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Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

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Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#61
post #30

I don't know why some people want vegetarian food to taste like meat. I enjoy eating meat, but the best vegetarian foods that I had did not taste like meat at all, and it is how it should be. It's like with sugar, if I want to avoid consuming it, I don't replace it with sweetener, I just don't put the sugar in and enjoy the untainted taste of the other ingredients.

I also thought this when I was still eating meat, but changed my tune rapidly when I went vegan. Frankly, if I'm craving a comfort food like a beef burger, I want something that hits as close to home as that beef burger without being a beef burger. I can have a bean burger, or some other food that doesn't try to be meat, but that's not what I need to fulfil my current craving.

It's not trying to be this "best vegetarian food that you had that did not taste like meat at all, how it should be". It shouldn't be like anything. Both food options can co-exist. You're completely misinterpreting the niche it's filling. If I want tasty food, I'll eat something that's veg-based and tasty, not mock-meat. 90% of my diet is curries, chillies, stews or stir-fry's and I'm more than satisfied - but if I crave something that I can't/won't eat, you bet your arse I'm going to go for the worse tasting, greasy, salty, crave fulfilling option, be it an Impossible burger or some crappy cardboard tasting mock-meat.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#62
post #30

I don't know why some people want vegetarian food to taste like meat. I enjoy eating meat, but the best vegetarian foods that I had did not taste like meat at all, and it is how it should be. It's like with sugar, if I want to avoid consuming it, I don't replace it with sweetener, I just don't put the sugar in and enjoy the untainted taste of the other ingredients.

As a life long vegetarian I agree, however for me when things taste more like their meat analogues they offer up more traditional flavor combinations. And when they cook similar to their meat analogues, they offer up more preparation possibilities. Ex, cooking tofu on the grill will never get a good sear like a Beyond Burger allows.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#63
post #36
post #3

It’s a burger. It’s not meant to be consumed daily and it switching to it or other plant based burger decreases the amount of meat consumed. No matter what it’s a much better deal than going in to a mcdonalds / whatever and getting the burger of the month from there.

If you go to McDonalds and order a burger with fries and a coke, then surely just changing the actual meat in the burger to a Beyond Meat burger is going to have close zero effect on the overall "healthiness" of that meal.

I would be totally fine with that. The goal here isn't to force feed everyone healthier food, it's to inch us closer to a more sustainable and humane nutritional pipeline.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#64
post #60
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating the oil in its natural form, together with the whole olive, is not the same as eating the oil separately. The effect that has in your digestive system is not the same. Another example is eating fructose extract instead of a whole fruit. Eating the whole fruit does not spike your blood sugar, unlike eating the equivalent amount of fructose. Also, it does not satiate as much. Compare the satiety of eating 10 oli…

>We humans have evolved to eat the whole foods, not highly processed food extracts You picked olives, so...what exactly is great about eating a raw, unprocessed olive? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/t...

This was a fascinating read, thanks.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#65
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A beef patty is in essence just a steak, ground up, and mushed together. Some beef patties are ground steak. Others use mechanically recovered meat, where the bones left after butchering are sprayed with high pressure water to blast off any remaining scraps of meat. One country had significant health scare where MRM was thought to be the highest risk product: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1482140.stm

Can you still buy MRM beef patties in the US? From what I can find the process has been banned since 2004

The US still allows "pink slime", which is a different form of MRM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime#Current_use

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#66
post #60
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating the oil in its natural form, together with the whole olive, is not the same as eating the oil separately. The effect that has in your digestive system is not the same. Another example is eating fructose extract instead of a whole fruit. Eating the whole fruit does not spike your blood sugar, unlike eating the equivalent amount of fructose. Also, it does not satiate as much. Compare the satiety of eating 10 oli…

>We humans have evolved to eat the whole foods, not highly processed food extracts You picked olives, so...what exactly is great about eating a raw, unprocessed olive? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/t...

Eating whole foods is not about eating raw, that is different.

I don't think the argument to eating raw makes much sense either, as we are the only animal on the planet that has evolved to eat cooked food and that has been the case for maybe a couple of millions of years, at least much longer than the human species (which goes back to aprox. 200k years).

The olives that we eat as appetizers are cured or sun-dried, because the raw olive tastes horribly indeed.

So there is some treatment of the food to make it edible, or some cooking involved.

But this is very different than extracting an oil and discarding the rest of the food, together with all of its fiber and most of its nutritional content.

It's like taking a fruit and only eating its sugar, one is healthy and the other is not.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#67
post #51
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not, different oils have just different mix of different fats, determining consistence at different temperatures. Micro-nutrients are overestimated; you do not eat olives or drink olive oil because you want to get "micro-nutrients", like you would not prefer brown sugar to white sugar just because there is a very little amount of vitamins. Every substance to have a meaningful positive or negative effect has…

I too used to use olive oil every day, but now I haven't used it for years. It's one of the main sources of hidden calories in food, it's very hard to lose weight without cutting it. One tablespoon of olive oil is 120 empty calories, no fiber, no protein and no carbs, minimal volume, almost zero satiety. Yet it has the same caloric amount as a large banana. I don't think micro-nutrients are over-estimated, they are e…

Your body needs fat. Also, olive oil contains plenty of antioxidants, and Vitamin K and E - so the claim that it is just empty calories is pointless.

Also, just a thought game for you: if I were to claim that your carbs are just empty calories, and my fat covers those calories too, what would your response be? Because the body can create carbs from fat and fat from carbs, so that point is kinda moot. Just pointing out the calorie content of an oil is not a negative against it. An average man need ~2000 kcal daily, and an average women needs ~1500. Just by carbs and proteins alone, that would mean 400g+ of that intake. Why?

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#68
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, processed meat is a known carcinogen https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/kno... Doubt these processed plant based foods are very health promoting, but we at least don’t know for a fact that they’re carcinogenic.

>processed meat I'm pretty sure what they're getting at here is something like a salami or cured bacon. Not simply ground beef.

Yup, I did a literature review of this 5+ years ago, and that is normally how the term is defined in the literature.

I suspect that frozen burgers may be included in this (depending on ingredients), but ground mince converted into burger patties definitely isn't.

Re: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation

#70

I don't think anyone is arguing that these burgers are healthier than eating salmon and broccoli. Just healthier and more environmentally friendly than ground beef. His complaint is > 8/ My larger concern on both of these burgers is that - at minimum - they are HIGHLY processed products with lots of stuff that doesn't lead to healthier humans: vegetable oils, soy, protein isolates, additives, all non-organic. They ar…

> I don't think anyone is arguing that these burgers are healthier than eating salmon and broccoli. Just healthier and more environmentally friendly than ground beef.

I can't speak for environmental friendliness, but I doubt these burgers are "healthier" than ground beef (especially from humanely raised cattle), which I eat on daily basis. Come meet me in person and tell me that I look unhealthier.

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