Maybe they should simply stop fighting against survival.
Beyond Meat fights for survival
501–510 of 645 posts
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everything comes down to world population This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. > even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost' Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored.
> This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. It's not nonsense. In overwhelming majority of cases GDP is tied to energy consumption. We have not yet learned how to decouple it. With renewables, there is faint hope, but the transition is slower than we would ideally like. It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupl…
> So is growth at any cost
Yes. It is. We deeply regulate growth in every economy.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Meat consumption being linked to adverse health effects isn’t disputed. Replacing meat with Beyond Meat being a healthy choice is.
> negative and positive aspects in the composition, no tests and thus no conclusion about the overall health aspects
This is sort of like saying a study that shows a certain food contains lead that doesn’t also test for the effects of that specific way of ingesting lead is useless.
That said, what you ask for exists [1]. Though I suppose now we’ll need a double-blind controlled study.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beyond Meat is industrial plant-based protein. The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. That means their market is is poor and lower middle-class folks—hence the distribution through fast food and mid-grade grocery channels. They’re not buying plant-based proteins. (The conscientious are already eating plants.) Beyond Meat is broken as a mass-market brand. It should be restructured as a niche play.…
> The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. I have never understood the implicit premise here. I can get a 4 lb. bag of split yellow peas for $6 CAD locally without even trying to look for a sale; most of my supply has been purchased at about $4. By weight, it's on par with raw ground beef for protein content, and 4 lb. of that would cost several times as much.
> I can get a 4 lb. bag of split yellow peas for $6 CAD locally without even trying to look for a sale
Not as tasty as meat or garden-fresh vegetables.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
> don’t understand this take on what (is / should be) a premium brand It’s not. The premium options for plant-based foods are vast, fresh and more expensive than BM. Beyond Meat isn’t serving premium. It’s premium to the lowest-grade ground beef. But that’s like saying a basic economy seat is premium to Greyhound. Technically true. But misleading relativism. > The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans Global…
The market must be very different in the US. In the UK, Beyond Meat is the most expensive meat free option in my local supermarket, other than one type of fake steak. There are some other premium brands at slightly lower prices, then cheaper brands, and finally supermarket own brands.
> Beyond Meat is the most expensive meat free option in my local supermarket
I think that’s true here too. The point is it’s less expensive than both high-quality meat and very fresh vegetables bred and grown for taste versus weight.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. I don’t understand this take on what (is / should be) a premium brand. The whole dismissal doesn’t make sense to me. It’s marketed at well-off former meat eaters. The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans just like they have for the last hundred plus years.
> don’t understand this take on what (is / should be) a premium brand It’s not. The premium options for plant-based foods are vast, fresh and more expensive than BM. Beyond Meat isn’t serving premium. It’s premium to the lowest-grade ground beef. But that’s like saying a basic economy seat is premium to Greyhound. Technically true. But misleading relativism. > The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans Global…
> Globally? Sure. In developed countries, of course not.
Not even the poor immigrants from countries with those food cultures? Really?
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
Processed food concerns are hysterical is a unique take
It is, mostly, hysteria. The problem is that we're just assuming processed foods are bad period, but even if you don't eat processed foods you can eat a very poor diet. Burgers aren't processed, fried chicken isn't processed. And, you don't need to process food to make it "addictive". People who think you need chemicals and additives to make addictive food are just stupid, frankly. Take whatever food, douse it in sal…
There is ongoing research linking depression to ultra processed food consumption:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/ultraprocessed-...
Sugar derivatives such as glucose-fructose syrup are well-known to cause various problems, among which the fat-liver disease that is skyrocketing in the rich world. https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/abundance-of-fru...
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, that's why that thesis seems to have failed. There has not been a huge cultural sea change driving meat eaters towards the products.
Has it failed? I've been vegetarian since January 2011. Back then at restaurants I had to eat side dishes or go hungry, and while I spent months searching I couldn't find any kind of imitation meat that didn't make me wanna puke. But with the modern imitation meat, be it Beyond Meat, Moving Mountains, Nestlé's Garden Gourmet or Rügenwalder, that's not the case anymore. Food is also a part of the culture, and German c…
I don't think anyone disagrees that 1) vegan/vegetarianism is growing, 2) vegans/vegetarians are being served better than ever, 3) Beyond Meat and similar products will be part of the constellation of choices.
The rest of the thread is full of people saying why vegetarians will mostly keep eating regular vegetarian food and meat eaters will mostly keep eating regular meat. And indeed what we haven't seen is the mass one-for-one substitution by meat eaters that Beyond seems to have bet the firm on. That's not to say the whole category will fail.
I don't live in Germany so haven't had the pleasure of trying the brand you mentioned. It sounds like they found better PMF than Beyond with a more sustainable, incremental growth model. It also sounds like they might not be trying the same one-for-one raw ingredient strategy. Curryworst and packaged meals are already a value-added, prepared product with unique flavor profile that seems more amenable to substitution.
Tangentially, I think Beyond does deserve some credit for taking the first mover risk and bringing the topic into the limelight, where other brands can now benefit from the consumer awareness.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a vegetarian I actually prefer stuff like Beyond when eating out. The reason is simple: it has higher protein content than most other place based fast foods. I'd love to live in a world with minimally processed high protein vegetarian restaurant food (like lots of legumes), but the only reliable place to get this that I know of is CAVA. Products like Beyond are at least a step up from carb heavy pastas and grains…
Plenty of places will give you beans. Are beyond burgers really higher protein than a bean? Taco bell the whole menu can be subbed for black beans.
When you get "black bean burgers" they usually have a bunch of other stuff in them which reduces the protein. Combine with a bun and you get a lot of calories without much protein.
Beyond/impossible are not great, but they are better.
A few fast casual places like Chipotle do have pretty good bean options.
But your friendly neighborhood restaurant? Probably you can get a salad or a Portobello sandwich or some pasta or a black bean burger. In relation to those, the packaged burgers provide a reliable source of protein.
Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a vegetarian I actually prefer stuff like Beyond when eating out. The reason is simple: it has higher protein content than most other place based fast foods. I'd love to live in a world with minimally processed high protein vegetarian restaurant food (like lots of legumes), but the only reliable place to get this that I know of is CAVA. Products like Beyond are at least a step up from carb heavy pastas and grains…
Plenty of places will give you beans. Are beyond burgers really higher protein than a bean? Taco bell the whole menu can be subbed for black beans.
Yes, processed meat alternatives tend to be significantly higher protein per unit mass than beans. But other metrics like protein per calorie can be useful.