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Beyond Meat fights for survival

foodinstitute.com

321–330 of 645 posts

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule of thumb is that the ultra-processed food should not account for a too large part of your diet. The protein powder is usually taken as a supplement and in small quantities, as opposed to food like twinkies people can easily overeat on. But try to make protein powder 80% of your protein intake and see how you'll feel in a week.

> But try to make protein powder 80% of your protein intake and see how you'll feel in a week. What? I've had >100g of protein from whey protein shakes every day for months now. I don't know what you're trying to imply.

Okay, I genuinely thought that consuming as much protein powder as you describe would make person feel sick, you surprised me. To each his own. The fact remains, research suggests overdosing on protein supplements has potential health hazards.

"According to international consensus, the daily reference intake of protein for the healthy adult population is 0.8 g/kg body weight. However, individuals who engage in physical activity may require more protein, ranging from 1.2 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight. To fulfill these requirements, many athletes and active individuals opt for whey protein (WP) supplements to increase their protein intake. The appropriate amount of WP intake for individuals depends on their objectives, current level of physical activity, and body composition. Research suggests that a dosage of 20 to 25 g/day of WP provides the desired benefits, while amounts >40 g/day may lead to adverse effects on the body"[0]

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10761008/

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides ultra-processed foods 'hysteria,' basic ratios I consider here are: - protein to fat (which is roughly 1.4 in Beyond Meat (20g protein / 14g fat in 100g) versus 2.5-3.5 in beef (30±5g protein / 12.5±2.5g fat in 100g)) - protein to mass (20% vs ~30%) - micro-nutrients to mass (a very wide variety of minerals, vitamins, and other unknown nutrients present in beef) - carbohydrates (not present in substantial amo…

> 'we can do it and it may get more people to eat vegetarian.' That's a noble goal in and of itself. Every step to reduce environmental impact and animal cruelty has value. Beyond and Impossible were my "off-ramp" from eating meat every meal to exploring vegetarianism and veganism. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If you're going to eat vegetarian, eat vegetarian. There are lots of foods out there.

The idea that normal, healthy people are going to eat ultra processed vegetarian slop so they can pretend they are eating meat was never going to work.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#323
post #104

BM is getting rarer on the shelves in Austria. When it first showed up, it was something special, but now there are heaps of great other alternative meats, often cheaper and made here. I guess BM is struggling because of increased competition. During my 20 years of plant based dieat it has never been easier to find fancy plant based things.

Yeah, there is a camp of people who see headlines like this and (giddily) think it spells the demise of plant-based alternatives, probably because since they don't shop plant-based products, their mental concept is stuck 15 years ago where BM was new and experimental, so now they think "heh, not surprised that flopped and we can move on".

But what they don't get is that the market has exploded with competition. Even grocery stores in places like Houston have gone from a couple shelves of vegan products to half-aisles or full-aisles of plant-based food.

Beyond Meat might die in spite of the success of the market it entered into or helped create.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#324
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no crappy meat, just meat that isn't prepared well.

There's crappy meat. Have you ever had cheap salmon sashimi? It's completely flavorless, with a rubbery, watery mouthfeel. Conversely have you had expensive salmon sashimi? A delicate umami flavor with a mouthfeel of liquified butter. It's not preparation. They're not the same fish. Different subspecies of plant and animal taste different. Farmers have learned to charge more for the ones that taste better. You wouldn…

I was thinking about beef when I wrote this, and specifically cuts of beef you would commonly see at a supermarket.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#325
post #209

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…

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oat milk is legitimately better than cow milk. Why would you need to be tricked into buying it? Just seems like an incredibly closed minded world view.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#326
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is one of the joys in life that people can enjoy no matter where they are on the socioeconomic spectrum. In the modern age, if you're poor, or just time poor, you can enjoy a tasty meal thanks to cheap food coming out of the modern food industry. Why would you pay more for a less enjoyable experience when tasty food might be one of the only joys in an otherwise mundane or hard-up existence? This is exactly why M…

Agree. As a side note McDonalds veggie nuggets are from behind meat and they rank equally to the chickens one one the taste and processing scales.

The regular nuggets are from behind meat. The veggie ones are from Beyond Meat.

(Yes, this is a "nuggets are made from butt meat" joke on a typo.)

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#327
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Meat consumption is not exactly healthy. It's absolutely plausible that replacing it with something like this is a net plus. That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth.

> It's absolutely plausible that replacing it with something like this is a net plus Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely. To the extent we’ve found anything out in nutrition, it’s that processing away from the kitchen is generally bad. > That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth Nope [1]. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/

> Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely.

Not sure why you claim that, there definitely are studies in that direction. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291... for example, you can find many more. I'm not saying it's absolutely certain, but it's definitively not unlikely.

"Processing away from the kitchen" on the other hand is a very broad field, and the current thinking seems to be that it is too broad. There are absolutely negative health outcomes observed there, but it is likely about aspects. So at first one has to have certainty about which part of processing is bad, to then known if Beyond Meat is processed in an unhealthy way. That is not at all clear.

There is a big difference between a pizza and a chicken nugget is what I'm saying.

> > That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an unsubstantiated myth

> Nope [1].

> [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/

One study, negative and positive aspects in the composition, no tests and thus no conclusion about the overall health aspects of eating that. Your nope is frankly bullshit.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which types of processing exactly is implied by that, and which are not? Where's the line drawn, is ground beef ultra processed or not? how about a chicken schnitzel? canned sardines? dark chocolate? Which part of the ultra-processing is making the foot unhealthy, is it chemicals they add? the fact that they heat it up (but at home when you cook you also heat up stuff)? something else they do with it? If you bake fri…

The term comes from the Nova classification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

> Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates', invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients.

They have a different definition of "no culinary use" than I do!

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe it's not healthy? Because of the processes food hysteria stuff?

Besides ultra-processed foods 'hysteria,' basic ratios I consider here are: - protein to fat (which is roughly 1.4 in Beyond Meat (20g protein / 14g fat in 100g) versus 2.5-3.5 in beef (30±5g protein / 12.5±2.5g fat in 100g)) - protein to mass (20% vs ~30%) - micro-nutrients to mass (a very wide variety of minerals, vitamins, and other unknown nutrients present in beef) - carbohydrates (not present in substantial amo…

Thanks for breaking that down.

As someone doing weightlifting, this is the primary reason I don't bother with vegetarian meats. They actually taste pretty good IMO, but they don't offer nutritional benefits commensurate with animal meat.

It's a shame, really. I'd gladly incorporate them if I could get a similar protein : calorie ratio.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#330
post #199

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.

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Please don't comment like this on HN, no matter what you're replying to.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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