Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#461

Post by tommit » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

gwd wrote: post #444

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unless worldwide (and particularly US) total meat and dairy consumption drops precipitously.

Right, but "Let's not eat any animals at all ever" is a different target than "Let's raise and kill animals in a way that's ecologically sustainable and humane". I'd argue that working towards #1 is actively working against #2. The other factor that I don't quite get about think-of-the-animals vegans is this: What exactly do you think is going to happen to all those cows and chickens if the entire world becomes veget…

Uhm ... I would personally say yes. First of all, the "painlessly killed" part is pretty wishful thinking/rationalization on your behalf. In many cases, the killing is not at all painful.

Of course the other part makes for a pretty good ethical debate. Is it better to live a miserable life and die and early and unnatural death than it is to never be born at all? There is no right answer, but I myself feel like I wouldn't wish that kind of life on ANY conscious being. Is that a life you would want to life?

Last, none of the think-of-the-animals vegans, as you so nicely put it, would kid themselves about what were to happen to the already existing farm animals, should be stop/greatly reduce our collective meat intake. They are already doomed. They were doomed the second they were given birth to, which brings us back to the original part. Most of us think-of-the-animals vegans would prefer if we could stop doing that going forward.

I'm sorry to shake up your picture of happy little animal-life living chicken and cattle, frolicking on a green meadow, until one day they drop dead and become happy little meals. That is among the most delusional view of modern farming I can think of. Don't buy into the pictures companies put on their products. And if you say "well but I buy my meat from my local butcher..." ok cool. Most people still don't, and won't, and that's the real issue.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#462

Post by belorn » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:51 AM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #232

Gustomaximus wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. I find this interesting, in that cropping has plenty of violent against animals but one step removed. I have a small cattle property, we run on hill country with diversified ecosystem, mixed grass and bushland. We have a heap of native animals living across the property. And at the end of the day the steers do get sent of for slaughter after 18 to 24 mont…

This is a complicated topic, with multiple responses, but I'm only going to touch on one specific aspect of it. Reducing violence in regular farming is an admirable goal that people should strive towards. It's also worth talking about the environmental costs of ingredients like palm oil, and it's worth talking about the human costs of products like cocoa. I don't mean to diminish any of that at all, it's all worth pa…

I have noted that the best way forward would be to create stricter eutrophication laws and tax artificial fertilizers produced from fossil fuels. This would feel very contradicting to vegetarians and vegans, but factory farming would be hit comparable much harder and it would directly address the environmental factors of factory farming without harming biodiversity.

A complicating factor in this discussion is that a large portion of the feed to cattle comes as a by-product from ethanol production in things like bio fuel. The process result in about 1/3 of the original crop becoming fuel, 1/3 becomes feed, and the rest is waste/water. With more and more focus on producing bio fuel, a natural result is the creation of more feed as a by-product.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#463

Post by roel_v » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

toper-centage wrote: post #344

danShumway wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complicated topic, with multiple responses, but I'm only going to touch on one specific aspect of it. Reducing violence in regular farming is an admirable goal that people should strive towards. It's also worth talking about the environmental costs of ingredients like palm oil, and it's worth talking about the human costs of products like cocoa. I don't mean to diminish any of that at all, it's all worth pa…

There was a post of the front-page of reddit a few days ago saying that most Americans are lied to about the fish they are buying in restaurants and supermarkets. I think it hilarious when people like me, urban dwellers, tell me to my face they only buy meat from some small butcher because they only trust him, or some variation of that story. Truth is, we have no idea where our food comes from, labels lie, and seller…

"I think it hilarious when people like me, urban dwellers, tell me to my face they only buy meat from some small butcher because they only trust him, or some variation of that story."

I bought half a pig some time ago; I have a copy of his (probably 'her'?) earmark here next to me on my desk. I get an invitation each year to go watch it when it goes out to pasture for the first time that year. I can choose to have the half delivered to me as a carcass, for me to do my own butchering, or I can choose to have it processed (and I can choose to give away the parts I'm not going to eat, like the blood sausage and the processed head, tails and ears (for which I don't know the English word - it's a grayish slab, often eaten on rye bread here in North-Western Europe; that is, when it's eaten at all, I don't know anyone under the age of 50 who eats it).

Anyway, my point is - it's very much possible to know exactly where meat comes from with small farmers/butchers, even for urban dwellers, to the point that I looked the animal that I ate a part of last night in its eyes several times.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#464

Post by brailsafe » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:54 AM UTC

atweiden wrote: post #365

jb_gericke wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been feeling more conflicted about consuming meat lately, but it's blanket assertions like this that trigger my inner libertarian hard, and I come out swinging. There is considerable evidence suggesting meat consumption contributed significantly to our cerebral expansion ( https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701477?mob... ). Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can…

Human evolution is poorly understood, and the assumption that any choice $X supposedly made by early humans led to our forefathers’ anamolously rapid brain development is flatly speculative. > Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can thank the incredible nutrient density in meat and our incredible hunting and tool creating ability for prefrontal cortex development. Complete and utter…

Whether that specifically is speculation or not, it is a fact that we have adapted to live off of both meat and plants, and are some of the best known generalists (in terms of adaptation), among large land-dwelling animals. Other apes are much better at specific things that help them do what they do (specialists). We're just different, and we gradually became to be that way. There are specially adapted humans as well, less-speculatively as a result of rare rich protein sources like fish, milk. By extension, it's also probably inarguable that certain groups of people would have disappeared completely had it not been for the capability of them to adapt, bioculturally, to a changing world or simply changing circumstances. By saying their claim about meat and big brains is "Complete and utter speculation", you're at least implying that there's very little substance to the claim, and that you have a better explanation with more than a documentary to point to. But why is it that we're not competing with other apes at this moment? Why are we well-adapted to eat animals? Do you have a more substantial proposition?

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#465

Post by lm28469 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:55 AM UTC

dev_tty01 wrote: post #381

atweiden wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel you. I stopped eating meat for 40 years for the same reason. But... they are on the same food chain we are, and they’d eat us in a heartbeat, right? Herbivorous ruminants like cows would never eat you, and would generally never harm you unless provoked. Breeding intelligent lifeforms in a bespoke way to murder them for cash — whatever the reason or creature involved — is diabolically evil. If you do this for…

I absolutely respect your choices and your opinion, but I don't understand them. Is the wolf diabolically evil? No cash involved of course. Is that the issue? What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? Is the hunter morally superior to the farmer who raises a steer, providing clean water, well grassed pasture, and then kills in a humane manner for p…

I'm not even 100% vegetarian myself but looking at how animals are treated repulses me, watch this video and tell me what you think about good and evil again (nsfw): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15Owo7jGtU

--

I think you missed the entire point of the comment you're replying to. It specifically mentions breeding and slaughtering animals, this has nothing to do with wolves or hunters

> Is the wolf diabolically evil?

Do wolves have a sense of good and evil ?

Do wolves talk about the ethical and moral implications of breeding and slaughtering millions of animals every single day ?

> Our digestive systems, our teeth, our nutritional requirements are all tuned to omnivorous consumption. Why is it wrong to exercise our natural nutritional choices, plant and animal, that have resulted from millions of years of evolution?

A lot of people in the west eat meat two or three times a day, sometimes from multiple animals during the same meal, we didn't evolve to do that at all. We didn't evolve to sit all day in front of a computer, but here I am. We didn't evolve to use cars but we almost all do. Using evolution as an argument for anything usually is a very poor choice....

I personally have no issue with the idea of killing to eat, the problem is everything else in the process. We don't have to treat amimals like we do, we don't have to eat so much meat every single day

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#466

Post by apexalpha » Fri, May 07, 2021, 8:57 AM UTC

pibechorro wrote: post #453

100% junk food. These are mostly highly refined oils. All the unhealthy side effects with none of the nutrition, densely packed into real meat. If you want to be meat free, eat vegetables. Portabella burgers are deoicious, as is grilled eggplant, zuccini, etc. All healthy for you. The fake meat trend makes us all more unhealthy. If you have issues with meat, work on addressinf the big farm, big ranch industry which n…

As if the Big Mac is healthy now. We need sustainable replacements for both healthy and unhealthy food. Pick your battles.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#467

Post by roenxi » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #417

dcolkitt wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the difference would be though, that without the demand for meat, those cows would likely never have lived at all. 99%+ of all cows alive are used for human agriculture. From the perspective of any living creature, I generally think of existence as a positive good versus non-existence. I know I certainly would rather come to a violent death at a young age than have never been born at all. I think there's a pl…

Do you view the millions of existences prevented by contraception the same way? Those humans also don’t exist for entirely preventable reasons … This seems like an on its face absurd and pointless argument to me. In these scenarios we are basically talking about unborn hypothetical future cows and from that perspective your argument makes no sense at all. Cattle would obviously continue to exist in some form, even wi…

You've missed the argument - the argument is we have prevented the existence of millions of humans without blinking, many of whom would probably rather exist.

Once we've one that, killing off large numbers of animals is an academic point. Who cares if we kill them by preventing their existence or giving them years of life then killing them? They're the lucky ones who got to be born. If you gave me a choice, I'd rather die and be eaten than never have existed.

I would also rather have been born and die horribly (which may yet happen) than be one of the uncountable infinity of humans who never existed to breath the air.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#468

Post by pibi » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

cies wrote: post #447

pibi wrote: post #442

After "seapiracy" I don't really think we are addressing the biggest issue here. I would like to know if there's anything like that for fish. I would buy anything that tastes like tuna but it's fully vegetable, or any other fishes. Just give me the same taste on my sushi, please.

Yes, it exists for many year. Ask you local vegan community (as product in this field are very different from place to place). We have several vegan sushi places, and the omnis that I know like the food there very much.

Hey, thanks. I'm aware there are so-called alternatives (Banana Blossom, Tofish and such). Unfortunately, from my experience they don't taste like fish yet.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#469

Post by imtringued » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #257

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

All living things die and are eaten by other living things. This isn’t wrong, it is the way nature works. Would you have every living thing just...stay alive forever? That’s not going to happen.

Eating living things isn't the problem. Breeding animals to imprison them their entire life is a problem.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#470

Post by himinlomax » Fri, May 07, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #209

ipaddr wrote: post #170

I'm generally surprised no one brings up the negative health benefits of processed foods. It is not healthier to get rid of meat only to replace it with high salt chemically processed food that tastes like meat. It seems like we are going backwards. You know what uses less greenhouse emissions, less water and less land? The orginal plant based food that gets processed into a beyond burger. If you really care about th…

All food is processed. Cows are genetically engineered. There's no reason to be afraid of simple chemistry. Cranks like Michael Polian have made a fortune selling FUD with no science. Just read a label. Boxed food with a ton of salt and sugar is probably not good for you whether it's corn syrup or agave nectar. Similarly, boxed fiber and protein is perfectly fine. Buying locally is not scalable and fails to take adva…

> Cows are genetically engineered

That's not what processed food means. A slice of steak from a GMO cow is not processed food, except inasmuch as slashing a knife is a process.

Furthermore, more or less traditional cheese is not considered "processed food" in that context even though it is definitely processed for a long time and with significant effort. Nor is wine or sauerkraut for that matter.