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Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

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Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#91

Post by kzrdude »

raghavkukreti wrote: post #54
abliefern wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a misunderstanding. Fake meat products don't contain "a ton of additives".

Water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavors, 2% or less of potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, food starch modified, soy leghemoglobin, salt, mixed tocopherols (antioxidant), soy protein isolate, zinc gluconate, thiamine hydrochloride (vitamin B1), niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), and vitamin B12. This is the list of…

It fits the definition of ultraprocessed food since fats and proteins are modified (that's sort of the whole point, to create a new texture).

Which to me is the downside of a lot of the "replacement" foods. Industrial, processed food, that is pretty far away from whole foods. I'd prefer to just eat whole foods instead, vegetarian or not.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#92

Post by bartvk »

legitster wrote: post #19

It's the cost. We are meat-eaters and have been trying lots of plant-based products. I was never sold as them being health products, but I liked the (presumed) environmental benefits. Plus, I could make a single meal for me and my Vegan friends. Plant-based meats were supposed to be cheaper. But it never happened. So now we've mostly moved back to normal meat products. (It doesn't help that my vegan friends never sto…

I'm very disappointed in the cost as well. It hasn't come down at all. Not just the fake meat, but even tofu. But the cost isn't the main issue to me anymore, over the years I've come to realize I don't want to support the meat industry where profits rule everything. So I grudgingly pay the higher price of Beyond Meat.

And to be honest, it's not that much more expensive, for my particular budget. Two Beyond Meat burgers cost € 3.93, and two beef burgers cost € 2.75.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#93

Post by planb »

dvh wrote: post #80

[flagged]

If artificial meat would taste like the real thing and cost less, everyone would want to eat it: Meat eaters and poor people because it costs less, vegans because it tastes good and does not harm anyone and rich people because they feel good when saving the earth.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#94

Post by gambiting »

ben_w wrote: post #81
spaniard89277 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out beating nature is pretty hard. Cows look basically like processing plants. They produce food, fertilizer and energy (biogas).

After 5000 years of selective breeding, cows aren't that natural any more.

By that logic, nothing is(including us).

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#95

Post by bowsamic »

This is purely my own subjective experience, but there is just something off-putting about the more accurate forms of plant-based meat.

I think it's because meat actually has some quite disgusting and off-putting qualities. Qualities that humans are only used to within the context of meat. For example, recently we had some pea-protein based burgers, and they had three bizarre qualities in their attempt to recreate the beef burger. First, they were quite red inside. Second, they had an almost acrid, rancid acidity to them which really did taste quite similar to beef. Finally, they had a very burger-like texture, even with pieces of simulated unwanted gristle.

So, what we get is a meat-eating experience recontextualised into the realm of vegetables. And, as vegetables, these qualities are bizarre, alien, and unexpected. We don't expect an acrid kind of acidity from vegetables, we don't expect strange chewy textures or inconceivable red juice in the absence of beetroot. So with the accurate plant-based meats the only choice is to try and forget that you're not eating meat.

Of course this doesn't happen to everyone, but it is true for me. Plant-based meat is fundamentally revolting in a way that actual meat is not, and that's kind of ironic, considering the infinitely more pleasant production of the former over the latter.

For that reason I generally prefer meat replacements that don't try to be exactly like meat: fake chicken nuggets and fish fingers are generally good, soy mince is fine, etc. Those things are far cheaper too

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#97

Post by ptero »

Nowado wrote: post #30
scantis wrote: post #7

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is a…

US livestock subsidies are in dozens of billions. Whole sector seems to have revenue in lower hundreds of billions (harder to get exact data, please correct me). Even without premiums target audience is willing to accept, subsidies of 10-20% of sector revenue are pretty hard to beat.

There are huge non-livestock farming subsidies as well, both in the US and in the EU. Farming is not directly driven by supply, demand and price the people are willing to pay (because without food people riot).

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#98

Post by mathieuh »

shapefrog wrote: post #33

I dont understand the obsession with reproducing meat out of plants. There are many plant based meals that are excellent without pretending to be bacon or steak or burgers. There is not, and should not be an industry trying to making pasta-based lettuce or potato-based lemons.

I think that is the eventual evolution of someone who becomes vegan or vegetarian. But those fake meat products definitely help someone who's been eating meat their whole life and never really had to think about how you prepare a meal that where vegetables are the centrepiece.

I still buy some frozen whatever-the-fuck that I can just whack in the air fryer and have ready in 10 minutes when I can't be bothered cooking, but now that I've been vegan for like eight months most of my diet is whole vegetables and grains, and if I've been out cycling that day I'll have some tofu or beans for protein.

The fake meat definitely helped me ease into it, and if I'm eating with my meat-eating mother and it's her turn to cook then it's easy to have something she doesn't have to think about.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#99

Post by kzrdude »

ars wrote: post #35
joesb wrote: post #14

What is this article's obsession with things being "processed" food? Is "processed" the new "chemical"? It's like the article trying to keep repeating the words "processed", "ultra-processed", "hyper-processed" as if it's some scary boogey man.

Agreed: "made from processed ingredients such as pea protein, potato starch and potassium chloride" Since when is potassium chloride a processed ingredient? I think the author just doesn't know enough chemistry. And you can make potato starch by shredding a potato and drying the resulting water - that's not really what I think of by "processed".

Agreed. The pea protein though. All the food chemistry technology that enables such proteins to make deep fried nuggets, or vegan ice cream, and so on, that fits the definition of processed food. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7399967/

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#100

Post by virtualritz »

In Germany this is simply not true.

All supermarket chains, at least in the cities, now have a considerate selection of plant based meat and it sells like bread. Yes, it is sadly more expensive than real meat for now.

Still -- vegan burger patties are regularly sold out.

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