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Beyond Meat fights for survival

foodinstitute.com

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#331

Post by tomhow »

p1dda wrote: post #188
PaulRobinson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, we need to pick something apart here, because I see this a lot and it's annoying. UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you. The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing tricks with the brain's response to it. There are food labs where people…

[flagged]

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.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#332

Post by robertoandred »

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,…

> getting some dried minced soy protein, mix with some eggs, breadcrumbs and seasoning before wrapping in some cling film and pressing it into a patty

Sounds like processing to me

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#333

Post by throw14082020 »

I recently travelled the US (California, Arizona, Utah, Ohio), I found it really hard to find vegan options. Some restaurants that used to sell vegan burgers or vegan options have stopped (McDonalds, Applebees) - because not enough people ordered them. Some restaurants that have Beyond Meat burger patties as on option "don't have any in stock" - probably for the same reason.

According to GPT o4-mini, these are the restaurants that have stopped in the past few years: Habit Burger & Grill; McDonald’s; Carl’s Jr.; TGI Fridays; Del Taco; Denny’s; Dunkin’; Wendy’s.

I will say beyond meat tasted pretty good, and I would prefer to eat that than to go hungry at US restaurants. But it's very expensive and very annoying to cook at home (smoky). Not sure how healthy it is either - highly processed?

Also, people who are vegetarian/vegan know the health benefits. They're not going to pay more to get less healthy.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#334

Post by hombre_fatal »

rainforest wrote: post #153
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually good for you But the less processed the better. And eating something else is probably better still.

Does it worry you at all that meat is ultimately made of whatever food the animal eats and processed into a litany of chemicals? I feel the UPF "debate" is just an appeal to nature, and calorie/nutrient density should be what we fixate on.

I think the UPF debate just comes down to "things I want to be healthy are not UPF, and things I want to be unhealthy I call UPF."

It's why the debate rarely exits the semantic stage into the empirical stage of argument where we look at the human health outcome data on supposedly scary chemicals.

Meanwhile, we also have data on not-so-processed foods that are bad for us, and the level of processing did nothing to spare us the negative health impact.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#335

Post by itsoktocry »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #59
randycupertino wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually featured veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like veggies were delish.

Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with something closer to their childhood memories than a black bean patty.

Unless they have some rare condition that doesn't allow them to eat meat, they can satisfy the cravings by having the odd burger. It won't kill them.

I honestly don't understand the vegetarian who constantly craves meat.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#336

Post by r053bud »

aziaziazi wrote: post #233
nly wrote: 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.

> they rank equally to the chickens one one the taste and processing scales.

What does that even mean?

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#337

Post by brookst »

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…

I think the article is more about one company that over-expanded and now has massive debt and no chance of repaying it.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#338

Post by throw14082020 »

buran77 wrote: post #148
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…

> The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don't see this message in there. If you ask me the real message is that companies trying to sell overly processed, way too expensive, imitations of "something" will struggle. They're trying to sell a very expensive mechanical horse. Just give people a car. Maybe it's a US thing where people are more emotionally attached to the concept of t…

Maybe they went with burgers because it's low effort: everything else is the same (bun, salad, fries). Just replace the patty, which still goes through the same process.

Again, missing the opportunity that vegetarian/vegan food can be healthier, not just removing of animal cruelty and death.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#339

Post by itsoktocry »

mdaniel wrote: post #85

I know this is about Beyond but I figure the audience that would care about this article would be interested in looking at Juicy Marbles: https://juicymarbles.com/collections/all-products I've tried the thick cut filet and just like you're not going to mistake Impossible for actual burger, so too with the filet but it's a good texture and does help fill the longing for steak for me

Top two ingredients: engineered soy and sunflower oil. Yummy.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#340

Post by graublau »

mgraczyk wrote: post #157
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,…

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

Processed food concerns are hysterical is a unique take
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