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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)

#361

Post by garmaine »

tootie wrote: post #213
adrian_mrd wrote: post #152

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…

All your food started in the heart of a star. What's a few more steps.

The few more steps heavily denatures proteins, potentially creating novel structures in the processing which can have significantly negative effects on humans—cancer or prion catalysts, for example.

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

#362

Post by gonehome »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #323
gonehome wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a vegetarian that eats the fake meat and I'm glad it exists even if it's not perfect. I love hamburgers and for me, it's the biggest loss after becoming a vegetarian. Impossible is the closest I can get to recreating that experience. I switched to vegetarian because of the animal suffering/morality angle. I have for a long time felt that it was the right thing to do, but I liked eating meat so it was hard for me…

I will go vegetarian for months at a time but the challenge I have isn’t meat per se but that most vegetarian cooking has a strong bias toward sweet/sour/starchy kinds of flavor profiles, which I dislike. As in, for example, I literally never eat fruit because I’ve don’t like the flavor. I can see how the Impossible Burger is an alternative to that but it isn’t the only solution. It did take me years to collect and d…

I’m also pragmatic in the sense that this doesn’t change easily or quickly, but there’s a difference between incidental animal death due to plant agriculture and raising animals for slaughter. I think the goal is suffering reduction - anything that moves the needle in that direction is a good thing.

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

#363

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

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.

> it's just weird to me that that's what other vegetarians would care about

As others have replied already, pure vegetarians aren't the only audience for these products. You have plenty of people (like myself) who still enjoy meat but will happily opt for the replacements when available because of the environmental/ethical/health benefits, and I'm sure they've also lowered the barrier to entry for many people making the leap into full vegetarian diets for the first time.

I've been finding myself opting for the Impossible/Beyond options on menus more and more lately (even at fast food joints, e.g. Starbucks or Burger King), and I'm grateful for the options being there.

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

#364

Post by garmaine »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #21
tashoecraft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is that comparing against plain red meat with no salt added? Because if so that’s not really a fair comparison because you generally add a decent amount of salt to burger whereas you don’t really need to for beyond

This is a great time to plug MSG... the delicious umami flavor wrapped up in one delish ingredient. I never used salt much growing up at home - we always used Aromat! I was shocked to learn that most of the world doesn't use Aromat! Everyone go buy Aromat! It's delicious but unfortunately seems to be mostly popular for Swiss and South Africans! It's perfect on tomatos

MSG is literally salt…

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

#365

Post by atweiden »

jb_gericke wrote: post #345
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…

I've been feeling more conflicted about consuming meat lately, but it's blanket assertions like this that trigger my inner libertarian hard, and I come out swinging. There is considerable evidence suggesting meat consumption contributed significantly to our cerebral expansion ( https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701477?mob... ). Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can…

Human evolution is poorly understood, and the assumption that any choice $X supposedly made by early humans led to our forefathers’ anamolously rapid brain development is flatly speculative.

> Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can thank the incredible nutrient density in meat and our incredible hunting and tool creating ability for prefrontal cortex development.

Complete and utter speculation.

> We were pack hunters, forging tools and strategies capable of taking down mammoths. Call it 'diabolicaly evil' if you want, but this is simply nature and survival.

Subsistence hunting amongst early human tribes is not comparable to modern day factory farming in any conceivable way.

B12 doesn’t come from eating plants OR animals: it comes from bacteria, and ironically that bacteria is in such short supply on factory farms that the animals need to be injected with synthetic B12.

> I don't personally believe highly processed plant alternatives such as Beyond meat are a long term option if you're even vaguely interested in your own health.

I eat raw soybeans, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. I’d recommend watching the documentary Forks Over Knives [1] if you care about your personal health, and the documentary Dominion [2], if you’d like to see what really happens on factory farms.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtnlwqEii2I

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

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

#366

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

prawn wrote: post #320
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

That woulda given it away.

Username checks out too :D

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

#367

Post by toper-centage »

lambdaba wrote: post #338
gnicholas wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to know which ingredients are the most worrisome. I don't eat much Beyond or Impossible at this point, but I could see myself eating a lot in the future if they made lower-fat options (more like ground turkey than ground beef). But I don't want to eat something that is made out of unhealthy ingredients. What should I look out for?

Seed oils. See Dr. Cate Shanahan.

Better than animal fat

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

#368

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

hervature wrote: post #343
neuro_image2 wrote: post #298

I am an avid meat-lover but it does play on my conscience that I am in fact eating a former sentient being and potentially contributing to environmental devastation. I would appreciate answers to the following two, albeit simplistic questions that always plaque me when I consider stopping eating meat products: 1) Is it really unethical to eat animals when the natural trajectory of most animals lives was likely to be…

I think danShumway answered 1) pretty well. I just wanted to add my opinion about 2). Nothing an individual does in terms of personal behavior can have any "significant impact" at a global scale. If all humans made decisions like this, we would all come to the same conclusion, none of our individual actions are responsible. Which, while true, is ultimately a useless conclusion. I'd rather that we as a collective chan…

This is another classic example of Tragedy of the Commons [1].

Outright bans will likely never be feasible at all, though we could (and should) consider banning many of the bad practices that usually come with large-scale factory farming (and publicly funding grants/subsidies for these plant-based alternatives).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

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

#370

Post by nxpnsv »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #191
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…

> Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. I find this interesting, in that cropping has plenty of violent against animals but one step removed. I have a small cattle property, we run on hill country with diversified ecosystem, mixed grass and bushland. We have a heap of native animals living across the property. And at the end of the day the steers do get sent of for slaughter after 18 to 24 mont…

Small cattle and typical burger meat are different. That said, do you think small cattle would scale replace factory style production? I doubt it.

Furthermore: Cows are not perfect machine and eat plants - you have to grow more plants for to make a meat burger than you have to make a pea protein burger. So if cropping is bad for animals, farming meat requires more of that too. You could argue your cows eat different, but what do most cows eat? For mass market, fake burgers are simply better for land use, water use, animal welfare, emissions, environment, and even health.

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