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Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

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Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#651
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you care about environmentalism then you should resonate with the fact that 68% of the Amazon is Burnt for pastures for Cattle Farming. 28% is Burnt for Agriculture, of which 60% is for soybeans, of which 77% are shipped overseas for livestock feed. That means at least 80% is burned for livestock or livestock feed. Since part of the palm oil and other plant produced is also used for livestock feed that number prob…

If we can't eat all the meat we want without destroying the planet, that tells me we need to manage down the population, not the standard of living. I'm not willing to give up one single shred of my standard of living to this braindead cram as many people as possible on the planet challenge.

Good news! We're on our way to do both, scale down the population AND the standard of living!

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#652
post #607
post #481

This editorialized link title and the article's headline itself doesn't really match the article's content (as is increasingly common it seems). Sure, Beyond Meat has had lower sales- but soon after they mention that retail sales of Impossible meat products increased 50% in 2022- with an odd "but the CEO left so they're in trouble" assessment which seems a bit bonkers. Then the author seems to say that because fake m…

A friend and I did a (literal) blind taste test with impossible/USDA organic beef/beyond. I was excited to do this as we don't get Impossible in Europe. We baked our own buns etc, cooked to temp with a probe, got some nice cheese on top good stuff. We also did a blind tests of the proteins on their own, and in a plain burger. Neither of us had any trouble picking out which product was which, but it was really interes…

>but I think if it's cooked well-done in a ragu or meatballs, it would be more difficult to tell. The main complaint I have is that it both can be quite hard to form and have a tendency to turn into sludge.

Agreed on this point and its why most of the time I buy some of the pre-done items (meatballs most often) that I think taste good and work out pretty well.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken is not red meat, and also it's an healthy meat ( not sure if in USA chickens are pumped with weird stuff that makes them unhealthy ), you can make a light version of schnitzel by using chicken breast ( mostly protein, low fat ), some healthy oil like EVO oil to shallow fry it, and you should be good ( also if you are worried about cholesterol you can avoid eggs and use other ingredients like oil to make the b…

In case you were responding specifically to GP's mention of "chicken fried steak": it's beef, not chicken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_fried_steak

I translated "cotoletta" into "Schnitzel" to give an immediate idea of the dish to the reader ( because Schnitzel is more famous ), but in Italian cotoletta can be both with chicken or pork or beef, the recipe is the same with every meat ( beat the meat, bread it, shallow fry it )

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware of factory farming. As I explained in my statement, cows are finished at factory farms. It’s very clear that you have a very surface level understanding of how the American cattle industry works. At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain. Unlike chickens and pigs, the American cattle industry is decentralized. Cows are raised on a series of different types of r…

> As I explained in my statement, cows are finished at factory farms No. They live there from birth to death. A factory farm is not a slaughterhouse. You seem to mistake them for it. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/factory-farmed-cows > At no point did I claim anything about how cows don’t consume a massive amount of grain. You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows…

> They live there from birth to death.

Citation needed, no where in your source does it substantiate your claim that cows are reared on factory farms, where they subsequently live out their lives.

> You actually did. You said in repeated comments to me and others that in the west the cows consume grass.

Because they do feed on grass.

Look I get it, you clearly care about animal welfare, which is a good thing, but I was not making the argument you think i was making. Disagreeing with a factually incorrect statement does not mean I am an advocate for the meat industry.

The story is more complicated than you make it out to be, and it is important to have it right. Cows in America start on grass and finish on grain, this is a fact. This does no imply that there isn’t a huge amount of grain used in the process. The food inefficiency criticism is true, it is, however, untrue to say that cows spend their entire lives in CAFOs.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been slowly cutting meat out of my diet, and stopped eating beef a few years ago. I think Impossible burgers are too close to beef for me- I feel ill after eating them and no longer do. Much prefer the classic veggie/bean patties

I really doubt it was the "similarity to meat" that gave you those symptoms (though obviously there is no way for me to verify that, so you have the last word on what happens in your own body). Anyway - there is a great comment that I saved ( https://www.facebook.com/david.zilber/posts/pfbid02CkCY53qDd... ) "Here’s a pesky little chemical called hexanal. If you’ve ever eaten a beyond burger, or any of these plant bas…

Under/mis-processed legumes are always kinda low-grade toxic. Soaking is OK. Good live tempeh fermentation is amazing.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#657
post #7

If any of the planet saving meat substitute promises are true, such a fake meat patty would cost a tenth of the beef equivalent and it would dominate the market. I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is a…

Fake meat isn't just inferior to real meat. It's inferior to just plain old vegetables. It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits. They're not trying to cook the best vegetable dishes. They're not trying to cook dishes that use less meat. They're not trying to expand your palettes and reintroducing liver, sweetbreads or other weird cuts. All these "green" products convince you to not do the…

Except, despite all the hate because it's not "unprocessed" (a stupid categorization), it does REDUCE: No more need to stuff a meat machine with plant based products for a 10% or worse ROI. BAM. REDUCTION.

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#658

Here's the thing. You might see a lot of these plant-based meat options in grocery stores and think "it's certainly not a flop! look at the grocery store sales!" But now take a look at the major industry players. JBS, Tyson, Danone, etc. The ones with more capital than you can imagine and every reason to consider plant-based product lines. Track their PR timeline over the past 5 years and it's easy to see that they t…

>JBS, Tyson, Danone

It is in the best interests of these companies to preserve the status quo of sub-par veggie burgers

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#659
post #481

This editorialized link title and the article's headline itself doesn't really match the article's content (as is increasingly common it seems). Sure, Beyond Meat has had lower sales- but soon after they mention that retail sales of Impossible meat products increased 50% in 2022- with an odd "but the CEO left so they're in trouble" assessment which seems a bit bonkers. Then the author seems to say that because fake m…

Yes they are more available now, I live in the Spanish countryside and there is an abundance of plant-based meat options around me. Nuggets, burgers, schnitzels, even made into local tapas (alas, frozen).

Re: Plant-based meat is turning out to be a flop

#660
post #481

This editorialized link title and the article's headline itself doesn't really match the article's content (as is increasingly common it seems). Sure, Beyond Meat has had lower sales- but soon after they mention that retail sales of Impossible meat products increased 50% in 2022- with an odd "but the CEO left so they're in trouble" assessment which seems a bit bonkers. Then the author seems to say that because fake m…

The fundamental problem is that everyone has a different reason for wanting plant-based meat/fake meat. So by any particular metric, they have failed. Some people want fake meat to be a 1:1 meat substitute because they love meat but can't eat it (allergies, cardiovascular, etc). Some people want cheaper meat because quality meat you can trust has grown too expensive. Some people want more vegan/vegetarian options bec…

That still seems like two primary groups: meat simulacra and simply veggie-based primary protein. The "try to approximate meat" is usually the main driver of cost/ingredient complexity.
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