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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

#621

Post by oblio »

sammalloy wrote: post #420
jdkee wrote: post #239

Humans have consumed animal meat for several million years. Now we need to start eating an artificial concoction consisting of: water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, cocoa butter, mung bean protein, methylcellulose, potato starch, apple extract, pomegranate extract, salt, potassium chloride, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, sunflower lecithin, beet juice…

> Palaeolithic diets were diverse and prehistoric cooking complex, involving several steps of food preparation. > mounting evidence of plant consumption by both early modern humans and Neanderthals, in addition to meat. Wild nuts and grasses were often combined with pulses, such as lentils, and wild mustard. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/23/oldest-cooke... > Cooking in caves: Palaeolithic carbonised pl…

I don't think he's saying that.

He's saying that we ate all of those AND meat, and meat was actually meat, you know, a tried and tested substance on which entire species subsist, while the new thing is a super complex mix of stuff we don't really understand.

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

#622

Post by nixpulvis »

ajmurmann wrote: post #367
SoftTalker wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond/Incredible meat is awful. There's no other description for it. This highly processed fake meat is not healthy. Just eat meat, or don't if you don't want to. There's no need for this fake garbage.

To each their own. I greatly enjoy the flavor of meat, but feel like a serial killer when I think about the animal suffering and to a lesser extend carbon emissions. While I also get a slightly odd feeling in my stomach from Impossible beef (doesn't happen with their cyber chicken), it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger without feeling like I just tortured a puppy.

I'm sorry. I really tried to just lurk this thread, but.

What in the flying fuck is "cyber chicken". I'm assuming this is a joke, right!?

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

#623

Post by ls15 »

dathinab wrote: post #304

One thing I'm seeing all the time is people approaching vegetarian food by removing the meat and adding something else instead. IMHO this is the wrong approach and hardly ever works well or relies on luxury products like beyond meat(1). The best vegetarian food I had eaten was such which was designed as vegetarian food, not as a dish with meat and then modified to somehow work. Pretty much the only times I ended up w…

Food is highly cultural and habitual. Changing their diet can take years for some people. Also, many people probably never have tried many truly vegetarian dishes, so there is a learning curve.

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

#624

Post by itsoktocry »

ajmurmann wrote: post #367
SoftTalker wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond/Incredible meat is awful. There's no other description for it. This highly processed fake meat is not healthy. Just eat meat, or don't if you don't want to. There's no need for this fake garbage.

To each their own. I greatly enjoy the flavor of meat, but feel like a serial killer when I think about the animal suffering and to a lesser extend carbon emissions. While I also get a slightly odd feeling in my stomach from Impossible beef (doesn't happen with their cyber chicken), it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger without feeling like I just tortured a puppy.

>it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger

You're not getting the flavour of a burger, no matter how hard you try to fool yourself (or make yourself sick). That's why these companies are flailing.

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

#625

Post by elsjaako »

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.…

> Normally vegetarian food costs less than meat

One of the reasons that the vegetian options are more expensive is because the margins are higher. People compare supermarkets based on meat prices, so they accept lower margins on meat to attract more customers.

Another thing is that people don't typically buy brand name meat, which allows supermarkets to more aggressively negotiate on price.

At least this is how it is in the Netherlands (according to a newspaper article I can't find right now).

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

#626

Post by cnity »

pea wrote: post #601
dathinab wrote: post #304

One thing I'm seeing all the time is people approaching vegetarian food by removing the meat and adding something else instead. IMHO this is the wrong approach and hardly ever works well or relies on luxury products like beyond meat(1). The best vegetarian food I had eaten was such which was designed as vegetarian food, not as a dish with meat and then modified to somehow work. Pretty much the only times I ended up w…

I was wondering this the other day when eating a saag paneer curry instead of my normal meat-based order: why would anyone go through the motions to have fake chicken when you have multitudes of vegetarian options which can be treated similarly to how we treat meat in cooking. Paneer is not 'trying to be chicken', but it can be put in a curry or fried, so can serve a similar purpose -- but is distinctly delicious in…

Same with tofu. I have fried tofu sandwiches with gochujang and spring onions. Treat your meat-free foods as the unique items they all are!

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

#627

Post by headsoup »

Ma8ee wrote: post #565
pvaldes wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How much of the meat we consume do you really think are grazing in meadows? Even most the grass feed cows are raised in fields that used to be rain forests in Brazil. However you turn it, it’s impossible to claim that cattle raising is a net gain for biodiversity.

Evidence for that rather large claim?

Please also explain how any large monoculture crop is a net gain for diversity?

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

#628

Post by panick21_ »

What I don't get here is that this really is only about beef. Chicken and Pork isn't actually that bad for the environment as they are very efficient production wise.

So if you want eat a burger and don't feel bad, just eat a pork or chicken burger and you should be fine.

For me, Beyond Meat was pretty terrible when I tried it. Maybe if you put it in burger with many other things its not as bad.

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

#629

Post by kar1181 »

'Plant-based' is such a nice way to hand wave away just how terrible these meat-replacements are.

There is nothing natural about it at all and it's a shame as it's pushed vegetarian offerings off the table, options that are from what I can see healthier and more accessible to a broader consumer base.

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

#630

Post by yreg »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #379
henrikschroder wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So the target market for these products is people that want to eat real meat and actively seek it out? And they're catering to them by... replacing existing vegetarian options? They must not have read your comment. Sounds like a bad market fit. The number of people who eat meat and don't care if their meat is made of meat has got to be in the 7 figure range worldwide. The number of people that don't eat meat and want…

There are three kinds of products for three groups of customers.

- People who don't like the taste of meat -> traditional veggie patties

- People who like the taste of meat but are open to eating less of it -> beyond meat, etc.

- People who like the taste of meat and want to eat meat -> meat

I myself fall into the second group.

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