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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)

#741

Post by wffurr »

bronzeage wrote: post #629
wffurr wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The only real net emissions in the process of creating beef are the fossil fuels burned in the process, from transportation I think you are drastically oversimplifying the carbon impact of modern agriculture. Artificial fertilizer production, irrigation, mechanized farm equipment all substantially contribute to CO2 emissions and other serious environmental impacts. Edit: Reading the EPA report, the sources I menti…

Again you're using sham accounting. Where did that methane come from? From the food. It came into the food from the air. There are again no net emissions. Just like a company requires expenditures to generate revenue. This is misleading. That carbon was borrowed from the air and then returned. Net emission zero. You only increase carbon in the air when you take carbon from elsewhere and put it in the air. Otherwise i…

I am pretty sure it's not methane in, methane out. There's a digestive process and bacteria involved that produce methane from sugars and cellulose. So CO2 in via plants, methane (a much more potent greenhouse has) out.

I think you need to research this "sham accounting" idea, maybe do some studies, collect some data, publish in a peer reviewed journal, before you go about spouting it as gospel.

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

#742

Post by retzkek »

tomp wrote: post #385
babyshake wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very good argument to be made that the life of cows on factory farms is worse than never existing.

There was an article on Slate Star Codex that examined this issue in detail. The conclusion was the opposite - basically that life is worth it even if living in extremely poor conditions - as evidenced by accounts of human survivors of e.g. concentration camps (the majority still wanted to continue living, and even engaged in normal human activities like love and procreation). https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/ac…

"Continuing to live" is a very different state than "being brought into existence," and I struggle to see how the desire for the former implies the latter. You can't ask anyone who was never born if they would prefer to have been created, nor can someone who was created observe what it would have been like to have never been born. It's difficult to even conceptualize non-existence!

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

#743

Post by SubiculumCode »

spicymaki wrote: post #287
SubiculumCode wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Two things: Cattle are slaughtered within 1-2 years and they are held in feed lots for 1/3 of that time. Cattle slaughtered for veal are caged and do not live in any humane conditions. I would certainly not want to exist.

re veal: How many people eat veal these days?

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

#744

Post by kexx »

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…

1) The ethicality of something is not sourced from nature. If this would be the case, then raping would be completely okay as animals doing something like that too, right? It's more coming from empathy, like we don't let people beating or killing each others as you don't want that happened to you as well.

2) In reality this is more like a demand issue. I eat meat because I like it even if I see it as somewhat unethical. Your personal decision does not really count, but the society's overall understanding of the issue. It's like your vote vs election results, your vote counts, but you are not gonna change the world single-handedly.

Personally I think the real solution will be growing meat artificially, only muscles without the rest of the animal.

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

#745

Post by twobitshifter »

tsimionescu wrote: post #492
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…

> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural dea…

See philosophical cow. There was a much larger philosophy article I read about this but I can’t seem to find it. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/th...

If you give a cow a choice between being a gazelle and getting eating by a lion or a cow and being fed and taken care of but eventually being killed, which would they choose? If you gave a cow a choice between the elimination or decimation of its entire species (cows have been altered to be not fit for nature) which would they choose? It’s not as cut and dry as you would think. There are definitely people who would pick to eliminate the entire human race. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_M... , so maybe we would have voluntary cattle extinction movements as well.

A belief that birth/procreation is a negative is known as antinatalism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

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

#746

Post by ASalazarMX »

nicolas_t wrote: post #486
Nursie wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

Fromage de tête in French, if you can get over the idea of it, it's well worth trying it. When it's well made with good quality ethically sourced meat (we used to do the same and buy a pig with neighbours and then process it), it's super tasty.

Oh, TIL! In Latin America we call that "queso de puerco" (literally "pork cheese"). Americans call it "head cheese".

I've always avoided it because it didn't look like cheese, but like fatty ham.

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

#747

Post by wyager »

spicymaki wrote: post #734
wyager wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber is unnecessary unless you eat too much undigestible plant matter and cholesterol is not as simple as “it’s bad”. Most men are cholesterol deficient.

> Fiber is unnecessary unless you eat too much undigestible plant matter I am not exactly sure how to parse this. Could you explain? > and cholesterol is not as simple as “it’s bad”. Most men are cholesterol deficient. LDL cholesterol is pretty bad given that they build up in your arteries causing arteriosclerosis. I think it is pretty well understood that saturated fat found in animal products as well as dairy produ…

> I am not exactly sure how to parse this. Could you explain?

Much of plant fiber is approximately indigestible to humans. The primary benefit of consuming insoluble fiber is to more rapidly push the other insoluble fiber that’s sitting in your intestine out. If you don't consume fiber in the first place there’s no problem. There are no clear nutritional benefits to consuming fiber. Anyone saying you will have bowel problems if you don’t eat fiber is (literally) full of shit. It’s more like you should eat a lot or none at all (I prefer the latter).

> LDL cholesterol is pretty bad given that they build up in your arteries causing arteriosclerosis

It’s not that simple. If you look into it, the cholesterol studies that boil down to “LDL bad” are excessively simplistic. The current best knowledge suggests that the implications of blood cholesterol content are A) better analyzed in relative (LDL/HDL ratio) rather than absolute terms B) highly dependent on genetic factors. There are large populations where cholesterol has a totally different effect on heart disease risk.

Every single piece of historical advice based on nutrition “science” of the form “X common metabolite is bad” has been completely wrong despite being widely accepted. “Fat is bad” was widely accepted for decades. Apply the appropriate skepticism here.

Production of several hormones, including testosterone, is rate-limited by cholesterol availability. Endogenous synthesis in humans is too slow to support sufficient T synthesis. This is likely the origin of the archetype of the manly meat eater, which is almost culturally universal.

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

#748

Post by inter_netuser »

sdenton4 wrote: post #158
inter_netuser wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate part is that there is a non-significant number of people who are allergic to contents of these faux-meats. ..but nobody is allergic to meat. There is a theory that benefits mostly ascribed to keto, are actually due to reduced inflammatory load in the diet.

Meat allergies certainly exist. Meet Alpha-Gal syndrome: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syn...

Even this syndrome (not an actual allergy but sensitization via tick vector) - is extremely rare. few cases per million.

10% of the mediterranean basin is allergic to some sort of plant food (and that prevalence is growing).

Primary allergy is to LTPs, lipid transfer proteins - which means those people be likely allergic to at least one of many components of this burger. In 70-80% cases such reactions are usually systemic and often severe.

In short: this burger can put 5-10% of the population in Spain, Italy, Greece on an ambulance.

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

#749

Post by inter_netuser »

toper-centage wrote: post #344
danShumway wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Some butchers definitely have better meat, you can taste the difference, and the colour/texture of the flesh is notably different.

Some are Mennonites and often you can even pick up the meat at their farm, if you are willing to make the drive.

It was the same meat.

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

#750

Post by sweetheart »

Bancakes wrote: post #726
darkwater wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any real data to prove my point but I think that many people would not like to watch how a cow is killed and transformed into steak. But nobody has problem watching as someone picks apples from a tree, or how a press creates olive oil.

As long as it's not one of those halal killings, I don't see a problem. Bullet to the head, done. I've rotated spit roast as a child and didn't find it creepy.

This is not at all how it’s done. I encourage you to watch footage of how cows are killed in factory farms.

It often takes several attempts to kill the cow, even with a bullet to the head. Their throats are often slit while they are alive. There is pleeenty of footage of exactly this in Dominion. I suggest you watch it.

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