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Meatless meat is nothing new

economist.com

21–30 of 109 posts

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#21
post #8

The article is behind a paywall so not really sure what's it exactly about. New or not, they're definitely gaining popularity down here in Australia. I'm seeing more and more of those on the supermarket shelves. I treat them as processed food and occasionally have some just to understand where exactly they stand. Some of them are good but mostly utter rubbish.

Which ones have you tried, and which category do they fall into?

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#23
post #2

I don't understand how can those companies afford to put those fake meat sections on all supermarkets across the globe. At least in my european country all supermarkets seem to have this section and from what I've been told most of the products just end up being thrown away because nobody is buying them. I assume they expect to lose a lot of money now but then to make it big at some point in the future. But those com…

This is a tangent, but so much of the supermarket nowadays is junk.

Go to the protein section, and there is literally no product that is just protein, everything has added artificial sweetener or some lab concoction with god knows what.

Go to the frozen food section. 80% junk. Ice cream, frozen potato chips, frozen pizzas. Oh look, some frozen fruit in the corner.

Go to the cereals section. 80% junk. If you look really hard, you can find some wholegrain cereal without added sugar.

Is this the equivalent of when social media companies optimize heavily around taking advantage of dopamine spikes in their customers, instead of doing things in their customer's actual best interests?

Speaking to an older relative, things were not like this in the mid 20th century.

How much cheaper would food be if the healthy staples could be bought in bulk, and our supply chains and packaging were optimized around that?

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#24
But various ecological crisis are becoming more and more obvious to everyone.

Anyone who cares about the environment including ecosystem breakdown and climate change will go meatless one way or another.

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#25
post #8

The article is behind a paywall so not really sure what's it exactly about. New or not, they're definitely gaining popularity down here in Australia. I'm seeing more and more of those on the supermarket shelves. I treat them as processed food and occasionally have some just to understand where exactly they stand. Some of them are good but mostly utter rubbish.

Unpaywalled version

https://web.archive.org/web/20220814083831/https://www.econo...

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#26
post #2

I don't understand how can those companies afford to put those fake meat sections on all supermarkets across the globe. At least in my european country all supermarkets seem to have this section and from what I've been told most of the products just end up being thrown away because nobody is buying them. I assume they expect to lose a lot of money now but then to make it big at some point in the future. But those com…

This is a tangent, but so much of the supermarket nowadays is junk. Go to the protein section, and there is literally no product that is just protein, everything has added artificial sweetener or some lab concoction with god knows what. Go to the frozen food section. 80% junk. Ice cream, frozen potato chips, frozen pizzas. Oh look, some frozen fruit in the corner. Go to the cereals section. 80% junk. If you look real…

I never seen frozen fruit, but frozen vegetables are super common.

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#27
post #15
post #2

I don't understand how can those companies afford to put those fake meat sections on all supermarkets across the globe. At least in my european country all supermarkets seem to have this section and from what I've been told most of the products just end up being thrown away because nobody is buying them. I assume they expect to lose a lot of money now but then to make it big at some point in the future. But those com…

> most of the products just end up being thrown away because nobody is buying them There's also a problem with discovery: If the meat alternative section is directly adjacent to the real meat, vegetarians and vegans are a lot less likely to discover it.

This just isn't true. It is actually really common to have this section near the meats.

Vegetarian meats are usually (but not always) either kept chilled or frozen, so it simply gets put somewhere around dairy and meat. For refrigerated sections, it is usually but not always in its own section. For the freezers, it is just kept in a section with space.

Of course, there are exceptions and sometimes it is just mixed in with regular product. Vegan cheese with the cheeses and ground "meat" with the other ground meat.

Most vegetarians and vegans I know seek the stuff out and learn where to look for it - including myself (not quite vegetarian, but a pescetarian that leans very heavily towards veggie)

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#28
post #10

Personally, I can't wait to taste it. There has been a lot of hype surrounding lab-grown meat replacements, but I think it's going to be a good few years until the legal framework, and economies of scale will be there.

What do legal framework and economies of scale have to do with you tasting it? I have and frankly it doesn't taste like meat. Sadly.

How did you get your hands on lab-grown meat? Isn't it still in prototype stage?

Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#29
post #8

The article is behind a paywall so not really sure what's it exactly about. New or not, they're definitely gaining popularity down here in Australia. I'm seeing more and more of those on the supermarket shelves. I treat them as processed food and occasionally have some just to understand where exactly they stand. Some of them are good but mostly utter rubbish.

Unpaywalled version https://web.archive.org/web/20220814083831/https://www.econo...

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Re: Meatless meat is nothing new

#30
post #9

As a lapsed vegetarian I've always seen mushrooms as the original meatless meat. Praise be glutamates.

As a meat eater, I love mushrooms and I think they are so much better as a healthy food than those weird Beyond meats. I also love vegan patties made with various kind of nuts, beans and veggies.

I don’t get this appeal of turning goos and veggies into ‘meat’. Just make them their own thing. You don’t rly have to compete with meat.

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