Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by isignal » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #312

nodding_smiling wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, most of the ingredients are just extracts from or purifications of natural products. I'm not just saying this to defend plant-based meats - it's true of many chemicals with scary-looking names in other foods. "Calcium pantothenate", for instance, is just a salt of the essential vitamin B5. "Ascorbic acid" is vitamin C. And so on. And it's worth bearing in mind that the ingredients list of a steak…

Here’s the ingredient list for a beyond burger [0], I don’t think your point is relevant, as while the ingredient aren’t necessarily scary, there are many of them and the product is highly processed. “Water, pea protein , expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter, methylcellulose, and less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice c…

The point does seem relevant. Most of the non chemical ingredients are recognizable natural or naturally derived (rice/pea protein). methylcellulose is the only odd one out.

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

#462

Post by nwah1 » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

lawlorino wrote: post #447

themoonisachees wrote: post #430

My perspective from France: Fake meat has never been so available. There are several restaurants that serve it that are not your "we are explicitly vegan" restaurants, burger king served some, and all major supermarkets have it in stock in the freezers right next to normal meat. However, the price is still unattainable. A few days ago i bought patties to make burgers and meat was about 1 euro/100g and plant meat was…

Similar story here in Finland, real meat is just so much cheaper than the fake veggie stuff. My theory was this was supply chains (being physically far away from the rest of Europe) and a relatively small market size, but interesting you have the same price discrepancy in France which I guess has neither of these issues. Just speculating here but do you think it is because of the strong food culture and links to iden…

The obvious answer is that animals are very efficient because they use self-replicating biological means to construct the flesh, and industrial animal operations are extremely efficient particularly when they dont have to care about animal welfare, consumer safety, or the environment.

Tax policy is also very favorable, and public infrastructure usage and pollution costs are not internalized.

Biotechnology, taxation, and regulation would be the answers.

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

#463

Post by jononomo » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

hannob wrote: post #146

How strange, we massively subsidize meat production, we don't even consider letting meat producers pay for the externalities they cause, and then plant-based alternatives have a hard time competing. It's a real mystery.

The externalities of a plant-based diet are enormous, from the use of pesticides which then leads to the decimation of the bird population to the massive amount of fossil-fuel-based fertilizer, to the explosion in the rate of obesity and diabetes -- at least grazing cattle is good for the land and leads to carbon sequestration.

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

#464

Post by KaiserPro » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #380

KaiserPro wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate change can be softened by banning airplanes, air conditioning, and other things we don't need, not by banning food. you mean softened by removing things you dont use. Look at the moment no one is banning meat. There is a reasonably amount of evidence to suggest that the kind of meat consumed and the volume might be the cause of various cancers. I'm not vegan, and like most people I really wish vegans weren'…

> There is a reasonably amount of evidence to suggest that the kind of meat consumed and the volume might be the cause of various cancers. No, there isn't any reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that. Vegans get cancer at the same rate as non-Vegans.

Nitrates in preserved meats have a correlation to higher rates of cancer. [1]

Lung cancer however, you are right.

I'm not vegan by the way, I really like salami. just less now.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30850575/

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

#465

Post by jhasse » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

tannhaeuser wrote: post #163

californical wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m vegetarian (several years now) and I agree with you. Meat has its problems, but our bodies make very good use of it. Long list of chemicals with unproven value? We have a bad track record with trying to engineer our own ‘healthy’ food. See: margarine for example. Impossible/beyond is great as a vegetarian as a rare treat (different flavors than normal veggies, loaded with umami — I don’t love them or anything but…

> See: margarine for example What's wrong with it for reducing cholesterol intake? Butter has gotten very expensive, too.

A long time ago Margarine contained lots trans fat. Nowadays it's fine, but I think that's what OP meant.

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

#466

Post by Quillbert182 » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

I will not eat fake meat (including lab grown meat) for one simple reason: it weirds me out. I will happily eat tofu, black bean burgers, and the like, but I cannot emotionally bring myself to eat fake meat.

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

#467

Post by chollida1 » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

jononomo wrote: post #455

georgyo wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat tastes really good. I think there are many people who want to eat less meat but really enjoy meat. I am one of those people.

[flagged]

> It tastes great,

Agreed:)

> it is the healthiest possible food, and it is the most environmentally friendly option.

These two require a huge citation. I've never heard of meat being the most healthy food and I've only ever heard of how its one of the worst foods for the environment due to the huge amount of land and water it takes to grow.

I've always grown up learning that greens(vegetables are the healthiest food you can eat).

What citations would you put forward to show that meat isf the most environmentally friendly food you can eat and the healthiest food you can eat?

I found this:

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/study-environment....

> The environmental impact of meat versus vegetables is staggering. A serving size of meat compared to a serving size of vegetables is linked to 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions. It also takes 100 times the amount of land as consuming vegetables. Unprocessed red meat has twice the water impact of nuts.

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

#468

Post by curiousllama » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

lawlorino wrote: post #447

themoonisachees wrote: post #430

My perspective from France: Fake meat has never been so available. There are several restaurants that serve it that are not your "we are explicitly vegan" restaurants, burger king served some, and all major supermarkets have it in stock in the freezers right next to normal meat. However, the price is still unattainable. A few days ago i bought patties to make burgers and meat was about 1 euro/100g and plant meat was…

Similar story here in Finland, real meat is just so much cheaper than the fake veggie stuff. My theory was this was supply chains (being physically far away from the rest of Europe) and a relatively small market size, but interesting you have the same price discrepancy in France which I guess has neither of these issues. Just speculating here but do you think it is because of the strong food culture and links to iden…

For what it's worth, it's still more expensive in the US, too. I think it's likelier simple economies of scale + branding than anything else.

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

#469

Post by navierstokess » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

jononomo wrote: post #455

georgyo wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat tastes really good. I think there are many people who want to eat less meat but really enjoy meat. I am one of those people.

[flagged]

Some vegans believe that it is unethical to kill animals, and that they should have the same rights as us. Of course, they're wrong because animals aren't able to think. Others believe that meat is bad for the environment, however I don't know if that is correct as I haven't done any research on the topic.

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

#470

Post by jononomo » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

spicymaki wrote: post #454

johnywalks wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tough choice. Weird goo that was grown in a lab by people that have no idea what they're doing OR natural food we've been eating since the dawn of time.

> natural food we've been eating since the dawn of time. I don't know if you seen the factory farms that produce chicken and beef? There is nothing natural from the dawn of time from that. They are loaded with antibiotics, and they are naturally selected for maximum meat production. Deli meats and hotdogs sure are natural products made of some amalgamation of random animal parts. Some people speak as if everyone proc…

Beef is not factory-farmed. All cows are raised grazing on grass and are taken to feedlots for fattening only just prior to slaughter. Cows don't go through the torture that chickens and pigs go through.