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Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

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Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#131

Post by Taek »

shanev wrote: post #128
L_Rahman wrote: post #9

I remember reading the original impressions of the Impossible Foods ground meat and thinking it was just media buzz. I promise you it is not. At Momofuku's Ssam Bar in the East Village of NYC, you can order an off menu item called Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes. It's not really off the menu - the item has simply been around so long and is so well known to regulars that they left it off to make room for new dishes.…

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

Are you sure? Cows eat plants. The footprint from cows is largely due to the fact that you need 14 pounds of grain per pound of cow, if I remember correctly. Unless these burgers are somehow taking 14 pounds of grain to produce per pound of burger, I think we're in a better place.

That said, eliminating cows I still don't think will help the environment. That freed up land will be bought and used for some other purpose. It's natural capitalism. If you want to fix the environment, you need heavy penalities / taxes for nonsustainable resource usage. That's the only way.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#132

Post by aaronblohowiak »

shanev wrote: post #128
L_Rahman wrote: post #9

I remember reading the original impressions of the Impossible Foods ground meat and thinking it was just media buzz. I promise you it is not. At Momofuku's Ssam Bar in the East Village of NYC, you can order an off menu item called Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes. It's not really off the menu - the item has simply been around so long and is so well known to regulars that they left it off to make room for new dishes.…

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

>potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat

Please explain this in more detail.

>and sequesters carbon/methane as a side effect

I have not heard of a farming practice that sequesters methane released from ruminants. Can you provide more information?

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#133

Post by shanev »

Taek wrote: post #131
shanev wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

Are you sure? Cows eat plants. The footprint from cows is largely due to the fact that you need 14 pounds of grain per pound of cow, if I remember correctly. Unless these burgers are somehow taking 14 pounds of grain to produce per pound of burger, I think we're in a better place. That said, eliminating cows I still don't think will help the environment. That freed up land will be bought and used for some other purpo…

Cows don't need grain. Grain feeding is part of industrial meat production that is highly detrimental to the environment. Feeding cows grass (and rotating them) though has the total opposite effect. It creates soil that can hold more water and sequester carbon. So it eliminates the need for grain production because cows simply eat grass while naturally fertilizing it.

Huge fan of a carbon tax.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#134

Post by jmcgough »

mrfusion wrote: post #90
mmanfrin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most burgers are improved with MSG, it is a miracle salt.

And msg is generally considered safe these days?

It's ben heavily studied for decades and the whole msg scare has no science to back it up. It's possible that some people have a sensitivity to MSG, but for >99.99÷ of the population, it's completely safe.

I buy shakers of it, it can be delicious in some meals.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#135

Post by jmcgough »

nicpottier wrote: post #20

I tried a Beyond Burger, which I believe is the main other horse in this "veggie burger" race and I was pretty impressed. It doesn't have the "plant blood" that seems to be Impossible's secret sauce, but on a bun, with ketchup, lettuce and tomato I thought it was pretty great. Great enough that I'd order it instead of a normal burger if it was widely available.

We keep beyond burgers stocked at my place in the east bay. Delicious, and not that much more expensive than good ground beef.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#136

Post by venantius »

shanev wrote: post #128
L_Rahman wrote: post #9

I remember reading the original impressions of the Impossible Foods ground meat and thinking it was just media buzz. I promise you it is not. At Momofuku's Ssam Bar in the East Village of NYC, you can order an off menu item called Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes. It's not really off the menu - the item has simply been around so long and is so well known to regulars that they left it off to make room for new dishes.…

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

I've studied the amount of energy and water necessary to produce beef extensively, both at university and professionally, and I can say from experience that it would be extremely difficult for something like the impossible burger to consume more energy and water than the equivalent amount of actual meat.

Meat is expensive in energy and water because it takes huge amounts of vegetable matter and water for a period of _years_ to get to a point where it's consumable; by contrast, said vegetable matter can be produced in typically less than one year.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#137

Post by venantius »

acchow wrote: post #11
L_Rahman wrote: post #9

I remember reading the original impressions of the Impossible Foods ground meat and thinking it was just media buzz. I promise you it is not. At Momofuku's Ssam Bar in the East Village of NYC, you can order an off menu item called Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes. It's not really off the menu - the item has simply been around so long and is so well known to regulars that they left it off to make room for new dishes.…

I tried the Impossible Meats burger - it was nowhere near as tasty as a beef burger. I think it could be improved drastically by just adding a little MSG tho.

I also had the Impossible burger and was not impressed - to me, it was too greasy, and didn't have any real flavor of its own. I would not order it again for pretty much any reason - I actively disliked eating it.

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#138

Post by shanev »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #132
shanev wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

>potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat Please explain this in more detail. >and sequesters carbon/methane as a side effect I have not heard of a farming practice that sequesters methane released from ruminants. Can you provide more information?

>>potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat

>Please explain this in more detail.

Sure! Plants are much less nutrient dense that animals. So for them to create fake meat that's equally nutrient dense as real meat, their farms have to be adequately large. You need a ton of plants to achieve the density of meat. Animals on land however are already nutrient dense. The only physical space they need is enough room to graze.

>>and sequesters carbon/methane as a side effect

>I have not heard of a farming practice that sequesters methane released from ruminants. Can you provide more information?

Scientists and farmers in this area can do a much better job explaining it than I [1], [2], [3].

[1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_worl...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z75A_JMBx4

[3]: https://vimeo.com/80518559

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#139

Post by mikekchar »

acchow wrote: post #11
L_Rahman wrote: post #9

I remember reading the original impressions of the Impossible Foods ground meat and thinking it was just media buzz. I promise you it is not. At Momofuku's Ssam Bar in the East Village of NYC, you can order an off menu item called Spicy Pork Sausage and Rice Cakes. It's not really off the menu - the item has simply been around so long and is so well known to regulars that they left it off to make room for new dishes.…

I tried the Impossible Meats burger - it was nowhere near as tasty as a beef burger. I think it could be improved drastically by just adding a little MSG tho.

I just want to point out that there are lots of ways to get umami. MSG is just one of them (and not really a great way IMHO).

I cooked vegan at home for a long time (I'm not actually an ethical vegan, I just like vegan food). Konbu dashi will give you similar glutamate profiles, but tomatoes, fermented products like shoyu and miso, etc are simple ways to boost the umami as well. Usually the biggest trick in good vegan food is to understand how to balance all of the flavours. Meat based cooking has so many savoury flavours, and if you simply cut out the meat, you end up with overly sweet/sour dishes. They lack depth. If you're designing a dish and you are waiting until the end to figure out how to get the umami in (for example, by adding MSG), then you're really not going to succeed most of the time IMHO. If I want a savoury dish, umami is where I start.

Having said that, I've never made a vegan burger style dish that I've thought was particularly good. I've had some excellent vegan dishes like that at restaurants and I've always wondered how they did it. Since MSG triggers migraines in me, I'm pretty sure it wasn't MSG :-)

Re: Impossible Foods has raised $75M for its plant-based burgers

#140

Post by shanev »

venantius wrote: post #136
shanev wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know for that sure it will reduce the number of animal lives and reduce CO2? Farming the plants needed to produce this fake meat takes up land, potentially (and most likely) more land needed to produce equal amounts of meat. Unless they are running a completely solar operation and managing their farms using a system of rotational grazing that sequesters CO2, they most certainly are emitting it. I see this…

I've studied the amount of energy and water necessary to produce beef extensively, both at university and professionally, and I can say from experience that it would be extremely difficult for something like the impossible burger to consume more energy and water than the equivalent amount of actual meat. Meat is expensive in energy and water because it takes huge amounts of vegetable matter and water for a period of…

Did you study industrial beef production or grass-based holistic management? As far as I'm aware, the latter isn't taught at schools (yet). Although the technique is very old, and based on nature's natural cycle of herd movement, it only caught on again in the early 2000s.

How will said vegetable matter get it's nutrients year after year as the soil it's growing on gets eroded? Wouldn't external fertilizer, pesticides, etc need to be brought in? Doesn't creating that expend huge amounts of energy on it's own?

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