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Beyond Meat fights for survival

foodinstitute.com

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#591

Post by IAmBroom »

piyushpr134 wrote: post #451
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.

Indian here. We can eat vegetarian without this processed crap. Happy to see this die. We had equivalent companies here in India too. And they also are struggling. Happy to see this being rejected by masses

That's a lot of vitriol against a firm that doesn't promote animal cruelty, nor encourage people to avoid less-processed crap.

They are a for-profit vegetarian company in a capitalist market, not Nestle's trying to sell African mothers on powdered formula.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#592

Post by micromacrofoot »

aydyn wrote: post #547
micromacrofoot wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can't help but feel like including "plastic" here is just hysteria, I eat them regularly and it's certainly not accurate

In a blind taste test [1] people said "it kinda tastes like plastic". It's objectively bad. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYOCv-y8ckM&t=132s

These people know they're testing meat alternatives, so it's not blind — there are a lot of biases that come out as soon as you start talking about alternatives because people don't understand them.

Anecdotally I've heard similar thoughts "I can taste the chemicals" from someone that didn't realize they were eating a handmade veggie burger made from chickpeas.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#593

Post by boston_clone »

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,…

Sounds like you've been successfully co-opted by Berman's propaganda [0].

Looking at my local grocer, Impossible Beef is currently cheaper per pound than several of the organic ground beef options. There is also consensus among American dietitians that vegan diets are suitable for all stages of life. Further, "ultra processed" does not have a common definition - could you share how Impossible Beef is so much different than TVP?

Even TFA talks about this onslaught of misinformation - "CEO Ethan Brown has alleged significant “misinformation and misdirection” about the health profile of plant-based meat, and Beyond Meat has gone on the offensive to refute claims that its products are too processed.".

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Organizational_Rese...

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#594

Post by boston_clone »

zahlman wrote: post #496
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…

> 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. There was a period of my life when I went dairy-free as part of investigating some health issues. At first I bought almond milk. It was clearly not an adequate replacement, and rather expensive, so I quickly ended up just dropping it entirely. I can't imagi…

Making almond milk is as easy as blending a handful of almonds with a gallon of water, then straining.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#595

Post by unlikelytomato »

9dev wrote: post #577
unlikelytomato wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you can digest it, maybe. Thrive is somewhat open to debate. Some can handle it naturally. There is a huge amount of survivor bias in self reported vegans. They never get interviews with everyone who tried it and dropped it to uncover why.

Whether people dropped being vegan doesn’t have anything to do with the absolutely validated fact that a vegan diet can sustain muscle growth. Professional athletes might want to put some additional work in calculating nutrient intake, but that’s the same for any kind of diet.

The research on optimal protein for athletes is pretty well established. I weigh all of my food and track every macro. If I ate the recommended amount of protein from plant sources, I would be grossly overweight from the additional carb and fat calories. I try plants based every year or so. It just doesn't work for my body. Not to mention the dramatic IBS-like symptoms I get even after forcing it for weeks on end to "adapt" to plant only. I switch back to my old diet and all my issues disappear in about 72 hours. After 15 attempts, I will probably try again, but it's not looking good. Maybe someday when I stop all athletic endeavors it will work out for me

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#596

Post by albedoa »

vmg12 wrote: post #368
albedoa wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that the poster who used the phrase "processes food hysteria stuff" unprompted is intending to make a statement about the broadness or usefulness of the category.

That's how I interpreted it. I don't think it's enough to say a food is unhealthy simply because it's ultra-processed.

That is a pretty wild interpretation man. You absolutely do not need to be projecting meaning or motive onto these conspiracy theorists when they are telling you exactly what they believe.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#597

Post by jebarker »

UltraSane wrote: post #561
saagarjha wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be more like the reaction a "normal" meat eater would have when presented with a strange food, like snails, or grasshoppers. You'd probably eat it in desperation but I don't think it would register as food.

No. Humans have actually evolved to find the smell and taste of COOKED meat to be delicious because it is so energy and nutrition dense eating it gave a huge evolutionary advantage to people who ate it.

Can you point to any supporting evidence for the claim that humans have evolved an innate “finding meat delicious trait” or alternatively evidence that suggests it’s not purely cultural? I’m genuinely interested as I haven’t found any evidence supporting the claim.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#598

Post by ben_w »

tsimionescu wrote: post #272
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #234

Earlier 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.

Degrowth is inevitable. Whether it will happen "naturally" because of climate catastrophes and war, or whether we will somehow understand this and do something before it's too late, I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today.

> I can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will be smaller than today.

I can't assure you that the moon or the planet Mercury will exist in 2100, because 75 years is much too far ahead to forecast if we do or don't get e.g. von Neumann replicators by 2040 years and spend the next 60 using them to disassemble either or both into a Dyson swarm.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#599

Post by ben_w »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #500
9dev wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth. Even if it isn’t us, there will be a last generation that enjoys growth as the motor of wealth. At some point, resources will deplete and the standard of living will decrease as a consequence. This is logically inevitable. Everyone just pretends this can go on and on without stopping, but tha…

> Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth As you say, this is simple. Growth doesn’t require increasing use of finite resources. A more-productive widget can (and generally is) less material intensive than its predecessor. The material and even energy intensity of GDP has been falling in the developed world for decades. Value is subjective…

Even that doesn't work as "infinite": eventually you reach atoms and bits and thermodynamic limits, the maximum complexity of our world is still finite.

And sure, there's room for now, but 3%-year-on-year growth halves the remaining gap to whichever limit is critical every 24 years. I'm not at all clear how close e.g. current computer tech is to the Landauer limit, but it is definitely still developing much faster than 3%-y.o.y.

For truly infinite growth, we'd have to find a way to make mass and dark energy in balanced quantities — that would allow us to have not only arbitrarily more actual stuff, but also make sure it doesn't then collapse into a black hole.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#600

Post by ben_w »

antisthenes wrote: post #471
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #234

Earlier 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…

> It also remains to be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind

That's entirely dependent what % of the planet we feel like tiling in PV; wind is ultimately solar powered, and there's more places we can usefully put PV than wind anyway.

Environmentalists will be Very Unhappy if we tile the Sahara with something as close to black as PV is; but that location alone (we have more deserts), using middling quality PV (20%, we have stuff more than twice that good), and the current global average capacity factor (13%, but it's a good latitude and could plausibly get 23%), would still be 11.8 times current global primary energy demand, which itself is 6-7 times current global electricity demand.

> hydro is already tapped out

As a source, yes; as storage, no. I only mention this because it's very easy to mix them up.

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