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Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

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Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#131

Post by goodpoint »

samuli wrote: post #32
scantis wrote: post #7

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is a…

86% of feed is grown on land [1], which is not suitable for growing human food crops. [1]: https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-mor...

This is plain false. Please find reputable sources.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#132

Post by shrikant »

sokoloff wrote: post #57
joshjob42 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but they say in the article that "Pricing, which has already come down, could match beef as early as the end of the year, [Impossible's CEO] says, as his costs continue to improve with increased efficiency.“ That suggests to me that certainly by sometime in '24 we ought to see Impossible Beef down to cost parity with 80/20 (so ~$5/lb or so) which I think would really start to drive a transition. I'd certainly n…

I can regularly buy 80/20 ground beef at $3/lb at the retail level (family pack, on sale) and I’m sure commercial food service is buying it cheaper than I’m buying it at retail. The transition acceleration happens closer to $2.50/lb than $5/lb, IMO. Even matching beef price would be significantly welcome progress though, as one of my kids eats vegetarian. It doesn’t taste “better” to most people, so the transition ha…

IMHO, this sort of thing is not really going to be a consumer-driven change.

If the commercials for meat alternatives are compelling enough even in the face of lobbies and subsidies, capitalism will drive the big fast food chains to market these more aggressively at more attractive price points and nudge consumer preferences in that direction.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#133

Post by dkrich »

Beyond meat breakfast sausage is an amazing product. Real sausage is gross to me and beyond tastes better and I never have to worry about eating a ground up bone. I make it on an almost daily basis.

Expensive? Yes. Healthy? Maybe not but can’t be worse than real sausage.

The burgers I’m not crazy about but still eat them from time to time. The chicken is gross.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#134

Post by goodpoint »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #17
scantis wrote: post #7

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is a…

Turns out beating nature is pretty hard. Cows look basically like processing plants. They produce food, fertilizer and energy (biogas).

Quite the opposite. Animal farming is proven to be incredibly inefficient.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#135

Post by SiempreViernes »

johnywalks wrote: post #56
monero-xmr wrote: post #9

It doesn’t taste that good, it smells weird when cooked, it isn’t actually healthier, it’s typically more expensive than real meat as it’s “premium”, the nutritional value is suspect… the list goes on and on

Tough choice. Weird goo that was grown in a lab by people that have no idea what they're doing OR natural food we've been eating since the dawn of time.

The idea that the American beef industry produces anything like the meat primeval hunter gatherers subsisted on is hilarious!

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#136

Post by charcircuit »

gambiting wrote: post #90
dvh wrote: post #80

[flagged]

>>Nobody actually wants to eat artificial meat Are you just projecting your own preference on others maybe? Both me and my wife are meat eaters and we happily get "meat-like" burger patties and sausages at least once a week - it makes for a nice break from having meat all the time, even though we both like meat. And the options nowadays are pretty good, so why not eat them?

No, he means that it never got PMF. Not that 0 people want to eat it. If it had PMF it wouldn't be called a flop.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#137

Post by dubcanada »

I’d feel better if the ingredients list wasn’t as long as my arm. I know it’s a bunch of stuff to make it look like meat, but it’s basically cow meat vs a burger containing 50 random items and chemicals that is worse or equal in nutritional content then cow.

Like one impossible vs cow is 14g of fat vs 16g of fat. 370mg of sodium vs 90mg of sodium.

They are not even that much better for you.

Rather than trying to get meat eaters to eat a sort of cow type burger. Just make the regular veggie burgers better and cheaper. If people go to the store and see cow for $15 and a delicious veggie that is not sawdust for $10 some will buy the cheaper. And that’s all it takes is some. Slowly and over generations it could change to be predominantly.

You can’t just shove a fake meat product down a meat lovers throat and call them a bad name if they hate it.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#138

Post by gambiting »

charcircuit wrote: post #136
gambiting wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Nobody actually wants to eat artificial meat Are you just projecting your own preference on others maybe? Both me and my wife are meat eaters and we happily get "meat-like" burger patties and sausages at least once a week - it makes for a nice break from having meat all the time, even though we both like meat. And the options nowadays are pretty good, so why not eat them?

No, he means that it never got PMF. Not that 0 people want to eat it. If it had PMF it wouldn't be called a flop.

What's PMF?

Also - "nobody" doesn't mean "most people don't". It literally means 0 people.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#139

Post by watwut »

j-pb wrote: post #65
jslql wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat and milk are basic foods.

And vegan alternatives are not? Meat was a luxury product not eaten every day for most of history and still is in most parts of the world. Given the environmental impact of Meat and Diary in terms of CO2, Methane, Water usage, and Deforestation we should heavily reconsider our nonchalant view of them as a cheap commodity.

Same goes for vegetables. That being said, animal milk drinking is not something new at all. And in "traditional" setup, milk availability is massive improvement nutritionally/health wise over no milk.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#140

Post by Escapado »

virtualritz wrote: post #100

In Germany this is simply not true. All supermarket chains, at least in the cities, now have a considerate selection of plant based meat and it sells like bread. Yes, it is sadly more expensive than real meat for now. Still -- vegan burger patties are regularly sold out.

Can confirm, but would add that "more expensive" depends on the exact brand and what kind of meat you compare it to. Even the more expensive faux meat products are often cheaper or very comparable to their organic counterparts. But if you take for example the supermarket brand version of the products, they are often around 33% cheaper than products from gourmet garden oder beyond. Protip: Ikea sells frozen meat ball alternatives. They are SO good and pretty cheap.
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