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

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

css.umich.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 794 posts

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

#151

Post by tablespoon »

fastball wrote: post #90
sweetheart wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses (and more) that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest. So if you're growing soy on deforested land as a base for your "cruelty free" burger, it is very possible that this has damaged the origina…

> Not sure this is true if you're looking at free-range though. There are many places which are not very amenable to growing crops fit for human consumption, but are more than adequate for growing the grasses that ruminant digestive systems (e.g. cows) can easily digest.

Exactly. It's not like animal husbandry and meat-eating developed as some kind of ostentatious wasteful consumption. It's a way of converting inedible plants into edible meat.

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

#152

Post by adrian_mrd »

Whilst the environmental and animal welfare benefits of many of the ‘fake’ meats (Beyond, Impossible, Vegetarian Butcher, etc) are noble and important, in the spirit of ‘full’ lifecycle analysis, it is important to also consider just how processed (ultra processed) these products are and the potential impacts this has in the human health domain.

And the research on ultra processed foods is rather clear, they are ‘bad’ for human health in large quantities.

Some alternatives that are better for the environment AND for human health include: pulled oats from Finland, and fake cheese products made from beans (rather than tree nuts).

Edit: Added… simple tip, read the ingredient list and count the number of ingredients used.

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

#153

Post by paranoidrobot »

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…

> they require no violence against animals.

While I sympathise with the argument, I think that it's a mistake to push this aspect front and centre.

There's a whole lot of people out there who simply like eating meat, and that it means killing an animal is not particularly a problem.

The people I've spoken to about Beyond/Impossible and similar fake-meats all tend to think of it as something for vegans/vegetarians, because that's how this type of product has been presented for decades.

"Oh, you're having a BBQ? Fred's partner is a veggo, better chuck on some mushroom burgers or something"

It's a tough push to convince people that this isn't meant for vegans/vegetarians wanting meat, but a product for meat-eaters wanting to reduce their meat intake, but not necessarily wanting to give up their ability to have meals that taste like what they're used to.

Pushing from that angle, I would argue, is likely to have a bigger impact than saying "Think of the poor cow that had to get murdered for your burger!".

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

#154

Post by wyager »

sweetheart wrote: post #102
wyager wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 This is untrue, as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants, which are harvested with the machines that potentially kill the field animals. So even accounting for that, fewer animals will die. Also, animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, and relocate (which is still not good! But better than be…

> as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants

The animals I'm eating aren't fed by slash-and-burn soya or insecticide-grown vegetables.

> animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting,

Farmers don't deal with rodents and other pests by encouraging them to migrate.

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

#155

Post by sidlls »

sweetheart wrote: post #141
sidlls wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can also choose to consume meat that is not treated with cruelty. It’s more expensive, but does exist. The “less violence” argument doesn’t hold sway with some. That’s a purely subjective assessment that not everyone agrees with. For example, I don’t consider the slaughter of animals for food to be particularly more violent than the wholesale shredding of plant fibers at harvest.

There is no such thing as slaughter without cruelty. The animals do not want to die, and they are killed. That is _always_ cruel.

There is such a thing, for example the slaughtering of an animal for food.

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

#157

Post by wyager »

an_opabinia wrote: post #101
swader999 wrote: post #43

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.

Define suitable. In a market sense? Most farm profits come directly from the government. 2020 was supremely profitable for farms ( https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/record-high-ag-sub... ) due to subsidies. In terms of some like of positivist, ecosystem sense? I don't know, ask an ecologist what used to be on the land. I can promise you it wasn't cows.

> I can promise you it wasn't cows.

It was probably buffalo.

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

#158

Post by sdenton4 »

inter_netuser wrote: post #137
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…

The unfortunate part is that there is a non-significant number of people who are allergic to contents of these faux-meats. ..but nobody is allergic to meat. There is a theory that benefits mostly ascribed to keto, are actually due to reduced inflammatory load in the diet.

Meat allergies certainly exist. Meet Alpha-Gal syndrome:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syn...

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

#159

Post by tomnipotent »

khc wrote: post #56

According to https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-... , beef has a ~50x water footprint compared to vegetable. It's hard to understand what "99% less impact on water scarcity" means but surely beyond meat can't use less water than vegetables? (since beyond meat is plant based)

It's pretty close. If faux beef is 100 per X, and real beef is 5,000 per X, then faux beef is 98% of real beef.

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

#160

Post by kmonsen »

easytiger wrote: post #142
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…

> is they require no violence against animals. And you wonder why people can't take absolutists seriously. The marketing power of the moral superiority concept is no new thing. Pivoting the crux of success of your ideology around an incredibly poor burger filling makes no sense either. In the UK restaurants are being allowed to reopen in 10 days. In London there are an incredible density of steak restaurants which ha…

It is not squeamishness. I have killed animals for food with my own hands and being part of people killed in war. I would like to not do it when I have the opportunity.
Post reply on HN