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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

#281

Post by tomstoms »

elktea wrote: post #59
drewg123 wrote: 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…

Sorry stopped reading at “ Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant”

Edit: Vote it down all you want. The statement isn’t getting any less idiotic

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

#282

Post by chasd00 »

tommoor wrote: post #6
marrone12 wrote: post #3

I prefer the taste of impossible but this is great news for the category.

Agreed, impossible is far superior. Impossible is only $5.99 for 12oz in Trader Joes at the moment

i can get a pound of organic, free range, rocked to sleep every night by the rancher, ground beef for about that. i thought Impossible/Beyond was suppose to be significantly cheaper than beef? I've had it but my wife brought it home one night so didn't see the price.

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

#283

Post by tmotwu »

kzrdude wrote: post #209
tmotwu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those arguments always drive me nuts because they're all so bro sciencey, and I'm not even vegan or vegetarian. Sure, meat offers a different set of nutritional value than vegetables - you can most definitely replace it entirely with other sources and remain very healthy. Billions of people have done it for centuries and continue to do so, as you've said.

A counter argument - billions of people subsisted on ok food for centuries, but somehow in the 20th and 21st centuries people got taller, smarter and had earlier puberties because of better nutrition. Doesn't that mean there is a quality (and quantity) to nutrition and not just subsisting, that we need to examine? And the claim about meat is that it has a quality that is beneficial.

Certainly you have to look at causations for that holistically. People have cooked and eaten meat in the past as well. It needs to be further studied on the qualities that has driven our growth in the industrial age. I think we now have a better understanding of our bodies and how to gamify our growth, through a myriad of ways whether or not eating certain amounts of meat and balancing it with other foods.

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

#284

Post by tomstoms »

nicoburns wrote: post #143
bweitzman wrote: post #84

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 a vegetarian, I think this is true when comparing meat with whole plant foods. But to be fair the the GP comment, meat substitute products are almost certainly considerably less nutritious (micronutrient wise) than actual meat.

Exactly how certain is it?

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

#285

Post by Chris2048 »

drewg123 wrote: 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…

I eat less meat because I think quality has declined; as meat is seen as the default-superior option, quality is less scrutinised, and has thus lowered.

As such, either I buy expensive, from a trusted location, I I stick to something else; Vegan options has been good quality so far, not that I don't expect this to change in the future.

Right now highly processed & shaped pink slime (with added salt + sugar) is sold at unreasonable prices, partly because people don't know what they are eating (or what it's really worth, often masquerading at other things), and partly because the main factor in consumer choice is PR budget - the low cost cheap meat therefore gets the higher marketing budget.

My one hope in this space is grocery delivery services becoming the norm will make it easier for people to scrutinise products from the comfort of home, with the convenience of a search engine.

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

#286

Post by rarefied_tomato »

mathgorges wrote: post #145
therealmarv wrote: post #99

This brand was tested by German magazine called "Öko-Test" on their ingredients. Also not for the first time. It got a BAD review again because it contains too much mineral oil in it (could have various reasons, packaging of ingredients or oily manufacturing machines) and 20g fat per 100g "meat". So it's unhealthy on mineral oil (MOSH) which can easily accumulate in your body and fat percentage. One of the sources wh…

The fat percentage criticism strikes me as a bit odd. At least where I am (USA) ground meat is categorized by its fat percentage and 20% fat is the standard I usually see in the supermarket. I guess what I'm saying is: 20% is indeed a high fat percentage, but it's also the typical fat percentage for conventional meat so it feels disingenuous to use it to criticize plant-based meats.

The discussion of the fat percentage misses the relevant concern. Mineral oil, unlike vegetable or animal fat, is a petroleum product and carcinogen that bioaccumulates in body fat.

The oekotest.de link also discusses methylcellulose as a cause of indigestion (a symptom mentioned in this thread), and the presence of genetically modified soy. GM crops are a concern because of their tolerance to high pesticide levels.

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

#287

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

olyjohn wrote: post #190
jandrese wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Beyond overdoes the fake smoke flavor. But they seem to be better equipped to scale up than Impossible, they've beaten them to mass market in almost every location I've seen.

I bought a package of Beyond Meat. It was right next to the ground beef, and looked like ground beef. I assumed I could substitute it for ground beef in my spaghetti. Big fat nope! I opened the package, and it smelled exactly like dog food. The smell when cooking it was horrible. It completely ruined my batch of spaghetti. I don't know how people are cooking this stuff and enjoying it. Maybe there's some other way to…

Maybe people are getting spoiled product? I regularly use Beyond and Impossible and usually don’t notice any off smell. Once I got a pack of Impossible from the refrigerated section that did smell wrong.

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

#288

Post by mft_ »

Bancakes wrote: post #223
mft_ wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that vegetarian diets are "fine" - there's actually a wealth of evidence that a meat-free diet is far healthier - in terms of risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, and various forms of cancer, for example. https://nutritionfacts.org/introduction/

Thhere's also evidence for the contrary. If you care about any dieting at all and watch your micros and macros, you will invariably be above average in health.

Really? There's a body of evidence that a meat-containing diet is protective against heart disease, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer, versus a plant-based diet?

I'd genuinely be very interested for those sources to be shared, please...

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

#289

Post by max-ibel »

ngngngng wrote: post #157
munk-a wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought you made a good point, actually.

I believe its common to just give up a fight like this because it's really never over, and no single step leads directly to perfection. Why recycle when some recycling still ends up in a landfill in India ? Why help a homeless person when there still will be homeless tomorrow?

OTOH, most of us are still getting up every morning and go to work.

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

#290

Post by DetroitThrow »

maxerickson wrote: post #239
ska wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you comparing nutritional value between meat and plant products? It's impossible to do this really rigorously, as there are too many unknowns in nutrition still. So this leaves holed you can drive all sorts of sized trucks through, which means a lot of argument but not a lot of resolution.

There's not magic shit in meat, it's mostly water and amino acids and the remaining fraction is mostly bad for you. (I eat meat all the time, but we know a lot more than barely anything about nutrition. Figure out vitamin RDAs in milligrams if you want an example)

I'm shocked that people seriously believe that the fundamentals of nutritional science are a virtual mystery or has enough "wiggle room" to make ridiculously broad claims about diet necessities. We know almost exact micrograms of iodine we need per day to be healthy. We have a pretty great idea of what the body needs to function optimally and are getting a clearer picture every day.

Is this why GMOs became such a pariah?

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