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Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

nytimes.com

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Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#511

Post by nier »

antonvs wrote: post #495
rlt wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were suggesting that. More something along the lines of "you're likely to be killing animals either way, so just accept that nature is cruel and don't feel guilty about it". There's a wide spectrum of how much you're willing to do to avoid causing suffering: - Nothing, eat meat from the worst factory farms without second thought - Only eat meat from local, ethical, sustainable, etc farmers. - Only…

You skipped cannibalism. Only eat people who deserve it, Dexter-style.

Like that wouldn’t leave a bad taste in your stomach.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#512

Post by walthamstow »

Fiahil wrote: post #433
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #278

If you know cars are problematic, the solution isn't to produce a bicycle that has a "car-like experience". The solution is to make non-car transportation more available, more useful, cheaper, etc, and slowly make car use itself more painful. I have at least 8 vegan dishes I can make that are just amazingly delicious . A mushroom risotto, veggie tajine, chana masala, ramen, moussaka, general tso's cauliflour, cuban b…

From a French perspective, American cuisine is bland and unimpressive. Clamping down on meat is not enough, you need to also get around cooking everything in oil, and added sugar (basically, everything about your cuisine).

That's not sugar, mon ami, it's high fructose corn syrup

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#514

Post by pvaldes »

Cannabat wrote: post #413
agentgumshoe wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how many animals die in the process of scaled agriculture and displacement that occurs to create these replacement goods. But they're not the big fluffy animals we anthropomorphise, so it's easy to accept.

It sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture. What do you think the animals humans like to eat, eat? A heck of a lot of grain and other plants. "Animal agriculture" includes the fluffy animals (with whom we may empathize - they ain't robots) and the massive farms that grow their feed. Animal agriculture incidentally kills and displaces far more other…

> It sounds like you are suggesting non-animal agriculture kills or displaces more animals than animal agriculture.

Is exactly what happens. Without cattle there is not the need of meadows anymore. Not wildflowers, butterflies, hedgehogs, molluscs or birds. Soy fields have a biodiversity composed of: Soy. Period.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#516

Post by whateveracct »

theodric wrote: post #502
kybernetyk wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Define "healthy." Clarify what you become deficient in by consuming a cooked apple. This frankly reeks of naturalistic fallacy.

HN is full of bizarro techbro eating disorder talk

I didn't quite realize until I met one of those "carbs are worse energy sources" guys at a job

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#517

Post by walthamstow »

throwaway290 wrote: post #314
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #278

If you know cars are problematic, the solution isn't to produce a bicycle that has a "car-like experience". The solution is to make non-car transportation more available, more useful, cheaper, etc, and slowly make car use itself more painful. I have at least 8 vegan dishes I can make that are just amazingly delicious . A mushroom risotto, veggie tajine, chana masala, ramen, moussaka, general tso's cauliflour, cuban b…

Spot on. Safety also matters, US meat industry is really strictly controlled and paradoxically it's safer to eat meat than veggies, especially fresh like a salad. It'd be tough to solve, this. No one would vote to remove meat controls but comparable controls over pesticide/soil/cleanness would be unpopular too as they'd increase prices and make veg tougher to sell.

I'm very surprised to read this, because my understanding (from the UK) is that US chicken and egg farms have a horrendous salmonella problem stemming from high numbers of chickens per sqft and low regulation on things like clean bedding.

This is the reason US eggs are washed, removing their natural antibac coating, and therefore need refridgeration whereas UK/EU eggs are not and do not.

I remember reading a lot about this subject during the Brexit debate, but have forgotten a lot of it since. So, what am I missing?

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#518

Post by alkonaut »

henrikschroder wrote: post #267
gwbas1c wrote: post #32

I married a vegan, and I eat a lot of vegetarian food. (I also still eat plenty of meat, just not every day.) One extremely frustrating aspect of plant meat is that they tried to aggressively push out traditional veggie burgers on restaurant menus. A familiar refrain I've heard in restaurants in the last few years is "we used to have a nice veggie patty, but they replaced it with the beyond/incredible/whatever patty.…

> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. You are not the target group for these products! The whole point of these products is to replace meat for habitual meat eaters. If the companies can get their products to taste about the same as meat, and have about the same nutritional value, while being cheaper , we can eliminate enormous amounts of habitual meat consumption. That's t…

I'm definitely a habitual meat eater. I don't have a vegetarian bone in my body. Yet I'd prefer a vegetarian burger to have beans and carrots, to having one with an uncanny valley meat texture and meat taste.

That is, while I'm happy to eat a perfect meat substitute, I'm also don't have a problem with vegetables and I'd rather have a totally-not-meat burger than a not-quite-meat burger.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#519

Post by syzygyhack »

Lot of nonsense in the comments, absolutely nothing wrong with the taste of Beyond. Problem is that it is outrageously expensive and the market has become saturated with plenty of more cost-effective alternatives, many of which taste even better. There was a time when Beyond was the only really "good" option, that is simply not the case anymore.

When I see those 2-packs of Beyond Burgers on the shelves in the supermarket, they are marked down 40%, and they are still more expensive than a 4 pack from other brands. Makes zero sense to buy them.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#520

Post by skor »

noelherrick wrote: post #423
User23 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s fair to say that an industry that’s lasted ten thousand years[1] is sustainable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle

Densely-quartered urban dwellers eating like sparsely-populated pastoralists is not sustainable. A theory behind the sanctification of cows in India is because a cow kept for its meat feeds far fewer people than one kept for its milk. The same would apply to some of the climate effects, such as the feed crops, although I don't know if it would change the cow-emitted methane.

Was looking for this kind of comment in the thread. I think our cities are the main causes of many problems we are creating in our environment.
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