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Beyond Meat fights for survival

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#521

Post by bluebarbet »

throwpoaster wrote: post #419
hellcow wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> '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.

Animal agriculture converts scrub land into carbon sinks that produce food.

This is a regionally-contingent oversimplification that obscures the much more essential fact that animal agriculture always requires substantially more land than arable agriculture to produce the same amount of food. Land is very much a finite resource and I personally would prefer to see a bit more of it left to nature (or "scrub", as you call it).

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#522

Post by bluebarbet »

bartread wrote: post #432
xeromal wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, their comment gave me a chuckle. lol

Yeah. HN doesn't really have a sense of humour, which I used to find frustrating, but which (having now spent a lot more time on other forums, like Reddit), I fully appreciate the wisdom of. I am, along certain axes, a big fan of DIY forums like the r/DIYUK subreddit, and it pisses me off to no end that when anybody asks a serious question looking for serious help the top 5 comments will, as like as not, be bullshit,…

Slashdot's system was best. No upvoting, certainly no downvoting, just a small vocabulary of tags: "informative", "insightful", "irrelevant", etc. And of course "funny". That way you can literally turn the humor off!

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#523

Post by Saline9515 »

const_cast wrote: post #514
Saline9515 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

These studies are legitimately worthless, and I'll explain why. 1. Ultra-processed foods contain a lot of hyper-palatable foods. You have to understand that UP foods is an absurdly broad category. When you measure the harm of UP foods, you're not measure the harm of UP foods - you're measuring the harm of hyper-palatable foods, because naturally those are the foods people gravitate towards. Because they taste good an…

1. If you had read the study, you'd know that they control for sociodemographic factors, lifestyle and health-related behaviors. So your point doesn't hold.

2. Second article says it's fructose specifically. And the ultra-processed form allows instant assimilation of it, far from the classic forms found in nature. They also allow to add much more of it. See: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-hig...

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#524

Post by asdff »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #519
asdff wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities, it is hard to argue today that the effects were truly all that bad. They still have all the services, institutions, and plenty of the entertainment options you'd expect. Major hospitals and universities. They aren't full of derelict homes either, those have been all more or less razed by now. The biggest benefit i…

> When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities Do they work without subsidies from the growing parts of the country?

Look at the map in this linked article (1). Seems like southern states are the ones getting most subsidy. Midwest for the most part relatively lower on the spectrum.

And what is even the subsidy? Interstate road works? Hardly matters to your daily life. The other subsidies are probably things like welfare benefits or medicaid, which might be a significant thing in your daily life if you qualify but if you don't are also irrelevant.

Lower property prices on the other hand lift all boats. Renters benefit. Homeowners benefit. Corporations benefit. At every income level in the market.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-aid-r...

I really don't think subsidy is a factor in keeping things cheap in terms of cost of living. I think it is pretty solely due to the relationship between the size and rate of growth of the local high income demographic and housing inventory. For example it is even cheaper to live in Mexico due to this relationship, and there is probably a lot less subsidy going on there.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#525

Post by FredPret »

bevr1337 wrote: post #360
FredPret wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the parameters on tasks, and eliminating tasks has been a huge win for us. Tranquility, and still results.

This is venturing off-topic, but can you expand on "eliminating tasks." Is eliminating a task like setting up auto bill pay, or getting rid of items that I don't want to clean?

Yes to both. This is my heuristic:

- think about what would happen if something is simply left undone

- can I do the same task with fewer steps

- if I relaxed the definition of success a little, does it get a lot easier?

- can I farm it out to a person or a service? (Like bill autopay, or Instacart)

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#526

Post by OldfieldFund »

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.

The taste of meat repulsed me since I was a kid. I wonder what's wrong with me. The irony is I eat it, because it's good for my IBD.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#527

Post by ivraatiems »

wk_end wrote: post #106
ivraatiems wrote: post #7

Other faux-meat companies like Impossible seem to be doing better. Maybe Beyond's product is inferior? Personally, I don't choose it over Impossible.

Impossible is good enough that - in the right context, if you squint real hard - you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from the real deal. Beyond just isn't there, it still comes off as a weird faux meat.

Completely agree. I've made pasta sauces with Impossible that are indistinguishable.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#528

Post by j_timberlake »

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'd always hoped they'd bring the price down over time as economies of scale kick in, but man did that not happen. What a shame.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#529

Post by j_timberlake »

globular-toast wrote: post #156
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,…

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?

Nothing is ever "correctly priced". It's just more obvious with certain markets.

Best example of this is when people say they want to pay "only their fair share of taxes". That's just, not how taxes work...

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#530

Post by j_timberlake »

On a positive note, if you eat non-meat alternatives, you both avoid funding more factory-farming and you also help fund better non-meat options. You can't make much difference, but it's not like this is the only thing going on in your life anyway.
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