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

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

#521

Post by koheripbal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

markonen wrote: post #299

The local burger joint closest to my house is 100% vegan and uses Beyond patties. It’s also, in my opinion, the best burger in town. I’m a carnivore and would definitely notice the difference in a Pepsi challenge of the patties themselves, but the overall taste and presentation make this place pull ahead of all the meat-based alternatives. I feel like we’ve crossed a threshold. This was literal sci-fi just a couple o…

I really wonder if there are special cooking instructions to make them that might be causing so many restaurants to pull them off the menu.

I've tried several Beyond burgers at various restaurants, and all of them were the worst burgers I've ever had. Dry, tasteless, and chewy - absolutely nothing like real meat. Do a degree that I question if they're all being prepared wrong.

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

#522

Post by kosinus » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:24 AM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #492

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…

> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural dea…

I think this is a vague line of reasoning. We want to give animals quality of life, because it’s a humane thing to do, but also slaughter them, which is inhumane. So which is it: is the life of animals just as important, or less?

The same line of reasoning can be applied to humans. We can have really shitty deaths categorised as ‘old age’, yet euthanising is controversial.

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

#523

Post by koheripbal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #195

This is a phenomenon that all too often suffers from the distaste of ruinous empathy [1] and moral superiority. I personally don't care why/how [you] _feel_ about this product. Stories about morality and feelings in the alt food market are insufferable and immediately invoke an epic eye roll. I care about what I eat in this order: 1. Is it healthy? 2. Does it taste good? 3. Is it sustainable? Fake meat, at this point…

Yep... people are missing the obvious point that since the taste is so much worse, Beyond Burgers are just NOT going to sell beyond the population of people that value the ethics over the taste.

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

#524

Post by koheripbal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

apexalpha wrote: post #466

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.

I don't think anyone going to McD's have health in mind.

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

#525

Post by cameronh90 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

cies wrote: post #445

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…

> I admire vegetarians for their genuinely caring moral position Actually vegetarians follow a diet along traditional lines (dairy okay, meat nay), they are not so much into moral positioning. Vegans are the ones making an ethical stance: "no animals harmed for me whenever I have the choice" Hence vegans dont wear wool/silk/leather, dont go to zoos/animal races, and dont consume eggs/dairy.

As a vegetarian maybe I can provide some insight to my position.

The reason I consume dairy and eggs is because I think that fundamentally dairy and egg (honey too) production CAN be ethical, whereas I think intentionally killing an animal for food can never be ethical. I'm aware not everyone shares the same opinion - but for me, killing a conscious being for food is not something I want a part in, even if it had a great life before the slaughter.

However I should also note that I carefully select dairy and eggs I consume, only from organic, free range farms that I've researched. I choose the vegan option if I can't be sure of the provenance of the dairy/eggs. In practice I'm vegan most of the time and consume very little dairy/egg.

I do think I might become some form of vegan in the future though, once I've thought about it more.

However, there are a whole bunch of moral inconsistencies in my position. Per calorie, harvesting certain crops probably kills more conscious beings than certain types of fishing. And I'm not sure certain water creatures (bivalves?) even meet the threshold of consciousness, yet I nevertheless would refuse to eat them.

There are a lot of difficult moral issues at the edges that I think most people ignore. For me, the overall goal of my diet is to try and find a balance between providing me adequate nutrition for a healthy life while reducing overall negative moral and ecological impact to everything that isn't me.

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

#526

Post by koheripbal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:30 AM UTC

rewq4321 wrote: post #435

ram_rar wrote: post #431

Though meatless burgers like beyond may be good for the planet. I'm not sure, if they are healthy for humans. Each serving seems to be very high in sodium (390mg) as compared to lean ground meat (80mg of sodium) [1]. So, for people with high blood pressure, this might be a no no. [1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/impossible-and-beyond-ho...

I don't think people tend to eat plain ground beef though? Flavouring/salt is generally added

I don't salt my burgers at all. Decent ground meat doesn't need to be salted, and still tastes 100x better than beyond meat.

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

#527

Post by dotsam » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:31 AM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #507

dotsam wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is useful to distinguish between 'killing an animal for food' and 'rearing billions of animals each year in factories in conditions in which they suffer, and subsequently killing them for food'. Factory farmed animals does look like a terrible blight on the world to me - what makes you think it isn't?

Factory farming makes meat available to the common man. Without it only rich people could afford meat.

Victorian factory owners might use a similar argument to support using child labour to make cheap goods which the common man can afford; that doesn't mean that child labour is good.

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

#528

Post by tsimionescu » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:32 AM UTC

kosinus wrote: post #522

tsimionescu wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural dea…

I think this is a vague line of reasoning. We want to give animals quality of life, because it’s a humane thing to do, but also slaughter them, which is inhumane. So which is it: is the life of animals just as important, or less? The same line of reasoning can be applied to humans. We can have really shitty deaths categorised as ‘old age’, yet euthanising is controversial.

> but also slaughter them, which is inhumane

This is the very thing I completely disagree with. All living things die, and almost all animals die by being killed by other animals.

Why is it "inhumane" when this killing is done by a human with a sharp knife or electrocution, but it is "humane" when done by a wolf tearing at their throat, or by insects eating them alive?

And euthanasia of people is controversial for many complex reasons, but it is relatively well accepted by most secularists for cases of extreme pain, at least, which is how animals normally die.

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

#529

Post by tommit » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:32 AM UTC

gwd wrote: post #485

tommit wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

> 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. Right, but this goes back to my first paragraph. I would argue that most people do not have the moral effort to entirely give up meat voluntarily. There is some subset of people who are willing to make inconvenient life choices out of consideration of the lives of animals. You can…

That was a wild ride.

> The more people you convince to become vegans, the fewer people are buying "ethical" animal products.

Ok, good. In my mind, it goes no killing > ethical killing > unethical killing. I would try to maximize the amount in the no killing camp. I think I know what you're getting at overall, but I feel like this is in very speculative territory. I doubt that more people going vegan actually increases the amount of unethical killing, but I have nothing to back that up. I don't think you have anything to back it up either, which is why I think this won't lead anywhere. You have a hypothesis, I have a different one. I can only say that from experience, most people "move up" in the camps I defined above. I know I had no trouble destroying a few cheeseburgers just a few years back. At some point I started reflecting, and figured well it's best to buy from a butcher. It took a few years until I was no longer able to rationalize that either. I know pretty much only eat meat if I'm at my grandma's :) That is just to show I'm not religiously vegan, and I'm not trying to make people feel bad for the choices and rationalizations they make.

Regarding your short story: I appreciate the amount of effort you stuck into it, but I'm afraid you lost me throughout. There is just too much presupposing going on, which makes it a little difficult to apply to our ethical dilemma. For one, it completely disregards that we grew these animals in such a way that they're for the most part not able any longer to survive in the wild. I want to believe that the meat you buy comes from cows that had a life equivalent of us having traveled the galaxy and have expressed art and music throughout. But to me this reads like you yourself want to believe that the animals that had to die for your dishes had lives so good that given the choice, they would do it all over again.

This is simply not the case for 90%+ of all meat that finds its way onto a plate. And I will go one step further and say that this short story has not convinced me that the other <10% would choose to.

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

#530

Post by Jack000 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 10:32 AM UTC

King-Aaron wrote: post #348

Jack000 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in an area with "traditional" slaughter techniques. Basically a hog is tied down and its throat is slit, while alive, the animal's heart pumps the blood out into a bucket. This ensures the blood doesn't remain in the meat, which makes it taste gamey. The screaming and thrashing of the pig will haunt you for days but the meat definitely tastes better. Anyways, I dislike the utilitarian/primitist argument bec…

We certainly are lucky to live in a society of plenty where we can make the moral decision on how or what we eat. I don't have any negative thoughts against people who completely opt out of eating meat for that reason. But just to comment on your first point, we would never let an animal suffer like that when we grew up. A quick shot to the temple to switch it off immediately, and then cut and hang the meat to bleed…

My first point is that this type of cruelty is just a basic part of life and survival for the people who practice it. You would condemn it as cruel just as some would condemn you for killing an animal with a gun. I'm just saying it's a rather arbitrary line to draw. How much cruelty is too much and for what purpose? Why would you draw a neat line around your actions and call it moral, then say that anything outside that line is overly cruel?

Note that in my story I did eat the meat - I may have understated how delicious it tasted. Freshly butchered pork made this way is unlike anything I've had in North America. Is killing for sustenance more moral than killing for sport, or for taste?

I don't pass judgement on people who hunt or slaughter animals this way, but I don't buy the idea that killing animals is simply a part of life and above moral consideration - or for that matter GP's argument, that it's perfectly moral to kill animals for food because it's as nature intended.