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How to lower the price of plant-based meat

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Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#561

Post by thejynxed »

gedy wrote: post #371
gedy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I was raised (American) vegetarian from birth, and my parents did not consider the nutrition I needed when they cooked and I had anemia, underweight, etc. I was healthier after starting to eat meat at age 14

LOL that this personal fact was downvoted.

It shouldn't have been, because many plant-based dishes do not include the same amount of nutrients if they are cooked as opposed to consuming the raw vegetable ingredients, and people are either unaware of this entirely or completely neglect taking it into account in regards to actual nutritional value. That's before we even address nutrient bio-availability of ingredients pre-and-post preparation. You will always see tons of people crow about how many vitamins and other nutrients certain foods have, but they rarely if ever mention that with many of them you'd have to eat a dump truck full of it to even approach your daily recommended value because your body simply refuses to process much of it and passes it on as waste.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#562

Post by GordonS »

Clewza313 wrote: post #560
GordonS wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if you are used to eating processed food, but as someone who almost always cooks meals from scratch, this list of ingredients doesn't look appealing. If I was buying a chicken breast, there wouldn't even be a list of ingredients. "textured wheat protein" - no idea what it, but it sounds disgusting, and very highly processed. I'd presume it also contains gluten? "potato protein" - again, it sounds like something…

Konjac is a plant that has been eaten in East Asia for thousands of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjac And if you find yeast "revolting", I take it you don't like bread or beer either?

Of course not (tho when baking bread I do find the smell of the yeast on it's own to be quite unpalatable). My point is that I don't expect to find yeast in the ingredients list for "meat", and that was simply my initial reaction.

I know it wasn't your point, but as an aside: isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed from most commercially produced beer? (depending on the style, obv)

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#563

Post by belorn »

hannob wrote: post #30

Interestingly it doesn't even discuss the obvious solution: Let people who buy real meat pay for the externalities. (Interestingly even in places where there's some form of carbon pricing - like the EU - this often doesn't cover a large share of emissions from meat production, as methane emissions are very relevant here - I'm not aware of any methane pricing scheme anywhere.)

The externalized cost of carbon released into the atmosphere is an interesting problem in that we need to define where and when it should be paid. As an illustrated early sample of this, the burning of biomass is considered carbon neutral because all the carbon released was once absorbed by the plant when it grew.

In agricultural, we have added carbon which starts out as natural gas. It then get used to create synthetic fertilizer. The fertilizer is used to grow feed crops, which then the animals eat. The manure is then either dumped or kept for creating new bio gas or sold to organic farms that uses it as an alternative to synthetic fertilizer. The organic farms can then sell feed to more farms, but at lower and lower yields given the same input carbon from the first synthetic fertilizer, or crops that people eat.

One alternative is that each instance pay for carbon it handles, in which case we don't care if carbon is added or not. We could also tax the first instance where the carbon is introduced to the system. A different system could attempt to tax what we find to be the incentive for the system.

Personally I would tax the externalities of synthetic fertilizer because that is instance where extra carbon get added, and it solves part of the controversial issue of biomass production being labeled as carbon neutral when using fertilizer. It will also make animal feed more expensive for factory farms, while grazing animals farms in low population areas can benefit from being more ecological to the environment.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#564

Post by xorcist »

Aerroon wrote: post #275
markdown wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. People elsewhere in the world pay 50% to 100% more than what Americans pay for beef. Removing some subsidies and making beef slightly more expensive would save money and people would just eat beef one day less/week.

And they'll replace their meat with what? More sugar? Bread? Sugary bread? I think you underestimate how big of a deal food is to people. I believe that any change will be towards food that's even worse for people.

For many people, those calories doesn't need to be replaced with anything.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#565

Post by adrianN »

thejynxed wrote: post #559
adrianN wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes exactly the same amount of effort to make vegetarian food as it takes to make a dish with meat, cooking some lentils with vegetables and cottage cheese takes literally twenty minutes for example. And we're currently discussing why meat substitutes are expensive and how to lower the prices.

I can make a complete surf-n-turf meal for a shorter amount of time than that, on top of the fact many people hate things like lentils and cottage cheese. When discussing meat replacements, you have to not just look at cost, but what people are actually willing to eat and take time making when given any choice whatsoever (and most people will choose things that take less time and do not taste like lentils and cottage…

Many people hate surf and turf. How about we don't start a pointless discussion about individual foods when there are endless variations at all levels of preparation complexity both with and without meat?

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#566

Post by Grustaf »

netrus wrote: post #549
Grustaf wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is much closer to my standpoint then. I think it’s silly to imitate meat, when there are plenty of delicious vegetarian dishes. For example tofu dishes.

How is that different from saying: "It's silly to eat Indian food [prepared by Americans] when there are plenty delicious American dishes"? No one is forced to eat fake meat, but as vegetarian who likes burgers, how am I silly for eating fake meat burgers? I also eat tofu, vegetables, Indian, Italian, and Vietnamese food, and I think variety is a nice thing to have. Silly me.

Indian food with real, low processed ingredients is of course better than ultra processed fake meat.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#567

Post by Grustaf »

jayphen wrote: post #539
Grustaf wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is much closer to my standpoint then. I think it’s silly to imitate meat, when there are plenty of delicious vegetarian dishes. For example tofu dishes.

During my life as a vegetarian/vegan I regularly consume “fake meat” products because they are simple to prepare and allow me to use recipes that are not vegetarian. For example, it’s extremely hard to find a good vegetarian burger — the beyond burger was a revelation the first time I tried it. I still like burgers, even though there are many wonderful vegetarian dishes. I didn’t stop eating meat because I don’t like…

Maybe in that dystopian future where bacon doesn’t exist and I get very nostalgic for the carbonara of my childhood, sure.

But that’s not quite what we’re discussing. Meat exists but some people want to go vegetarian without sacrificing anything. I suppose it’s pretty similar to the logic of people who want to lose weight without giving up sweets or soda, so they switch to aspartame versions.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#569

Post by dTal »

danShumway wrote: post #416
Sevii wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a strategic perspective grain is the most important thing in a food shortage. People can live a year or two without fruit or vegetables, but without the calories in grain things will get violent fast.

I'm not going to dismiss it outright, but I am mild-to-medium skeptical of this theory. Take a look at some of the recent years of subsidies listed on https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total&yr... . It's not just that we prioritize feed crops more than oranges, we also prioritize feed crops more than potatoes and root vegetables. Our corn subsidies are on average over twice as high as our wheat subs…

>Maybe this is the result of a highly researched government program about how to survive a worldwide famine. But the numbers I'm seeing aren't doing a lot to convince me that famine planning is a more likely cause than lobbying.

Your skepticism is warranted. After all, we had a highly researched government program about how to effectively tackle a worldwide pandemic, and... well.

Re: How to lower the price of plant-based meat

#570

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

danShumway wrote: post #361
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you're raising an interesting point but this is not about meat vs. not meat (or "what kind of meat"). For instance, I was recently made aware that about 80% of the milk sold in Greek supermarkets (I'm Greek) is UHT ("long-life"). That goes for the milk displayed in refrigerated isles . OK? Supermarkets put UHT milk in the fridge - so people will think it's fresh. Most likely it's the dairy companies that direct…

Okay, but you're arguing for better labeling in general about food production, ingredients, and storage -- not that people shouldn't be able to use the word "meat" on a Morningstar package. I mean, I would love if every product was clearly labeled whether it contained animal by-products, it would save me from having to read ingredients on everything. It's annoying to have to check to see whether a loaf of bread in th…

I agree about the world "milk", for example in Greece we call fig sap "fig milk". But calling nut paste or beans "meat" grates.

Anyway my ocncern is that most consumers are at the point where they don't understand the difference between animal milk and plant milk, or even animal meat and plant-based meat substitutes, because they're used to so much over-processed food that they don't recognise the tastes of ordinary foodstfufs anymore.

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