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Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

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Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#71

Post by wyager »

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans".

We are, at the very least, decades away from having a complete enough understanding of nutrition to safely replace the nutritional value of beef with a substitute fake beef product. Once we accomplish that, there are some second-order effects to worry about, like increasing single-path reliance on complex agrochemical supply chains to meet basic nutritional needs.

It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#73

Post by sidlls »

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

So many animals die at the blades of the harvester. Also, the reason the argument fares poorly is likely due to the fact that it’s devoid of reason and couched entirely in emotion. Emotion is powerful and important, as it is part of our humanity. But it’s not a good basis for argument, given its fickle and poorly understood nature.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#74

Post by sweetheart »

elktea wrote: post #60
sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

> No one needed to die for you to eat it. Except all those animals + insects that once inhabited the fields

More crops are grown to feed the livestock than people, so if you want to save the field animals and insects, going plant based will save even more.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#75

Post by PhasmaFelis »

elktea wrote: post #60
sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

> No one needed to die for you to eat it. Except all those animals + insects that once inhabited the fields

Which is still a lot less death and suffering than factory farming livestock produces. (Aside from the fact that growing cattle to eat requires a lot more acreage under cultivation--to feed the cattle--than growing plants to eat.)

It's impossible to feed people without causing some death. But that doesn't mean we can't work to minimize it.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#76

Post by dcolkitt »

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

I guess the difference would be though, that without the demand for meat, those cows would likely never have lived at all. 99%+ of all cows alive are used for human agriculture.

From the perspective of any living creature, I generally think of existence as a positive good versus non-existence. I know I certainly would rather come to a violent death at a young age than have never been born at all.

I think there's a plausible argument that modern factory farming is so horrific that it's worse than non-existence. But a cow raised with a decent quality of life, and slaughtered humanely for its meat does not seem worse for animal welfare than eliminating the entire existence of the cow.

(Of course I realize there's ecological and health arguments for giving up meat, but purely talking along the dimension of animal welfare.)

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#77

Post by nerbert »

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

I agree with you, that is especially the case for burgers that are usually not made of particularly refined meat. I’m still "old style" and enjoy a piece of steak but less than once a week. I still need to cut down on ham… decrease in meat consumption is rational. It’s mostly a matter of habit, and people hate changing those.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#78

Post by King-Aaron »

SamBam wrote: post #65
elktea wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one needed to die for you to eat it. Except all those animals + insects that once inhabited the fields

This is the case for almost all food you eat, unless you survive by foraging.

True, however proponents for animal cruelty don't often* factor in the destruction of natural biodiversity, and generally only care about the 'big' animals that they can 'see'.

*Edit, removed the blanket generalisation. I know a lot of people do care about broader biodiversity, it's just not quite as commonly seen.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#79

Post by MPSimmons »

codezero wrote: post #50
whimsicalism wrote: post #12

Beyonds sausages imo are much better than their burger. Impossible is the real burger king in this category

I like to say beyond meat is like an animal you haven’t eaten yet, but sounds plausible. I think with it framed that way it tastes delicious (if you crave animals). I went vegetarian and crave fake burgers more now than real ones before and Beyond really hits the spot for me. I love the sausages as well. The taco crumbles are a weird texture but I’ve used them in some hash scrambles.

That's a very cool way of putting it, and you're right. Beyond Beef isn't more different from beef than buffalo is, for sure.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#80

Post by ivalm »

elktea wrote: post #60
sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

> No one needed to die for you to eat it. Except all those animals + insects that once inhabited the fields

Cows are fed by plants that grow on the same kind of fields, except cows need to eat many pounds of food to generate one pound of cow.
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