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On ‘Plant-Based’

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Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#181

Post by ben_w »

dmitriid wrote: post #173
ben_w wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, Buffalo Wings have nothing to do with buffalos, and everything to do with Buffalo, New York. Yes, and hamburgers have nothing to do with ham, they're named after the city of Hamburg. Frankfurters also not made of Franks. > Funnily, meat is never (or very very very rarely) disguised as vegetables. OTOH, what exactly do people think they're eating when they have wieners? Because I'm fairly sure the meat shapes…

> Yes, and hamburgers have nothing to do with ham, they're named after the city of Hamburg. Frankfurters also not made of Franks. And your point is? > OTOH, what exactly do people think they're eating when they have wieners? That they eat a sausage made of meat that is named "weiner".

> And your point is?

That "meaty" names are just as much nonsense regardless of whether or not meat is still involved.

Just remembered an even more extreme example, albeit one that may only exist in the UK: christmas sweet pastry called "mince pie" filled with "mincemeat" which is often entirely vegetarian because it's an extremely archaic use of "meat" in the sense of "food".

> That they eat a sausage made of meat that is named "weiner".

QED: the name and shape (in this case, both being penile) are not really that connected to the mental model the consumer has of what they're consuming.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#182

Post by uxcolumbo »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #177
uxcolumbo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replying to your edited comment... I understood your comment as saying that veganism is seen as an extreme act. But veganism is far from that. Veganism isn't dogmatic. It's pragmatic as per the official definition. E.g. if you are on a hike and you get lost and have to survive by hunting, even though you usually don't eat animals - you could still call yourself vegan - because you need to hunt to survive. Or somethin…

> and eat their eggs and you don't intend to slaughter the chickens later on- I'd class that as vegan, because you're not harming the chickens. You cannot make your own definition of 'veganism' as you go, that makes any discussion impossible even without your strawman argument. What you describe here is not veganism (no animal products at all, including things like honey), it's a common flavour of vegetarianism (no k…

Again - veganism is pragmatic - not dogmatic.

There are vegans who have rescue chickens (from factory farms) and they do eat their eggs. The rescue chickens are given a happy life where they can roam freely in a garden.

It's a different matter when it comes to milk - which is intended for the baby cow.

Same with honey - it's actually being eaten by bees and you can't replace it with sugar water, as it has fewer nutrients for the bees.

Edit: When it comes to wool, there are vegans who still wear their wool or leather items from their pre-vegan days. You wouldn't simply throw them away - you just don't buy new wool or leather products.

Keyword here is pragmatism.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#183

Post by blacksmith_tb »

scatters wrote: post #172
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, though it still feels a little sneaky, clearly the majority of a cookie that contains eggs and butter is still wheat... It reminds me a little more of packaging that proclaims that a box of table salt is "fat-free!" or a box of sugar is "gluten-free!" - well, yes, I'd hope so, since you'd have to go out of your way to add those in...

> you'd have to go out of your way to add those in And yet food companies are adding minimal amounts of peanut oil or sesame flour to products, specifically so they don't have to guarantee that they are free of those allergens.

Well, those two aren't quite the same, otherwise they'd be adding them to EVERYTHING they make. I was reacting to the duplicity of claiming something was free of an ingredient that would never be present, where choosing to add an allergen because it's cheaper than paying to prove it isn't present is a perverse outcome of well-intentioned regulations + cut-throat corporations.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#184

Post by mokkol »

dmitriid wrote: post #29
remirk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that vegan people have to use milk alternatives like almond milk. Which is certainly not the case. What a non-argument. Also, the problem with milk is not necessarily CO2 but CH4.

> You're saying that vegan people have to use milk alternatives like almond milk. Which is certainly not the case. For vegans it certainly is the case. Vegans don't eat food that comes from animals. Milk is one such product. So vegans will definitely use milk alternatives.

Mammals don't need to drink milk from other animals. So no, it isn't the case.

Some people do drink almond milk of course, also meat eaters btw.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#185

Post by solardev »

chc wrote: post #142
solardev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally a marketing gimmick. Some of the "plant-based" brands mixed real meat in with the plant stuff: https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2019/06/13/Tyson-u... The marketers like "plant-based" because it's both in vogue and definitionally meaningless, much less precise than "vegan" (which itself is already imprecise, i.e., whether to include bugs killed in agriculture, or sugar processed with animal bypro…

None of the examples in that article appear to use the term "plant-based" on their products, so it seems even those brands were respectful on the term. If anything, that seems like it makes the opposite case of "plant-based is definitionally meaningless."

They were released at the same time as the height of the plant-based craze. Plant-based is not a legally protected term the way that, say "organic" is (neither is "vegan", for that matter). Different marketers and/or third-party certifiers will use that term how they wish. And "made with plants" is already awfully similar, enough to cause confusion in the media: https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/21460-tyson-introduces-...

Tyson was intentionally muddying the waters with the Raised & Rooted brand, which initially contained meat and eggs and eventually became completely plant, but under the same brand name and very similar packaging. It caused a lot of controversy at the time for violating the spirit -- if not the letter -- of "plant-based".

Here's another example of a plant-based product with with real cheese: https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_351013af-154... (although I think they later changed the packaging on that to be clearer).

I'm not saying things just to be a pedantic a-hole; as someone who's been vegan for a long time, seeing the plant-based products (especially frozen ones) hit the freezers but also hide animal ingredients was a very frustrating and confusing time. It's gotten a bit better now, I guess with enough consumer backlash, but for a couple of years there there were quite a lot of insidiously labeled products that you really had to scan the ingredients & allergens for no matter how they used the word "plant" on the front.

What I'm saying is that it's ultimately a marketing term, not a strict definition of any sort. Nobody is enforcing plant-based violations. You have to look at the ingredients rather than the front of the packaging if you want to figure out what it actually has.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#186

Post by halostatue »

rsynnott wrote: post #96
riffraff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why doesn't the menu say "cauliflower wings" with some "V" icon or leaf icon next to it? I will never understand why parts of the vegan movement need to disguise foods as something else. Vegetables are good!

When you see ‘cauliflower wings/vegan buffalo wings’ on a menu it is typically _not_ because someone from the ‘vegan movement’, whatever that is, put it there, but because the restaurant wanted something vegan which is not alienating to its non-vegan customers. You’re much less likely to see this sort of thing in actual vegan restaurants.

The first place I had buffalo cauliflower was at a vegan restaurant (Planta Burger, in Toronto). The second was a bar which was decidedly not vegan.

Planta Burger is (was?, this was pre-pandemic and we no longer have an office downtown) absolutely a wholly vegan QSR based around burger-like sandwiches and they were busy mostly feeding people who weren’t vegan themselves but really liked the food because it was damned good.

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#187

Post by roflyear »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #131
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are heaps of people who thrive strictly on plants who aren’t bloated or struggling to digest their food or get calories in.

Maybe so, but protein is a different story. How many professional athletes are true vegans for extended periods outside of Tom Brady, who is kind of psycho to begin with.

Not hard to google that. There's even a website: https://www.greatveganathletes.com/

I think that's a silly argument anyway, if we're discussing health. Professionals do plenty of stuff that is awful for them to get performance gains. Steroids, exercise routines that are very punishing on the body long-term (plenty of power lifters who can barely even walk after retirement and they aren't that old), etc.. I am not sure you can say it's good for you if professionals do it... maybe good for short term performance, but not "good for you."

It's actually easier to get protein if you like legumes (including tofu and peas, not sure if these are technical legumes), gluten, and/or nuts. All of these have amazing nutrients, are really cheap, and easy to digest for most people. If they aren't for you that's ok - some people can't digest meat either.

Not saying you don't need to take some supplements as a vegan. You probably do, at least b12 and maybe omegas, but you're getting those from "supplements" anyway from meat (it is just fed to the animals first).

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#188

Post by roflyear »

andrewshadura wrote: post #47
dmitriid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're saying that vegan people have to use milk alternatives like almond milk. Which is certainly not the case. For vegans it certainly is the case. Vegans don't eat food that comes from animals. Milk is one such product. So vegans will definitely use milk alternatives.

You're forgetting that not everyone drinks milk or milk substitutes.

Or... that almond milk is generally not great (IMO), and there are alternatives like oat milk which are really amazing. Oat milk also doesn't go rancid like cow milk... I've never had oat milk "go bad" before using it up, even after 10+ day vacations, so the waste can only be much less than cow milk, I imagine.

Also if you spill some somewhere your house doesn't smell like rotting bodily fluids (ok, probably getting a little extreme here but who likes the smell of rotting milk?)

Only downsides to plant milks, is they are harder to steam for lattes, they don't make cheese like we expect from animal milk (tho this has changed a lot and we're just about there now with some amazing brands), and they do have a unique flavor profile that is sometimes desired (for stuff like homemade egg nog for example).

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#189

Post by roflyear »

tengbretson wrote: post #77

I typically interpret the term "plant-based" in a similar way to when I see that something is "based on a true story."

What do you mean by this? I genuinely don't understand, and don't mean to flame bait, and no offense, but to me it sincerely seems like your comment is a mix between some kind of dog-whistle and... flame baiting...

Re: On ‘Plant-Based’

#190

Post by roflyear »

solardev wrote: post #64
derbOac wrote: post #6

I've tended to see the term "plant-based" as synonymous with "vegan and/or vegetarian", used when there's variability or uncertainty about which of those more specific terms would apply. "Meatless" would also suffice but I think "plant-based" is used to emphasize what is present rather than absent. But I think the essay is right the term has become vaguer than that even, and my own understanding of it doesn't quite m…

It's totally a marketing gimmick. Some of the "plant-based" brands mixed real meat in with the plant stuff: https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2019/06/13/Tyson-u... The marketers like "plant-based" because it's both in vogue and definitionally meaningless, much less precise than "vegan" (which itself is already imprecise, i.e., whether to include bugs killed in agriculture, or sugar processed with animal bypro…

> whether to include bugs killed in agriculture

That's pretty extreme, have to say! Haha. There are extreme people everywhere, have to try and find the consensus, which to me seems to mean "no animals were involved in processing this thing" and that means from the source, gathering it, to the testing of it, to distributing it (don't use cows to transport my impossible burgers, please). People aren't animals b/c they can technically choose to do work (like picking coffee) - hopefully no one is supporting slavery.

I think you can call yourself vegan if you eat clams for example if ethically sourced (tho I don't have any interest in doing so, b/c the farming is very harmful from my understanding - but if you go clamming yourself, maybe ok?).

I personally eat honey, but always local, b/c idk what happens at the industrial scale there and I like to support local businesses anyway.

Animal byproducts should not be "vegan" imo - like if you use fish something to filter your beer. No good. But no, I don't really look up if my sugar is vegan or my beer is vegan... but I know of "vegan brands" and I will get those first over other brands.

I think veganism is basically becoming "no, I don't ask constantly... but I never knowingly buy animal products, and I know of several brands that are vegan, and I buy them when I can" - which makes a lot of sense to me, but isn't quite the clean definition!

I even have some wool clothes I wear. Hopefully that can be done ethically, because it doesn't kill the sheep, but... lots of those farms are not great for the little guys :(

Veganism to me is supporting the reduction in the use of animal products. We use animals too much, and we don't need to.

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