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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

#331

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…

Absolutely. Meat comes from animals. Period. This is not meat. Call it what it is - textured vegetable protein or whatever it is. I wouldn't call a hotdog a carrot, it's no different.

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

#332
post #96
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.)

You know, I wonder if a meat-based production system is a hedge against catastrophic/extinction events. For example, let's say we have another potato-famine style event. Even a bio-engineered attack that takes out a crop or crops. We could scale back meat production and use the crop capacity we use to support the "meat pyramid" to feed people directly until the crisis has passed. Subsidizing crop capacity might make…

OTOH shifting away from meat consumption would probably force more species diversity in our food production. I think corn and soybeans account for most of the crops grown for livestock feed, but humans eat a more varied diet. I image that would improve robustness against blights or whatever.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. I think this is too generous. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but the implicit message here is that people actually care about the animals and sustainability of meat farming. My spouse is vegetarian and I'm whatever. I don't…

> I have had the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody changed their habits.

For what it's worth. I had a conversation at the dinner table about the ethics of eating meat with another meat eater. We both decided there and then stop, this was almost a decade ago and neither of us have eaten meat since. It does happen.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an avid meat-eater (because nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things and humans evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons), my answer to the animal cruelty argument is just to buy the top-shelf, pasture-raised meats. It's better for my health and much better for the animals. Obviously I have no control over where restaurants source their food from, but I try to prefere…

> because nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things and humans evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons This is such a non-argument, and I'm saying this as a(n occasional) meat-eater. > nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things The default state for most living beings is scarcity. I think we all intuitively judge the morality of people's acti…

>I am irritated by the weak justification though

Pot, kettle.

>Humans evolved the ability to eat meat because it increased their chances of survival in a hostile environment with scarce resources.

It doesn't stop there. Humans have subsequently evolved to thrive on fatty foods. Our understanding of nutritional evolution is incredibly weak. Despite agriculture predominantly giving us access to carbohydrates, human brains are mostly fat-adapted. Many of today's health epidemics are linked to a lack of fat and an excess of carbohydrates. Try finding fatty fruits and veggies: they were incredibly scarce for most the human population until the last 100 years. Several people have noticed significant improvements going predominantly meat. There's more going on here than just the scarcity argument, the scarcity argument is a gross simplification.

>Comfort is the only reason why healthy people eat meat

No. Plenty of people are eating meat to be healthy. People are, in fact, getting frustrated by listening to the advice of the average western diet, listening to dietitians when they get fat, and unable to get in shape despite putting in an insane amount of effort listening to their dietitians putting their hormones out of whack, making them hungry and agitated 24/7, while they keep saying "just keep going". We don't process meat-based products the same way we do plant-based products.

This is not to moralize meat. Rather, this is to indicate people jump on the "meat is bad / lazy / immoral" bandwagon way too quickly, being spoonfed the common narrative without doing an ounce of research and frequently without experience. Just like the average person doesn't eat meat for any other reason than their own comfort, so does the average person stop eating meat because everyone and their mother claims eating plants will save the world. It's becoming a story of "my propaganda is better than yours".

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

#335

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…

not only this, but to turn plants into "meat" you end up with horrible processed vegetables with added oils, sugars and unnatural flavourings. most of which are then breadcrumbed in bleached flour and deep fried. by this point, the thing that might once have been a plant is now as bad as meat, if not worse, and resembles a dog turd in taste and health benefits

People looking for direct meat replacements arent always doing it to be healthier though, so they might be okay with it being just as unhealthy as meat.

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

#336
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote this comment if you've ever encountered a native english speaker use the word 'meat' to be a synonym of 'solid food'. Option Base 1 I would like to see when Merriam Webster added this obscure definition, let alone have it listed first.

Sigh... This is THE original definition. Language later evolved and people started using the word meat to mostly mean animal flash. But that's just proof that language evolves over time and now it's evolving again to include broader range of food. But in any case, I'm sure you've heard of meat of a fruit or nut.

The original definition, as far as we can track it, would appear to be "wet".

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

#337

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…

Well, the term "meat" is what clicks and pull most of the customers towards these products. I would say the marketing people have done a good job keeping that name.

On the other hand, however, I think that keeping things like "chicken", "beef", etc in the names is what is confusing and misleading. I'm a vegetarian but everytime I pickup plant meat and see the words "chicken", etc. on the labels, I freak out.

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

#338

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.

I agree. I've been eating vegan a while, and I've hated certain foods such as onions for my whole life. A ton of fake meat is pre-seasoned with onions and other stuff. Hard to find things I even want to try among it. Typically a beef hotdog would come unseasoned, so it's a bit unfortunate.

There's still plenty good food to eat, but the fake meat is not the most exciting stuff to me.

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

#339

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…

As someone who got forced into a vegan diet for health reasons, I really appreciate fake meat and I'm stoked on fake hamburgers and hotdogs and whatever. They famously have a reputation for mystery ingredients anyway. Nobody gives a fuck.

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

#340

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…

> 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 hilarious, because there's one comment just like that below yours now. > The high high majority of meat consumption is not high quality product, but the absolutely lowest quality possible. Yes, this. A lot of people,…

> The Impossible Whopper is almost there now. It just needs to get a couple of notches better, and be the same price as a meat Whopper and there'd zero reason to choose the meat Whopper anymore. And if you can get the Impossible one cheaper than the meat one, it will be the default choice,

I'm not sure about cheaper, I think that might have some of effects - perceived inferiority, etc.

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