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

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911–920 of 947 posts

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

#911

I wish companies were not able to label and sell these textured vegetable proteins as "meat". They are great products but they are not meat and as scale increases and they become less expensive than meat there will be strong commercial profit motives to replace real meat with "* meat" for monetary reasons. I'd strongly prefer for increased funding to isolated tissue culture methods. That way we could have real meat w…

I've never seen plant based meat labelled in a way that could trick a reasonable person into thinking it was animal meat. I don't see what you'd gain from not allowing the word "meat" to be used - it's very clearly a product that's trying to imitate various kinds of animal meat, and I want that communicated to me efficiently.

That's because it's more expensive than meat. Once it becomes less expensive it will be used in prepared foods without explicit or with misleading (* meat) small labels.

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

#912
post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on Earth did we end up having so many ingredients in what essentially is just pizza. The food industry really has gone too far by over-processing everything.

It's not as bad as it looks. Half those ingredients are sub-ingredients. It's like you making something like chili and using salsa. You'd then need to add all the ingredients of the salsa to your chili ingredients. With the sub-ingredients removed it comes down to this: ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, LOW-MOISTURE PART-SKIM MOZZARELLA CHEESE, TOMATO PASTE, COOKED SEASONED PIZZA TOPPING (MADE WITH PORK AND CHICKEN, BHA,…

Why take out the sub-ingredients? Unless you regularly use "DEHYDRATED POTATOES WITH SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE" when preparing hamburger at home.

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

#913
post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow 60 million bison wandered the prairie for millenia without the world ending... shall we kill all of the wild ungulats? Cap the volcanoes? At what point should humans just commit mass self sacrifice in the interest of saving the earth?

60 million is a drop on the bucket compared to how many cows humans raise for the purpose of food. This is a dumb take.

U.S. currently has ~95 million cows. That 60 million figure for Bison was U.S. population pre-westward expansion. 60/95=63% - that’s a rather large “drop in the bucket”... dumb take seems to be on your end here bud.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/194297/total-number-of-c...

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

#914
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this sentiment is often from seeing documentaries about the worst conditions in farming, and the general cosseting away from life and death that most of us have enjoyed. But the farms and ranches I grew up around, and that I buy most of my meat from, never seem that brutal when I’ve visited them, and the animals seem well cared for and mostly doing their own thing on the pasture most of the time. I wanted t…

It's concerning that you aren't aware that the largest segment of US crops is grown for animal feed. I have to wonder what you think feedlot animals eat when you present this sort of dichotomy. In your last paragraph, you are making the case for eating crops directly instead of growing incredible excess to feed animals, especially if you're going to bring up crop monoculture. https://www.beyondmeat.com/whats-new/is-m…

I’m aware of that of course, I was a vegan for 3 years in the nineties, I know all the beats, I just have come to different conclusions than you. Where was I arguing in favour of feedlots for all?

I’m pointing out that I mostly eat animals that eat grass, and there are lots of them, more than a lot of people realize. I’m arguing for viewpoint and food source diversity, and against moral certitude and simplistic reasoning.

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

#915
post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the vast majority of these ingredients are artificial substitutes for the actual content of a pizza-like-thing that an average consumer might expect. That they are artificial is not in itself inherently an issue (at least to me, although many many artificial additives have been proven to cause problems while manufacturers continue to use them), but the fact that so many substitutions are made all at…

What ingredients of a "real" pizza have been substituted for? That list includes flour, water, salt, yeast, tomato and cheese, which are roughly speaking the essential components of a pizza.

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

#916
post #657
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this sentiment is often from seeing documentaries about the worst conditions in farming, and the general cosseting away from life and death that most of us have enjoyed. But the farms and ranches I grew up around, and that I buy most of my meat from, never seem that brutal when I’ve visited them, and the animals seem well cared for and mostly doing their own thing on the pasture most of the time. I wanted t…

Weak argument about rodents getting ground up in combines -- almost all cattle in the US are crop-fed, so it's the same thing happening to a much greater extent with meat consumption.

I never said that wasn’t the case.

Outside of being a Jainist monk, there’s no escaping that your life on this planet doesn’t cost other animals’ lives. If you were to argue that all lives are equally important (I wouldn’t, but lots of vegans seem to), then you can reasonably make the argument that the calories you get from killing a single free range bison or moose costs fewer total lives than getting the equivalent calories from soy-based substitutes.

Not everyone is comfortable with things being that direct, and that’s ok. It’s a better moral choice for me, and I don’t believe a world where the option was foreclosed, or where everyone was eating meat substitutes would necessarily be a better one.

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

#917

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically the point is that I think it's first and foremost on you to prove that pain is an objectively bad quality in all cases. Or if not that, to demonstrate why pain is a morally bad thing to cause in animals, without relying on your experience as a human being (who has meta-cognition, which animals do not).

Thankfully it's been already established that animals experience pain and that it's bad. Even the veterinary community created guidelines for pain management in animals [0]. But let's say the above wasn't the case, basically your argument seems to be that because animals can't think about thinking, the pain they experience isn't bad. But luckily there are a few thought experiments you can do: If you have a dog, what…

And cockroaches run away when you try to squash them.

And some plants furl their leaves when you touch them.

Not convinced by your argument.

Also that might be one of the dumbest experiments I've seen in a while. As if pigs can't use their noses (and heavily rely on them) to sense where food is, ignoring what their inferior eyes are telling them.

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

#918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs me about $3-7 for a single cheaper cut of steak at my local store, which according to a cursory search, probably yields 30-70g of protein. 1 potato, while very cheap, is only going to contain 2g of protein, and at most I could probably eat 3 in one go. Certainly, I'd get other vitamins and minerals from both, which is why I'd have both in the same meal. How much are you spending on meat? An occasional indulg…

Sure, if you're chasing protein then potatoes aren't the best choice. Tofu is close in protein content to meat though (about 17%) and is also cheaper, if you don't go for the overpriced hippy tofu. I don't spend anything on meat, stopped eating it a while ago. But when I did, it still wasn't breaking the bank of course, not like I was spending hundreds of dollars monthly on meat. While meat is definitely one of the m…

I don't feel like you need to be chasing protein to occasionally include a cheap steak in your meal, I just picked one of the most obvious attributes of food that you need. Seems pretty reasonable if the argument was about density of value. You'd also want to get fats and proteins from nuts and so on, but preferably from things you enjoy eating and can afford so it's personally sustainable, so tofu might be off the table.

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

#919

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…

> large mammal farts going on now is probably not that much higher than it always has been I believe a big part of it has to do with the feedlot diet— when they're eating a high-calorie diet of mostly corn/grain instead of their natural diet of grass, it puts their digestive system into overdrive. EDIT: I looked into it a bit more after posting this, and it looks like it's not clear-cut— for example, it takes a cow a…

>It takes a cow a lot longer to reach slaughter weight eating grass, so even if they're belching less during that time, it's a long enough time that it may be a wash, or even worse.

This would still mean the cows live shorter lives and fart more intensely in that time. So that would destroy a headcount comparison with previous levels of wildlife, since basically now you're comparing one life of a bison with hundreds of cows living in it's lifespan.

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

#920
post #916
post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weak argument about rodents getting ground up in combines -- almost all cattle in the US are crop-fed, so it's the same thing happening to a much greater extent with meat consumption.

I never said that wasn’t the case. Outside of being a Jainist monk, there’s no escaping that your life on this planet doesn’t cost other animals’ lives. If you were to argue that all lives are equally important (I wouldn’t, but lots of vegans seem to), then you can reasonably make the argument that the calories you get from killing a single free range bison or moose costs fewer total lives than getting the equivalent…

s/doesn’t cost/costs/
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