Live data from Hacker News

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

agfundernews.com

311–320 of 947 posts

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

#311
post #132
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm comparing it by ... comparing the nutrients in each. There are lots of examples of nutrients in meat that aren't found in plants (carnitine, b12 etc) and even more where the type found in plants must be consumed in far greater quantities and converted to a form we can use (retinol vs beta-carotene, DHA vs EPA/ALA etc) Millions of vegetarians doesn't mean meat is suddenly less nutritious.

But hundreds of millions of vegetarians does mean that eliminating that meat from our diet is extremely realistic and much more widely affordable.

By all means, feel free to eliminate meat from _your_ diet. But "Our" diet is a different issue.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising cattle can easily become a net negative to carbon emissions if cows are given slightly more space to graze and moved around more often. If all cattle were raised in this way there would be slightly less cattle production but a far more positive environmental impact than if we all switched to vegan "meat". https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grass...

That study seems to be comparing cropland to pasture. The problem is that the tradeoff is not between cropland and pasture, but pasture and forest. Eg: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/02/revealed... Due to increasing demand for meat, we have people burning the forest and releasing all the carbon sequestered in the trees, and reducing the efficiency of the land as a carbon sink going forward.

But there are also places in the world where forests are never gonna grow but are well suited to raising cattle.

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

#313
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Meat and eggs . So you need eggs. It’s also present in dairy. So the parent’s claim is an argument against unsupplemented veganism, and your counter of vegetarianism doesn’t address that. Massive difference between the two diets in terms of needing to supplement or not.

Oh, you didn't click through, maybe. Or missed that the linked page included millions of vegans, too, in the same chart.

You can sort by any column, and see that the U.S., Brazil, and Japan have the highest number of Vegans, while Mexico and Poland purportedly lead by percentage, though those two are disputed.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mea…

So, animals being alive is the general problem now when it comes to climate? At that, the greenhouse gas problem in livestock fed artificially large amounts of grains has been solved by introducing a small amount of seaweed to their diet. That's been kind of a non-issue for the past few years as more and more commercial feeds have seaweed included already. Just because you're not in the agriculture industry doesn't m…

Do you happen to have a source for this?

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

#316

I enjoy eating meat and have no plans of going off of it completely. But we eat so much of it as a culture. And when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For something healthier and cheaper too! And I know people blast tech companies for focusing too much on making things flashy and cool…

This reminds me of how my dad would always blast taco bell for using filler in their beef. But from my perspective, it's tastes good and the filler makes it cheaper (and probably healthier).

I think you're right, most processed meat could be replaced partially, or entirely with vegetable proteins without anyone really noticing. The last time I had baked a frozen, breaded chicken, it tasted like little more than grease and pepper. I'm certain a plant substitute could be found that would maintain the flavor of nothingness and be suitable for dipping in honey mustard.

The current issue, I think, is price. Vegetarian substitutes I've seen are more expensive than the meat based products.

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

#317

I enjoy eating meat and have no plans of going off of it completely. But we eat so much of it as a culture. And when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For something healthier and cheaper too! And I know people blast tech companies for focusing too much on making things flashy and cool…

The secret to enjoying brown rice is to add some sweet/sticky/"glutinous" rice to it. A good recipe:

1. 600 g brown rice

2. 200 g sticky rice

3. Mix the dry rices together. Use a spoon to avoid a sticky rice layer on the bottom.

3. 1200 mL water

4. Cook on "rice" mode in a 3-quart Instant-Pot. Makes about 15 120 mL (0.5 cup) servings. These freeze nicely in containers. You can heat one up in 1:30 in a 1500 W microwave.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mea…

So, animals being alive is the general problem now when it comes to climate? At that, the greenhouse gas problem in livestock fed artificially large amounts of grains has been solved by introducing a small amount of seaweed to their diet. That's been kind of a non-issue for the past few years as more and more commercial feeds have seaweed included already. Just because you're not in the agriculture industry doesn't m…

Are they really? I recently heard in a local TV show that farmers were not feeding seaweed to cows at scale because it was more expensive, and the related uncertainties. Was the information in the show outdated? The Netherlands is globally known for its high tech agriculture, so I was surprised they still were not feeding seaweed when the benefit has been known for so long.

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

#320
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…

This isn't a crusade against meat, it's a crusade between Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods as to who will capture the (niche) alt-beef market.

McDonald's signed an agreement making BM their preferred supplier of fake beef, so Impossible is put at a disadvantage. Absolutely none of this replaces any real beef with fake beef, or even results in less real beef eaten or sold.

Post reply on HN