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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

#571

Post by Grustaf »

jayphen wrote: post #543
Grustaf wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is much closer to my standpoint then. I think it’s silly to imitate meat, when there are plenty of delicious vegetarian dishes. For example tofu dishes.

During my life as a vegetarian/vegan I regularly consume “fake meat” products because they are simple to prepare and allow me to use recipes that are not vegetarian. For example, it’s extremely hard to find a good vegetarian burger — the beyond burger was a revelation the first time I tried it. I still like burgers, even though there are many wonderful vegetarian dishes. I didn’t stop eating meat because I don’t like…

Maybe in that dystopian future where bacon doesn’t exist and I get very nostalgic for the carbonara of my childhood, sure.

But that’s not quite what we’re discussing. Meat exists but some people want to go vegetarian without sacrificing anything. I suppose it’s pretty similar to the logic of people who want to lose weight without giving up sweets or soda, so they switch to aspartame versions.

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

#572

Post by esperent »

GordonS wrote: post #566
Clewza313 wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Konjac is a plant that has been eaten in East Asia for thousands of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjac And if you find yeast "revolting", I take it you don't like bread or beer either?

Of course not (tho when baking bread I do find the smell of the yeast on it's own to be quite unpalatable). My point is that I don't expect to find yeast in the ingredients list for "meat", and that was simply my initial reaction. I know it wasn't your point, but as an aside: isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed from most commercially produced beer? (depending on the style, obv)

Your comments read as contrarian and determined to find fault with this product. If your instinct is to dislike it so much, the answer is simple: don't eat it.

Each of the ingredients bar "natural flavors" (which usually means a proprietary spice blend or msg) can be found with a simple Google search - as someone else said, konjac is an Asian vegetable, textured wheat protein has been a staple of vegan cooking for decades and can be bought in any health food shop, and so on.

> isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed

From beer, partially. From bread, no.

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

#574

Post by dTal »

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…

>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.

Your skepticism is warranted. After all, we had a highly researched government program about how to effectively tackle a worldwide pandemic, and... well.

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

#575

Post by GordonS »

esperent wrote: post #572
GordonS wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not (tho when baking bread I do find the smell of the yeast on it's own to be quite unpalatable). My point is that I don't expect to find yeast in the ingredients list for "meat", and that was simply my initial reaction. I know it wasn't your point, but as an aside: isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed from most commercially produced beer? (depending on the style, obv)

Your comments read as contrarian and determined to find fault with this product. If your instinct is to dislike it so much, the answer is simple: don't eat it. Each of the ingredients bar "natural flavors" (which usually means a proprietary spice blend or msg) can be found with a simple Google search - as someone else said, konjac is an Asian vegetable, textured wheat protein has been a staple of vegan cooking for de…

This is a really unkind interpretation of my comments - I am certainly not trying to find fault, merely sharing my initial reaction to a list of seemingly strange ingredients.

You may be familiar with these ingredients, but that doesn't mean anyone who isn't used to highly processed food is "wrong" for not knowing what they even are.

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

#576

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

danShumway wrote: post #361
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you're raising an interesting point but this is not about meat vs. not meat (or "what kind of meat"). For instance, I was recently made aware that about 80% of the milk sold in Greek supermarkets (I'm Greek) is UHT ("long-life"). That goes for the milk displayed in refrigerated isles . OK? Supermarkets put UHT milk in the fridge - so people will think it's fresh. Most likely it's the dairy companies that direct…

Okay, but you're arguing for better labeling in general about food production, ingredients, and storage -- not that people shouldn't be able to use the word "meat" on a Morningstar package. I mean, I would love if every product was clearly labeled whether it contained animal by-products, it would save me from having to read ingredients on everything. It's annoying to have to check to see whether a loaf of bread in th…

I agree about the world "milk", for example in Greece we call fig sap "fig milk". But calling nut paste or beans "meat" grates.

Anyway my ocncern is that most consumers are at the point where they don't understand the difference between animal milk and plant milk, or even animal meat and plant-based meat substitutes, because they're used to so much over-processed food that they don't recognise the tastes of ordinary foodstfufs anymore.

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

#577

Post by jamil7 »

thejynxed wrote: post #559
jamil7 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people replace meat with sugar?

Because of how much of it is added into every alternative meat replacement product, and it's a shockingly high amount if you read the labels on some "organic" and "plant-based" products.

I have a few issues with this. As far as I know health concerns related to meat replacements aren't to do with sugar levels, probably more likely with saturated fat and sodium (which exists in regular meat too). Also I don't know why you bothered to put organic in there as well since the we're talking about meat replacement. Finally I think you're making the assumption that if we don't eat meat we need meat replacements at all.

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

#578

Post by [deleted] »

tom_mellior wrote: post #302
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU Comissioners are proposed by the Council of the European Union, a body composed of EU member state ministers, themselves directly elected by the citizens of their respective states in national elections. Appointment of Comissioners follows the suggestions of national governments.

I don't know of any EU country in which ministers are elected as ministers. Many are elected as MPs and then appointed ministers, but this is typically not a requirement, and you can easily have unelected ministers. Even if 100% of all ministers were always elected as MPs, you couldn't just argue "was elected for position X, must therefore automatically be considered democratically legitimized for position Y".

[deleted]

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

#579

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tom_mellior wrote: post #302
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU Comissioners are proposed by the Council of the European Union, a body composed of EU member state ministers, themselves directly elected by the citizens of their respective states in national elections. Appointment of Comissioners follows the suggestions of national governments.

I don't know of any EU country in which ministers are elected as ministers. Many are elected as MPs and then appointed ministers, but this is typically not a requirement, and you can easily have unelected ministers. Even if 100% of all ministers were always elected as MPs, you couldn't just argue "was elected for position X, must therefore automatically be considered democratically legitimized for position Y".

>> Many are elected as MPs and then appointed ministers, but this is typically not a requirement, and you can easily have unelected ministers.

OK, I don't know that. Is that the case in EU countries? If so, which ones?

Anyway I didn't say that ministers are elected as ministers, but to my knowledge for someone to be appointed a minister they must be elected into parliament. Again, if that's not the case please explain.

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

#580

Post by tengbretson »

danShumway wrote: post #526
tengbretson wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So with your plan, if I get rid of the cows in my pasture and a bunch of deer move in to graze it instead do I still get taxed for their farts too?

That depends. Do you plan to start breeding them relentlessly until 60% of all mammals on the earth are deer? As long as you promise not to do that, we won't have a problem. More to the point, this seems like a misreading of GP's comment. Wyre specifically says that they don't want to impose taxes, that they want to very slowly cut or redirect subsidies instead. So I guess a followup question is, is the government cu…

> That depends. Do you plan to start breeding them relentlessly until 60% of all mammals on the earth are deer? As long as you promise not to do that, we won't have a problem.

The number of cows in the world is immaterial to the stated concerns though, since it's not the number of cows that determines the amount of methane produced — it's the amount of biomass they are digesting. So if the number of cows is reduced but the amount of biomass consumed stays the same (being digested by deer, rotting in the field, etc.) there's no net impact to the methane produced.

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