey dummies, just eat plants! They were here the whole time!" isn't gonna happen.

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