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Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

nytimes.com

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Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#691

Post by ethanbond »

itsoktocry wrote: post #624
ajmurmann wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. I greatly enjoy the flavor of meat, but feel like a serial killer when I think about the animal suffering and to a lesser extend carbon emissions. While I also get a slightly odd feeling in my stomach from Impossible beef (doesn't happen with their cyber chicken), it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger without feeling like I just tortured a puppy.

> it's a tradeoff I'm excited to make 1-2 a month to get the flavor of a burger You're not getting the flavour of a burger, no matter how hard you try to fool yourself (or make yourself sick). That's why these companies are flailing.

“Your mouth is wrong but I am here to tell you what you’re tasting” is quite the argument…

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#692

Post by Existenceblinks »

I think meat mimicking is a wrong approach. When I was 12-15, my grandma made a lot of plant-based menu, I don't even know what it is back then, so I don't know it's supposed to be meat alternative. It's just one strange menu that has a good taste.

I mean, should they try create a new naming system, stop advertising as anything related to meat at all. Create a whole new menu set, they don't even need burger! Look around the world of feed, mediterranean, italian, portuguese, south east asia etc. Plant-based chelf should be the whole new study as well. The current plant-based industry is so mediocre or too early.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#693

Post by MikeDelta »

kybernetyk wrote: post #421
tptacek wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that processing determines the healthfulness of a foodstuff is fallacious.

Quoted post unavailable.

That is why we have recipes for both variants, so I would say do both.

Both ways of preparation have their merit.

BTW, enjoyability is an important and underestimated factor in nutrition. (Unfortunately abused by the food industry.)

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#694

Post by barrell »

iopq wrote: post #571
sph wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We know red meat isn’t healthy. I think you mean we have studies of dubious quality blaming red meat. And scores of people repeating the same trite arguments. It's the same people that brought to you salt causes high blood pressure and saturated fat causes atherosclerosis, pushing the low fat craze and the obesity epidemic. Sure, meat is bad, go eat hyper processed fake meat.

Consuming a lot of heme iron is proven to be bad for the heart. Red meat contains heme iron in great amounts. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23708150/

Consuming a lot of TMAO is proven to be bad for the heart. Cod contains TMAO in great amounts.

Yet white fish is one of the most recommended heart healthy foods.

You have to be careful when talking about specific mechanisms in terms of Whole Foods. Nutrition can't be reduced down to single mechanisms to provide confident recommendations, and often times results are the opposite of what we would expect mechanistically.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#695

Post by Hendrikto »

boppo1 wrote: post #651
henrikschroder wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, vegetarian food is incredible without needing to taste like meat. You are not the target group for these products! The whole point of these products is to replace meat for habitual meat eaters. If the companies can get their products to taste about the same as meat, and have about the same nutritional value, while being cheaper , we can eliminate enormous amounts of habitual meat consumption. That's t…

> If the companies can get their products to taste about the same as meat, and have about the same nutritional value, while being cheaper, we can eliminate enormous amounts of habitual meat consumption. Habitual meat eater here. I will never ever trust these products to be right for my body the way meat is. Humans haven’t nailed it in the past with heavily processed foods, why would it suddenly work now? I understand…

> right for my body the way meat is

Where did you get that idea? Meat consumption in developer contries is excessive and far from healthy.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#696

Post by neuronic »

lucideer wrote: post #686

I don't think demand for Beyond will ever hit zero but I do think recent demand seems to have been temporary & can see it falling into a niche. In the past, vegetarianism/veganism was mostly the reserve of activist types, dogmatic in their approach, with little interest in fake meats (though they existed, demand & competition was low enough for them to be pretty poor substitutes). Then, more recently, there was a big…

The number of vegetarians/vegans in Germany is strongly increasing [1]. The reasons vary and range from the horrific and inexcusable environmental impact of mass meat production to simple ethics. I personally have been convinced by my conscience and empathy.

I make an effort to reduce (and hopefully stop) eating meat after witnessing the insane cruelty we subject smart, intelligent and emotional animals to. The cognitive dissonance required to eat tons of pigs but on the other hand love dogs and cats is just weird. I mean if you get the chance, check out some cows and pigs. They're awesome and form a bond with you.

So hearing pigs scream in pain from CO2 suffocation is absolutely psychotic to me. Their cries burned themselves into my mind. Especially considering that most of them probably never saw the sun or could ever lay down in the grass to doze off... :(

For me, eating meat doesn't justify this pure horror. However, I still make a distinction between this sort of meat and, say, animals that had happy free roam years on a farm. I get a lot of heat from vegans but it doesn't matter. ANY reduction in the consumption of live animal products is a positive thing and there will always be political radicals.

So in the end, I find myself in your category (b) at the moment with severely reduced meat consumption. Beyond Meat temporarily helps to bridge the gap, it's akin to the nicotine bandaid, only this time it's for the meat addiction. But in that way the subsutition products are temporary and the majority of vegan/vegetarian food we cook is way tastier than the ready made substitutes.

[1] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23273338/germany-less-mea...

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#697

Post by lkbm »

efitz wrote: post #215

If you’re vegetarian, why do you want the uncanny valley version of meat? Be a vegetarian. I have always thought that the target market for Beyond/Incredible/etc was not vegetarians, but rather partners of vegetarians. They don’t really want to give up meat but they want to support their partner and/or avoid conflict.

As a vegetarian, I'm going to eat the vegetarian food I like, and that includes fake meat.

I've lived with dozens of other vegetarians, and I've heard the "I don't like fake meat" position a lot, but it's not a clear majority, and far from universal.

My grocery store sells five+ brands of fake chicken at this point, in addition to vegetarian burgers, fish, and sausage. There's very obviously a market.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#698

Post by leowbattle »

zecg wrote: post #650

Speaking as a vegan, I really don't want food that imitates the taste of meat and I will refuse to eat anything that's been prepared on the same griddle or using the same utensils as meat.

Do you mean if the utensils have been used to prepare meat since last being washed, or if the utensils were ever used to prepare meat?

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#699

Post by thereddaikon »

tcfhgj wrote: post #531
thereddaikon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider eating meat a problem. Its the Vegans who seem to have a problem with it. Not everyone else. And they are a loud minority. The "problems" with meat have more to do with how the industry operates than the actual practice of eating meat itself. We are omnivorous. And the health issues with meat are overstated by those with an agenda to force their diet on others.

the problem with meat has to do with green house gases that will make living on this planet quite uncomfortable for most people

And solution to that does not require forcing everyone to eat meat. Lab grown is a thing and realistically the direction things will go.

Re: Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries

#700

Post by neuronic »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #537
musiciangames wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sodium content is as bad or worse than just plain regular beef Hasn't the dietary sodium thing been found to be a non-issue, except for a few individuals with high blood pressure? https://www.cochrane.org/CD004022/HTN_effect-low-salt-diet-b...

High sodium diets are "associated with chronic degenerative diseases including renal diseases" "in a hypertension-independent manner". They are associated, among many other ailments, with strokes, cancer and heart failure. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32738302/

Maybe reduce the other 99% of sodium intake so a single Beyond Meat burger wont push you over the edge...
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