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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

#411

Post by Spivak »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #405
elif wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that tracks. Impossible burger: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitam…

For the vast majority of those ingredients, the answer sure looks like "yes." A few are literally standard home cooking ingredients, and nearly all the rest (dextrose, yeast extract, vitamin mixes, etc.) are pretty common in any processed food, which -- let's be honest here -- a lot of us buy pretty regularly. I'm not sure there's anything there that's unique to the Impossible Burger other than the "soy leghemoglobin…

Yeast extract is Marmite! And dextrose is a derivative of corn syrup. And enriched flour is characterized by having vitamins added to it. So they’re not that uncommon either.

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

#412

Post by nkozyra »

Badfood wrote: post #385
nkozyra wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. This pursuit of tasting "kinda like meat" has incurred a lot of odd ingredients most people would normally eschew if they knew the extent of study in human consumption. Plain meat has a much better track record. I don't blame any meat eater for rolling their eyes at this stuff. And the decisions are sometimes odd. Like beet juice being added not for flavor but so it looks like the patty is bleeding. Meat eaters…

Meat has a better track record huh? Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by animal products. Those 'odd ingredients' don't seem so odd to me. Go through the list of a meat alternative one by one, you'll be surprised how mundane they are

> Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by animal products.

[ citation needed ]

I'm a long-time vegetarian but this kind of specious pseudo science doesn't sit right with me.

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

#413

Post by eyelidlessness »

Badfood wrote: post #385
nkozyra wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. This pursuit of tasting "kinda like meat" has incurred a lot of odd ingredients most people would normally eschew if they knew the extent of study in human consumption. Plain meat has a much better track record. I don't blame any meat eater for rolling their eyes at this stuff. And the decisions are sometimes odd. Like beet juice being added not for flavor but so it looks like the patty is bleeding. Meat eaters…

Meat has a better track record huh? Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by animal products. Those 'odd ingredients' don't seem so odd to me. Go through the list of a meat alternative one by one, you'll be surprised how mundane they are

Please recognize that the caution around new food science advances is based in experience. I’m sure most of us are old enough to remember when most crunchy fried snacks were on the shelf with oils that had no known health risk but turned out to produce widespread uncontrollable diarrhea because the oils were indigestible.

I’m not suggesting these new meat substitutes have that effect but it’s reasonable for people to be cautious. Yeah heart disease and global emissions but... also soiling yourself without warning in public.

The best thing proponents of these new foods could do is genuinely and honestly recognize and address those worries.

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

#414

Post by alacombe »

hamax wrote: post #189
alacombe wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OOTH Merriam-webster is changing definitions faster than the wind change direction...

Funny enough, this is the original definition. You are the one using the new "fancy" definitions. Wiki: The word meat comes from the Old English word mete, which referred to food in general. The term is related to mad in Danish, mat in Swedish and Norwegian, and matur in Icelandic and Faroese, which also mean 'food'. The word mete also exists in Old Frisian (and to a lesser extent, modern West Frisian) to denote impo…

This is at best dishonest, if you really referred to that definition, you would use "meat", not "imitation meat"/"fake meat"/"plant based meat". Everything in the marketing of that stuff is made to mimic meat-as-in-animal-muscle meat.

If you want a burger, go eat a freaking slaughtered cow patty burger, don't be all fancy with that highly process crap.

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

#415

Post by danbolt »

tomp wrote: post #363
henrikschroder wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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.

I can buy organic, grass-fed, no-GMO, sustainably pasture-raised beef. Can I buy a higher-quality vurger? AFAIK not (right now).

I’d be fine with that and then plant-based pub burgers for the rest.

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

#416

Post by danShumway »

Sevii wrote: post #376
danShumway wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking your argument at face value and assuming you're right, I still want to point out that those subsidies are applied primarily to a subset of foods, especially feed crops for animals. Our government isn't spending nearly the same amount of time and money trying to subsidize fruits and vegetables. Shouldn't we be just as worried about those products being sourced from other countries? Why are we treating animal fe…

From a strategic perspective grain is the most important thing in a food shortage. People can live a year or two without fruit or vegetables, but without the calories in grain things will get violent fast.

I'm not going to dismiss it outright, but I am mild-to-medium skeptical of this theory. Take a look at some of the recent years of subsidies listed on https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&yr.... It's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables. Our corn subsidies are on average over twice as high as our wheat subsidies, and over 7 times as high as rice subsidies.

Even dairy consistently gets more subsidies than fruits and vegetables. Are we really just optimizing for a worst case scenario where we literally run out of food? Does it really make sense for us to say that during a famine or a drought that milk will be an efficient use of resources? Nobody is baking bread with canola seeds, is it really more important during a famine that we have canola oil than potatoes?

Maybe this is the result of a highly researched government program about how to survive a worldwide famine. But the numbers I'm seeing aren't doing a lot to convince me that famine planning is a more likely cause than lobbying.

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

#417

Post by chipotle_coyote »

philliphaydon wrote: post #379
Tade0 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying a Beyond Burger for the first time. Overall impression was that had some fastfood chains replaced their patties with this, not only nobody would notice that what they're eating isn't actually meat, but also they would be happy with how the quality improved. There's of course the question of price, but I'm sure with adequate scale it can be brought down.

I’m not sure “nobody” would notice. I’ve had impossible meat burger and beyond meat burger. The beyond meat was disgusting. It wasn’t even slightly convincing. Impossible was more convincing texture wise but taste wise it makes you look at what you’re eating cos it’s like “huh it feels like meat but doesn’t taste like it...”

In my experience, how they're prepared matters a lot. Strangely, I think Impossible Burgers (the ones I'm more familiar with) do worse when they're overcooked than actual meat does. The very first Impossible Burger I ever had was thick and cooked medium-rare, and it was terrific, pink on the inside and genuinely juicy. If I didn't know it was plant-based meat, I wouldn't have been able to tell you; it didn't taste quite like beef, but I might have guessed there was a little sausage or something else mixed in there. When I've had Impossible Burgers cooked fully through so they're more medium-well or above, though, the pea/grain flavor starts amping up quickly.

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

#418

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#419

Post by websites222 »

unsigner wrote: post #213
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.

This. In the EU, you can't sell a concoction of palm oil, whey protein, fillers, flavors and colorings as "cheese" - you need to label it as "breakfast spread" or something like that. There are different words you are allowed to use for fruit-based drinks depending on how removed they are from actual fruit. Why not apply similar standards to the ersatz meat?

That's because of some lobbying by the meat industry, not out of a concern for the consumer.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/16/eu-ban-v...

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

#420

Post by WalterSear »

shagie wrote: post #344
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…

I enjoy eating meat... the texture, the savory nature of its flavor. Back when I lived in the bay, my brother and I found a vegan restaurant - Golden Era. He had taken me to other vegetarian restaurants and they always felt lacking for something . Golden Era... the 'chicken' drumsticks - ok, they were on a wooden stick, but the texture of whatever it was was right . Then Mongolian 'chicken' had a texture to it too an…

Golden Era are (were? I do hope they are still around) doing something with tofu and wheat gluten.

The preparation is more involved than your basic 'throw it in a blender' seitan steak, but the result is totally worth it. You can get really fulfilling textures and flavours, and quite a variety, to boot.

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