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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

#801

Post by labawi »

908B64B197 wrote: post #667
samuelbalogh wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's partly due to the insane subsidies that livestock farming receives in the EU. If meat was not heavily subsidised, it would be much, much more expensive.

There's a reason these subsidies exist: maintaining Europe's food sovereignty. See how well it turned out for Germany -and the rest of Europe- to transfer it's energy sovereignty to Russia...

I don't mind food sovereinty per se, but do we need to subsidize meat?

Lately, in the supermarket, there would usually be some meat at about 2€/kg, which I could not comprehend, as most other groceries have gone up. Pricewise it's competitive with carrots, potatoes and bananas.

How can meat end up cheaper than ordinary pastry? Measured per kg and yes, meat has a lot of water, but still..

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

#802

Post by dataexporter »

samuelbalogh wrote: post #525
Swizec wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake meat feels similar to my Slovenian eyes. There's a whole world of recipes that just don't include meat and are delicious. It wasn't until I moved to the USA that I even realized those are "vegetarian" ... to me they're just regular foods and recipes. Lots of cottage cheese hearty meals with high protein content. It helps that traditional (100+ years ago) Slovenian culture was that you rarely eat meat because mea…

> Sometimes I talk to my vegetarian friends and ask "If you want to be vegetarian, why don't you just eat natively vegetarian dishes? Why the fake meat?". So far no satisfying answer. Because there are people who like the taste and consistency of meat, but object to killing animals.

Is it an addiction to the taste of meat?

If your objection to killing animals is strong enough there are millions of purely vegetarian recipes that are delicious and much more tastier than fake meat. Why not switch to those?

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

#803

Post by pastage »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #240
pastage wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers tracks with GDP per capita of the US and EU. I'm guessing it is going to be different if you look at certain segments of the market. Also in this case you probably need to look at tonnage per capita. You might also be right that it is too early to say, comments here can be up to a year ahead of statistics.

You should look at gdp, not per-capital gdp, for a comparison of markets. Europe and the US aren't far apart. I'm assuming the slower uptake in Europe is because of stricter food labeling laws and the fact that most of these companies are US-centric.

There is no lack of European veggie food companies, I do not see labeling as a problem, do you know of some actual problems with that? I do think the variance between markets is just too high for me as an European to supply anecdotal evidence.

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

#804

Post by joshvm »

peterbraden wrote: post #688
joshvm wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend and I did a (literal) blind taste test with impossible/USDA organic beef/beyond. I was excited to do this as we don't get Impossible in Europe. We baked our own buns etc, cooked to temp with a probe, got some nice cheese on top good stuff. We also did a blind tests of the proteins on their own, and in a plain burger. Neither of us had any trouble picking out which product was which, but it was really interes…

Where are you shopping? It’s not even close to that at migros.

In the post I mentioned organic from Farmy. But even Naturaplan chicken breasts from the Coop are close to 60CHF/kg:

https://www.coop.ch/en/food/meat-fish/packaged-fresh-meat/po...

If you go for Prix Garantie, it's much cheaper at about 12/kg:

https://www.coop.ch/en/food/meat-fish/packaged-fresh-meat/po...

But this isn't Swiss chicken any more, the pack photo from there is Hungary.

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

#805

Post by joshvm »

HWR_14 wrote: post #626
joshvm wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend and I did a (literal) blind taste test with impossible/USDA organic beef/beyond. I was excited to do this as we don't get Impossible in Europe. We baked our own buns etc, cooked to temp with a probe, got some nice cheese on top good stuff. We also did a blind tests of the proteins on their own, and in a plain burger. Neither of us had any trouble picking out which product was which, but it was really interes…

Is there non-organic meat in Switzerland? For fresh, organic, skinless, boneless chicken breast you can pay $27/lbs in the US at an upscale store. Or skin-on non-organic at Walmart for under $3. I have no frame of reference for if that is the beast chicken you can get from a fancy grocery store or the standard chicken from a standard store. Your eggs seem to be about 50% higher than US eggs right now. Which seems to…

For reference, see another post in my history. The cheapest imported chicken breast you can buy from a typical supermarket is around 10-15 CHF/kg. The high-end organic is around 50-60 CHF/kg which is high welfare from Switzerland. So you can certainly eat meat on a budget, but the good local stuff is priced accordingly.

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

#806

Post by pvaldes »

purephase wrote: post #571
uhtred wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have to keep having this conversation? Lots of people, like myself, choose to not eat meat because we care about animal welfare. It's not because we don't like eating meat. Therefore food that tastes and feels like meat but didn't require killing an animal makes sense.

Yeah, this is the issue that most people seem to miss. It's not the flavour that is the issue, which is why products that attempt to replicate it are successful with vegans/vegetarians. What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike. Removing that element from my diet is the goal, not th…

> What we find abhorrent is that a living, sentient being had to be raised and slaughtered in mostly inhumane conditions, in a supply chain that is evil to humans and animals alike.

Looks like a phobia and probably should be treated as one.

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

#807

Post by theshrike79 »

alphanullmeric wrote: post #792
theshrike79 wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being vegan doesn't always mean eating healthy, even though people have that idea in their head. In Finland we have a FB group called "Chips and Beer -vegans"[0] with 65k members. Potato chips are vegan, beer is vegan. You can have both and still be vegan. It's not healthy, but still vegan. I can deep-fry my tofu in the fattiest of all vegan fats and eat them with deep-fried french fries and a bunch of deep-fried Ore…

But it’s much easier to sustain a healthy diet as an omnivore, because as I mentioned, whole vegan food either lacks in satiety or taste. Which is why you typically see vegans trying to attack protein to address criticisms of satiety, or trying to defend processed foods to address criticisms of taste.

Wait what. "whole vegan food either lacks in satiety or taste" :D

Now go into the nearest Indian restaurant and order a Chana Aloo Curry. Or pick a Thai restaurant and grab any food with tofu in it. I recommend a Pad Thai.

Both 100% vegan and if they lack "satiety or taste", then come back.

In asian cuisine the protein really doesn't matter, 99% of the flavour is in the sauce. The protein just provides the texture.

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

#808

Post by slothtrop »

comte7092 wrote: post #790
slothtrop wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to believe that cows spend most of their lives consuming grass (I started this comment chain) but would also like to see a more compelling source than your anecdotes. If they do spend most of their time consuming grass, I wonder if they are carbon-neutral for that period, or if that requires constant migration to fertilize new lands which might not occur. The big development in this sector is the new seaw…

>I'm willing to believe that cows spend most of their lives consuming grass (I started this comment chain) but would also like to see a more compelling source than your anecdotes. Pretty much any industry site will openly provide an overview of the process: https://www.pabeef.org/raising-beef/beef-lifecycle “Calves are weaned from their mother’s milk at about 6 to 10 months of age when they weigh between 450 and 700…

There's no description of the time spent in "Stockers & Backgrounders" phase, but we can infer it. 18-22 months to cattle market weight, and 4-6 months at feedlots mean that they scarcely spend a few extra months there.

This paints a picture of indeed grazing on grass for majority of lifespan, albeit not an overwhelmingly large portion. Also that they are slaughtered at a surprisingly young age.

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

#809

Post by trehalose »

exolymph wrote: post #716
telchior wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nicotine gum won't ever replace cigarettes, nor will people who don't smoke start chewing it. There are non-smokers who use nicotine gum; I'm one of them. Similar effect to caffeine with a lower half-life, so it's suitable to have later in the day. I'm sure that we're a small group, but if nicotine didn't have the specter of cigarettes hanging behind it, I'd imagine it could be quite a large market. Plant-based mea…

> if nicotine didn't have the specter of cigarettes hanging behind it, I'd imagine it could be quite a large market. It drives me a little bit crazy that people think nicotine itself is what's harmful about cigarettes. The myth is slowly eroding but the common knowledge about nicotine — aside from the reality that it is addictive — remains directionally wrong (as common knowledge often is).

Well, nicotine kind of is one of the most harmful things about cigarettes. During the curing and processing of tobacco leaves, nicotine and other alkaloids partially react with nitrate to form nitrosamines ("Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines" or "TSNAs"), that contribute greatly to tobacco's carcinogenicity. They're not the only carcinogens in tobacco / tobacco smoke, of course, but they are important. (This is, afaik, not relevant for pure nicotine.)

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

#810

Post by User23 »

pvaldes wrote: post #799
idiotsecant wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because eggs are filling, relatively cheap, and pretty good for you. Especially if you have a body that doesn't do well with high-glycemic index foods and you don't want to eat animal meat.

meat = animal cells egg = one animal cell Technically the same thing

I think the main difference is that eating an unfertilized egg doesn't end the life of a viable animal.

I am personally happily eat meat, but I respect people that choose not to kill animals and at least some of them find eating unfertilized eggs to be acceptable.

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