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

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

#581

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #383

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the problem is not dairy vs. non-dairy, it is with feeding kids who have been weaned a vegetarian or vegan diet in general. For instance, the following is a recent study (July 2020): Vegetarian and Vegan Weaning of the Infant: How Common and How Evidence-Based? A Population-Based Survey and Narrative Review Background: Vegetarian and vegan weaning have increasing popularity among parents and families. However, i…

That's certainly an interpretation of that study. Here's another one. > Almost half of parents (45.2%) claim that their pediatrician was unable to provide sufficient information and adequate indications regarding unconventional weaning and 77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician’s resistance towards alternative weaning methods. > Our results show that alternative weaning methods are followed by a significant numbe…

>> In other words, nearly half of parents who try vegetarian weaning report that their pediatricians stop helping them or are unable to give them adequate/informed nutritional advice, and unsurprisingly, parents who no longer have adequate access to health resources and information struggle to raise healthy kids.

I think your "other words" are deviating very significantly from the letter of the article and you're adding your own interpretation to what's actually written. As actually written, the article says that "the family pediatrician was not perceived as an appropriate guide" by the families Note the "perceived". This may be because the families have different ideas about a healthy diet than the pediatrician, for example "77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician's resistance towards alterantive weaning methods". Since those "alternative weaning methods" may include anything from a vegan weaning to feeding one's child beneficial moon rays (while simultaneously protecting her from the evil dark rays of death), I am inclined to believe that the problem is not that pediatricians are not adequately informed, but that parents are adhering to information from inadequate sources.

There are plenty of articles in the mainstream press by doctors who lament the fact that their patients will trust charlatans who sell them energy therapies and other such snake oil treatments, instead of the doctors themselves. Those doctors are usually specialists (for example, oncologists) but their patients still think the charlatans know best.

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

#582

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #292

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, my understanding of the scientific consensus is that a healthy vegan or vegetarian diet is perfectly possible. However the question is what happens when such a diet is forced on a large fraction of some population, either because meat becomes too expensive, or because plant-based alterantives become much cheaper. Are most people who can scarecely afford good nutritious food right now going to be able to maint…

There absolutely isn't a scientific consensus. If anything, several cases have come up recently to counter the wild acceptance that anyone can live vegan just fine, and further investigation is still necessary. Just recently, the carnivore diet has taken off for multiple people, and even just significantly reducing plant-based foods in favor of animal-based foods is showing to help many people. There's also the theor…

>> There absolutely isn't a scientific consensus. If anything, several cases have come up recently to counter the wild acceptance that anyone can live vegan just fine, and further investigation is still necessary.

Please note I didn't comment that "anyone can live vegan just fine".

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

#583

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #195

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news, but that's in Canada. Where else?

Most of the EU. It’s only the US and Australia that are so backward in environmental issues among western democracies.

I'm an EU citizen. I don't know that I'm paying taxes for e.g. the e-waste produced by electronic devices. Can you point to relevant information please?

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

#584

Post by nec4b » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #187

dragonwriter wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, what I'm saying that it also doesn't mean “the existence of health vegetarians is testament to the healthiness of veggie-‘meat’.”

But cheap meat isn’t that healthy to start with, so we have quite a low bar to pass.

Why cheap meat isn't healthy? Are cheap vegetables healthy?

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

#585

Post by nemo44x » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #179

nemo44x wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s essentially what we do today. High tax payers consume more and their tax revenues subsidize things like Ag which make things like meat affordable to poor people. So yeah, get rid of subsidies and replace with UBI and we’re probably in nearly the same place. Maybe a good deal of people would forego newly expensive meat and spend their UBI on the lotto?

Why the snipe at the end? Perhaps they would buy plant based food instead. What you’re describing sounds like a wi for everyone.

The bottom fifth of incomes spend the most on the lotto. It would stand to reason they would spend more if given the means to.

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

#586

Post by KozmoNau7 » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #391

nemo44x wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get rid of subsidies and then poor people can’t eat meat. Good luck dealing with the political fallout from that. Subsidized meat is a special kind of a American socialism where the wealthy tax payers fund the subsidies so everyone else can eat meat. Honestly, so many of the ideas for addressing climate just prevent poor people from participating. The upper middle class who are most concerned with these issues (a…

What's wrong with poor people being unable to afford a luxury item based on animal exploitation and suffering? Usually people respond to this pointing out some supposed nutrition advantages of meat as if the USA, with the cheapest meat in the world, is somehow the paragon of health and cuisine. Though I'd be down for a government sponsored, optional multivitamin.

The problem is that people in the US (and really most of the western world) have grown up eating meat, been told that they should desire meat, that meat is an essential part of their diet and, to a certain extent, that not eating meat is unmanly and weak.

Meat consumption is so ingrained that any attempt to curtail it is met with fierce opposition, because people feel as if it's an attack on their identity.

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

#587

Post by GordonS » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #97

jcampbell1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protein yield per acre for soybeans vs mung beans is 6x. No amount of try hard is going to make mung bean protein close in price to soy. What gets me is that I can’t even source tofu that is cheaper than chicken. Chickens are very good reactors for turning carbohydrates into protein.

>The protein yield per acre for soybeans vs mung beans is 6x. While this is probably not too unfair for mung vs. soy, it's important to remember that yield per acre can't always be compared directly across crops that grow in different climates. Tropical climates can average well over 50" of rain per year while cold climates are wet if they hit 25", and the conservation of mass already affects cold-climate growth befo…

Another factor is the amount of protein that each contains: Google says soy beans are 36g per 100g, whereas it's 24g for mung beans, so you'd need less quantity of soy to yield a given amount of protein.

As a separate comment: wow, I had no idea mung beans contained that much protein!

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

#588

Post by nemo44x » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #175

nemo44x wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered why we do this? How would our society be different if only well-to-do people could eat meat regularly? Would a regular guy be content with wealthy people eating steaks while jet-setting around the globe because of climate change? I think a populist uprising would occur almost immediately and we’d see heads on pikes with their decapitated mouths stuffed with cabbage for all to see. It would be supe…

If meat is the trigger to generate real social change then great! I don’t want to see heads on spikes, but if people are genuinely bought off by cheap meat that’s kind of sad.

I’m not sure it’s the type of social change you’re anticipating.

I think the fact everyone has access to the food they want and is part of their culture is a major reason we generally have a peaceful and free society.

I can only imagine the resent from the middle and lower classes when “the elites” eat steaks on airplanes and they, the plebs they are, are forced to subside on processed alternatives while being forced to become a proselyte to a cause that those that can afford to ignore do.

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

#589

Post by eyelidlessness » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

Badfood wrote: post #448

eyelidlessness wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Go. Through. The. Ingredients. Caution not needed. Nothing new here

If you want to convince someone to trust something they’re likely not seeking out, giving them homework won’t be very persuasive.

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

#590

Post by hamax » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

alacombe wrote: post #414

hamax wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you want a burger, go eat a freaking slaughtered cow patty burger

Thanks for showing your true colors so I don't have to bother responding to this stupid post.