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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

#391
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…

Fake meat isn't just inferior to real meat. It's inferior to just plain old vegetables. It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits. They're not trying to cook the best vegetable dishes. They're not trying to cook dishes that use less meat. They're not trying to expand your palettes and reintroducing liver, sweetbreads or other weird cuts. All these "green" products convince you to not do the…

> It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits.

Expand your research a little bit. Fake meat has been very popular in buddhism countries for very long time, often to entice people to switching to non animal food.

https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/plant-based-m...

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

#392
post #364
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…

Same in Hong Kong. Recently Impossible, Beyond and (our local equivalent) OmniFoods have been introduced to almost all restaurant menus. It's died down a bit, but still quite popular. And this is the place with the highest meat consumption per capita in the world.

Interesting! Can you order faux meat for claypot rice?

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

#393
post #171
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…

In the US, both Beyond and Impossible have very good bratwurst-style sausages. Like you said, sausage is apparently very forgiving when it comes to replacing the meat.

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

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Vegan Richmond are among the best, better than their (somewhat) meaty alternatives in my opinion.

Richmond are amazing.

Lidl also have a range of various vegan options including pizza (surprisingly good), lasagne, and burgers.

Quorn has been ubiquitous in stores for decades now. I've never been a fan, but it will do at a push.

The problem elsewhere is insane pricing. I've had a lot of "I'm not paying that!" experiences looking at the veg/vegan options in supermarkets. The prices are completely out of reach for most shoppers.

If there's been a "flop", that will have been a big factor.

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

#395
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…

In the us, "plant based meat" refers to a specific type of fake meat product (impossible burger and friends), not all meat substitutes.

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

#396
post #322
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a podcast I heard that The Vegetarian Butcher initially had experimental biological degradable packaging, but after buying hundreds of thousands they all went bad, and had to be thrown out. Now they use plastic packaging and they only try to solve one problem at a time.

Didn't our ancestors just use paper for such things? Or cloth? I guess lots of them died of dentistry before getting to oregon, but still.

Waxed paper, usually. It is not nearly close to biodegradable. It requires specific yeasts yo be present in the soil or the paper will remain for a very long time. Also waxed fabrics and glass or ceramic jars.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally, but not always. I can get freshly produced sausages from my local butcher.

Making a sausage is a form of processing. Sausage is a processed food, no matter what. The distinction is whether or not it is highly processed (i.e., amount of additives).

By that logic, splitting a peapod with my hands is processing, and thus all food is processed.

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

#398
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'm also in Sweden and agree. There are so many great plant-based alternatives everywhere now, and I'm constantly seeing new products and varieties on the shelves. I've found excellent alternatives for everything except whole eggs.

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

#399
post #350
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…

Similar in Austria, veg products are increasing in quality and availability. There is even a 100% vegan burger king...

It actually is not, they use standard mayo.

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

#400
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fresh" sausages most likely contains some of those preservatives too, as they prevent worse things like botulism. Unless maybe they're made the same day as you consume them?

According to our local, nitrate free, butcher freshly slaughtered meat contains enoigh natural nitrate-alternatives to not require additional nitrate if ham, sausages and so on are prepared soon enough.

nitrate-free is a myth. They use celery powder which breaks down to sodium nitrate. The FDA allows the producers to call this "nitrate free" since they are not using sodium nitrate directly and the FDA considers the celery powder a flavoring agent.

Chemically it breaks down to sodium nitrate and has the same carcinogenic nitrates. Its just a legal labeling loop hole.

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