Beyond Meat is struggling, and the plant-based meat industry worries • Hacker News Board

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

#711

Post by ryanbrunner » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:32 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #308

SoftTalker wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond/Incredible meat is awful. There's no other description for it. This highly processed fake meat is not healthy. Just eat meat, or don't if you don't want to. There's no need for this fake garbage.

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

Saying there's necessarily a causal relationship is probably not well supported, but there's absolutely a correlation, and as a rule of thumb, if you choose whole foods over processed foods it will tend to net out as more healthy.

Nutrition pretty much by definition requires a lot of simplification to allow people to make quick decisions on food choices, and so broad rules that are mostly right are pretty useful (and pretty much the basis of how most diets work).

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

#712

Post by deliriumchn » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

I think its a positioning problem: "alternative" meat is not good enough to substitute real meat + some people just dislike meat and its taste completely, not just concerned about animal cruelty etc.

Vegetarian food can be very tasty and beautiful and it does not have to be a substitute or an imitator of meat and other non-vegan food

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

#713

Post by O__________O » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

>> “on average, plant-based meat is 2x as expensive as beef, more than 4x as expensive as chicken, and more than 3x as expensive as pork per pound.”

Source:

- https://gfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Reducing-the-pric...

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

#714

Post by duxup » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

HellsMaddy wrote: post #302

duxup wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO ground beef can look bad but it doesn’t have a distinct smell.

When you go vegan for a few years, you can absolutely smell raw ground beef. It's not a good smell.

Are you sure it is the beef and not something about the packaging?

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

#715

Post by dsabanin » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #301

sokoloff wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a pretty hardcore meat-lover (we had sous-vide filets tonight at home), I think Impossible is close enough on the taste and feel side for a lot of dishes that use beef (including hamburgers). They're comically far off on the price side, but if they could get price-competitive with bulk 80% ground beef, they would capture a large amount of that market, I think.

I don't understand how you can say this. The Beyond/Incredible meat is not close enough. It's not even close at all. The texture is wrong, the feel chewing it is wrong, the taste is wrong unless you slather it with enough condiments that you can't taste it anyway. It is exactly the sort of highly processed industrially-created food that health experts tell us to avoid.

I had seen a family of 8 people by accident grab our order of impossible burgers from BK by accident and consuming them, while we were waiting for our order. When we figured out what happened and tried to explain to them that they just ate meatless burgers, they couldn’t understand what we’re talking about. It was believable enough for them, I guess.

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

#716

Post by UltraViolence » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

Veganism should be outlawed. Everyone should eat meat, period.

I'm wary of female vegans since I believe pregnant women should eat meat to deliver a healthy baby. When she's not pregnant she can stop eating meat for all I care.

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

#717

Post by dsabanin » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #125

sokoloff wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a pretty hardcore meat-lover (we had sous-vide filets tonight at home), I think Impossible is close enough on the taste and feel side for a lot of dishes that use beef (including hamburgers). They're comically far off on the price side, but if they could get price-competitive with bulk 80% ground beef, they would capture a large amount of that market, I think.

Yeah, price is the problem. If it costs more than ground beef, what's the point?

The point was always to cause less death and suffering, these days for many it’s also about ecology, but it was never about saving a buck.

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

#718

Post by efields » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

BM is probably something that should have been acquired by a larger food company. Their product line is really limited for a public corporation.

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

#719

Post by efields » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

UltraViolence wrote: post #716

Veganism should be outlawed. Everyone should eat meat, period. I'm wary of female vegans since I believe pregnant women should eat meat to deliver a healthy baby. When she's not pregnant she can stop eating meat for all I care.

Aw man. Sorry you have no friends.

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

#720

Post by omginternets » Tue, Nov 29, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

O__________O wrote: post #713

>> “on average, plant-based meat is 2x as expensive as beef, more than 4x as expensive as chicken, and more than 3x as expensive as pork per pound.” Source: - https://gfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Reducing-the-pric...

At the risk of stating the obvious, “impossible” meats are about IP and high-margin products in a notoriously low-margin sector.

This is capitalism, not ecology.