Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

agfundernews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 947 posts

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

#481

Post by wzdd »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #398
gonehome wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "On a side note: I'm not vegetarian. I simply agree with those who are." This was my position for a long time until finally making the jump at the beginning of the pandemic (vegetarian, will rarely eat fish sometimes). For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other animals. I thought this way before but it's hard to change behavior and I liked hamburgers. I think this is the strongest argument and the envi…

>> For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other animals. The way I think of it, pigs are very intelligent, more intelligent than dogs. However, humans are more intelligent. If pigs were more intelligent, pigs would eat humans. And that's not a figure of speech. Pig would eat us if they could. They wouldn't stop and think, gee, does this little baby human girl cry because it doesn't want to be eaten, maybe…

> I don't see any problem with eating meat, given that I'm an animal and some animals eat other animals' meat.

Some animals rape other animals in packs, have territorial wars resulting in killing for nonfood reasons, and torture and/or kill other creatures for sport. Some animals eat their young if possible. Juvenile females are impregnated and give birth as soon as it is biologically possible. Some animals keep slaves.

The fact that other animals do something is no justification for us to do something, for exactly the same reason that homicide, cannibalism, rape, torture, etc etc is not justifiable just because some humans do it.

I have yet to see a justification for eating meat better than "I like it, and I can". Weak as that is, it is by far the strongest argument out there.

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

#483

Post by Spivak »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #139
jdavis703 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just cow farts. Raising and killing a whole cow is an inefficient way to extract calories from plants. Even chicken would be more efficient.

My understanding is that cooked meat has much higher caloric value than vegetables. To be honest if it wasn't so good for us we wouldn't have evolved to consume it!

Animals bread for slaughter are essentially tools for converting plants we can’t eat into something we can. They’re used when you reach the limit of your usable farmland but still have grasslands.

Yes meat is more caloric than “vegetables” on a per-lb basis but meat gets beat out by oils, nuts and seeds which is why trail mix and unleavened nut breads “lembas bread” exist.

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

#484

Post by ip26 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #369
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…

>> This is the best news I've heard all week. Not meaning to snark, but I don't see the good news. A manufacturer of mass-produced, low-quality, highly procesed food has struck a deal with large companies that specialise in selling exactly that kind of food. That the food in question is plant-based makes no difference at all. Companies like McDonalds, KFC and PizzaHut are responsible for the normalisation of industri…

But that's exactly the point. People eat 5 million head of cattle at McDonalds annually. Beyond Meat will hopefully need a lot less soy feedstock than cattle ranching for the same burger, so it should be a strong improvement.

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

#485

Post by elktea »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #232
elktea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant Meat provides far less nutritional value than was collectively contained in the plants used to produce it.

Humans can't eat livestock feed or grass though.

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

#486

Post by theptip »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #369
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…

>> This is the best news I've heard all week. Not meaning to snark, but I don't see the good news. A manufacturer of mass-produced, low-quality, highly procesed food has struck a deal with large companies that specialise in selling exactly that kind of food. That the food in question is plant-based makes no difference at all. Companies like McDonalds, KFC and PizzaHut are responsible for the normalisation of industri…

> Companies like McDonalds, KFC and PizzaHut are responsible for the normalisation of industrial food production that is causing widespread environmental destruction and they have no incentive to solve the problems it creates. Switching to plant-based alternatives will simply change where the damage is done.

This seems like a reasonable prior, if you had no evidence about the specific harms of meat production vs. Beyond Meat. But given the widely documented harms of beef production (devastation of the Amazon for soy feedstock/grazing, GHG emissions, water usage, etc) and the lack of evidence of similar levels of harm from potential replacements like Beyond, I'm curious as to why you're indifferent to potential improvements in the worst parts of the food supply chain.

It seems like a non-sequitur; "McDonalds' current practices do harm, McDonalds is considering a new product, therefore new product must do equal harm."

It sounds like you do care about the harms; do you have specific evidence/comparisons that indicate Beyond actually is as bad as beef for the environment?

My model here is that companies like McDonalds are completely indifferent to the negative externalities they impose on the environment, except inasmuch as they become financial/reputational liabilities. I see no reason to assume that a plant-based alternative must, a priori, be bad, just because McDonalds are rolling them out.

As a thought experiment, consider if they had vat-grown beef, produced in each store. This might have the side-effect of halting environmental devastation and reducing CO2 emissions from transportation. Would McDonalds pay extra for this? Probably not. But if it's significantly cheaper than farmed beef, then I think obviously yes, they would use it. I don't think you could make the generic statement "switching to vat-grown alternatives will simply change where the damage is done" without providing a more rigorous analysis of the specific processes involved.

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

#487

Post by elktea »

windexh8er wrote: post #297
elktea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Aside from the questionable source laid out here, the statement that: > Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant... ...is pure nonsense. Vitamins, minerals, fiber. Considering you can't get any fiber from meat is just the start of how biased some have been influenced by misinformation.

Fibre isn't a nutrient though. It's waste. We have a very low capability to ferment it verses other apes.

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

#488

Post by doublerabbit »

cptskippy wrote: post #402
arduinomancer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think less factory-farming is a good thing?

This doesn't reduce factory farming it, it just changes it.

Doesn't change a thing. KFC,McD don't give a rats-arse about anything other than money.

They will still murder and inhumanely treat animals.

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

#489

Post by emrah »

In my later years, I tend to be more skeptical of brilliant/magical solutions. I genuinely hope "Beyond Meat" doesn't turn out to be more trouble than good in the long run. Then again fast food meat isn't that great anyway so the bar is pretty low to begin with.

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

#490

Post by elktea »

diego_moita wrote: post #204
elktea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant Bullshit, the kind of lies that the meat industry loves to spin. Nutritional value is not one single measurable thing. And even protein contents (meat's most common nutrient) when measured per gram can be higher in soy and derivatives than in some meats (e.g: pork but and shoulder). When measured by calories other legumes (beans, chickpeas, lupini) beat most m…

The protein you get from meat is a different collection of amino acids than the protein you can get from plants or soy.
Post reply on HN