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Beyond Meat fights for survival

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#201

Post by ayuhito »

birn559 wrote: post #178
ponector wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Treating food with chemicals usually it's not good. Also you simply don't know what exactly are they doing. Like ultra processed american bread is not so good comparing with european wholegrain sourdough bread.

Processing by itself is not a bad thing. Everything is "chemicals" in some sense and what you mean in particular is not bad in general. European bread as of today is highly processed btw.. it's pretty rare to find a bakery that actually bakes starting with the ingredients. Most just bake pre-processed and pre-made stuff coming from a huge factory. Typical European/German bread is not terribly healthy to begin with.

“Chemicals” are overused as a term for sure, but there is a huge difference between what’s legal in America and Europe that brings a shred of truth to the previous statements.

For example, common ingredients like potassium bromate or ADA are straight up banned in the EU for health concerns.

Reading the ingredient list of American bread is plain shocking at times.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#202

Post by mirsadm »

AareyBaba wrote: post #146
gonzalohm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you substituted cheese with? It's one of my favorite foods but no substitute has come close to it

Nutritional yeast has cheese like flavor.

There are 1000s of varieties of cheese and most don't taste like nutritional yeast.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#203

Post by stinkbeetle »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #186
wonderwonder wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market decides the price. We don’t need politicians and biased scientists moralizing about what we can and can’t do and what we should care about.

That’s not really how the world works. Most governments already massively subsidises their agricultural sectors to create some desired eating habits in their population. The market just adjusts prices around those subsidies. If all subsidies were removed - in order to avoid the influence of moralising politicians - people would eat a lot more potatoes, and a lot less beef.

> That’s not really how the world works. Most governments already massively subsidises their agricultural sectors to create some desired eating habits in their population. The market just adjusts prices around those subsidies.

By global average, under 15% of farm revenue is derived from government subsidies. USA is below that, at about 10%. Not sure if I'd call that massive, but that's semantics so it's a little hard to argue against. Does potato agriculture get massive subsidies?

> If all subsidies were removed - in order to avoid the influence of moralising politicians - people would eat a lot more potatoes, and a lot less beef.

The assumptions being that 1. potato farming get relatively much less subsidies as beef (and other meat) farming; 2. cost is such a factor in consumption that price change would cause "a lot" of difference. I don't think either are very safe, and as a general statement it doesn't follow that just reducing agricultural subsidies increases ratio of beef to potato (or meat to vegetable): EU subsidies are much higher than US, but USA eats far more beef per capita.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#204

Post by aziaziazi »

spwa4 wrote: post #158
globular-toast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem with Beyond Meat or a problem with our policies not correctly pricing meat due to not caring about the environment or animal welfare?

A lot of people would say it is a problem with making the entire population pay for the moral preferences of a few.

"The entire population" doesn’t want to eat only beef and drink milk, however those are way more subsidized than other food. The real winners are food mega corps and a few rich farmers.

Remove the targeted subsidies and "the entire population" will eat less meat and more peas. Subsidize the peas and not the meat and you’ll see vegans skyrocket.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#205

Post by npteljes »

wonderwonder wrote: post #182
globular-toast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem with Beyond Meat or a problem with our policies not correctly pricing meat due to not caring about the environment or animal welfare?

The market decides the price. We don’t need politicians and biased scientists moralizing about what we can and can’t do and what we should care about.

The market decides the price, but politics decide the constraints of the market. Agriculture in particular is heavily involved with the government, because agriculture is very risky, and needs large investments. The government already decides what we care about, and is already pretty corrupt because of the "market" powers - the different lobbies - influence it.

A freer market doesn't solve these issues, just exacerbates it. A stronger, more independent, more democratic government would ease these problems.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#206

Post by chpatrick »

ponector wrote: post #167
mgraczyk wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is that clearly processed foods aren't harmful because they are processed. All the correlations go away when you control for basic things like sugar and vegetable consumption. The whole idea that processed foods are bad for health is a hysteria.

Treating food with chemicals usually it's not good. Also you simply don't know what exactly are they doing. Like ultra processed american bread is not so good comparing with european wholegrain sourdough bread.

I hear they even process it with dihydrogen monoxide!

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#208

Post by npteljes »

bluescrn wrote: post #163
globular-toast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem with Beyond Meat or a problem with our policies not correctly pricing meat due to not caring about the environment or animal welfare?

[flagged]

Besides the reasons of sheer taste, another good reason is culture. Meaning, the preexisting meat-eating culture at a place. One of the reasons why vegan / vegetarian / etc options are often lacking is because there is no longstanding culture of eating those dishes at that certain place, and so, a vegan dish will likely come from a meat dish, minus the meat. But that dish is created around the meat, so without the meat, it will be lacking, like taking the patty out of a burger, or taking the meatballs out of the spaghetti with meatballs.

So, a quick solution is to create a substitute to the missing thing. That way, the culture problem is immediately solved, as the alternative dish will the be the same dish, just with the questionable thing substituted. As a bonus, it will be very similar to the existing, accepted culture, so the participant doesn't become an outsider. Also, for many, it's easier to adopt, than changing the culture entirely.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#209

Post by encom »

submeta wrote: post #100

The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don’t believe that. I rather see more and more friends and people avoid eating meat or reduce their consumption drastically. Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when ordering a coffee. But these days many do. I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four…

[flagged]

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#210

Post by npteljes »

libertine wrote: post #160
makingstuffs wrote: post #129

The problem with Beyond Meat is that it is insanely expensive. I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the price of their ultra processed burger. Don’t get me wrong, as a vegetarian, I think they taste nice. They are just too damn expensive and not particularly healthy which goes against why I am a vegetarian. In Europe we have so many alternatives that are insanely cheaper and, as an Indian,…

> I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the price of their ultra processed burger. In many countries, it's a heavily subsidized industry. Even if you have VC funds, it's not the same as being backed by country subsidies. To be clear, I'm not making a judgment, just saying that meat would probably be a lot more expensive.

I think that for this exact reason Beyond Meat (or other alternatives) need a similar boost, in order to be financially competitive as well.
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