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Beyond Meat fights for survival

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Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#491

Post by joseda-hg »

biztos wrote: post #397
santoshalper wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea was that Beyond Meat would be a "transitional" product that would provide an ever growing vegetarian/vegan population an option that was familiar to them. For example, if you do not care about celebrating vegetables, and just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat, then a beyond burger was supposed to be for you. The biggest problem they have is the exhorbinant prices, which releg…

> just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat Does that actually describe a commercially relevant segment of the population? Intuitively, having known a lot of vegetarians, I'd expect the people whose primary concern is animal cruelty to be specifically turned off by realistic fake meat.

I'm not vegetarian, but I have a family member that is

He never disliked the taste, on the opposite, he enjoyed, but didn't stand by the means neccessary to put it in his plate

So eventually he stopped eating it, but having always been a curious eater, he's always missed a taste similar to meat

As far as he's told me Burguers and some kinds of Chorizo are passable enough, but still, depends on presentation and it's been so long I don't know if his comparissons are still good

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#492

Post by PaulHoule »

throwpoaster wrote: post #419
hellcow wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'we can do it and it may get more people to eat vegetarian.' That's a noble goal in and of itself. Every step to reduce environmental impact and animal cruelty has value. Beyond and Impossible were my "off-ramp" from eating meat every meal to exploring vegetarianism and veganism. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Animal agriculture converts scrub land into carbon sinks that produce food.

It can. In permaculture models where you are not supplying a lot of inputs and able to cycle 100% of the manure back on grass it's great. In 20 years of running a horse farm the quality of our pasture and hay has been steadily getting better because we've been building soil.

Apply huge amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to grow corn, badly contaminating the Mississippi river and creating a dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico, feeding animals in CAFO where discarding of the manure is a problem and that's something different.

Real life systems are a little more complex than that as a cow might be grown up on scrub land and then fattened up at a CAFO for the last few months. Who knows what the long term fate of land that is cleared in the Amazon rain forest is.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#493

Post by AlecSchueler »

twic wrote: post #353
adammarples wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know I've been in Bristol and Cornwall last week and was always asked. I guess you can extend that to anywhere they might reasonably expect a Londoner to turn up.

It's more about the density of hipsters than Londoners per se. Lots of Londoners go to Canvey Island for a holiday, but you probably won't get oat milk there, because it's not that kind of Londoner. Bristol and the West Country are crawling with their own local hipsters. (actually, you probably will oat milk on Canvey, it really is everywhere now)

> Bristol and the West Country are crawling with their own local hipsters.

So it isn't only London then?

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#494

Post by joseda-hg »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #440
santoshalper wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea was that Beyond Meat would be a "transitional" product that would provide an ever growing vegetarian/vegan population an option that was familiar to them. For example, if you do not care about celebrating vegetables, and just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste of meat, then a beyond burger was supposed to be for you. The biggest problem they have is the exhorbinant prices, which releg…

The miss the taste of meat thing anecdotally doesn’t happen to my vegetarian friends. It is like without exposure they actually lose the taste for meat. They will even get nauseous if they smell it cooked because their senses are so un primed for meat by that point.

Maybe being surrounded by other vegetarians changes this outcome?

Anecdotically, the few (~5) people around me that have gone long stints without meat, never went as far as getting nauseous, but all of them took special care when reintroducing it to their diets

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#495

Post by JumpCrisscross »

evrimoztamur wrote: post #307
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything comes down to world population This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. > even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost' Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored.

HN Bio: FinTech + Space + B2C angel & seed investor. Jackson Hole local; frequently in New York and the Bay Area. Yeah, I can see why degrowth looks extreme to you. It must be rather frightening to lose your sense of control, comfort, and purpose in an unsustainable path.

> why degrowth looks extreme to you

To me personally? It’s fine. I work fewer hours than I did a decade ago, and generally travel and consume less than I did then too.

The wealthy can do with degrowth fine since degrowth implies deflation. The wealthy were doing fine before the agricultural revolution, too, for example.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#496

Post by zahlman »

submeta wrote: post #100

The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don’t believe that. I rather see more and more friends and people avoid eating meat or reduce their consumption drastically. Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when ordering a coffee. But these days many do. I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four…

> Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when ordering a coffee. But these days many do.

There was a period of my life when I went dairy-free as part of investigating some health issues. At first I bought almond milk. It was clearly not an adequate replacement, and rather expensive, so I quickly ended up just dropping it entirely. I can't imagine a point to using these alternatives in coffee (or tea) — I'd sooner use an artificial whitener, or again just go without (although still with plenty of sugar, knowing me).

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#497

Post by Saline9515 »

cj wrote: post #385
scythmic_waves wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for breaking that down. As someone doing weightlifting, this is the primary reason I don't bother with vegetarian meats. They actually taste pretty good IMO, but they don't offer nutritional benefits commensurate with animal meat. It's a shame, really. I'd gladly incorporate them if I could get a similar protein : calorie ratio.

I dunno. I track macros religiously with daily protein/fat/carb targets for weight lifting. I don't care much about the macros of each individual meal (or any individual ingredient). When dinner comes around, I'm cooking whatever meal will let me hit my targets for the day. If I already got most my protein in, I'll happily eat something with "bad" protein/calorie ratio. Granted, 99% of people don't track food intake,…

Out of curiosity, how do you get 150g/day of full proteins?

For instance, eating lentils, which is one of the most proteinated vegetable, bring 18g of proteins per 100g, along with 40g of carbs. You also have to eat a comparable amount of cereal to get a full protein chain.

Given that amount of proteins you mention, this requires eating a very large volume of food (cereals and graminacae swell with water during cooking).

I always wondered how vegetarians could reach a highly proteinic diet as a result!

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#498

Post by Saline9515 »

graublau wrote: post #354
actsasbuffoon wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bulk of the harm from ultra-processed foods was specifically from meats, with smaller contributions coming from sugary drinks and dairy desserts. It’s the pink slime, reconstituted McRib, and hot dogs that are causing the most significant health problems. Beyond burgers have no cholesterol, hormones, or antibiotics. They’ve got significantly lower saturated fats. Studies have shown that swapping out regular burge…

9/10 doctors recommend beyond meat can be part of a healthy diet.

"More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarettes!" https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/doctors-smoking/more...

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#499

Post by zahlman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #111
submeta wrote: post #100

The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don’t believe that. I rather see more and more friends and people avoid eating meat or reduce their consumption drastically. Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when ordering a coffee. But these days many do. I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four…

Beyond Meat is industrial plant-based protein. The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants. That means their market is is poor and lower middle-class folks—hence the distribution through fast food and mid-grade grocery channels. They’re not buying plant-based proteins. (The conscientious are already eating plants.) Beyond Meat is broken as a mass-market brand. It should be restructured as a niche play.…

> The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants.

I have never understood the implicit premise here.

I can get a 4 lb. bag of split yellow peas for $6 CAD locally without even trying to look for a sale; most of my supply has been purchased at about $4. By weight, it's on par with raw ground beef for protein content, and 4 lb. of that would cost several times as much.

Re: Beyond Meat fights for survival

#500

Post by JumpCrisscross »

9dev wrote: post #392
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything comes down to world population This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied greatly across time and countries. > even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost' Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental movement falls for it, it should be ignored.

Is it? Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth. Even if it isn’t us, there will be a last generation that enjoys growth as the motor of wealth. At some point, resources will deplete and the standard of living will decrease as a consequence. This is logically inevitable. Everyone just pretends this can go on and on without stopping, but tha…

> Even the most simple person should understand that a closed system with finite resources won’t sustain infinite growth

As you say, this is simple.

Growth doesn’t require increasing use of finite resources. A more-productive widget can (and generally is) less material intensive than its predecessor. The material and even energy intensity of GDP has been falling in the developed world for decades. Value is subjective; its substrate isn’t finite. A world of artists producing digital works could be incredibly materially unintensice, but still feature growth, as an absurd example.

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