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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)

#161

Post by jhardy54 »

kmonsen wrote: post #150
sweetheart wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how burgers taste, so I want to eat them. But I don't want an animal to experience horrific treatment and slaughter just for the taste, so I seek it out in plants. That makes sense, no? I can like the salty, fat taste but opt-out of the subjugation and slaughter of another being.

I’m exactly like you, I love the taste of meat and I love animals. Whenever it is an option I choose beyond/impossible meat. That means virtually no one has to die for me that day.

I think that’s really cool, and I appreciate then “whenever it is an option” but. It’s so easy to see it as a black and white issue rather than a continuum where small actions make a large impact. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

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

#162

Post by Kranar »

sweetheart wrote: post #58
gnarbarian wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to have so much empathy that your brain falls out.

I don't know what this means, can you clarify?

Not everyone agrees with you that raising a farm animal and killing it is in and of itself a form of violence. Certainly many forms of factory farming are absolutely abhorrent and should be eliminated, but saying that what many farmers who raise cattle, chicken, pork and a variety of animals, and do so with respect and care are engaging in a form of cruelty and violence is not an opinion everyone shares.

An animal lives a life that's part of a cycle, it's born, it grows, it has experiences and serves various purposes/functions over the course of its life, and then it dies. The fact of that animal's eventual death is not in and of itself violent, every animal eventually dies.

So how do animals die? They either die from predation, disease, or in this case from a farmer putting it to death; virtually no mammals ever die from reaching their maximum life span out in the wild and the idea that in the absence of farming you'd have cattle and pigs living free and full lives in the wild is simply not a reflection of any real-world environment.

I think it's incorrect to focus on one single aspect of raising a farm animal, its death at the hands of a farmer, and using that as sole characteristic of what it takes and what it means to raise a farm animal and judge the entire system based on that one act.

I can respect your point of view and I think we'd agree that alternatives that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable are a win, but I can't agree with you that as a matter of principle, raising a farm animal and then killing it is intrinsically violent.

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

#163

Post by tablespoon »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #136
dcolkitt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pl…

If we all moved to impossible beef, cattle populations would plummet. However, despite popular perception, for most of its life before slaughter, a cow is raised in large open ranges for grazing, like in the California foothills. Only the last parts of their live do they get put into crowded feedlots for "fattening", which might be described as inhumane. Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the Cali…

> Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the California hills, as land owners stop caring.

Which would be an invasive species.

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

#164

Post by tomglynch »

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…

> 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.

In my opinion, the most important thing is that it is considerably better for the environment due to the reduction in emissions, water and land. Don't get me wrong, no violence against animals is a benefit too, but to me it's not the number one reason to try imitation meat.

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

#165

Post by dguaraglia »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #133
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…

What you're saying a little silly, given that if people had decided to stop eating cows 20 years ago, the cow I ate a part of today would never have gotten to exist in the first place. An argument that cows are abused and are better off never existing would be a reasonable one.

The cow that you ate today most likely lived its whole life in a cage no much bigger than its body, inside a huge facility reeking of feces and death and ate an atrocious diet, only to be killed at the perfectly calculated time to maximize profit.

I'm a meat eater. Heck, I hunt (and eat what I hunt) and even I can tell you that your argument is ridiculous.

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

#166

Post by King-Aaron »

fastball wrote: post #139
agogdog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And as a predatory animal, the fact that something "needs to die" for me to feed doesn't factor into the equation. I'm having a hard time following this... are you saying that you don't think about the reality of killing animals for food because of some biological mechanism outside of your control?

My interpretation was more: nature doesn't have morality, animals don't have morality, other animals aren't worried about killing each other, the only reason we are worried about it is because we are projecting the horror of death that comes from being a cognizant being onto animals that are unlikely to even have a concept of "death", so it's not a moral conundrum for an animal that has evolved to eat meat (humans) t…

This is kind of it.

I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad', when I (among others) have grown up in areas where it's a basic part of life to farm/hunt meat for survival.

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

#167

Post by sidlls »

shreygineer wrote: post #146
sidlls wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Emotion might not be a good basis for argument, but neither is "X is also non-zero amount bad so why should I stop Y even though it is more bad" Ex: "Donuts are bad for you because they are sugary" "Well, apples have sugar in them too! Should I stop eating them as well?!"

I was poking holes in the absolutism of the GP’s argument, not arguing as you suggest.

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

#169

Post by wyager »

ivalm wrote: post #80
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

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.

The way cows get plant matter is a lot less environmentally costly than the way humans get plant matter. Their standards are a lot lower than ours. Humans don't like to eat scrub-brush and corn husks.

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

#170

Post by ipaddr »

I'm generally surprised no one brings up the negative health benefits of processed foods. It is not healthier to get rid of meat only to replace it with high salt chemically processed food that tastes like meat.

It seems like we are going backwards.

You know what uses less greenhouse emissions, less water and less land? The orginal plant based food that gets processed into a beyond burger.

If you really care about the planet why are you buying processed anything? That get's shipped nationwide / worldwide that creates factories, chemical waste, greenhouse gases. Buying locally and growing locally really helps the planet. Going to burger king and getting an absolute burger instead of a whooper is just pretending.

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