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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

#201

Post by n4r9 »

dagw wrote: post #123
n4r9 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you're located, but in the UK the supermarkets stock stuff like this: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-... https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetar... They taste delicious and are absolutely competitive with meat burger prices.

Aldi sells minced beef at literally half the price of the veggie burgers you linked to: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-ashfields-25-fat-britis...

Right but that's more calorific, higher in fat, and requires preparation.

If you go for lean mince then you're at exactly the same price range: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-ashfields-british-extra...

That's lower calorie than the veggie burger, but you still have to do the prep yourself.

Or you can go for the quorn mince which is much leaner than all the above and costs less than the lean beef mince: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-quorn-mince-500g/501950...

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

#202

Post by j-pb »

watwut wrote: post #139
j-pb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And vegan alternatives are not? Meat was a luxury product not eaten every day for most of history and still is in most parts of the world. Given the environmental impact of Meat and Diary in terms of CO2, Methane, Water usage, and Deforestation we should heavily reconsider our nonchalant view of them as a cheap commodity.

Same goes for vegetables. That being said, animal milk drinking is not something new at all. And in "traditional" setup, milk availability is massive improvement nutritionally/health wise over no milk.

That's a false dichotomy. These days we put so many nutrients artificially into the feed of livestock, e.g. B12, that we might as well skip the whole livestock step and just take a vitamin pill every morning.

Most people have a vitamin-D deficiency, most vegans that I know of at least take care of making sure that they get enough supplements.

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

#203

Post by Semaphor »

My favorite meat replacements are smoked tofu, and soy flakes.

Tofu I sometimes use to substitute meats (We are eating keto, so it’s very easy to eat a lot of meat, trying to lower that amount a bit), sometimes simply by itself. It excels in both of those.

Soy flakes are always a ground beef replacement (not in a burger, only when the meat is loose), when properly spicing them during rehydration (MSG is even more important than usual here), they come close to the real thing in some ways, better in others. If they weren’t so carby, and now sold out for several months, I’d completely replace ground beef ;)

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

#205

Post by tduberne »

lampe3 wrote: post #161

Can we add an "in the US" at the end? Since for EU countries this is not true. I'm living in sweden now and lived in germany and poland. Plant-based meat products are growing in numbers and the price of meat is going so high that its cheaper to buy the plant-based one. In Germany one producer of meat sausages want to turn 100% plant based[1]. I will not go into the whats better and not for you. Since this highly depe…

I wanted to say the same thing. Here i Germany the choice of vegan sausage and cold cuts is huge, even in small grocery shops. I know lot of people who eat meat regularly _and_ buy the vegan alternatives on a regular basis.

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

#206

Post by manojlds »

brnt wrote: post #171
lampe3 wrote: post #161

Can we add an "in the US" at the end? Since for EU countries this is not true. I'm living in sweden now and lived in germany and poland. Plant-based meat products are growing in numbers and the price of meat is going so high that its cheaper to buy the plant-based one. In Germany one producer of meat sausages want to turn 100% plant based[1]. I will not go into the whats better and not for you. Since this highly depe…

Sausages always seemed such obvious candidates. Many nondry sausages are already often a majority nonmeat. They get their flavor already from plant derived flavorants. Yet mostly fake meat products are burger and chicken nugget replacements. I've got to say, the fake chicken schnitzels are the first one that I really can't distinguish from the real chicken schnitzel. (Before the purists pour in, yes, compared to supe…

Here in the UK, there's a lot of vegan sausages. The others like vegan / vegetarian burgers and such are relatively less common.

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

#207

Post by hutzlibu »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #192
cr3ative wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These products exist _because_ your claims about mushrooms and quinoa being acceptable (and somewhat available) just aren't true. There seems to be this army of people who say "compressed vegetables in a circle" are acceptable burger alternatives; they're really not. This market isn't for existing vegans/vegetarians in most cases, it's for people curious about going that way or cutting down their consumption.

Crazy that the people who don't eat meat can't see the properties of meat that meat eaters like and look for. Why on earth would anyone listen to a vegetarian about what makes a good meat alternative. If a steak chef says an alternative to steak is X, I'll listen.

Most vegetarians were not born vegetarians, though. Some did recently eat meat so can compare.

In my opinion, I don't think anything vegetarian will come close to a steak anytime soon, but I have eaten chili sin carne, without noticing it being vegetarian.

My main problem is also simply, that I have not learned yet, to cook without meat very good. It takes effort, but is worth it.

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

#208

Post by xtracto »

michaelteter wrote: post #149

And we don't need fake meat. It's just something that the food industry can make and sell to us instead of us just eating stuff that grows in the earth. If you want something with a texture similar to meat, many mushrooms will do the job. If you want something reminiscent of ground beef, quinoa with seasoning will suffice. However, limiting yourself to vegetarian approaches of recreating meat dishes, then you are mis…

> However, limiting yourself to vegetarian approaches of recreating meat dishes, then you are missing out on what good vegetarian food can be.

This is the key to becoming a vegetarian/plant-based food eater. I cook an amazing lasagna-like (sandwich-cake like) vegan meal with Plantain slices as the sheets and a yummy inside with soy, bell pepper and herbs. It's delicious.

But people keep wanting to mimic the same meat-based recipes with vegetables... it just doesn't work. I love a good steak, a nice bbq hamburger (usually I eat them on weekends) but also love the vegan food I eat through the week.

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

#209

Post by syzygyhack »

That's news to me. Looks like the US is speaking for the world again. You have bigger problems with your food than whether or not it is plant-based, I promise you that.

In the UK and the rest of Europe, plant-based meat alternatives have been growing in popularity, quality, and variety over the last decade. It's never been easier for someone to go vegan without "giving up" their favourite foods.

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

#210

Post by bennettdams »

samuli wrote: post #32
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…

86% of feed is grown on land [1], which is not suitable for growing human food crops. [1]: https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-mor...

You're quoting a literal farming foundation, so here is a neutral source:

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habi...

"If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. Of all the land we use for agriculture, 77% of it is used for livestock."

These 77% are only responsible for 18% of the produced calories and 37% of the produced proteins.

So, if you leave out water consumption and most importantly animal walfare, eating meat is the worst thing you can to for the environment (when talking about food).

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