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

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471–480 of 794 posts

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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone is allergic to corn and wheat.

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

#472

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…

This comment is a fantastic example demonstrating why everyone hates vegans[1]. I'm all for everyone being more aware of where and how their food is made. If you come out of it choosing not to consume certain categories, that's fantastic. But the moment you start demonizing others for not making the same choices as you, you become an anti-social and dislikable person, and one that's not conducive to building a better…

The dislikable and anti-social part is, in the end, just because they make feel the rest of us guilty. Very few people would say with a straight face "Yeah, I like that humans farm and kill animals so I can enjoy a juicier dish". All of us omnivores do that, but only few ones will face that reality happily. The rest of us will just blame the messenger.

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

#473

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…

Why "Beyond Burgers" and not the dozens (if not hundreds) of meat substitutes that have been available in Europe for more than 25 years?

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is a complicated topic, with multiple responses, but I'm only going to touch on one specific aspect of it. Reducing violence in regular farming is an admirable goal that people should strive towards. It's also worth talking about the environmental costs of ingredients like palm oil, and it's worth talking about the human costs of products like cocoa. I don't mean to diminish any of that at all, it's all worth pa…

>and the majority of the feed for those animals comes from... traditional crop farming.

I don't know how to find data but I thought that "grain-fed" cattle largely don't exist outside the USA (chicken/pork are different), so the only crop farmed is hay. And that may not impose as heavy costs as other crops?

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

#475
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don’t understand why you think this is a huge gotcha. most vegans are oriented around harm reduction, not absolute minimization. otherwise, they’d just kill themselves. there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, etc. either way, the causal chain between me and the rotisserie chicken is far shorter than between me and the tiny bit of cobalt in my iphone.

> there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism What do you mean by that?

He means that nothing should exist, because life means death, existence means suffering. I honestly don't see the relation to capitalism because consumption is literally just spending for utility and consumption can be absolutely anything, it can be sustainable or not.

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

#476
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…

Thanks, this is the most underrated answer. Selling processed food as one solution to climate change is genius marketing BS but still just BS. It reminds me of Soylent, Juicero and the like.

If you care about the environment, your health and animal well being then just eat less animal product (you need some anyway), buy only local food (local meat) and above all stop wasting so much of it.

Just a few decades ago people knew what they were eating, no processed food in any way. They were raising their livestock in their yard, they knew their single sheep / pork / cow and poultry and respected them. At some point you need to eat and kill them, people getting shocked by this have just become brainwashed or oversensitive. Go spend some time in Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe, they're laughing at this nonsense trend.

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

#477
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a post of the front-page of reddit a few days ago saying that most Americans are lied to about the fish they are buying in restaurants and supermarkets. I think it hilarious when people like me, urban dwellers, tell me to my face they only buy meat from some small butcher because they only trust him, or some variation of that story. Truth is, we have no idea where our food comes from, labels lie, and seller…

"I think it hilarious when people like me, urban dwellers, tell me to my face they only buy meat from some small butcher because they only trust him, or some variation of that story." I bought half a pig some time ago; I have a copy of his (probably 'her'?) earmark here next to me on my desk. I get an invitation each year to go watch it when it goes out to pasture for the first time that year. I can choose to have th…

> for which I don't know the English word - it's a grayish slab, often eaten on rye bread here in North-Western Europe

In British English, that would be "Head Cheese" or "Brawn", or at least head cheese is likely to be a similar product, made from the animal's head, that's the only thing I can think of. I've never eaten it and it's regarded as kinda gross.

Now blood sausage, that can be tasty :)

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

#478
post #454
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the wolf diabolically evil? ... What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? As much as I respect the intelligence of those animals, what a remarkably low bar to measure ourselves against. May as well justify manslaughter and rape as while we're at it. Drawing a line that arbitrarily suits certain primal desires and justifying it by pointing at a…

This is such a good point to make. Us humans should definitely strive to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. Also, it's a hell of a difference between the wolf, who has to kill in order to survive, and the man, who just has to choose something else to eat in the supermarket or restaurant. Justifying ones choice by comparing oneself to a wolf is incredibly flawed. No one here would bat an eye if, for whatev…

Who is us on that regard? Who decides the standard?

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

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is a fantastic example demonstrating why everyone hates vegans[1]. I'm all for everyone being more aware of where and how their food is made. If you come out of it choosing not to consume certain categories, that's fantastic. But the moment you start demonizing others for not making the same choices as you, you become an anti-social and dislikable person, and one that's not conducive to building a better…

The dislikable and anti-social part is, in the end, just because they make feel the rest of us guilty. Very few people would say with a straight face "Yeah, I like that humans farm and kill animals so I can enjoy a juicier dish". All of us omnivores do that, but only few ones will face that reality happily. The rest of us will just blame the messenger.

On the contrary, a lot of people are fine with it. That's why most people don't think about it much.

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

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best angle is the one given in the title: 90% less greenhouse emissions, 99% less water, and 93% less land. This is an approach that provides compelling meal options in a manner that scales much better than our traditional livestock methods.

I disagree actually - I think the animal suffering morality angle is the best argument for most people (as long as it's done in a way that isn't too adversarial). Most people don't care about the environmental costs, we do lots of things that have environmental effects because we like them and think it's worth it. Impossible and Beyond, while good, are still noticeably worse than beef to me. The animal suffering bit…

The messaging above is good because the animal suffering morality angle is implied without needing to be stated.

If you haven’t been convinced by decades of animal cruelty messaging (and most people haven’t), you’re unlikely to be convinced by it here.

It might form a meaningful part of a bigger decision-making process, but we already have that information.

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