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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)

#391

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…

To raise cows, you need crop. So real burgers already include the suffering from cropping, even more so because you need a lot more crop per calorie of you have a cow between you and the plant.

Now I want to emphasis that guilt is not a good reason to start with beyond meat.

The desire to try to do a nice thing can be, but as a vegetarian, it's important that people are not pushed out of meat because of some negative emotion.

I'd rather have happy meat eaters than frutsrated veggies.

But give it a try, just for curiosity sake.

I like the taste of BM, but find them hard to digest.

Also remember it's still process food, and organic free range steak is likely healthier.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No! Lions eat to survive and do not have choices due to evolution. Humans on the other hand can choose how to source their nutrients. I don’t believe that animals eating animals in an abstract sense is wrong. The problem for me is necessity and scale. We don’t need animal protein to survive and the scale of the death and environmental harm is too much to ignore.

How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have.

Environmental concerns I think should be excluded from this offshoot of the conversation, which is spawned from ethical concerns about killing animals, not environmental concerns.

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

#393

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…

You can grow crops without pesticides but you cannot have beef without killing cows.

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

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real meat is lindy. Fake meat is not. We won't know until multi-decade studies have been done on the health effects of a fake meat diet.

Fortunately, we at least know that meat consumption, specially red meat, is bad for you and a WFPB diet is better. So my suggestion is to use products like beyong as a gateway to a WFPB diet.

Meat, literally millions of years in our evolutionary past VS seed oils barely 100 (more like 50 for mass adoption), but surely "the science" is never wrong nor corrupted. Inform yourself on the history of this with Ancel Keys etc.

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

#395
post #326

The local burger joint closest to my house is 100% vegan and uses Beyond patties. It’s also, in my opinion, the best burger in town. I’m a carnivore and would definitely notice the difference in a Pepsi challenge of the patties themselves, but the overall taste and presentation make this place pull ahead of all the meat-based alternatives. I feel like we’ve crossed a threshold. This was literal sci-fi just a couple o…

I made a conscious effort to develop some vegetarian dishes I could make simply for variety. If nothing else, vegetarian cooking has to do a lot of work to make up for not just leaning on meat as a primary flavor component, but the result is you can get much more diversity and interesting flavors and textures. It's honestly more exciting to see where we're going to do once we're at "seamless replica" and can start pl…

There's some really great vegetarian options from world cuisine. I draw heavily on Mexican, Indian, Italian, Greek, Turkish, and southeast Asian cuisine in my home cooking. It's a nice variety and a good challenge to find the simple recipes that don't try to replace meat but instead taste excellent without it.

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

#396

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 actually enjoy trying out a variety of vegetarian and vegan foods for this exact reason - just to see how they compare with the meat based ones and how good they are overall. Frankly, it's gotten to the point where most of the food that i buy myself is vegetarian, just because of how many of those options are out there.

That said, it's not a black and white issue, as people sometimes like to view it as - if most people simply treated meat as something to only enjoy rarely (say, once a week or a few times a month) or something for special occasions, then we'd make significant progress in that regard already!

Alternatively, perhaps people should see how their meat is made, or try doing it themselves, to get a greater appreciation for the amount of resources that it takes to produce any (as well as maybe get a bit more empathy towards the animals in some ways). Personally, i've gone hunting with my dad, have gutted animals in the forest, helped bring them home, skin them and cut the bones, all just to enjoy some meat. That's not to say that it'd bear much relevance to the lives of most people, but it's certainly a very humbling experience.

Edit: In the words of Michael Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I'm actually curious about how others view a more moderate stance on the issue of nutrition - one that calls for gradual changes.

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

#397

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…

When I was a teenager I worked for dairy farms helping them with the accounting. A big part of their expenses were antibiotics and antidepressants for the cows that had a calf taken away and they had to stay there producing milk.

It really shocked me.

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

#398

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'm also a meat eater but have cut down on the amount of meat I eat. I think many of us in wealthy "western" countries don't realise we eat more meat today than in any time of history, thanks to industrial-scale farming and cheap supermarket prices. It wasn't always like this but we're now conditioned to think plentiful and cheap meat has always been the norm.

In fact, in many countries where meat is more expensive, meat dishes are balanced with vegetables to create a dish where both are equal partners. In contrast, in western cuisines meat often dominates a meal with vegetables playing a poor or non-existent supporting role.

This lengthy 2011 article by a British chef makes a good case for eating mostly vegetables but still occasionally enjoying meat from farms with high welfare standards.

The joy of veg:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/26/hugh-fe...

From the article:

"Let me be clear: I have not become a vegetarian, nor do I think I ever will. So the dialogue I'm keen to begin with other meat-eaters is not about vegetarianism, it's about vegetables. I would love to persuade you to eat more vegetables. And thereby to eat less meat – and maybe a bit less fish too. Why?

To summarise, we need to eat more vegetables and less flesh because vegetables are the foods that do us the most good and our planet the least harm."

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

#399
post #170

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 th…

Seed oils are toxic. These fake "meats" are the some of the worst processed foods around. It's sad people are being duped once again by the food industry and medical establishment. This will only further worsen the awful health of the population.

The WHO directly said that meat is an important contributor to many forms of cancer: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/cancer-carcinogenic...

The problem here is that everyone takes the info they want and discards the rest.

Eating meat is not problematic, if done moderately. But nowadays there is not such moderation. There is meat in every meal.

Fake burgers are probably not healthy too, but this is not proven yet.

Just be moderate with what you eat.

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

#400

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.

I'm not yet vegan/vegetarian, but I am making my way there.

> I really don't get why people are so focused on realistic meat replacement.

100% this. I enjoy Impossible as an independent food, I have it whenever I see it on the menu. The taste and texture are a couple of shades off from beef, but that's more variety at the end of the day.

It's almost a mistake calling it a meat replacement.

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