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Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

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251–260 of 947 posts

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#251
post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

That methane emission meme is not accurate, as simple logic reveals. The methane produced by cows is not going to be significantly more than the equivalent produced by the same amount of plant material left to rot/decompose. One would even have to reasonably theorize and possibly could even conclude that the energy the cow takes out of the plant material to produce milk and meat and heat, actually captures energy tha…

This post is disingenuous at best. Want to cite some credible sources that back it up?

Methane is produced by decomposition in oxygen deprived anerobic environments. Like a cows gut or a tidal bog. Grass rotting in a field will not produce the same levels of methane as grass digested by cows.

And that's not even touching on the rate at which it's released. Are you going to say burning the field is just as bad as letting it decompose because they both release CO2?

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#252
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popular crusade against meat is one of the more misguided. Meat provides far more nutritional value than any plant and the environmental impacts have been greatly exaggerated. See below: Regarding carbon: "removal of livestock in the US would only lead to a net GHG reduction of 2.6% in national emissions. Similarly, removing all dairy would lead to a reduction of just 0.7%. At the same time, both transitions woul…

YMMV, but it's much more than 2.6% in the US. Livestock is 40% of of ag's GHG emissions. https://cfpub.epa.gov/ghgdata/inventoryexplorer/#agriculture... And ag is ~10% of US emissions https://cfpub.epa.gov/ghgdata/inventoryexplorer/#allsectors/... So eliminating livestock would reduce emissions by 4%. With that said, 4% is still low, but it doesn't account for all the GHG emissions needed to grow feed for livestock,…

Yes, and much of the non-livestock emissions from agriculture is from growing plants to feed to livestock!

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer Impossible Burger as a substitute for grounds, but Beyond Meat also makes things like hot dogs and breakfast sausage, which Impossible doesn't.

Impossible makes breakfast sausage. Starbucks has an Impossible breakfast sandwich.

That's great to hear, but they don't appear to sell it publicly yet. It appears to be restaurant-exclusive.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#254

I enjoy eating meat and have no plans of going off of it completely. But we eat so much of it as a culture. And when you add up every hot pocket, frozen pizza, slider, hot dog, or chicken nugget, it's hard to argue that most of meat actually being consumed can't be easily substituted. For something healthier and cheaper too! And I know people blast tech companies for focusing too much on making things flashy and cool…

Yeah and the health arguments tend to fall apart when you get into fast-food/highly processed crap territory, which probably accounts for a large portion of meat consumption in the developed world. Eating less of that stuff is probably a good thing.

That said quality meat is a good source of various nutrients and amino acids that can be difficult to get from plant-based sources, and fish in particular can be farmed very sustainably. I would never consider cutting meat out of my diet.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#255
post #2

This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the docu…

I share the same take with you! Reading some of the discussions going on in the comments, I'm surprised anyone thinks this is anything but good news. Like you said, it means:

1. non-vegetarians & non-vegans have more options. This is great for so many reasons! 2. Demand for beef will go down, which has a positive effect on the environment.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#257
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking it up now I'm surprised to find that the only country with more than 15% of it's population being vegetarian is India. So now I'm somewhat skeptical of this claim. Will definitely need to do more research, but do you have any sources off hand? To be clear I'm looking to vet the claim that a vegetarian diet leads to similar health outcomes compared to a non-vegetarian diet.

There's really no way to answer those outcomes broadly because, for the vast majority of human beings, we don't count our calories or compute the macronutrients in our food. It's very difficult to see this unless you perform the study on twins, since birth, maintaining distinctly separate, perfectly controlled diets. The most consistent take is looking at it from an anthropological perspective - plenty of societies t…

It would be interesting to see the stats of a country like India though, where you don't have confounders like vegetarianism often being a class signal like in the developed world. Although the more I look into it, the more I find that "vegetarian" is a pretty loose label there.

What societies in the past have mainly been vegetarian? None except India seem to persist to this day. I hear the human race took a pretty big hit in the early agricultural era as far as life expectancy goes.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#258
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taco meat [EDIT: in Taco Bell's usage] is a perfect application, since its texture is already squishy and the flavor is dominated by spice. Plus, it's wrapped in a shell and mixed with lettuce and other things. Even a mediocre fake meat is enough to pass. Beyond Meat should have no trouble producing a virtually-indistinguishable taco meat.

Jack In The Box has been using textured vegetable protein instead of meat forever. Most people don't even realize it's not meat.

2 for $1 Jack tacos are absolutely phenomenal for the price.

Re: Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

#259

And their stock dropped 5% today.... good time to buy!

This was already discussed last week and it was essentially a PR stunt.

Can you elaborate? I was wondering why the stock dropped. What's the PR stunt and why has the price dropped?
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