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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

#201

Post by kbart »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #198
kbart wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSG itself is not a problem. Actually, it is so good, you can use lowest quality products, add some MSG and still get tasty meals. I avoid MSG precisely for this reason - I try to eat quality food and you may never know what's behind it when MSG is used.

Do you also avoid salt,because literally the exact same reasoning could be used for salt or any spices

If food in a restaurant is too salty or spicy, I accept that as a signal that chef might be trying to hide something. Contrary to the salt and spices, the problem with MSG that it's hard to tell how much of it was used just by tasting, that's why I try to avoid it at all. I do use salt and spices when I cook at home, but then I rarely have to question the quality of products used. For example, when I cook burger from quality beef, a pinch of salt and black pepper is all I need, then why do you think McDonald's etc. use MSG by the handfuls?

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

#202

Post by Symbiote »

3pt14159 wrote: post #194
mmanfrin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and it's really obnoxious, because there are thresholds where content doesn't have to be listed. For example, a package of tic-tacs will say that it has 0g sugar per serving (a 'serving' being one tic-tac), but the whole (small) package will have something like 20g of sugar.

This is one thing I actually think America does right. I'm the type of person to eat a single tic-tac, but even if I acknowledge that there are failures, it's far easier for me to get a rough sense as to how bad eating something is if it lists it's actual content. Ideally there would be both, but having to do 0.85 * 260 just to get the calorie count for this is just annoying. I do think the design of the labels is co…

That's more-or-less what Sainsbury's (in the UK) did with their products.

Most things must show the amount per serving and the amount per 100g (in common across the EU), but they also show a chart with green/orange/red based on a typical serving size.

Example: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/304/media/images/61458000/jpg/...

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

#203

Post by jmknoll »

shanev wrote: post #138
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 s…

You're right that animal-based foods are much more calorie-dense than plant-based foods. But an animal contains roughly 1/10 of the calories of all the plants that collectively went into feeding it.

The animal's only energy source is plants. Some portion of that energy goes into producing muscle and organ tissue. Some of it is converted to heat. The rest is used for respiration, digestion, thinking, walking around, dreaming, and all the other ongoing processes of life. Animals don't undergo photosynthesis, nor do they spontaneously generate energy.

Unless there's something else you're getting at here. Energy loss and trophic levels is a pretty well-understood idea.

http://kids.britannica.com/students/assembly/view/90132

Admittedly, there is a bit more nuance to the issue; for example, a cow can produce milk and meat from grass, which, for humans, creates available nutrients where there were none before. However, we could also plant that field of grass with corn or potatoes and get many more calories for the same amount of water and sunlight.

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

#204

Post by NoGravitas »

dEnigma wrote: post #177
mikekchar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vega…

Most of the things you list as MSG alternatives actually contain MSG; like tomatoes, konbu dashi, and many fermented products.

Yeah, a lot of times you'll see MSG in ingredients lists as "hydrolysed vegetable protein", or "hydrolysed soy protein". And that's exactly what you're getting in soy sauce, or tomatoes, or konbu dashi -- naturally produced MSG.

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

#205

Post by awkwarddaturtle »

Is it just me or do posts about "vegetarian/vegan" foods, Tesla, or any flavor of the day seem to produce so many suspicious comments?

It looks every other comment is trying to "sell" us something rather than being regular honest commenting. Reminds me of evangelicals or jehovah's witnesses trying to sell me their religion.

Maybe knowing how social media works now has got me cynical.

I'll never become vegetarian and I'll stay an omnivore til I die. It's great that they were able to raise money and hopefully they'll open up options for the vegetarians crowd. But please stop with the Impossible Foods is going to save the world stuff.

Tesla going to save the world. Impossible Foods is going to save the world. Jesus is going to save the world. Goodness.

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

#206

Post by jlebrech »

tptacek wrote: post #102
mrfusion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And msg is generally considered safe these days?

It's never not been safe.

wrong, this is what they used to synthesise MSG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile

I believe some MSG is still made with this and causes migraines and other heart issues, it's mostly phased out though, and can cause mixed reactions as the type of MSG isn't labelled, let alone MSG.

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

#207

Post by jlebrech »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #153
mikekchar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vega…

MSG consumption has never been linked to physical symptoms in a double blind test.[0] It's an abundantly occurring natural amino acid. Kombu dashi is one of the foods where the flavor of MSG was originally identified as umami because it contains MSG. [0] http://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadd...

MSG can be made using toxic chemicals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile

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

#208

Post by jlebrech »

mikekchar wrote: post #139
acchow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vega…

it's all about the quality of the MSG and the manufacturing standards. if you added MSG to foods yourself, you'd know which brands to use or avoid.

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

#209

Post by jlebrech »

campers wrote: post #119
mrfusion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And msg is generally considered safe these days?

I think of it like gluten, or lactose, for most people its fine, but some people definately don't tolerate it and only they need to avoid it. If you have the enzymes required to process it then you're fine, if your genetics are missing something required for processing it then you'll have problems.

just like people with Phenylketonuria and aspartame. Aspartame contains Phenylalanine and can cause issues for some, and it varies from product to product (quality standards). I used to have issues from drinking cheap diet cola.

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

#210

Post by shanev »

cropsieboss wrote: post #200
shanev wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No way anyone can feed cows on grass alone if you want to earn big bucks or feed 200M their daily beef steak.

Do you have data comparing profits from CAFOs vs grass-fed operations? Wouldn't grass fed sellers earn more as it's a premium product?

How did the North American plains support millions of bison just on grass at one point?

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