Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 1001 posts

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

#631

Post by headsoup »

pyrale wrote: post #489
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…

It's kind of bad either way tbh. Imagine going to the funeral for someone else's mother and saying something to the tune of "The old hag was going to die anyway, so don't be sad". Telling people that their principles or feelings are wrong is rarely a great way to convince people, it just makes you look obnoxious in debates.

That's just an absurd analogy.

On the second point, I agree, if in person I wouldn't make such a statement in that way because reactions are immediate and you're within immediate awkwardness. But on the internet, you read a statement and then you will emotionally react, but can then go research more, ponder, deliberate and choose whether you respond emotionally, matter-of-factly, not at all, etc. I think that's great and in a sense encourages some more provocative honesty that we dance around in the flesh.

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

#632

Post by checkyoursudo »

sammalloy wrote: post #428
King-Aaron wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an omnivore but still like to have the odd non-meat option, and I'm the same. I find the impossible (etc) burgers are just.. weird. I really prefer having a felafel if it's available!

Not a bad choice. A great falafel reminds me of a veggie shawarma.

> veggie shawarma

Highly under-appreciated IMO.

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

#633

Post by skerit »

Willish42 wrote: post #347

This post is crowded with responses from people explaining why they hate Beyond meat FWIW, I've always liked Beyond Meat as a "good enough" substitution for a beef burger that's easy to prepare that is close in texture to a real burger - if you use a burger sauce and cheese like most recipes for non-vegans do, it tastes pretty close. I even liked it so much I'd order it at restaurants wherever available and bought a…

> What _did_ eventually get me to stop making Beyond Burgers is that the fat and sodium content is as bad or worse than just plain regular beef

Exactly. As a vegetarian, I do choose a Beyond burger when I go to a burger restaurant, but I never buy it to make at home. There are healthier alternatives that are also delicious.

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

#634

Post by a4a4a4a4 »

red_trumpet wrote: post #602
a4a4a4a4 wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is to make non-car transportation more available, more useful, cheaper, etc, and slowly make car use itself more painful. I disagree with the last part on a philosophical level. Society should push forward, and that doesn't mean we need to take convenient things and make them less convenient, so that alternatives seem more attractive in comparison. We need to make the alternatives better in-and-of them…

Philosophically I agree that this would be pretty nice. Realistically though I don't see how to make bike travel safer and more convenient in an already packed city, without taking away road space from cars. Same for bus lanes.

I don't mean that improving other means of transit shouldn't negatively affect car travel, just that we shouldn't go out of our way to make car travel more painful. e.g. maybe we don't need to remove a car lane from every street in the city to replace it with a bike lane, but rather restructure flow so that every other block is car/bike/car/bike, or something similar.

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

#635

Post by RugnirViking »

oblio wrote: post #614
johnnymorgan wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Those studies were all ideological driven and would never pass replication. Mongols vs China, diet was a defining factor in the Mongols victories. Meat and dairy, the dairy gave them tons go vitamin D as well.

> Mongols vs China, diet was a defining factor in the Mongols victories. Source?

not the OP, but this was covered a fair bit in a book I read recently called "genghis khan and the making of the modern world" which was a pretty good read.

Iirc it was that the figting forces of the various northern chinese states were comprised of conscript peasants whose diet consisted of grain and not much else, which stunted their growth among other things, meaning the mongols were significantly larger and stronger than them leading to certain mythologizing in the centuries afterwards. It probably also didn't help that the conscripted peasants were, well, conscript foot soldiers, wheras the mongols were willing participants on horseback

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

#636

Post by irthomasthomas »

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.…

Meat is a lot more nutrient dense. You would have to eat 4x the veggies to get the same nutrition. Better to let the farm animals concentrate that energy for us. They also eat a lot of grass, which is great for carbon capture. So just eat a balanced meal and be done with it.

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

#637

Post by moffkalast »

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…

> Make it vegetarian and I have even more

I mean... pizza.

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

#638

Post by rsynnott »

walthamstow wrote: post #517
throwaway290 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abou…

They're claiming that it's safer to eat _cooked_ meat than _raw_ vegetables in the US, I'm assuming. I'm not sure if this is true (it's certainly possible if wastewater from animal farming is poorly controlled there), but it's not really comparing like for like.

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

#640

Post by oxfordmale »

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.…

Beyond the taste, most Beyond Meat meals also tend to contain more calories than the meat-based equivalent. I am better off to eat an occasional burger when I fancy it, and go for more healthy vegetarian dishes on other days.
Post reply on HN