Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018) • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by spicymaki » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #245

telchar wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument - which I see often - ignores that land doesn’t have to be used for growing crops or grazing. Leaving some land wild allows biodiversity which has quite literally unquantifiable benefits now and far into the future. Using less land in total let’s us leave more land wild, and/or to put solar panels on it, or put it to other uses that may be beneficial. Further, some of that land which is unsuitable for g…

Land doesn't have to be used for anything, unless you want to do things. The point is that grazing is much less destructive to the original ecology than farming, so it's not clear that 1 acre of farming is better than 100 acres of grazing. I might be misguided here, but AFAIK grazing doesn't "deplete" the land at all (and might even improve the land with manure / etc), where as farming absolutely does unless you're c…

You can’t scale environmentally friendly organic grass fed beef. There is a reason why we have cruel factory farms.

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

#312

Post by unanswered » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

shawnb576 wrote: post #171

ipaddr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we need to eat many pounds of cow. Or many more pounds of plants to generate a pound.

Plants to animal to you is 10% efficiency. That cow needs to eat 10 lbs of plant to get the nutrients you’d get from 1 lb.

Except you couldn't extract any nutrients at all from the plant matter the cow is eating, no matter how much of it you ate.

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

#313

Post by atweiden » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #294

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. I completely disagree, in that the Impossible Burger, and to a lesser degree the Beyond Burger, are the first vegetarian products I've eaten that completely satiate my desire for meat, and I really like the taste with good seasoning, ketchup and mustard. I've eaten many veggie burgers previously, whether they be bean, soy, or mushroom based, and always after eating one I felt like it tasted OK, but…

The preparation may matter. For example, I don’t put ketchup and mustard on my burgers, which will probably disguise a lot of the processed legume taste. I don’t use strongly flavored sauces. For reasons I don’t understand, some of the most satisfying unintentionally vegetarian food I’ve eaten has been in the agriculture regions of the US, like the Palouse, where legumes are ubiquitous local crops. Popular vegetarian…

> Popular vegetarian cooking has never picked up those recipes, which are much better to my taste than what passes as a lot of vegetarian fare. I’ll go for months as a vegetarian but I cook my own food, leaning heavily on the cuisine of regions that aren’t vegetarian per se but nonetheless produce surprisingly satisfying vegetarian dishes based on legumes. I’ve convinced far more meat eaters with these dishes than with fake meat.

It’s impossible not to ask. Could you share any recipes or dish preparation tips?

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

#314

Post by XorNot » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

DistressedDrone wrote: post #198

MPSimmons wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoy both BeyondBeef and Impossible Burger. My thoughts are that BeyondBeef has a kind of plastic-y smell, but is almost exactly right in terms of color and texture. The smell is not concerning to me, but it is distinct for my palette. I still eat it, and don't mind. Aside from the burgers, I also really enjoy the spicy Italian sausages. There is a slightly different taste than pork-based sausages, but I wo…

As a vegetarian, I really don't get why people are so focused on realistic meat replacement. Like, there are other things to eat. I especially don't get why people want the texture of red meat like beef patties. So you like... soft food? There's no arguing tastes, it's just weird to me that that's what other vegetarians would care about.

This is bizarre virtue signalling that you should rein in.

The entire world eats meat, and you know that.

You almost certainly have some opinions on the moral correctness of animal slaughter for food.

So it's not a leap of logic to realize that probably there's a significant cross-over between people who have this view but still like the taste.

So I have no idea why you feel like this is a "confusing" product to exist.

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

#315

Post by fy20 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #52

whimsicalism wrote: post #12

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…

In my country potato sausages are a traditional thing. We sure love our potatoes....

https://www.thespruceeats.com/lithuanian-potato-sausage-veda...

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

#316

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #182

whimsicalism wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

From some local fine foods places: chicken/sage/onion, chicken/spinach/pinenuts, duck/veal, lamb/feta, pork/capsicum, pork/fennel, lamb/beef/garlic/rosemary, beef/shiraz, pork/lemongrass/coriander, lamb/sundried-tomato, duck/orange/pistachio. Had some with pinot noir grapes in them once at a grape picking brunch event. Some of these like pork/fennel or lamb/rosemary, spiced Italian, etc are pretty commonly found for…

I knew you were going to say you lived in Australia as soon as I saw that list of sausage varieties ;)

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

#317

Post by spicymaki » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

King-Aaron wrote: post #208

sweetheart wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Plants don't want to die either, and they do their best to evolve specifically to avoid death.

Personally I would love to have a device that would pull carbon out of the air and produce proteins. We are not there yet, so plants are the next best thing.

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

#318

Post by Kranar » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

sweetheart wrote: post #307

Kranar wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think bringing up dogs is very interesting. Certainly in much of the Western world there is a cultural association between dogs and humans so that presenting that scenario suggests that the dog was likely killed for some kind of senseless or sadistic purpose, after all why would someone just decide to randomly kill a dog? But plenty of Asian cultures do exactly that, they raise dogs to adulthood, and then kill it a…

> Furthermore there is emerging evidence that vegetarianism is often not an ethical choice What is this evidence? And, you didn’t really answer the question. Would you be fine with my stunning a dog, slitting it’s throat, and boiling it alive? I’m well aware of how culturally acceptable it is in other places, but i’m not asking that. Im asking if you’re cool if I do that to a dog.

I absolutely answered your question fully and honestly and I am disappointed you won't recognize that because it suggests you're not discussing this in good faith. You asked if my position applies equally to dogs and my exact answer was, and I quote:

"So to answer your question, in principle it absolutely applies to dogs..."

If I misunderstood your question then you can rephrase it. If your question wasn't about rational and ethical arguments about meat consumption, but instead personal feelings and emotions, then sure I can fully admit I am personally not cool with you going out and killing a dog because the scenario you present comes with a cultural and emotional context that I am predisposed against having been raised in the Western world.

If the purpose of your argument was that you're against killing animals for emotional reasons, then I actually respect that and have nothing against you feeling that way and encouraging others who feel the way you do to consume a vegan diet.

I think there are numerous benefits to a vegan diet, I just don't think the argument you made that we should choose it primarily on the basis that killing an animal is intrinsically violent in and of itself is a rational argument. It's a perfectly fine emotional and cultural reason to do it, and those are good reasons, but it's not a strong rational reason in so far as the arguments you've presented have not been rational.

Finally to answer your question about genetics, here is some further reading:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/0...

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-291

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/06/modern-european-gen...

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

#319

Post by atweiden » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #303

atweiden wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel you. I stopped eating meat for 40 years for the same reason. But... they are on the same food chain we are, and they’d eat us in a heartbeat, right? Herbivorous ruminants like cows would never eat you, and would generally never harm you unless provoked. Breeding intelligent lifeforms in a bespoke way to murder them for cash — whatever the reason or creature involved — is diabolically evil. If you do this for…

Well... look up things like “cow eating chicken” or “deer eating bird” on YouTube. Not saying it’s common, but “never” is perhaps too strong a word. And of course I really meant it in a larger sense, not the direct ruminant/person relationship.

In the past, I’ve dabbled with ento-vegetarianism — i.e. eating insects — but still walked away from it feeling disgusted with the idea people breed these insects only to put them to death inside gas chambers.

I would object to farming alligators on the same grounds. Even if the thing is effectively a living dinosaur guaranteed to eat you alive in the wild, there’s something diabolically evil about “growing” them for systematic murder on a commercial scale. It’s death dealing.

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

#320

Post by prawn » Fri, May 07, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #316

prawn wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From some local fine foods places: chicken/sage/onion, chicken/spinach/pinenuts, duck/veal, lamb/feta, pork/capsicum, pork/fennel, lamb/beef/garlic/rosemary, beef/shiraz, pork/lemongrass/coriander, lamb/sundried-tomato, duck/orange/pistachio. Had some with pinot noir grapes in them once at a grape picking brunch event. Some of these like pork/fennel or lamb/rosemary, spiced Italian, etc are pretty commonly found for…

I knew you were going to say you lived in Australia as soon as I saw that list of sausage varieties ;)

And I didn't even need to mention kangaroo sausages!