How to lower the price of plant-based meat • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by watwut » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 7:58 AM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #416

Sevii wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 subs…

> t's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables

Root vegetables don't have much calories. So this would actually make sense.

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

#492

Post by Wolfenstein98k » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 7:58 AM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #468

ascar wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Howe…

You could also just have large import tariffs on food. I’m honestly suprised the us doesn’t just have a 25%+ import tariff. Would quickly cause more domestic manufacturing. Like why do we even import garlic from China. We have plenty of domestic ability to produce.

Same reason everything else that is imported is imported - comparative advantage.

Take the logic of "grow all your food at home" too seriously and you end up like this guy:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/making-sandwich-sc...

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

#493

Post by cm2012 » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 7:59 AM UTC

kharak wrote: post #315

henrikschroder wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This doesn't mean that people don't care about the horrors of the animal industry. It just means that they don't care enough to change their habits. Huge difference. Which is why meat alternatives are so important, because they allow people to stop eating meat with…

Your "they care but don't care enough to change habits" take is highly entlightening. This is going to help my perspective on a range of issues where binary thinking invites itselve. Thanks!

Yeah, I personally openly admit that eating factory farmed meat is highly immoral, but it's too easy and tasty so I'm not going to stop doing it.

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

#494

Post by tomp » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:05 AM UTC

atweiden wrote: post #452

tomp wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I can buy organic, grass-fed, no-GMO, sustainably pasture-raised beef. No, actually you probably can't [1]: > Is there such a thing as a climatically-guilt-free steak? Are grazing livestock climate villains or climate saviours? A new report by an international research collaboration led by the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), part of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, provides an authoritative…

Any food transported to your plate by a car has an environmental cost. As does modern life in general. I believe we will eventually solve the problem (via carbon-capture & sustainable energy production) but I see that mostly orthogonal to eating meat.

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

#495

Post by watwut » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:09 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #166

orange_tee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s very easy to eat healthily and cheaply on a vegetarian or vegan diet. In the UK I used Quorn or lentils as a major protein in a lot of my cooking, now I’m in Berlin I’m alternating between soy chunks, seitan (both of which I have to flavour myself), lentils, tofu, four types of preprepared tinned beans, soy milk, and cheese. Most of these options have cheap subtypes. The most expensive part of my cooking is the…

So, now meet causes obesity? That is really a new theory.

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

#496

Post by tomp » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:10 AM UTC

atweiden wrote: post #453

tomp wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully support this. I think it would result in a lot of good innovation - e.g. ways to raise meat while reducing carbon (including methane) emissions. But ONLY if externalities are also fully priced & included for all other products - cars, plastic crap shipped from China, aircon, ... otherwise that kind of legislation is simply discrimination against meat-lovers.

> But ONLY if externalities are also fully priced & included for all other products - cars, plastic crap shipped from China, aircon, ... otherwise that kind of legislation is simply discrimination against meat-lovers. Meat has a victim [1]. Respectably, how would you price in the cost of death? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

Non-eating meat would result in the extinction of several species. Interesting exploration of this moral issue is here:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-n...

Personally, I don’t consider the death of (most) animals any different to the death of plants. Only killing conscious entities (be they meat-based or potentially digital in the future) is immoral.

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

#497

Post by watwut » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:11 AM UTC

jamil7 wrote: post #481

orange_tee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The idea that meat needs to eaten in the quantity and frequency that it’s currently eaten in the west to maintain a healthy diet is a recent idea. For my grandparents growing up most meat, especially things like chicken was a luxury reserved for special occasions. It’s also always interesting to me that when this argument comes up people are suddenly very interested in standing up for “the poor”, there are a whole ho…

Historical diets were nothing like modern vegetarianism. They also were not super heathy, oftentimes missing nutricients and causing diseases from the lack of them.

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

#498

Post by bearbawl » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:15 AM UTC

websites222 wrote: post #219

bearbawl wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the amount of words I’m sure I’ve lost indeed. In « many many » languages and countries, everywhere around the world, and particularly in our very small new extremism world. I have one question: why do people trying to eat only vegetables (is « vegetables » still ok?) insist so much to call that « plant-based » food « meat »?

> I have one question: why do people trying to eat only vegetables (is « vegetables » still ok?) insist so much to call that « plant-based » food « meat »? That don’t. They just read what’s on the label and call it that. It’s preservationists who see a war here: everyone else has moved on.

So you don’t even see the issue?

If you’re into vegetables, as-in you’re against meat, you just eat vegetables and you don’t eat meat anymore. You don’t need that to be called « plant-based meat ».

Only the people who are actually so nostalgic of the good meat they had want something called « plant-based meat ».

Who are the « preservationists » there?

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

#499

Post by SebastianKra » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:17 AM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #288

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…

> 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,…

I agree with you generally, but not with your comparison between bolognese and marinara.

One has the protein I need and one doesn't.

I did, however, discover falafel balls recently, and they're definitely something that I can imagine eating regularily.

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

#500

Post by Erlich_Bachman » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

f430 wrote: post #293

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> as much as locals prefer their traditional diet

Which is still meat. It might be prepared differently but it's still meat. Which tells you exactly that - meat consumption is not only about forced customs, it's about people legitimately enjoying eating eat. I know a lot of people that do this too, and it's not about being uneducated either.