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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

#871

Post by Panoramix »

crimsoneer wrote: post #668
boppo1 wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This seems like a bonkers thing to claim. You're suggesting that if someone gave you two burgers that tasted identical, one that was real meat and costs £5, and the other that was fake and costs £2, if they were other than that TOTALLY IDENTICAL (other than the fake one being better for the planet), you'd still feel the need to eat the real one? For some sense of perceived...offence?

I would. I try to only eat fresh things that I could prepare at home. Why would I willingly eat 100 grams of refined coconut oil with yeast, potassium chloride, methylcellulose (a laxative) and a whole bunch of other stuff?

I'd rather eat less meat than replace it with this crap.

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

#872

Post by [deleted] »

ethanbond wrote: post #691
itsoktocry wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#873

Post by RupertEisenhart »

diroussel wrote: post #406
RupertEisenhart wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason there is no reply button on the other replies. Maybe the evidence for meat doesn't generalise, but the idea that fresh vegetables would retain some sort-lived structures that start to break down once processed seems plausible. I was just pointing out that GPs claim could do with some backup.

I think GP didn’t provide citations as it’s a fairly well known and un-controversial opinion. If this idea was new to you then maybe have a look at these sources, or do some other searches https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/red-and-proce... https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods...

Your references seem to back me up, and not the person I was replying to? Eg:

"There is evidence showing an association with certain types of food processing and poor health outcomes (especially highly- or ultra-processed foods). This association applies mainly to ultra-processed foods that contain added sugars, excess sodium, and unhealthful fats."

From the second one. Maybe you confused my position?

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

#874

Post by yamazakiwi »

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.

There are qualities in a fake burgers that emulate parts of a burger someone might enjoy without having an exact replica. In the same way Turkey Bacon is acceptable to some and not others.

I think the purists are trying to hold a parity argument but the substitute enjoyers are cool with experimentation and want something similar even if it's not 1:1.

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

#875

Post by RupertEisenhart »

saaarahh wrote: post #493
RupertEisenhart wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a climate change denier? Are you unaware of the changes that have happened in the last ten thousand years?

What is the time span requirements for 'sustainable'? Everything on Earth will be toast in ~5 billion years.

Not sure what your point is, but agriculture needs to change dramatically in the next couple of decades.

Human civilization/all life that wants to keep existing also needs to change dramatically in the next five billion years but I think that is to be expected.

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

#876

Post by owaislone »

colordrops wrote: post #132
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m vegan, converted about four years ago so I ate meat for decades. I ate impossible burgers for a while after Burger King got them, because there is some nostalgia/novelty in going to a fast food joint. But I’ve realized that this weird food product leaves some kind of odd taste in my stomach, and not just from Burger King. I’m pretty over these fake beef burgers now, and would way rather have a black bean burger o…

I see you are being downvoted, but I know exactly what you mean. When I eat Impossible and especially Beyond burgers, my stomach feels slightly off. A bit of indigestion. I don't get this with typical veggie patties.

I know exactly what you mean and I get this a lot too. I always thought it was in my head but recently I tried a Drunken Noodle recipe from FreshPrep which used Beyond Meat Burgers and I felt nothing. It was actually delicious. I guess the prep method somehow affects it?

https://www.freshprep.ca/orders/11661077/recipes/thai-beyond...

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

#877

Post by BashiBazouk »

My wife taught a business class using the Beyond Meat company as one of the examples. We got a costco box of beyond meat patties to check them out and I cooked and served them (just to the family). They reminded me of a puck of cat food when frozen/de-thawing. Smelled weird cooking. Then for just the time I was eating, came really dam close to a real burger. But no one had any desire to reheat any leftovers. My opinion was they are close, but the concept needs a bit more work. I also think they might be better in a restaurant setting as it's kind like sausage, it's best not to know the process and just enjoy the finished product.

We also have a Next Level Burger in our local Whole Foods we occasionally eat at and if they added Beyond Meat to the menu I don't think I would order it over the other vegi patties they already serve...

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

#878

Post by nebula8804 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #867
a4a4a4a4 wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is to make non-car transportation more available, more useful, cheaper, etc, and slowly make car use itself more painful. I disagree with the last part on a philosophical level. Society should push forward, and that doesn't mean we need to take convenient things and make them less convenient, so that alternatives seem more attractive in comparison. We need to make the alternatives better in-and-of them…

There is nothing harder to change in this world than culture. Sometimes you can't just make the alternatives better. Sometimes they already are better, and still nothing changes. People are stubborn, interests are entrenched. Sometimes you have to force society to change. It's not ideal, but we don't live in an ideal world.

I don't see how you are going to make this stick. Suppose some politician adds a meat tax or something like that. He will just be voted out enmass in the next election and the ruling will be quickly reversed. Furthermore with the way these things go in a country like the US, that successor will not only roll back and tax he will then tax vegetables to help subsidize the meat eaters.

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

#879

Post by dr_orpheus »

HideousKojima wrote: post #806
nextaccountic wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's synthetic leather too. And there's vegan cheese https://www.reddit.com/r/vegancheesemaking and of course vegan yogurt etc. (you can make yogurt with coconut milk for example)

>vegan cheese My old boss was vegan (or rather his wife was and he was very accommodating of her diet, he would still eat meat outside the home). He would always mention that the fanciest, most expensive vegan cheese option out there set itself apart from the rest with the tagline "It melts!" on the packaging. Vegan cheese has to come a long way to be anywhere comparable to real cheese. The same applies to synthetic…

It depends on what you are looking for with the vegan cheese. If you want something to go with a charcuterie plate, there are really good cultured cashew milk cheeses. They are more akin to cheese spreads though, something like this [0]

But if you are looking for something like a slice of cheddar or vegan mac-n-cheese the options are really pretty terrible and all have an aftertaste like you just ate a spoonful of Crisco.

[0] https://miyokos.com/products/classic-double-cream-chive-chee...

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

#880

Post by tsimionescu »

TylerE wrote: post #821
tsimionescu wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had this thought once, but then looked it up, and found that it is completely wrong. It's basically like saying "we already eat plenty of fish... We just call em things like beef, pork, and bird meat". Except that fish are much more closely related to mammals than crustaceans are to insects (same phylum, different class). Here is an example of an animal that is as closely related to a cow as a grasshopper is t…

Not true as of about 10 years ago. The taxonomy changed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancrustacea

That's still at best relating insects and crustaceans at the level of (most) fish and mammals. I'm also unclear on where this pancrustacea clade comes in, as most Wikipedia articles for specific species don't even list the clade, just the phylum and class - and fish are still the same class as mammals, while insects and shellfish are not.

Either way, while we eat some mammals and birds, we still don't eat the vast majority of mammals or birds, and we barely eat any reptiles or amphibians or fish.

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