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Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

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Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#461

Post by bawolff »

lambda wrote: post #132
Grimblewald wrote: post #11

I always wondered who their demographic was. The core early adopters, the ethical vegans, who actually like the taste of plants are never going to make a lab made ultra processed salt bomb their daily driver (never mind issues surrounding industrial agriculture). Health-conscious folks would take one look at the ingredient list and bail because of the heavy processing and industrial fillers. You've got bodybuilders a…

This is such a weird comment. Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste. Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat tha…

It does seem like that is literally what happened.

The only people i ever hear say anything positive about beyond burger (after the novelty wore off) was meat eaters. Vegeterians, for whatever reason, tended not to like it. But meat eaters were always going to choose meat anyways, so it seems like nobody actually bought it.

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#462

Post by butILoveLife »

lynndotpy wrote: post #435
mapotofu wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are focusing on an American palette, which is averse to things like tofu, seitan, or tempeh as they are considered not masculine enough by a significant portion of the population. This is reinforced by both genders.

Tofu is so ridiculously OP in terms of nutrition, production costs, and culinary versatility. It's a shame society here in the US is so strongly stymied by the manipulative meat lobby.

As someone who is frugal AF and open minded...

I think you are overstating Tofu.

But honestly I'm mostly eating for nutrition rather than taste. Tofu doesnt hit the numbers I need.

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#463

Post by Arainach »

hbn wrote: post #425
lambda wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a weird comment. Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste. Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat tha…

> Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers Not sure what health-conscious people you know, but I'd hazard to guess that most would choose the patty made from a single natural ingredient that's been a staple of the human diet since the dawn of man over the ultra-processed slurry of starches and oils.

"natural" does not mean healthy. "Processed" does not mean bad.

Something that feels and tastes like a reasonable substitute for meat but doesn't jack up my cholesterol is very much appreciated.

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#464

Post by ErroneousBosh »

latexr wrote: post #431
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need livestock farming to have arable farming. Growing only plants is phenomenally destructive to the soil. Every time you eat a "Beyond Meat" burger, you have permanently destroyed a patch of what used to be rain forest and is now crappy farmland about the size of a car parking space.

You need far far far more land for raising livestock for eating than for vegetables. Furthermore, we’re discussing vegan diets in general. No one is vegan and survives solely on Beyond Burgers.

Yes, but you don't use land you could use for arable crops for raising animals all the time.

Also, if you don't turn some of the land you use for arable crops for pasture every few years and chuck some ruminants (cows, preferably, sheep will work too but you need to add lime afterwards) then the soil dies.

Do you know how to grow food?

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#465

Post by Avshalom »

close04 wrote: post #454
Avshalom wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, putting a burger between two pieces of bread with onion, lettuce, tomato and pickle isn't compensating elsewhere

That's not what I meant. If you eat extra "crap" (salt, sugar, fat, palm oil, coloring, additives, etc.) in one food you can't always balance it out with another food. It's not all like counting calories, only care about the total because some things you shouldn't eat in any measurable quantity. And if I make the effort of eating vegan also for health reasons, why would I go for the ultraprocessed vegan option? To be…

I mean arsenic is objectively unhealthy. None of the other things in your parenthetical are

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#466

Post by ricardobayes »

barrell wrote: post #455
ricardobayes wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See that's the same thought the agrolobby used to weaponize "chemical-sounding", scary names. HCl is the same your stomach uses to digest food and used in making e.g. "organic" sea salt. I see the same argument very often these days: that only single-ingredient, "traditional" food is good.

What is this about “the agrolobby”? I haven’t eaten processed foods in decades. I started when I was a kid because I didn’t like eating things where I didn’t know all the ingredients. Not from marketing or lobbying or trends. I just stopped eating processed foods, felt better, and now if I eat any processed foods I get ill, so I don’t eat them. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat processed foods because of marketing…

My point was there is very much this kind of "whispering propaganda" when it came to vegan food, labeling it as unhealthy, "processed" and full of chemicals. Most of it was and is done by the "agrolobby", sometimes subtly, sometimes not, e.g. through full-page ads in the NYT, laying out scary-sounding chemical ingredients. The agriculture sector collectively shat its pants when something came along for the first time in centuries that could even slightly change consumer habits.

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#467

Post by Marha01 »

oblio wrote: post #244
TeMPOraL wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they're hoping there exists a non-crazy subset of "health conscious" population, i.e. people who are not panicly afraid of "ultra processed" food and generally don't consider food processing to be a sin, who don't see food manufacturing plants as temples of Satan, and are otherwise health conscious and not just playing the fitness fad social games.

Ultra processed foods are tied with a myriad of health conditions. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga... Please tell the British Heart Foundation that they're "the crazy kind of health conscious" :-)

From your source:

> Ultra-processed foods: Ultra-processed foods typically have more than 1 ingredient that you never or rarely find in a kitchen. They also tend to include many additives and ingredients that are not typically used in home cooking, such as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and artificial colours and flavours. These foods generally have a long shelf life.

Are there ingredients actually in the Beyond burger?

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#468

Post by Arainach »

iinnPP wrote: post #308
kleiba wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me assure you that you're in the vast minority if you add little or no salt at all to your home-made burger patties.

I was going to edit the comment with this but in Canada we have a company called Metro(grocer) and they often sell 4x fresh beef patties for ~$4 which is 1lb(454g) of ground beef and exactly nothing else. It's good to eat sans salt on bbq with your desired (typically salty) toppings. I know people salt the patty while cooking, but the topic at hand is Beyond and their patties.

....which should be compared against other premade patties and how people make and serve beef patties, not against the theoretical option that people could choose to omit salt.

The whole "salt" angle is bikeshedding - no one advocated Beyond for salt, they pick it for all of the other health benefits (fats, cholesterol)

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#469

Post by barrell »

ricardobayes wrote: post #466
barrell wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this about “the agrolobby”? I haven’t eaten processed foods in decades. I started when I was a kid because I didn’t like eating things where I didn’t know all the ingredients. Not from marketing or lobbying or trends. I just stopped eating processed foods, felt better, and now if I eat any processed foods I get ill, so I don’t eat them. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat processed foods because of marketing…

My point was there is very much this kind of "whispering propaganda" when it came to vegan food, labeling it as unhealthy, "processed" and full of chemicals. Most of it was and is done by the "agrolobby", sometimes subtly, sometimes not, e.g. through full-page ads in the NYT, laying out scary-sounding chemical ingredients. The agriculture sector collectively shat its pants when something came along for the first time…

This is not contending with the health aspects of it though. It is highly processed and it uses a bunch of toxic chemicals to make it, regardless of what any lobbying groups say.

Re: Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line

#470

Post by array_key_first »

hbn wrote: post #425
lambda wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a weird comment. Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste. Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat tha…

> Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers Not sure what health-conscious people you know, but I'd hazard to guess that most would choose the patty made from a single natural ingredient that's been a staple of the human diet since the dawn of man over the ultra-processed slurry of starches and oils.

Hamburger patties are processed, I don't know who y'all are kidding.

At the end of the day, red meat is bad for you. Processed red meat is in the same category as carcinogen as Alcohol and Tobacco. To put into perspective, diet coke is two categories lower. And it doesn't get much more artificial than that. Bacon is basically cigarettes in meat form, and hamburgers are just heart disease in a bun.

Believe it or not, starches and oils are genuinely healthier than meat. Meat is basically just bad for you, or at least most of it.

And before I hear more "dawn of man" stuff - uh, no. For most of human history, humans ate very little meat. It was mostly plants.

And, of the meat they did eat, it was nothing like the meat we have today. We eat extremely fatty farmed meat, they ate lean game meat. Farmed meat is a very new invention.

There is still lean meat today! Hamburgers are not it, though.

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