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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

#351

Post by sitharus »

OJFord wrote: post #340
henrikschroder wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So much of the population have to eat the cheapest thing possible it'll certainly have an effect. Make it $1 extra for meat, some will take it but many will save the dollar for something else.

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

#352

Post by cphoover »

Vegetarian evangelism ignores the huge culture around food and meat eating... its not something that can be changed easily. This is underapreciated in all debates about vegetarianism. There are food cultures around the world that survive on primarily meat, where the animal is worshiped as sacred for its significance to the survival of the society. There are regions known for meat recipes that go way back throughout history. People arguing against eating meat ignore all of this. Food is nostalgia, food is heritage and tradition, food is culture.

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

#353

Post by sitharus »

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.

So is the animal industry in the USA, with ammonia-washed meat, wide-scale deployment of antibiotics (which has the knock-on effect of helping create antibiotic resistance), and the use of growth hormones in cattle to increase production.

I'm not defending the plant-based industry here, but the way meat is produced in the USA is also a nightmare.

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

#354

Post by ascar »

danShumway wrote: post #93
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.)

Even if we ignore externalities and pollution costs, just stop outright subsidizing animal meat production so much. The reason meat is so cheap is because our government puts a lot of effort and money into making it cheap. I don't know why more people aren't trying to sell this to the "free market" crowd as government overreach. The reality right now is that plant-based protein is gaining popularity despite the marke…

It's a reasonable argument that government subsidies for farmers reduce prices for the consumer, but I don't think it's necessarily a correct assumption.

Subsidies help the local farmers to compete with farmers in low cost countries. Transportation costs are usually insignificant. So without subsidies the consumer might pay the same price, but the store just ends up sourcing the product from a different country. However, having a significant amount of food production locally has obvious strategic benefits (and I don't mean just war, even a draught could create sufficient shortages)

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

#355

Post by novok »

scottLobster wrote: post #237
hunter-gatherer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

After doing some more research, I've found meat isn't as cruel as most think it is, and even vegetable farming isn't as animal injury / cruelty free as people would think.

Often many, many small animals get basically wood chipped by agricultural machinery or poisoned by pest traps and pesticides. If you go by pure numbers of "non-insect brains" made to feel pain or die in horrible ways from human agricultural activity, vegetable farming would actually far outpace meat farming.

Also a lot of meat ranching can use land that is plain unusable for vegetables, but cows, chickens, sheep and pigs can use just fine. That will not go away. Also meat such as cows especially are not subject to the 'cows living in shit up to their knees' type of reality everyone thinks most cheap cow meat lives in, which is actually a small minority of badly run farms. All cow meat lives in a pasture for at least %70 of their lives. That last %30 is the difference between 'grass fed' and conventional beef.

All food has blood on its hands, and in the end, that is the way of life in human and non-human reality. I think a big part of the push to be vegetarian or vegan comes from a disconnect on how food is made. Societies used to be +%90 agricultural workers and processed their food in far more raw forms than the typical "abstract shapes of meat" that we typically deal with today, so a lot of the rhetoric did not connect, because it conflicted with their lived experience.

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

#356

Post by lhorie »

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 agree. Back when I was young, my mom was talking to a friend about food and tofu came up. They had never heard of it and asked what it was like. My mom said it was kinda like cheese. Fast forward to the next time the friend was over, and they related that they had tried buying some tofu and hated it. Why? Because they figured to try to use it like they use cheese, and tried to put slices of tofu in a sandwich...

Can you imagine trying to market tofu as a cottage cheese alternative? In hindsight, it makes way more sense to market tofu as its own thing, and there's a lot of dishes that only work with tofu.

After I got married, my chinese wife related some of her experience with food growing up. In China, they have these veggie cakes that are somewhat similar in texture and seasoning to meatballs, but no one was ever under any impression that they were anything but veggie cakes. They are not marketed as meatballs, nobody thinks of them as meatballs, and yet they are still great.

This idea of trying to market veggie patties as something they are not is very puzzling. It's also a bit sad that it feels like BigFood is trying to tell westerners that they shouldn't get creative with culinary. "Burgers are all you need" is what the messaging sounds like.

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

#357

Post by kart23 »

thatcherc wrote: post #61
drewg123 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

40 MB of transfer for an FAQ. wonderful.

But yeah, it does look really cool and they say they are working with the FDA to bring it to the US.

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

#358

Post by diziet »

From an athletic or 'health' perspective, these plant-based meat substitutes have way too high fat content. You can get 93+% lean beef with 3-4 grams of fat per 20~ grams of protein, or even higher with game meat. None of the plant proteins appeal to a healthy eater, with the high coconut/canola/sunflower oil content.

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

#359

Post by MauranKilom »

Animats wrote: post #185
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 really think that in general calling plant-based things "meat", a terrible idea. The US meat industry is fighting that battle.[1] So far, they're not winning. In the EU, dirt farmers have been able to prevent the use of the term "organic" for hydroponic farms, though. We can live up to great flavors vegetables, fruits, and herbs. There's a bright future ahead for new classes of junk foods. Plant-based bacon flavore…

> Plant-based bacon flavored chips, coming soon to a convenience store near you.

I'm probably misunderstanding something, but my potato chips have hopefully always been plant-based (even if bacon-flavored - no idea if that requires animal ingredients)?

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

#360

Post by encom »

henrikschroder wrote: post #291
drukenemo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Have you seen the animal industry? It's absolutely disgusting.

Yes I have. My job as an electrician brought me to farms, slaughterhouses, and food factories. Denmark has rigorously enforced standards for ethical treatment of animals, as well as strict hygiene standards for industrial food preparation. Not disgusting at all.

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