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Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

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Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#151
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly don't understand the methane issue. Historically worldwide the # of ungulates is probably well below historical averages. It looks like today we have around 98 million head of cattle in the US. Historically we had bison in excess of conservatively 60 million. This doesn't even begin to count all the animals in Africa. Overall wide life is declining. https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c…

Burps, not farts, are the primary source of methane: https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/33/which-is-a-bigger-methane-so...

There's already a solution in the works...

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/flatulent-...

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you comparing nutritional value between meat and plant products? There are literally hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people that have been eating vegetarian diets for their entire lives, and these types of diets have been popular for millennia.

I'm not sure how the comparison is made, however Vitamin B12 can only be found in meat and eggs. If you do not have supplements or eat this type of vitamin containing protein, you risk paralysis and death with a 2+ year absence of the vitamin. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other missing nutrients as well.

I've read this before, and yet weirdly, there're literally hundreds of millions of people on this planet[0] who've never eaten meat once in their lives, and somehow they're not all paralyzed and dead before the age of two.

I'm not a vegetarian, but maybe we can avoid obviously-false statements like this. Please?

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#153
post #59
post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

The popular crusade against meat is one of the more misguided. Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant and the environmental impacts have been greatly exaggerated. See below: Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national emissions. Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a reduction of just 0.7%. At the same time, both transitions woul…

I'm less inclined to believe a blog post than I am to believe published & cited articles. Most estimates I've found put overall GHG from diet at about 15-20% of total per capita. And sources like [1] indicate that switching to a plant-based diet cuts that number in half for western countries (the UK in this study). That's 3x your number. Granted, meat substitutes are higher on GHG than eating straight plant-based meals, so it's probably more like a reduction of 3-4% from switching to Beyond or Impossible. But as with any GHG discussion, you have to consider what's actually feasible to do (ex. changing dietary components) vs. really hard (ex. reducing energy inputs to manufacturing) and optimize for the former.

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#154
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you comparing nutritional value between meat and plant products? There are literally hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people that have been eating vegetarian diets for their entire lives, and these types of diets have been popular for millennia.

Look, this isn't the whole picture and it super misleading. Just because humans survived with a particular diet doesn't mean that they wouldn't have been healthier had they eaten meat. You can't just point to historical populations who didn't have widespread access to animal products and be like "see they lived." I'm not saying your not correct that vegetarian diets are fine from a health perspective but this isn't e…

Don’t you have the burden of proof exactly reversed?

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#155
post #59
post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

The popular crusade against meat is one of the more misguided. Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant and the environmental impacts have been greatly exaggerated. See below: Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national emissions. Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a reduction of just 0.7%. At the same time, both transitions woul…

May be anecdotal, but four generations prior to me and myself have all be vegetarians with no sign of deficiencies. and many lived 90 yrs + . and I know many families who ate meat only once a month or approx '10 meals a year'. meat is over hyped.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#156

Rather than trying to encourage people to substitute the ingredients in their meals, I wish we'd encourage more healthy habits and work life balance. So many people are either pressed for time or incapable of preparing a decent meal. If they aren't ordering takeout, they're falling back on boxed or prepared options. Simply substituting fake meat for real meat isn't improving anyone's lives.

Improving cow's lives though :)

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#157
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once we remove that 2.6% though, we'll have a whole new 100% to fight against.

Did you know that while HEPA filters might remove well over 99% of air particulates once that's done you've still got 100% of the remaining particulates in the air? Did you know that if I steal half of your money you've still got 100% of your remaining money? That is a really weird argument.

I know hacker news isn't exactly the place for sarcasm (not to mention sarcasm loss over text) but I couldn't resist.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#158
post #65

Thanks vegan meat, now I can enjoy my prime beef steak with less remorse. Go vegan meat!

Aren't Beyond and Impossible ground beef replacements, not steak and other kind of "whole meat" replacements?

He was making a way overused and lame joke ala ‘others eating less meat means I can double my meat consumption’

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#159
post #121
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pound for pound, it cannot be denied meat provides more nutrition than the same amount of plants.

Are we also considering the pounds of plants that the animal had to eat to grow to such a size? I should imagine it takes quite a lot of food to raise a one ton cow for slaughter. At least one ton of plant material as food, right? To produce how many pounds of meat? 750lbs seems reasonable. So if you had 2750lbs of plant food for yourself, vs just the 750 lbs of meat -- which has more nutrients? (I do not know the an…

Humans can't digest grass. While we do feed cows corn for at least a portion of their life, it doesn't need to be as prolific as it is.

But we also feed them things like beet pulp pellets and molasses - both of which are by products of sugar production. Unless we are going to stop eating sugar what else would you do with this waste?

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#160
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pound for pound, it cannot be denied meat provides more nutrition than the same amount of plants.

Why is nutrition per pound your metric? Doctors don’t advise that we eat x pounds of food a day. Also this is easily disprovable. A vegan multivitamin is thousands of times more nutritionally dense than meat, but i don’t eat 2 pounds of multivitamins a day.

Not OP but as someone who lifts heavy weights and often needs 3-4000kcal a day, but doesn’t have a huge appetite, I do care about nutrient density. To me vegetarian diets are not practical because of how much food I would need to eat to hit my macros compared to an omnivore diet.
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