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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)

#121
post #73

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.

I think that many times people have a logical argument (perhaps flawed) underlying their stated positions, but they don't clearly articulate it.

Some good-faith discussion can often surface that tacit reasoning.

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

#122
post #71

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…

>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.

Your net consumption of plants is reduced when you reduce your consumption of animals, friend. How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals?

>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".

People get along just fine eating only legumes and grains and a few other plants sprinkled in.

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

#124
post #52

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

Didn't know they did sausages. That could be a decent market to tackle. We don't typically make burgers at home, but we do often buy simple sausages as a quick meal for the kids. Usually the supermarket choice is premium sausages with more exotic combos (that I like but the kids don't), or basic plain ones which always seem a bit miserable. If we're buying plain sausages, might as well get something like this instead…

I'm curious - what's an example of such an exotic combo?

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

#125
post #32

Genuinely curious; is eating something processed like this better than eating regular unprocessed ground meat?

No, and that’s why the fake meat companies are very careful from not mentioning anything about health benefits, and instead stress carbon nonsense and naturalness of ingredients.

Impossible is legume flour and coconut oil. Legume flour is rough on the gut, and coconut oil is 90% saturated fat, way more than butter. Beyond is soy and coconut.

If you have a moral or other objection to meat, go vegetarian or start eating vegetarian meals. It’s healthier and you’ll eat better. Fake meat has all of the health downsides of lousy meat, has inferior taste, and a questionable story around environmental nonsense.

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

#126
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

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.

Not everywhere that can sustain cattle can grow crops fit for human consumption.

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

#129

Most of the ranch land in my area isn't really suitable for other kinds of agriculture so I don't know if that measure means much. It certainly isn't irrigated and I think the cows give back the water they use.

You're right. The water discussed here is just the total rain water that was in the grass the cows ate. Its not taken from aquifers or rivers like you need to irrigating crops.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g

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

#130

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 get the intention but wouldn't it be better to just forget the taste of it if you're doing so for the sake of the animal's suffering? To put it bluntly, the suffering ends, but the taste of suffering is still delicious...
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