[HN Gopher] How to lower the price of plant-based meat
___________________________________________________________________
How to lower the price of plant-based meat
Author : pantalaimon
Score : 114 points
Date : 2021-02-06 19:27 UTC (3 hours ago)
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| grumple wrote:
| It's interesting that the prices for meat quoted in the article
| are far lower than what I see in my major American city, with
| meat typically going for triple the quoted prices. Vegan
| alternatives are quite attractive because there's not much of a
| price difference here.
| zionic wrote:
| I'm far more interested in cultured/clean meat grown from real
| cells.
| ebiester wrote:
| I am interested in both, but we're still a bit away from
| cultured meat. We are closer than I expected we would be in
| 2021, though. See this press release from this week:
| https://www.perishablenews.com/meatpoultry/future-meat-techn...
|
| That said, I think there is room for both. In the
| hamburger/chicken nugget space, I think plant based is going to
| keep beating cultured for the next decade - if cultured wins,
| it needs to figure out fat (afaik it still hasn't.)
| Nailgun wrote:
| Are there any commercial products and has anyone tried it? I do
| recall some video somewhere of a US restaurant and people said
| it was reasonable but that could have been plant based.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I tried the impossible burger at Burger King. I could not
| tell a difference personally from any typical fast food
| burger. Would buy it again to satisfy a craving.
| wavefunction wrote:
| That's not cultured meat. It's plant-protein based.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| See my response to another poster.
| shmageggy wrote:
| The Impossible burger is not cultured meat, it's a plant-
| based product. OP is referring to this
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/02/no-
| kill-...
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Ah I misread his wording. I thought he was just asking
| for someone's opinion on restaurants that had served any
| meat alternative product, not specifically lab grown
| meat.
| hiddevb wrote:
| Impossible burger is still created from plants. "Clean" or
| lab grown meat isn't commercially available anywhere, it
| only exists is some labs AFAIK. It's sadly very expensive
| to make today.
|
| There are a few startups working on this, Mosa meat and
| meatable are some examples.
| [deleted]
| drewg123 wrote:
| The company behind Just Egg is vat-growing cultured chicken.
| It is limited to Singapore for now. See https://goodmeat.co/
| thatcherc wrote:
| I'm intrigued and want to read more about this, but that
| site is crazy. Takes >10 seconds on my phone to load the
| 'experience' which is a long-form scrolljacking narrative
| that starts with the history of the chicken.
|
| Their FAQ page is really interesting, but I can't find a
| way to link directly to it.
| mtgx wrote:
| Is any of this stuff anywhere near as nutritious as real beef?
|
| I wonder what chronic diseases the next generations will have
| because of eating so much low-nutrition food.
| cccc4all wrote:
| Cows and livestock eat plants and convert into meat. It's natural
| and organic and proven process that's been around for thousands
| of years.
|
| Ground up plants with food colorings and odd shapes are not meat.
| hexo wrote:
| Exactly! There is no such thing as plant based meat.
| delibes wrote:
| Agreed. Some vegans/vegetarians don't want their food labelled
| meat either.
|
| However please don't compare the modern industrial meat
| production with anything like farming from, say, 500 years ago,
| or with ancient hunting. Modern meat production is brutal (for
| necessary cost reasons) and hugely destructive to the
| environment.
| cccc4all wrote:
| Please look into these modern industrial plant processing and
| production for vegans, vegetarians.
|
| They will be much better off eating good quality meats from
| reputable sources.
| wtetzner wrote:
| There are still sustainable farms, and you can of course
| encourage more of it by buying your meat from those.
| handol wrote:
| Sure there are, but we don't have enough surface area on
| this planet to replace industrial meat production with
| sustainable farms without a vast decrease in output.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| The price should go up according to the limited supply.
| That would naturally deflate demand and allow producers
| to invest in better processes.
| hannob wrote:
| > It's natural and organic and proven process that's been
| around for thousands of years.
|
| Which is a good example how "natural" and "been around for
| thousands of years" does not equal "is good for the
| environment".
| bearbawl wrote:
| First of all, I'm pretty sure animals live there, in the <<
| environment >>. And animals eat animals, in this <<
| environment >>. As far as tv documentaries present this to me
| (sorry I've never been in the real nature in the real life),
| it's not << induced >>.
|
| The question then is more about how much we eat, what do we
| consider << ok >> to eat, how many are we, and how do we farm
| to sustain all this.
| alacombe wrote:
| 7 billions homo sapiens sapiens is not good for the
| environment either, so you should welcome war, genocides,
| pandemic and anything reducing its population.
| eznzt wrote:
| Nobody said it does?
| hannob wrote:
| The top poster seems to imply that these are good things.
| cccc4all wrote:
| I am clearly stating that raising cows and livestock for
| meat are better than industrial crops ground up with food
| coloring and odd shapes.
|
| Eating cow and livestock meat is better for people and
| environment.
| Falling3 wrote:
| Ah yes. The well-known environmental impact of
| rectangular shaped foodstuffs.
|
| Seriously, this amounts to nothing more than a
| Naturalistic Fallacy.
| cccc4all wrote:
| Cows and livestock are great for environment. They eat plants
| and clear vegetation and the poop converts to nutrients in
| soil.
|
| People should demand and buy better meat from better farms
| with better practices.
| xsmasher wrote:
| The type of meat production you are talking about is not
| typical or representative of the industry.
| Falling3 wrote:
| There is no way to satisfy the growing demand for meat in a
| way that is not damaging to the environment. And that's
| leaving aside any questions of ethics for the animals
| themselves.
| bearbawl wrote:
| There is no way to satisfy the growing in a way that is
| not damaging to the environment. And that's leaving aside
| any questions of ethics themselves.
| Falling3 wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not following what you were trying to do
| there. Are you trying to bring this back around to human
| population growth?
| bearbawl wrote:
| Exactly. I think we're way too much and this is the part
| that is not sustainable.
|
| Unfortunately it's apparently way more trendy to become
| vegan than to say we're simply too much.
| Falling3 wrote:
| I became a vegan 15 years ago because I couldn't morally
| justify the unnecessary raising and killing other
| individuals. You may not agree, but writing that decision
| off as "trendy" is more than a bit condescending.
|
| Every study I've seen on the Earth's carrying capacity
| came to the conclusion that we could support at least a
| few more billion humans. So why you believe it's more
| correct to say we have a population problem than a
| consumption problem?
| bearbawl wrote:
| I'm sorry for being condescending but I wasn't referring
| to you in particular. It is indeed currently very trendy
| to be vegan.
|
| I chose the other direction which is to eat very very
| good meat, but way way less, because that's goddamn
| expensive and because we can't produce it that much. Just
| like good wine.
|
| The very big issue with meat is that you have a shit ton
| of farm raising some thousands animals in very precarious
| conditions for people eating garbage. That's harsh, but
| that's the sad truth.
|
| The conclusion to this should not be to stop meat but to
| stop garbage. Just like everything in food by the way,
| you can eat 100% vegan 100% garbage 100% detrimental for
| the environment.
|
| The issue with studies is that it's basically impossible
| to just prove that we << could support at least a few
| more billion humans >>. It's just too big of a study. I'm
| actually pretty sure that with the way we live
| (independently of the question of meat) we should already
| be way less than we are. It's quite obvious but I don't
| have any << studies >> at end, because it's way easier
| for everywhere to just << prove >> we can continue as we
| do (if we all become vegan of course, because that's
| really the heart of our issue).
|
| I'm not saying it's a population problem and not a
| consumption problem. I think it's both. And I think the
| vegan trend is absolutely part of the consumption problem
| because it's hiding the source of the issue. You just
| have to look at how it's so easier for people to tackle
| The source of the issue is that we should seek good
| instead of quantity or easiness.
|
| We have replaced the supposedly old problem of meat by
| the new supposedly non-problem of food in a plastic bag
| with a vegan sticker on it.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| What about pricing in all externalities and letting the
| price equilibrium find a natural state be removing
| subsidies? People will only buy what they can afford.
| Falling3 wrote:
| That would certainly be a potential solution for the
| environmental issues. I still don't find it to be ethical
| for the individuals being farmed.
| drewg123 wrote:
| The ever growing demand for meat is a leading cause of
| deforestation. Forests remove far more CO2 than grasslands
| (think 3 dimensions vs 2 dimensions).
|
| Cows require orders of magnitude more land to be devoted to
| them than plant based food, simply due to the
| inefficiencies of the sunlight -> plant -> meat -> food
| production process. If you cut the middle-man out (meat),
| then the process becomes orders of magnitude more
| efficient.
|
| This reminds me that if by "better farms with better
| practices" you mean free-range type farms, then they are
| actually far worse for the environment because they are
| less efficient. Eg, you need more land per pound of meat
| produced.
|
| Cows also produce vast quantities of methane, which is a
| leading greenhouse gas. The quickest way to slow down
| global warming would be to cease livestock farming
| entirely.
|
| Watch the documentary "Cowspiricy"
| (https://www.netflix.com/title/80033772)
|
| Or for a shorter view, Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates
| Fake Burger (to save the world)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k-V3ESHcfA
| wtetzner wrote:
| Are we convinced growing these crops are good for the
| environment?
|
| Not to mention how terrible plant-based "meats" are for your
| health.
| bearbawl wrote:
| I'm actually pretty sure anything we do too much is bad
| somehow.
|
| The question is more around the << too much >> than around
| what we do.
| hannob wrote:
| > Are we convinced growing these crops are good for the
| environment?
|
| They don't have to be good, just less bad than producing
| meat. It is almost impossible to create any food that has a
| larger impact than beef [1].
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In itself it's neither good nor bad for the environment. In
| fact some ecosystems depend on the vegetation being kept in
| check by herbivores so arguably keeping at least some cattle
| in those ecosystems is 'good' for the environment.
|
| The problem is the scale, which is also a problem with the
| industrial growing of crops and industrial fishing.
|
| In rich countries we probably eat too much meat both for our
| health and for the impact on the environment, but the bottom
| line is that feeding 8 billion people and counting, who are
| getting richer globally, is going to hit the environment
| hard.
|
| IMHO, the best way to reduce meat consumption is to ban
| subsidies and to increase regulatory quality standards, which
| would make prices go up significantly. But that's politically
| unpalatable.
| lorax_108 wrote:
| plant based "meat" is not good for you. do not eat it.
| zaroth wrote:
| Aside from personal preference, I would think there are two main
| reasons to consider replacing animal meat protein with plant
| protein. Because it could be healthier for the planet, and
| because it could be healthier for human consumption.
|
| I'm not sure we've proven either one is definitely true. I think
| the evidence leans towards plant farming being less impactful to
| the planet on a fundamental conservation of energy basis, but
| farming at scale the ways that humans tend to do it causes a lot
| of problems with soil erosion and pesticide contamination which
| are yet to be overcome, but likely easier to solve than a similar
| problem of growing enough grass and corn for the cows.
|
| On the other hand, I'm a lot less convinced that eating these
| highly processed plant proteins (to get them into a desirable
| form for mass consumption) is necessarily a de facto healthier
| way for humans to get their protein.
|
| I just tend to be wary of IPO-scale manufacturing of hyped/trendy
| processed foods.
| redisman wrote:
| > A typical diet for a dairy cow could include about 30 to 35
| pounds of baled hay (26-30 pounds DM) and 25 pounds of grain
| mix (22 pounds DM). Grain includes corn, soybean meal,
| minerals, and vitamins.
|
| Cows don't just graze, in fact mostly they're raised on the
| same staple crops which humans eat.
| bigfudge wrote:
| You do know that a high proportion of all crops in the US are
| fed to cows right? We are not feeding cows grass, so your
| argument is mostly moot.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| So, to recap, feeding plant crops to animals is the current
| best way to produce plant based meat. Seems like the best way
| to feed our crops is also with animal products. I don't
| really understand why we want to work so hard to drive a
| technological wedge into this process. Is it to get rid of
| other animals on the planet?
| redisman wrote:
| > Seems like the best way to feed our crops is also with
| animal products.
|
| You want to feed our crops with animal products? Like pour
| some ground meat in the cornfield?
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Combining a few points into one since they are related, but
| plant-based meat is a misnomer. Plant-based protein, or meat-
| substitute are better terms and meat should not have it's
| definition muddied.
|
| Lab grown meat from cultured cells, however, fair game. Trying to
| force companies to call it anything other than meat would be
| intentionally seeking to stifle innovation.
| drewg123 wrote:
| That ship has sailed a long time ago with dairy products. Just
| look at all the nut-based "milks" and "cheeses" and "yogurts".
| jahnu wrote:
| A worthy goal. I'd love to lower the price of plants too. It
| never fails to amaze me how expensive some vegetables are
| compared to meat for some rough equivalent measure like calories.
| The subsidies for meat and dairy are ridiculous by comparison.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Interesting how all the Silicon Valley brainiacs here on HN are
| far more interested in discussing the semantics of "meat" than
| the technology or economics.
|
| Kind of disappointing, really.
| tomcam wrote:
| Words are important. Kind of disappointing that you fail to
| understand that, really.
| shmageggy wrote:
| And language constantly evolves.
|
| Also it's irrelevant to the content of the article.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| And that is part of the reason we need to be precise with
| our language. Last time I checked, we use a dead language
| in medicine precisely because it is not evolving, and we
| don't want to have to fight a battle on two fronts.
|
| A similar thing can be observed in programming languages
| like Python, where it's important to know which version is
| used, or even in law, as legal English is entirely
| different than the constantly evolving language of common
| parlance.
|
| To think definitions that directly relate to the product
| are irrelevant to a wholistic view of the article is naive
| and petulant. If you have a novel insight, add it. If you
| want to criticize others, enjoy your downvotes.
| tomcam wrote:
| Upvoted because in retrospect I agree
| Falling3 wrote:
| Very disappointing. I'm not at all clear on the concern over
| semantics except in the case of lobbying groups and large
| companies on the animal ag side.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The article doesn't have a lot of substance about the
| economics, but there's a healthy amount of discussion about it
| anyway.
|
| The article has nothing about the tech, so you shouldn't be so
| demanding that people talk about the tech in this particular
| comment section.
| bearbawl wrote:
| This is only if you think that people are only discussing
| semantic. But they are not of course.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| It's interesting to note the names of the companies in the
| article:
|
| >> In China, Beyond Meat signed five major new partnerships, with
| Starbucks, retailers Alibaba and Metro, distributor Sinodis, and
| Yum China (owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell).
|
| >> In the rest of Asia, Thailand's largest meat company, CP Foods
| (...)
|
| >> In Latin America, Brazilian agribusiness giant Marfrig (...)
|
| >> In Europe, the UK's largest retailer, Tesco (...)
|
| >> Dairy giant Danone (...)
|
| >> Unilever shared that a third of its products are now plant-
| based. (...)
|
| >> Danone declared its ambition to more than double its plant-
| based sales >> worldwide (...)
|
| >> In the US, Starbucks started selling Impossible breakfast
| sandwiches, as did >> Burger King, while KFC began a new trial of
| Beyond Fried Chicken (...)
|
| These are all the very same agribusiness colossi that are
| responsible for the despoiling of land and the destruction of the
| environment by the most brutal intensive agriculture and farming
| methods.
|
| And it's these companies that are expected to solve the problem
| of mass food production (plant- or meat-based) in a way that does
| not destroy the environment _even more_ and that respects the
| health and the nutrition needs of their customers? I find that
| extremely naive.
|
| Such companies simply want to sell the cheapest, lowest-quality
| food products for the highest possible profit (Taco Bell! KFC!
| Burger King!). If they can claim to protect the enviroment, even
| as they further brutalise it, then all the better for their
| bottom line.
| shartshooter wrote:
| If you're trying to bring a new product to market don't you
| want to rely on the infrastructure that already exists? What's
| the alternative if you want to make an impact quickly?
|
| Sure, KFC, PizzaHut, etc. have contributed significantly to
| increases in meat consumption, but isn't that exactly the place
| to start?
|
| Just like BP, Shell, etc. are diversifying _away_ from fossil
| fuels, the companies you mentioned likely see the writing on
| the wall. Considering the fact that they already have supply
| chains in place to support a significant portion of the
| population, using them as a proxy to get alternative meats to
| people at a reasonable cost seems like the path of least
| resistance.
|
| Agreed, these companies in many ways have despoiled the land as
| you said but their real motivation is generating profit, they
| don't necessarily care about the food being low quality, they
| care that it's good enough for people to buy it and cheap
| enough to sell it.
|
| If alternative meats drive the same demand, or more, as regular
| meats and can be sold at similar margins, and as a byproduct
| the companies can say they're on the alternative meats train, I
| think you'll see them come onboard.
|
| My parents, who are as far from alternative meat fans as you
| can find, are in complete alignment that eating meat isn't
| going to be nearly as commonplace in 30 years as it is today
| and are interested in investing in alternative meat producers
| just due to the fact that society is trending in that
| direction.
|
| Of course you've got the rise of countries coming out of
| poverty whose populace is going to expect to eat a bunch of
| meat which is why it's critical that we get economies of scale,
| distribution, etc. nailed down now _before_ they acquire a real
| taste of beef grown on an industrial farm, instead we need
| options for them to buy alternative, or potentially lab grown,
| meats.
|
| Doing so would have the benefit of generating massive amounts
| of innovation in how food is produced while, hopefully,
| reducing relative and absolute greenhouse gas emissions.
| delibes wrote:
| tldr - economies of scale and cheaper inputs
| ggm wrote:
| Yep. But lurking underneath is health, and mouth-feel and
| taste. Cultured cell lines will possibly get past health
| because instead of plant based vitamins and nutrients it will
| be animal protein and fat soluble versions which are sometimes
| more bioavailable.
|
| Mouth feel is heavily dominated by fat, but also texture. I
| don't know if the cell culture meat lays down muscle fibre the
| same way actually being a leg of a grazing animal does. Tvp
| tried to emulate this with spun fibre complexes, I never found
| it very compelling.
|
| It's not really surprising meat substitution targets ground
| beef, ground chicken and the like.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| A tangential topic - I really think that in general calling
| plant-based things "meat", a terrible idea. It does not promote
| plant-base diet or meat consumption reduction. It is trying to be
| what is not.
|
| I think it pushes away those who are on the cusp of moving
| towards plant-base foods. Why? Because the consumer is told it is
| "meat", so they will compare it to meat. They will compare these
| patties to a real, prime Angus burger.
|
| If we could be honest and declare them what they are, plant-based
| patties (come up with new name or whatever, plenty of plant-based
| names in non-English languages) I think it would improve the
| general image and consumption of these products.
|
| Suddenly we would not be locked in the "meat" category. We can
| have all kinds of flavors for these products, instead of "meat"
| flavor, not having to "live up to" the meat taste, and mouth
| feel. We can live up to great flavors vegetables, fruits, and
| herbs.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > I think it pushes away those who are on the cusp of moving
| towards plant-base foods.
|
| I think you are completely wrong.
|
| People eat meat because they like the taste and the texture,
| but at the same time everyone knows that meat is produced by
| killing animals, and that it's much less sustainable than
| vegetarian food.
|
| If you want to get people to switch to meat alternatives, you
| have to keep everything that's great about meat (taste,
| texture, proteins), while removing everything that's bad about
| meat (slaughter, livestock industry).
|
| And that is exactly what this new generation of plant-based
| alternatives are focusing on, and given their popularity
| compared to earlier attempts, I think they're on the right
| track.
|
| Quick question: Are you yourself a vegetarian or vegan?
| Grustaf wrote:
| Well you could also just promote delicious vegetarian dishes.
| There are entire cultures that mostly eat vegetarian. Fake
| meat is such a silly concept.
| jayphen wrote:
| Tofu and wheat gluten have been used for centuries as meat
| analogues in many cultures (especially those that mostly
| eat vegetarian). It's not a silly concept at all, and opens
| up a world of delicious culinary options to those of us who
| don't eat animal flesh.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Tofu is nothing like meat in neither taste nor texture,
| and I'm pretty sure it has never been seen as a meat
| substitute traditionally.
| tashoecraft wrote:
| Agreed. So many non vegetarian/vegan people say stuff like
| this and it's just wrong. Or they'll say "why have a fake
| burger, can't you just enjoy vegetarian food, why does it
| have to be a burger? If you want burger just eat one and stop
| trying to copy meat, innovate on your own".
|
| It's just people completely missing the point. If you get
| fake meat close enough in taste/texture/price you'll move a
| large amount of product. The high high majority of meat
| consumption is not high quality product, but the absolutely
| lowest quality possible. It's so easy to swap out they meh
| hamburger patty you have at a bbq with a plant based one, be
| healthier, and have less impact on the environment.
| drukenemo wrote:
| Plant-based food aimed at replacing meat is often a too-
| many ingredient, industrialised nightmare.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| > People eat meat because they like the taste and the
| texture, but at the same time everyone knows that meat is
| produced by killing animals, and that it's much less
| sustainable than vegetarian food.
|
| I think this is too generous. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but
| the implicit message here is that people actually care about
| the animals and sustainability of meat farming.
|
| My spouse is vegetarian and I'm whatever. I don't buy meat
| but if it finds itself in front of me I'll eat it. I have had
| the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times
| at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody
| changed their habits. Yes, this is anecdotal, and I'm willing
| to read a source and change my opinion if there is some
| evidence that people actually give a shit about the animals.
| As far as I can tell, it is all just virtue signaling at
| best.
|
| I agree with OP. I think we would be better served in the
| long run creating good consumables that have the caloric
| density and amino acid profiles found in meats and encourage
| people to eat those instead of trying to replicate something
| we should be horrified about.
| scottLobster wrote:
| As an avid meat-eater (because nature almost by definition
| is living things eating other living things and humans
| evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons),
| my answer to the animal cruelty argument is just to buy the
| top-shelf, pasture-raised meats. It's better for my health
| and much better for the animals. Obviously I have no
| control over where restaurants source their food from, but
| I try to preference those who claim ethical/sustainable
| practices.
|
| As for sustainability, the answer to that is to develop
| systems that price in environmental externalities. The
| issue isn't going to be solved through a meat boycott. Farm
| raised fish is also quite sustainable.
|
| I'm personally looking forward to economically viable lab-
| grown meat. Once perfected it'll likely be the most
| sustainable option with none of the nutritional deficits
| and none of the ethical concerns. Plus we'll be able to
| engineer meat with tastes that don't exist in nature,
| endless variety!
| fossuser wrote:
| Sample size of one, but I eventually changed my habits
| because I care about trying to reduce unnecessary
| suffering.
|
| For years I knew I was inconsistent - I thought it was
| wrong to eat meat, but I did so anyway because I like
| hamburgers and chicken (and was focusing will power on
| other things). The pandemic gave me the opportunity to make
| the change.
|
| The impossible burger is perfect for me because it's close
| enough to satisfy the fix. I hope more meat substitutes
| trend in this direction (or even more so with lab grown
| meat).
|
| Most people believe crazy things and hold wildly
| inconsistent views so it's not a surprise that people don't
| change their behavior. Having a consistent views and
| changing behavior is hard.
|
| In the extreme cases (particularly with true unknowns)
| perfect consistency isn't even necessarily desirable. That
| said, trying to understand the world as it is and be
| pragmatic is still good. In the animal case, I think trying
| to reduce unnecessary suffering is a worthwhile goal.
|
| Related: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-
| isolated-demand...
| rictic wrote:
| One person's model:
|
| People's tastes are largely driven by the foods they ate
| when they were young, which with notable exceptions, will
| prominently feature meat dishes. People on sites like this
| are likely to underestimate this effect, we are likely to
| be embedded in subcultures that are unusually high in
| openness to experience.
|
| All else being equal, many people prefer doing the more
| ethical thing (or if you want to be cynical about it, the
| thing that makes them feel more ethical). Many people
| believe that plant based meat is more ethical.
|
| Currently, all else isn't equal. Plant-based meat is more
| expensive to the consumer, and most find it to be less
| enjoyable to eat. Recent trends have been closing those
| gaps, producing more enjoyable plant-based meats at high
| but dropping prices.
|
| As plant-based meat's quality/price ratio improves it will
| be increasingly common, and will displace a large amount of
| meat consumption that would be difficult to displace by
| other vegetarian dishes.
| slicktux wrote:
| If it's a patty made with black beans then you will see
| descriptions such as plant based patty but if it's a beyond
| burger then you'll see descriptions like plant based meat; see
| if they are trying to make it look like meat and taste like
| meat then the description is applicable.
|
| A common stigma with vegan or vegetarian diets is that of the
| food not being as good or limited and having something that
| compares to meat is a plus because it brings light to the
| endless possibilities in food and texture that a vegan diet
| without animal meat really has...
| Shivetya wrote:
| Going to figure if the EU track record with soy/almond and
| other "milks" I would expect a challenge to force the issue
| there. [0]. However as you note, would it be a bad thing if
| they could not or would not reference it as meat?
|
| I think the main reason for assigning the name to these plant
| based substitutes is to give the public a better understand of
| it uses and that its a valid substitute. To me, both meat and
| milk are generic names and its just a matter of time before
| expanding the definition becomes a non issue
|
| [0]https://www.ecowatch.com/eu-vegan-dairy-law-2650162992.html
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| From what I've read, plant-based meat isn't much healthier than
| normal meat, it's benefits are primarily environmental and
| ethical. True plant-based food should have a health benefit at
| least, especially over meat.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| I agree.
|
| As a meat eater, these recreations are a joke. They can just
| about compete with chicken nuggets. I don't like nuggets. So
| I've come to regard them as inedible. Same goes for vegan
| "cheese". Bleurgh.
|
| And the thing is, I love falafel. There's bound to be plenty
| more plant-based patty things. Veggie dishes that don't pretend
| to be something they're not are delicious. Give me baked
| onions, baba ghanoush, and celery all day.
| mellow-lake-day wrote:
| The reason that I will be buying plant-based meat things is
| because they smell, look, and taste like meat.
|
| >We can live up to great flavors vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
|
| But that's a whole thing altogether. That's like completely
| missing the point. You aren't going to get meat eaters to
| switch to plant-based meat patties if they taste like
| vegetables or fruits.
| hamax wrote:
| Definition of meat by merriam-webster:
|
| a: FOOD especially : solid food as distinguished from drink
|
| b: the edible part of something as distinguished from its
| covering (such as a husk or shell)
|
| The same as with milk. Nobody had problems with coconut milk
| until dairy lobby started fearing plant milk competition. And
| when one buys oat yogurt they know exactly what they'll get and
| what to compare it with. Or do you think fat free or lactose
| free cow milk yogurt shouldn't be called as such, since it's
| its own thing?
|
| How we name things is important and naming things by their
| appearance and function is completely fine and useful and has
| been done since ever. Things like turkey ham or turkey bacon
| aren't new inventions.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Upvote this comment if you've ever encountered a native
| english speaker use the word 'meat' to be a synonym of 'solid
| food'.
|
| Option Base 1
|
| I would like to see when Merriam Webster added this obscure
| definition, let alone have it listed first.
| Grustaf wrote:
| You do use it in a more general sense in some contexts, but
| I completely agree with your point.
| hamax wrote:
| Sigh...
|
| This is THE original definition. Language later evolved and
| people started using the word meat to mostly mean animal
| flash. But that's just proof that language evolves over
| time and now it's evolving again to include broader range
| of food.
|
| But in any case, I'm sure you've heard of meat of a fruit
| or nut.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Yes I have, but it's normally obvious from the context
| that a fruit or nut is being referred to, usually by
| qualifing the workd with either 'fruit' or 'nut', or the
| person holding either.
|
| If someone asked me to buy some meat and I returned with
| a few apples I'd receive a Merriam-Webster dictionary to
| the head!
| Droobfest wrote:
| So if I say 'We should all eat less meat' you immediately
| understand this to also include eating less plant patties?
|
| Or could this possibly be the wrong definition?
| Animats wrote:
| _I really think that in general calling plant-based things
| "meat", a terrible idea._
|
| The US meat industry is fighting that battle.[1] So far,
| they're not winning. In the EU, dirt farmers have been able to
| prevent the use of the term "organic" for hydroponic farms,
| though.
|
| _We can live up to great flavors vegetables, fruits, and
| herbs._
|
| There's a bright future ahead for new classes of junk foods.
| Plant-based bacon flavored chips, coming soon to a convenience
| store near you.
|
| [1] https://www.foodnavigator-
| usa.com/Article/2021/02/03/Highly-...
| curiousllama wrote:
| The place you're right is in the "slab of meat" category: the
| only thing that'll replace steak is lab-grown meat, and then
| only partially. And I agree that, eg bean burgers do well to
| market themselves as different. It's a legit point.
|
| But this new fake meat stuff reduced my meat intake
| significantly. It's is FANTASTIC for replacing low-quality meat
| in a lot of cases. I have no need for ground beef/turkey/pork
| if I have beyond meat ground "beef" in a lot of cases. It's a
| straight substitute, and I wouldn't have thought about it that
| way if it was posed more narrowly.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I remember trying a Beyond Burger for the first time.
|
| Overall impression was that had some fastfood chains replaced
| their patties with this, not only nobody would notice that
| what they're eating isn't actually meat, but also they would
| be happy with how the quality improved.
|
| There's of course the question of price, but I'm sure with
| adequate scale it can be brought down.
| eloff wrote:
| They're surprisingly good. If it wasn't more expensive than
| meat I would have it more often.
|
| I'm not going to pay more for lower quality protein (from a
| body building perspective).
| Thinkx220 wrote:
| Literally the entire reason these products exist is to be a
| replacement for meat. A replacement should be as good as the
| thing it is replacing.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| If it says plant-based meat, I am going to try it since it aims
| to simulate a taste/texture I know I like. If it says
| "vegetarian" I assume it will taste bad, because historically
| that has been the case.
|
| That's an anecdote, but I don't think I am an edge case, many
| people have tried an Impossible Burger who had little to no
| interest in trying a vegetarian burger.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I started trying to google for research on this, but didn't
| find much.
|
| But I'm pretty sure you're wrong -- I doubt that these
| companies would be selling these premium meat-replacement
| products with the word meat if they didn't have lots of market
| research on it.
|
| It tells you what you can use the things for -- the impossible
| and beyond products can be used to replace ground beef in
| pretty much any recipe, and will do the job. People can use it
| immediately with the recipes and cooking techniques they are
| familiar with, it makes the product comfortable and familiar
| instead of a new thing that requires them to adjust their
| palettes and learn new cooking techniques.
|
| I think you're right that someone who has committed to a _meat-
| free_ diet doesn 't want or need the label meat. (but they'll
| buy the stuff anyway if they like it and can afford it, they
| are kind of a captive market). But when you say "meat
| consumption reduction" -- if every meat eater replaces say 20%
| of their meat consumption with this stuff, it would be a
| gigantic reduction in animals killed (for those who care about
| that). Assuming there is less greenhouse gas and other
| ecological damage from these meat replacements, a gigantic
| reduction in that too.
|
| I dont think you can lump together committed vegetarians with
| ominivores who may replace a portion of their consumption with
| these products. Perhaps an ever-increasing portion, perhaps
| eventually they will become vegetarians. But calling the non-
| animal-based stuff "meat" is squarely aimed at current
| omnivores -- and it seems hard to argue that it won't work when
| it is literally _working_ , as the OP outlines in talking about
| market share and grocery space. Burger king is selling
| impossible burgers because they can sell them _as burgers_ ;
| and if they tried instead introducing some new product that
| isn't meant to resemble a beef burger but is just some kind of
| "vegetarian food", I guarantee it would sell less not more.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| not only this, but to turn plants into "meat" you end up with
| horrible processed vegetables with added oils, sugars and
| unnatural flavourings. most of which are then breadcrumbed in
| bleached flour and deep fried. by this point, the thing that
| might once have been a plant is now as bad as meat, if not
| worse, and resembles a dog turd in taste and health benefits
| Grustaf wrote:
| Yeah I agree. There's delicious vegetarian dishes, with low
| processed ingredients. Why bother with ultra processed fake
| meat?
| tjr225 wrote:
| Its pretty intuitive, actually: people like burgers- even
| vegetarians or those trying to reduce their meat
| consumption.
| azifali wrote:
| Completely agree. Why can't we all just eat regular, and not
| so highly processed vegetables if we want to make the switch
| to healthier diet..
| k__ wrote:
| Why shouldn't they compare it to meat?
|
| If I am asked to replace meat with plants, these plants have to
| compete with meat.
| Already__Taken wrote:
| I've had a few of kinds of these burgers and honestly they're
| really nailing it with meat as a description.
| k__ wrote:
| Yes, I had a bunch of these new groundmeat replacements
| from different companies, and they were quite good.
| redisman wrote:
| Impossible is great in burgers, pretty much can't tell a
| difference. Beyond I don't like as much, something about it
| being a bit soft and veggie tasting
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| Except for lying about it being meat. That definition
| should be reserved for animal-based protein.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Do you think people are fooled into thinking that it's
| animal protein?
| Judgmentality wrote:
| I don't get this at all. Why? So long as it's labeled
| appropriately (ingredients, possibly some disclaimer if
| required but I think that would be absurd) why not call
| it whatever we want? Meat is already a somewhat ambiguous
| term in English, so giving it legal protection seems odd
| to me.
|
| Personally I think we shouldn't sell juice that's from
| concentrate as 100% juice, but I can easily find out by
| reading the ingredients so I don't care. And for those
| who don't already specifically buy juice that isn't from
| concentrate, enjoy discovering that almost all juice is
| from concentrate (and hopefully realize how much better
| it tastes when it's not). It's like ice cream that's been
| melted and refrozen. It may have the same ingredients but
| it doesn't have the same taste.
| hamax wrote:
| Why do you want to change the definition of the word
| meat?
| thordenmark wrote:
| Ultimately these plant-based alternatives will be enhanced or
| replaced with insects, once people have been largely weaned off
| of meat. Most people won't notice or care. We aren't squeamish
| about blue food dye after all, we're just used to it.
| uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| Yeah give me the 80/20 ground chuck (80% insect-derived
| protein, 20% exoskeleton). Make sure the roaches were free-
| range, naturally sewer fed. I would like to see comfortable
| lives and painless deaths for all our slaughtered animals. But
| is killing insects more humane than chickens etc? Do we really
| beleive that if BigPoultryCo determined it could make a profit
| raising and killing insects it would do so in a manner somehow
| more in tune with our sentimentalities?
| OneGuy123 wrote:
| > In Europe, the UK's largest retailer, Tesco, launched more than
| 30 new own-brand plant-based products, as its CEO wrote that the
| UK should eat "less meat and dairy."
|
| "its CEO wrote that the UK should eat "less meat and dairy."
|
| I wonder when incentive he could have for writting such a thing.
| Surely it cannot be a financial one?
| ebiester wrote:
| I disagree with some of the premises.
|
| First, I think that the right choice is to pick the right protein
| for the job, and not choose wheat and soy because of price. Mung
| beans, for example, are expensive because people aren't growing
| them. If quantity demanded grows, so will supply and supply
| chains, which will lower the price. It is possible that mung
| beans (as an example) are marginally more expensive to grow for
| some reason other than scale, but I would be surprised.
|
| Second, I think they are getting cause and effect mixed up. They
| are saying to go downmarket because it will be cheaper, but it is
| much harder to beat Tyson at its own game with chicken nuggets
| than it is to provide a product at a higher perceived quality,
| then use profits to provide scale to go downmarket.
|
| Plant-based versions already suffer from a perception of lower
| quality - it makes sense to compete on taste before cost because
| failing at both will never scale.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The thing that I found incredibly strange about this analysis
| is that it is saying how older plant-based products from
| Morningstar and Gardein show it can be done cheaper.
|
| What??? I don't even consider those older veggie products in
| the same category as Impossible and Beyond, mainly because I
| think they taste like shit. Well, not shit exactly, but for me
| an Impossible Burger can completely satiate my hunger for meat.
| Morningstar-type burgers do absolutely none of that for me.
| redisman wrote:
| Morningstar is pretty good with their sausage patties and hot
| dogs. Some of the best in those categories.
|
| The gap between the 1.0 veggie meats and the current ones (
| especially impossible) is insane though. Juiciness and flavor
| are completely on a different level. I love that it doesn't
| feel like eating a fake burger to somewhat satisfy my craving
| anymore, but like I ate a burger.
| nicpottier wrote:
| 100 percent agree. I'm almost entirely vegetarian but would
| occasionally allow myself a burger as a treat as it is one of
| my favorite meals when I have a real hankering. A Beyond or
| Impossible patty now completely satisfied that craving. They
| really have done a great job of it. Note I am not saying they
| are indistinguishable from real beef, but they are meaty
| enough in a way that scratches the itch which previous
| products never did.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > They are saying to go downmarket because it will be cheaper
|
| Ah, yes, the Tesla strategy. Tesla also keeps issuing more
| shares and has failed to deliver a $20k-$30k Civic/Accord
| competitor.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Tesla has also proved the market and accelerated the EV
| roadmaps of most of the other car manufactures.
| dehrmann wrote:
| True, it's done great things for EVs. It has yet to turn
| that into a business that's more than nominally profitable,
| so you should be cautious in using its playbook.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > [Tesla] has yet to turn that into a business that's
| more than nominally profitable, so you should be cautious
| in using its playbook.
|
| And all their profits come from selling carbon credits to
| competitors, not from selling cars. Not to mention non-
| refundable presales for FSD functionality.
|
| That's not to say Tesla shouldn't be doing those things.
| They are trying to run a company after all. But it's
| important to remember that when judging them on the
| viability of their business and how profitable it is. One
| of my favorite automobile companies, Porsche, has a very
| long complicated history with more than one moment of
| nearly going bankrupt, and their greatest savior was the
| VW squeeze so I'm not necessarily opposed to this sort of
| thing.
| thordenmark wrote:
| >And all their profits come from selling carbon credits
| to competitors,
|
| This is merely a current strategy so more can be funneled
| into R&D, and growing the infrastructure.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| The protein yield per acre for soybeans vs mung beans is 6x. No
| amount of try hard is going to make mung bean protein close in
| price to soy.
|
| What gets me is that I can't even source tofu that is cheaper
| than chicken. Chickens are very good reactors for turning
| carbohydrates into protein.
| slacka wrote:
| > Chickens are very good reactors for turning carbohydrates
| into protein.
|
| The remnant wiring from my chemistry and biology classes
| tells me this is impossible. Did a little digging and no
| animal seems capable of this feat.[1] Chickens are fed a mix
| of cheap grains, like wheat and corn that are ~16%
| protein.[2] What they are is efficient at turning this
| protein into body mass/eggs.
|
| [1] https://www.quora.com/Is-there-an-organism-that-can-
| convert-...
|
| [2] my backyard chickens
| bsdz wrote:
| In the UK a popular plant based "meat" is Quorn. I believe
| that is grown by an organism that is fed glucose. The
| glucose is predigested maize starch. So perhaps not a
| single organism but two to make it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium_venenatum
| scythe wrote:
| >The protein yield per acre for soybeans vs mung beans is 6x.
|
| While this is probably not too unfair for mung vs. soy, it's
| important to remember that yield per acre can't always be
| compared directly across crops that grow in different
| climates. Tropical climates can average well over 50" of rain
| per year while cold climates are wet if they hit 25", and the
| conservation of mass already affects cold-climate growth
| before taking into account any other factors.
|
| Hence chickens, which can live almost _anywhere_.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| The optimal crop certainly depends on weather. In northern
| Brazil they double crop corn for insane yields of 22M
| calories per acre. In Wisconsin they grow wheat for 4m
| calories per acre. Farmers in the Midwest split between
| soybean (oil/protein 6m calories per acre) and corn (carbs
| 11m calories per acre).
|
| Optimizing yield per acre, adjusting for the value of
| oil/protein/carbs and weather is the best explanation for
| the current state of what gets planted.
|
| If you have a desert with access to cheap labor, water, and
| transportation, then the best thing to do is sell organic
| strawberries to rich people. Rich people don't like spots
| on their fruit.
|
| I am a believer that the invisible hand is what drives farm
| decisions. As soon as someone invents a robot that can pick
| blueberries and deliver them to a store, I'll never eat
| another banana.
| dsomers wrote:
| Is that because soy has been engineered that way and mung
| beans have not? I pose the question because I remember my
| grand uncle who has been a soy farmer his whole life telling
| me that when they switched to Monsanto seeds they got some
| huge multiple of crop yield, 3x? 4x? I can't remember the
| exact multiple I just remember it seeming like a lot.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Generally when people refer to Monsanto seeds, they mean
| Roundup ready soy. The glyphosate resistant gene actually
| reduces yield by 5%. The upside is you either have huge
| labor savings from not having to deal with weeds manually,
| or you get yield increases compared to co-cropping with
| weeds.
| hannob wrote:
| Interestingly it doesn't even discuss the obvious solution: Let
| people who buy real meat pay for the externalities.
| (Interestingly even in places where there's some form of carbon
| pricing - like the EU - this often doesn't cover a large share of
| emissions from meat production, as methane emissions are very
| relevant here - I'm not aware of any methane pricing scheme
| anywhere.)
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| True, but I think it was focusing on things under the control
| of the producers of this product... of course, I suppose
| spending more on lobbying to try to reduce subsidies or tax
| externalities for meat is under their control. It seems like a
| kind of unwinnable battle though doesn't it?
|
| The OP does touch on the subsidies by suggesting the producers
| rely more on soy and corn, which are heavily subsidized, _and_
| as are used as animal feed and thereby constitute a pretty
| major source of the meat subsidy. While not about
| externalities, I think they could have pointed out the
| _reasons_ corn and soy are so cheap compared to other plant
| sources are in large part a result of government policy.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| This is a thing where some solutions are within the control of
| some people and some other solutions are within the control of
| other people.
| thysultan wrote:
| People will just blame their governments for higher food prices
| and vote them out in the next election if they can: replaced by
| whoever promises to reverse it.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> Interestingly it doesn't even discuss the obvious solution:
| Let people who buy real meat pay for the externalities.
|
| Are we going to have people paying for the "externalities" of
| all the products they consume?
|
| For example, the people who buy a new phone every year or half
| (this habit causes a significant amount of pollution, so-called
| "e-waste"). The people who drive their car everywhere. The
| people who fly a few times a year. The people who use computers
| (more e-waste). The people who wear clothes made of synthetic
| fibers and use plastic-based implements. The people who burn
| wood, coal or oil for central heating. The people who use
| electricity (the major producer of greenhouse gas emissions is
| power production). The people who read books printed in paper
| produced by felled trees. The people who consume plant-based
| products whose production is responsible for deforestation,
| soil depletion, acidification of soil, etc etc. The people who
| eat fish. The people who eat soy (major contributor to the
| destruction of the Amazon rainforest). etc etc.
|
| Are we only going to make meat eaters pay for their
| "externalities"?
| tonyarkles wrote:
| I'm on my phone at the moment and can't break down that list
| line-by-line, but in Canada you already do pay surcharges for
| many (not all) of those things. E-waste is nominally priced
| at the cost of recycling for various device types;
| electricity, natural gas, and gasoline, and aviation all have
| a (not insignificant!) carbon tax associated with them.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Good news, but that's in Canada. Where else?
| bigfudge wrote:
| Most of the EU. It's only the US and Australia that are
| so backward in environmental issues among western
| democracies.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Ideally, yes, for sure.
|
| One way or another, it's the only way we get a society that
| can live on the planet indefinitely without making it less
| and less fit for human habitation.
|
| How you do that is not necessarily trivial, but we should
| start doing what we can figure out how to do now, yes. You
| don't have to do it for _everything_ for it to be valuable to
| do it for what we can figure out how to do it for.
|
| For meat, simply _ending subsidies_ would be a good start.
|
| Cell phones and other electronics as you point out are
| another obvious target, yes. Some have proposed that the cost
| of disposal/recycling should be built into the purchase price
| -- one practical way to do that, is require manufacturers to
| take back the products at end of life for recycling or
| disposal at no charge (and ban them from municipal waste
| stream).
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Well someone is paying for all those externalities. At least
| let's try and make it the person who benefits from it. Why
| not start from meat and go from there.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Of course people should pay the true cost of what they buy or
| use. I can't see how anyone could argue against that on moral
| grounds. You might disagree for financial reasons, but hardly
| out of principle.
| tyrust wrote:
| Those are all good ideas. I don't think they need to be
| implemented together and simultaneously.
| roughly wrote:
| > Are we going to have people paying for the "externalities"
| of all the products they consume?
|
| Well, yes, we should. Considering that notion is baked into
| every part of the economic models we're using to determine
| how we're structuring the rest of the economy, absolutely,
| the bare minimum we could do is make people actually pay for
| the damage they're causing. I'd go so far as to say a
| substantial part of the reason we seem unable to reasonably
| address things like pollution, climate change, and
| biodiversity is because people aren't paying the full cost of
| their actions.
| wyre wrote:
| As much as I would love to see subsidies ended on animal
| products, it couldn't happen overnight without huge backlash.
|
| Lowering the subsidies over time and eliminating the power that
| the animal agriculture industry has over politics would do a
| lot to increase the number of plant-based eaters.
| hannob wrote:
| Depends on how you do it.
|
| There are proposals for carbon tax schemes that go like
| "we'll pay back all the income from the carbon tax to all
| citizen directly". You can imagine the same for methane.
| Pretty sure such a proposal would be popular.
| wyre wrote:
| A carbon-tax funded UBI would be popular, but ideally
| wouldn't funding from a carbon tax go towards sequestering
| the carbon and other green initiatives instead of giving it
| back to consumers to spend on high-carbon goods and
| services?
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's essentially what we do today. High tax payers
| consume more and their tax revenues subsidize things like
| Ag which make things like meat affordable to poor people.
|
| So yeah, get rid of subsidies and replace with UBI and
| we're probably in nearly the same place. Maybe a good
| deal of people would forego newly expensive meat and
| spend their UBI on the lotto?
| bigfudge wrote:
| Why the snipe at the end? Perhaps they would buy plant
| based food instead. What you're describing sounds like a
| wi for everyone.
| nemo44x wrote:
| You get rid of subsidies and then poor people can't eat meat.
| Good luck dealing with the political fallout from that.
| Subsidized meat is a special kind of a American socialism
| where the wealthy tax payers fund the subsidies so everyone
| else can eat meat.
|
| Honestly, so many of the ideas for addressing climate just
| prevent poor people from participating. The upper middle
| class who are most concerned with these issues (and have the
| most political power) simply wouldn't be affected much at all
| by things that make access more difficult and/or expensive.
|
| Rationing in the name of "equity" won't happen because these
| same people will actually be affected so the line is drawn
| there. We need more housing development but not in my
| backyard, etc.
|
| I don't offer a particular solution other than giving people
| incentives to eat plant based diets and using tax revenues to
| invest in engineering the problem away as much as possible.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You get rid of subsidies and then poor people can't eat
| meat
|
| So stop subsidizing _meat_ and spend the same money
| augmenting _the income of the poor_ , then poor people will
| be at least as able to eat meat and be at least as well off
| when doing so as they were with the meat sibaidies, while
| those who choose not to will be even better off than they
| were with meat subsidies.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Why would people that pay taxes prefer that model? So, I
| pay the same taxes and then I also get to spend a lot
| more on food for my family?
|
| Good luck getting support for that.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Why would people that pay taxes prefer that model?
|
| Because they actually want to control (or, at least not
| encourage through subsidization) the externalities of
| meat consumption?
|
| What economic group so you think that concern comes from?
|
| > Good luck getting support for that.
|
| If it wasn't possible to get something that didn't serve
| the immediate narrow financial interests of the
| wealthiest, the developed, democratic world would never
| have abandoned laissez-faire capitalism for the modern
| mixed economy.
| danShumway wrote:
| > So, I pay the same taxes and then I also get to spend a
| lot more on food for my family?
|
| Well, no, not necessarily. You pay taxes right now to
| subsidize meat consumption across the board, to everyone,
| even rich people.
|
| Under a system like UBI, you pay the same taxes, your
| food costs more, but you also get a check in the mail
| that balances out the extra food cost.
|
| Or under a targeted system that is designed to
| specifically benefit the poor, you pay more for food but
| fewer taxes, because you're only paying taxes to
| subsidize the poor instead of (currently) also paying
| additional taxes to subsidize the meat consumption of
| rich people.
|
| It's a mistake to say that your food costs less right now
| because you pay taxes. It costs the same, you're just
| paying part of the price in your taxes. And part of the
| 'problem' is that the money you're paying to the
| government is going towards subsidizing everyone,
| including people who are more well off than you but that
| get to enjoy cheap meat prices anyway. That's not
| necessarily a very efficient way to help the poor.
|
| There are lots of different schemes and complications
| here, it's not as simple as I'm making it out to be. But
| the very basic idea is that it would cost less money to
| subsidize just the poor, and then you could keep some of
| your tax money that's currently subsidizing rich people
| and you could spend it on meat instead.
| danShumway wrote:
| Even if we ignore externalities and pollution costs, just stop
| outright subsidizing animal meat production so much. The reason
| meat is so cheap is because our government puts a lot of effort
| and money into making it cheap.
|
| I don't know why more people aren't trying to sell this to the
| "free market" crowd as government overreach. The reality right
| now is that plant-based protein is gaining popularity despite
| the market being artificially biased against it in terms of
| price. Animal meat _should_ cost more than it does, not just in
| the sense of "you're not paying for the true environmental
| cost", but also in the sense of, "you're not paying the actual
| monetary cost it takes to produce this product."
|
| The US government throws billions of dollars into subsidizing
| meat and dairy production every year. Plant-based protein's
| growth is restricted in part because our food prices and
| production aren't determined just by the free market. That's
| not necessarily _bad_ , but if we're going to be messing with
| the market anyway we could choose to subsidize other things.
|
| And we could obviously do more than just lowering subsidies,
| I'm not saying we should ignore externalities or that we should
| just completely abandon all subsidies entirely. But I am saying
| we shouldn't pretend that meat actually costs what we see in
| the store. Meat is cheap because (for various reasons) as a
| society we've all collectively decided to spend tax money so
| that we can pretend that it costs very little to produce.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Have you considered why we do this? How would our society be
| different if only well-to-do people could eat meat regularly?
| Would a regular guy be content with wealthy people eating
| steaks while jet-setting around the globe because of climate
| change?
|
| I think a populist uprising would occur almost immediately
| and we'd see heads on pikes with their decapitated mouths
| stuffed with cabbage for all to see. It would be super easy
| for a party to take advantage of this and they would.
|
| In short, it would be a miserable time.
| danShumway wrote:
| > That's not necessarily bad, but if we're going to be
| messing with the market anyway we could choose to subsidize
| other things.
|
| I'm saying we shouldn't pretend that meat is as cheap as it
| is on its own. We should acknowledge what the reality is:
| meat is cheap because as a society, we choose to use tax
| dollars to make it cheap.
|
| We could do the exact same thing with plant-based meat. We
| could shift some of those subsidies so that meat and plant
| protein were equally subsidized. We could balance them out.
| We can talk about the logistics.
|
| But I think sometimes the conversation gets stuck entirely
| on "how could we make artificial meat cheaper" when the
| reality is that animal meat _is_ expensive, and the big
| difference between animal meat and plant meat is that we
| pretend that animal meat costs less than a free market
| would otherwise dictate. Of course I want to artificial
| meat to be cheaper, but I 'm also not going to pretend that
| it's a fair fight.
|
| The reason why this matters is because I do see arguments
| from people that say that it's just too expensive to have a
| social shift towards vegetarianism, and it can't possibly
| scale, and it's government interference to try and prop up
| plant-based foods. And yeah, we can have a values
| conversation about whether society wants us to make meat
| cheap. But most of the rest of those objections are crap.
| There are a lot of people that do think that meat is
| actually priced realistically based on what it costs to
| produce. They don't realize that it's just that our
| government chooses to make very specific farming outputs
| cheaper.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I just think it's politically a non-starter. They tried
| to tax sugary drinks in the most liberal city in America
| and heads exploded.
| zionic wrote:
| The rich: steak is only for us now, for the climate and
| stuff
|
| The poor: _Time to eat the rich_
| markdown wrote:
| This is nonsense. People elsewhere in the world pay 50% to
| 100% more than what Americans pay for beef.
|
| Removing some subsidies and making beef slightly more
| expensive would save money and people would just eat beef
| one day less/week.
| [deleted]
| bigfudge wrote:
| If meat is the trigger to generate real social change then
| great! I don't want to see heads on spikes, but if people
| are genuinely bought off by cheap meat that's kind of sad.
| Erlich_Bachman wrote:
| Do you have any links to sources or further reading material
| regarding this current state of affairs? It seems not
| entirely obvious, nor easily checked for a casual reader.
| (Maybe that's part of the issue of why this is not a more
| popular topic yet.)
| rlaabs wrote:
| I would highly recommend 'The Meat Racket: The Secret
| Takeover of America's Food Business'
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas-
| Busin...
| fsflover wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_price
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_subsidy
| m463 wrote:
| You know, I wonder if a meat-based production system is a hedge
| against catastrophic/extinction events.
|
| For example, let's say we have another potato-famine style
| event. Even a bio-engineered attack that takes out a crop or
| crops.
|
| We could scale back meat production and use the crop capacity
| we use to support the "meat pyramid" to feed people directly
| until the crisis has passed.
|
| Subsidizing crop capacity might make strategic sense. Sort of
| like how the just-in-time production pipeline ran into a wall
| with respect to mask shortages at the start of the pandemic.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| Government encouraging overproduction of food makes absolute
| sense. It's this or to store backup because to run food
| production at an efficient "only as much as I needed" models
| a disaster waiting to happen.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
| downrightmike wrote:
| Yeah, I think that is what the Danes did in WW2, and why they
| had more people survive the lean times when the Nazis took
| their food.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Would that really make a huge difference though? I'm all for
| people paying for their externalities but I wonder how
| significant it would be, are there any calculations?
| Falling3 wrote:
| Paying for the externalities and eliminating subsidies would go
| a long way.
| scythe wrote:
| >Interestingly even in places where there's some form of carbon
| pricing - like the EU - this often doesn't cover a large share
| of emissions from meat production, as methane emissions are
| very relevant here - I'm not aware of any methane pricing
| scheme anywhere.
|
| The problem is that most of the cows in the world live in
| India, Africa and South America, regions which have relatively
| low carbon intensity per capita. In the developed world,
| agriculture accounts for on average ~10% of carbon emissions,
| half of which is from cows. Targeting methane makes a small
| difference in rich countries and on a global scale places an
| unfair burden on the poorest countries, and politically,
| severely hurts the perception of climate protection advocacy
| among farmers, who are no doubt smart enough to know that
| fossil fuels are responsible for eight times as much greenhouse
| emissions as they are, and who are generally an _extremely_
| sympathetic constituency, cf. recent Indian protests.
|
| In rich countries, transportation and thermal processes based
| on fuel burning account for the lion's share of greenhouse gas
| pollution and rightly deserve the spotlight. The outlier is
| China, which is rapidly expanding meat production along with
| its transition to a more industrialized economy. Purveyors of
| meat substitutes might consider taking the Chinese market more
| seriously, since they have an opportunity to get in on the
| ground floor.
| eznzt wrote:
| I was going to say "that won't go well with the voters" but
| it's not like the EU is a democracy.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| The EU is a democracy.
| eznzt wrote:
| Like the average EU citizen, I don't remember ever voting
| for anybody who represents me in the EU and I don't know
| any of the structures of power of the EU or how they work.
| gus_massa wrote:
| The last election was in 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
| ki/2019_European_Parliament_elect...
| goatinaboat wrote:
| To the figurehead, talking shop parliament. Effectively
| all the power in the EU belongs to the commission, which
| is appointed not elected.
| cataphract wrote:
| In most European countries, people don't elect the
| national government directly as well; it's formed taking
| into account parliament elections. It is true that in the
| EU the appointment of the commission is a bit more
| removed, with the national governments involved in the
| choice of the President and the commissioners, but in any
| case the European Parliament must still approve the
| commission.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| And who appointed them?
|
| All political systems have delegation.
| kreeben wrote:
| Everything you need to know about the European Commission
| and more:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| EU Comissioners are proposed by the Council of the
| European Union, a body composed of EU member state
| ministers, themselves directly elected by the citizens of
| their respective states in national elections.
| Appointment of Comissioners follows the suggestions of
| national governments.
| jrimbault wrote:
| I learned the political structure of the European Union
| in school, several times, once in middle school, once in
| high shool, with many repetitions in between. If you
| haven't learned you might either be older than me (I'm
| near thirty) or the education system in your country has
| worse issues than mine, or just not interested in
| Wikipedia ?
| eznzt wrote:
| Interesting. I see you are French--that makes sense,
| since it's only France and Germany ruling the EU.
| bigfudge wrote:
| This is an absurd big lie which is so often repeated.
| Germany has great influence because it pays so much for
| the EU but all member states have the veto...
| n4r9 wrote:
| Turnout in Spain for the 2019 election was pretty high at
| 60%, compared to average of 50%. Counter to your
| (somewhat xenophobic) remarks about France and Germany,
| the most engaged countries by this measure are Belgium,
| Luxembourg, Malta and Denmark.
| orange_tee wrote:
| Malnutrition is also an externality.
|
| I am not sure how healthy these options are but I suspect that
| substituting minced meat patties, for mashed vegetables glued
| together with cheap vegetable oils is not an nutritional
| improvement.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| There are plenty of very healthy meat-avoiding people in the
| world. Malnutrition is also a problem in the world.
| Malnutrition from people eating fake meat? So far, not a
| problem.
| orange_tee wrote:
| The question is how feasible it is? Is it a trivial change
| in lifestyle? Is it more expensive or cheaper? Can you make
| it work with the basic fare that you find everywhere, or do
| you need to shop around for plant products that are more
| exotic?
| danShumway wrote:
| > The question is how feasible it is?
|
| In my experience (omnivore -> vegetarian -> vegan), going
| vegetarian is not too difficult. Going something like
| pescatarian, or even just eliminating red meat -- that's
| downright easy. I am not a particularly great cook, but
| my grocery bill dropped noticeably when I went vegetarian
| because I was buying more vegetables for the first time
| in my life. Even when eating out I had to make very few
| adjustments. Most restaurants around me have great
| vegetarian menus. I feel like it's not a particularly
| difficult transition to make.
|
| On the other hand, going vegan was harder. Part of this
| is how good you are at cooking. Part of it is that you
| have to research a bit more. I take supplements (D3, K2,
| B12) as a vegan. I never worried for a second about my
| nutritional input when I went vegetarian. And again, if
| you're going pescetarian and still eating a fair bit of
| cheese/eggs, I just really doubt nutrition is a concern
| for most people. But after going vegan, suddenly I had to
| actually think about some of these nutritional questions
| that I was able to ignore before because I just ate a lot
| of eggs and cheese.
|
| You _can_ make veganism a lot cheaper (and plenty of
| people do), but I 'm lazy and bad at cooking, so I buy
| more specialty vegan products, which are expensive. I put
| up with it, it's fine, it's doable, but being vegan is
| annoying sometimes, and it requires more work.
|
| Again, it's doable. It's fine, lots of people make it
| work, I make it work. You can be vegan and healthy. But
| in terms of effort/work to be healthy and to keep costs
| down, I think that veganism and vegetarianism are in
| separate categories.
|
| But importantly, you don't need to go vegan to see
| improvements here. If you're talking about "meat-
| avoiding" in general, just getting rid of red meat from
| your diet will have a positive environmental impact, and
| will _probably_ be both healthier and cheaper as long as
| you put at least a tiny bit of effort into not just
| eating only Impossible burgers and mac &cheese. You can
| already in many places get raw tofu significantly cheaper
| than red meat, and after that it's really just learning
| how to make stir fries and figuring out 'new' foods like
| mushrooms and beans.
|
| Part of the benefits here are that in general, most
| people who aren't following a specific diet probably
| shouldn't eat as much meat as they do anyway. So if the
| end result is that you eat one serving of plant-based
| meat alongside some eggs/veggies/beans, instead of three
| servings of steak, that's very likely to be both
| healthier and cheaper.
| maximente wrote:
| you wrote:
|
| > Malnutrition is also an externality.
|
| a poster addressed that, and now you have 4 more
| questions, none related to nutrition - and, hilariously,
| prefaced by the common but ridiculous "the question is"
| (implying there's one) rhetorical device.
|
| this style of dialog is really tiring.
| orange_tee wrote:
| All the questions are related. I am aware that some
| people can make it work, but if you remove cheap meat,
| who do you affect? Poor people. My question is, can poor
| people also eat a plant based diet with minimal
| malnutrition risk? All the questions are in reference to
| that.
|
| All I see about plant based diets say the same shit
| without answering the though questions. They always say,
| "it's possible to be a health vegan if you watch your
| nutrition". Well that says precisely nothing. It is a
| carefully crafted message to not upset militant vegans.
|
| The impression I get from that message is that it is far
| easier to be healthy if you don't avoid meat. You don't
| have to watch your nutrition much. You just have to use
| common sense.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's very easy to eat healthily and cheaply on a
| vegetarian or vegan diet. In the UK I used Quorn or
| lentils as a major protein in a lot of my cooking, now
| I'm in Berlin I'm alternating between soy chunks, seitan
| (both of which I have to flavour myself), lentils, tofu,
| four types of preprepared tinned beans, soy milk, and
| cheese.
|
| Most of these options have cheap subtypes. The most
| expensive part of my cooking is the fancy stuff that
| isn't strictly necessary, like fresh basil or pre-made
| pastry, and even those are not hugely expensive.
|
| > The impression I get from that message is that it is
| far easier to be healthy if you don't avoid meat. You
| don't have to watch your nutrition much.
|
| The obesity crisis in the developed world, combined with
| the low rate of no-meat diets, rather contradicts that.
|
| > You just have to use common sense.
|
| How do you define "common sense" such that this sentence
| _differentiates_ between the effectiveness of meat and
| non-meat diets?
| cung wrote:
| It doesn't get much cheaper and healthier than beans and
| soy.
|
| I've never felt this good before and the secret seems to
| be fiber in everything, even the protein.
| [deleted]
| wyre wrote:
| I've been vegan for 5 years. I was raised vegetarian, but
| I also cooked a chicken the night before I went vegan. It
| is feasible and as time goes on it gets easier and
| easier.
|
| Only recently have I started spending more than $200 a
| month on groceries and that's because I've started
| weightlifting. I can get by on much less.
|
| Is any change in lifestyle trivial?
|
| I'm able to go to my local grocery store for everything I
| need. I go to my local Asian market because I like the
| noodles and spices though, but that isn't necessary at
| all.
|
| Food deserts exist but that is a bigger problem with
| general accessibility to food, and is not a good argument
| to a plant-based diet, imo.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There are plenty of very healthy meat-avoiding people in
| the world
|
| Yes, but they don't tend to eat much in the way of highly-
| processed meat simulants crafted from plants.
| ben_w wrote:
| Because they're new and expensive? And surely that means
| "sample size small so consequence unstudied" rather than
| "this stuff is bad to eat"?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Sure, what I'm saying that it also doesn't mean "the
| existence of health vegetarians is testament to the
| healthiness of veggie-'meat'."
| bigfudge wrote:
| But cheap meat isn't that healthy to start with, so we
| have quite a low bar to pass.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> Malnutrition from people eating fake meat? So far, not a
| problem.
|
| Because there aren't that many. For people eating a
| vegetarian or vegan diet, keeping well-fed is a real
| concern and not everyone is pulling it off. For example,
| the following article is about infant nutrition but some of
| its comments apply to adults:
|
| _Vegetarian diets in childhood and adolescence : Position
| paper of the nutrition committee, German Society for
| Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ)_
|
| _In Western countries, vegetarian diets are associated
| with lower intakes of energy, saturated fatty acids and
| animal protein and higher intakes of fibre and
| phytochemicals, compared to omnivorous diets. Whether the
| corresponding health benefits in vegetarians outweigh the
| risks of nutrient deficiencies has not been fully
| clarified. It should be noted that vegetarians often have a
| higher socioeconomic status, follow a more health-conscious
| lifestyle with higher physical activity, and refrain from
| smoking more often than non-vegetarians. The nutritional
| needs of growing children and adolescents can generally be
| met through a balanced, vegetable-based diet; however, due
| to their higher nutrient requirements per kilogramme of
| body weight, vegetarian children have a higher risk for
| developing nutrient deficiencies than adults. With a
| vegetarian diet, the mean intakes of some nutrients, such
| as the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are
| lower than in omnivores or those eating fish. For other
| nutrients, such as iron and zinc, the bioavailability from
| vegetable foodstuffs is reduced when the intake of phytates
| and fibre is high; thus, the prevalence of iron deficiency
| can be increased despite high vitamin C intake. In
| addition, vitamin B12 is only found in animal-source foods.
| Vitamin B12 should be supplemented in people of all age
| groups who follow a strict vegan diet without consuming
| animal products. A vegetarian diet in childhood and
| adolescence requires good information and supervision by a
| paediatrician, if necessary, in cooperation with an
| appropriately trained dietary specialist._
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31722049/
|
| See also some relevant articles:
|
| _Vegetarian diets during pregnancy: effects on the mother
| 's health. A systematic review_
|
| Note well: _Data are scarce, often inconsistent and not
| homogeneous for many of the topics we considered, mainly
| because only a few studies have been performed in developed
| countries, _whereas other studies have derived from
| developing countries, where vegetarianism can be a proxy
| indicator of malnutrition.__ (my underlining)
|
| _Vitamin B12 Deficiency Is Prevalent Among Czech Vegans
| Who Do Not Use Vitamin B12 Supplements_
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31835560/
|
| etc.
| zwaps wrote:
| B12 and vegan supply of omega 3 fat is still a concern,
| especially for children and infants.
|
| For example, if you use plant sources for your fat supply
| of DHA, you'd have to ingest enough ALA to make most
| people sick. So supplements are necessary for health,
| especially in children (vegan algae based supplements do
| exist).
|
| Another question is soy reliance. Last I checked, we can
| reasonably assume that a "normal" amount of soy in a diet
| is a non issue. However, results during pregnancy and
| childhood are apparently lacking, and studies in rats
| show potential problems [1].
|
| "Further investigation is needed before a firm conclusion
| can be drawn. In the meantime, caution would suggest that
| perinatal phyto-oestrogen exposure, such as that found in
| infants feeding on soy-based formula, should be avoided."
| [2]
|
| Just to be clear here: I am a vegetarian. However, I
| never went full vegan because I think it does require a
| very mindful and conscious handling of nutrition - and a
| lot more research [3]
|
| By extension, I do not think it is appropriate as a
| recommendation for the general public at this stage.
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11524239/
|
| [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19919579/
|
| [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16234205/
| tomstoms wrote:
| So we need research and educational efforts into plant
| based nutrition instead of pumping all tax money into
| marketing and subsidies for the meat and dairy industry.
| Big surprise.
|
| I'm raising two perfectly healthy vegan kids. They are
| above average on most factors that matter and continue to
| amaze people around us when we tell them they are vegan.
|
| There is so much misinformation out there, and
| extrapolating from cases where parents fuck up isn't
| helpful. All kinds of people fuck up, vegans or not, be
| it due to ignorance, incompetence or negligence.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Indeed, my understanding of the scientific consensus is
| that a healthy vegan or vegetarian diet is perfectly
| possible. However the question is what happens when such
| a diet is forced on a large fraction of some population,
| either because meat becomes too expensive, or because
| plant-based alterantives become much cheaper. Are most
| people who can scarecely afford good nutritious food
| right now going to be able to maintain a healthy diet
| when they have even fewer alternatives than currently?
|
| Edit: just to clarify in case I'm misunderstood, I'm
| talking about poor people because I don't worry that I
| won't be able to afford to eat as much meat as I like
| (which isn't that much anyway- I'm Greek, so
| Mediterrannean diet and all that. Like, ~60% of our
| cuisine is vegan or vegetarian only we call it "food").
| gedy wrote:
| Yeah I was raised (American) vegetarian from birth, and
| my parents did not consider the nutrition I needed when
| they cooked and I had anemia, underweight, etc. I was
| healthier after starting to eat meat at age 14
| [deleted]
| Not_Nominated wrote:
| >plant-based meat
|
| There is no such thing as plant-based meat. There's only plant-
| based protein. If we didn't live in a corrupt society this would
| be punishable by court for disinformation.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Umm, just eat the plants instead? I don't get fake meat. It is a
| solution to the wrong problem. Make a small amount of meat
| sustainable and respectful of animal wellness. Then make the rest
| of your diet plant based. Done.
| Erlich_Bachman wrote:
| It would work if you completely disregard people's enjoyment
| and overall experience of eating the foods. (And only think of
| nutritional composition.)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Just eat broccoli instead? I don't get other foods. Make a
| small amount of other things sustainable and respectful, then
| make the rest of your diet broccoli. Done.
|
| Almost the entire point of cultivating different foods is to
| enjoy different flavors and textures. If something is tasty but
| expensive, in terms of money or the environment, we should
| encourage the people that try to make it cheaper. There's no
| reason to _want_ things to be expensive and rare treats.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I think the point is that we have tried making meat cheap and
| it created a lot of problems. Until we fix those problems the
| grandparent comments strategy seems sound.
| shmageggy wrote:
| Decent article but misses a bunch. Those cheap staple crops are
| only cheap because they are massively subsidized, and also grown
| as huge, environmentally damaging monocrops. So while yes, it may
| be cheaper to use corn, it's only really solving the ethical
| problems of meat by hedging on the environmental axis.
|
| In general, it seems there needs to be something deeper done.
| Something is deeply wrong when cutting out the inefficient
| middle-man (the animal that converts plants to meat) somehow ends
| up with a product that's MORE expensive.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| > only cheap because
|
| This is often repeated nonsense. The reason corn is a popular
| crop is because it yields the most calories per acre of any
| crop. Places without crop subsidies grow lots of corn. See
| Argentina, Brazil, Africa, etc.
| ninetax wrote:
| One method not mentioned is the usage of bio-processing to
| produce proteins identical to those coming from animal products
| using only genetically modified microbes.
|
| The advantage here is that you're getting as close to the real
| thing as you can.. Actually there's no difference from the real
| thing at the protein level- though fats and things need to be
| added back from imitation sources to re-assemble to thing you're
| imitating.
|
| This probably isn't overall cheaper today (vs soy, wheat, etc),
| but the processes is very inefficient and has a TON of room to be
| improved upon. At a large scale your inputs are glucose and some
| microbes. Fermentation does the rest.
|
| It just so happens that's what we're working on at at Culture
| Biosciences. Shoot me an email if this kind of stuff fascinates
| you. We're hiring software and hardware engineers.
| satshabad@culturebiosciences.com
| GNU_James wrote:
| >plant-based meat
|
| No such thing exists by definition.
| bigfudge wrote:
| There is a lovely comment up thread providing over a thousand
| years worth of quotes proving the contrary
| vz8 wrote:
| Fresh fruit and veg prices have practically quadrupled in the
| last 10 years here (Florida). Beef is significantly up.
|
| On the other hand, chicken is ridiculously inexpensive. For under
| $7, a tray of 8 oversized chicken thighs. Following a Keto
| regimen for a bit over a year now, I'm very keen on trying a
| different approach to high-protein, low-carb intake.
|
| The novel proteins the article discusses (mung beans, potatoes,
| fava beans, chickpeas, lentils, oats, lupine, and faba) give me a
| wider array to try, but I can see how difficult plant-based meat
| pricing will be when the crops are so much more expensive than
| the corn/wheat/soy tri-fecta.
|
| What keeps the novel crops pricing so high? (looks like 15 to 160
| times higher than corn/wheat/soy at the extremes)
|
| Labor?
| ggm wrote:
| If you want a truly awesome plant based meat experience for taste
| and mouth feel try "tartex" which is a nutritional yeast derived
| pate, and I eat it as itself, no fakery needed but revel in its
| foie like texture. Sold in tubes, invented more than 70 years
| ago. Perhaps a little too greasy afterward (I suspect it's palm
| oil) but heaps of umami.
| Jkvngt wrote:
| I know it's maybe not a very sophisticated position to take in
| the current year, but I will not eat the fake meat, I will not
| eat the bugs, I will not live in a pod, I will not own nothing.
| zionic wrote:
| I'm with you on everything but the cultured meat. If it's real
| cells grown in an environment with no antibiotics or hormones
| that's a huge win over growing an entire animal that stands in
| its own crap all day and is pumped full of growth chemicals and
| antibiotics so it doesn't die.
|
| I'd love to buy my own self contained steak 3D printer for $10k
| hamax wrote:
| You'd eat a 3D printed steak but not soy or wheat protein
| that you probably already eat multiple times a week?
| sparrish wrote:
| It really shouldn't be called "meat". It should be called plant-
| based protein or meat-substitute. The definition of "meat"
| shouldn't change because you press some soy to look like a
| chicken leg.
| danShumway wrote:
| Is anyone really confused by this though?
|
| To be honest, this sounds like the same controversy as people
| complaining about almond "milk". I just don't see a lot of
| evidence that people are regularly accidentally buying vegan
| food.
|
| Meat has been used to refer to non-animal products for a long
| time, particularly around nuts. I don't think that the
| definition has changed as much as people are using a commonly
| understood term to refer to a category of food that's all used
| in similar situations and for similar purposes.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| In my experience I think so, as I wrote on this thread.
|
| I work with some inner city folk and yes, they are convinced
| it is meat, just really bad meat. As with almond milk, they
| think it is milk with almond added to it (even when I pull
| out the container from the fridge and show the ingredient
| list).
| zionic wrote:
| I completely agree. That's one area where europe is much better
| than the US, they tend to force stuff to be labeled what it is.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Yup, very true. Just recently German chocolate producer
| "RitterSport" made a new chocolate product but were
| disallowed to call it chocolate because it doesn't contain
| any sugar (they used some substitute), which according to the
| definition a chocolate product has to contain to be called
| chocolate.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| That turned out to be a marketing stunt
|
| https://uebermedien.de/57277/wie-man-eine-neue-
| schokoladenso...
| maxerickson wrote:
| The US has lots of those rules.
|
| It's likely enough they would apply to more specific terms,
| beef/chicken/pork, and so on, though.
| yreg wrote:
| Just recently EP considered banning veggie burgers with the
| reasoning that something called a burger needs to contain
| dead animal parts.[0]
|
| I'm glad they changed their mind.
|
| [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-lawmakers-set-to-
| vote-on-...
| ben_w wrote:
| Likewise, but the issue there is slightly different -- if
| they had ruled that "burgers" had to contain meat, there
| would be a similar but stronger argument to force
| "hamburgers" to only refer to those made of _ham_.
|
| Hamburgers are named after the place they were invented
| (the city of Hamburg), itself named after a big castle
| which in German is "Burg".
|
| And before anyone suggests one could also argue that
| "they're only allowed to be called hamburgers if they're
| from Hamburg and otherwise are just sparkling fried meat
| patties", I apologise for spoiling the obvious joke by
| having looked up the EU rules for when something can be
| protected with a geographical designation (feta cheese,
| champagne, etc.) and discovered none of that sort of thing
| would apply.
| tomrod wrote:
| Call it protein and move on?
| wavefunction wrote:
| What about "nut meat" that seems to be a precedent.
| websites222 wrote:
| Why shouldn't it be called meat?
| bearbawl wrote:
| Because that's not meat?
| websites222 wrote:
| Sure it is. It's right there on the label. Things are
| called what they are called not because they have
| properties which match a platonic ideal and those
| properties are inextricably linked with the phonetic and
| orthographic representations of a language. No, things are
| called what they are called because lots of people make
| those sounds or write those symbols and associate it with
| that thing, which people receive as information and then
| use themselves.
|
| In other words, you've already lost this battle, and you've
| lost it in many languages and countries at once.
|
| Whatever world you wish to preserve in which, for whatever
| reasons of comfort you insist that plant-based meat isn't
| meat, no longer exists.
| bearbawl wrote:
| By the amount of words I'm sure I've lost indeed. In <<
| many many >> languages and countries, everywhere around
| the world, and particularly in our very small new
| extremism world.
|
| I have one question: why do people trying to eat only
| vegetables (is << vegetables >> still ok?) insist so much
| to call that << plant-based >> food << meat >>?
| websites222 wrote:
| > I have one question: why do people trying to eat only
| vegetables (is << vegetables >> still ok?) insist so much
| to call that << plant-based >> food << meat >>?
|
| That don't. They just read what's on the label and call
| it that. It's preservationists who see a war here:
| everyone else has moved on.
| hamax wrote:
| Definition of meat by merriam-webster:
|
| a: FOOD especially : solid food as distinguished from drink
|
| b: the edible part of something as distinguished from its
| covering (such as a husk or shell)
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Yep. That goes to show what I've said often in comments
| here: "meat" means food _in certain parts of the world_.
| That is to say _English speaking_ parts of the world.
|
| For instance, I'm Greek and in the Greek language _bread_
| is synonymous with "food". A few expressions in Greek
| characteristic of this synonymity of bread with food are:
| "den ekhoume psomi na phame" - "we have no bread to eat",
| meaning "we shall go hungry"; "bgazo to psomi mou",
| "deriving one's bread", meaning "making a living"
| (analogous to "bring the bacon home"); and of course
| "pater emon o en tois ouranois dos' emin semeron ton
| arton emon ton epiousion", or "our father who art in
| heaven give us our daily _bread_ ".
|
| This is one reason why debates like the ones in this HN
| thread frustrate me. Yes, some people should definitely
| eat less meat. _Much_ less meat! But that 's by far not
| everyone in the world and some people have been eating
| very reasonable amounts, very sustainable amounts of meat
| (and very sustainable _kinds_ of meat) for many
| generations. Of course those are the same people whose
| national cuisines are already teeming with vegetarian and
| vegan dishes, except of course those are simply called
| "food" in the local languages. I find it an affront,
| having grown up in such a culture, to hear that I have to
| reduce my meat consumption _even further_ or switch to
| repulsive-sounding "plant-based meat alternatives"
| because some people half a world over can't sit down to
| eat without a big fat beef stake in front of them.
|
| Bottom line: we haven't all fucked up the planet to the
| same degree. We shouldn't all have to change our way of
| life and the way we eat to the same degree.
| alacombe wrote:
| OOTH Merriam-webster is changing definitions faster than
| the wind change direction...
| hamax wrote:
| Funny enough, this is the original definition. You are
| the one using the new "fancy" definitions.
|
| Wiki: The word meat comes from the Old English word mete,
| which referred to food in general. The term is related to
| mad in Danish, mat in Swedish and Norwegian, and matur in
| Icelandic and Faroese, which also mean 'food'. The word
| mete also exists in Old Frisian (and to a lesser extent,
| modern West Frisian) to denote important food,
| differentiating it from swiets (sweets) and dierfied
| (animal feed).
| bearbawl wrote:
| Do I really have to find another source that somehow <<
| counter >> your post and give a << definition >> of what
| meat is or how it is generally employed for?
|
| I mean, we really are there?
|
| If you make a barbecue party, do you discuss the new
| meaning of << meat >> by the << I don't know what the
| fuck I'm talking about website >>?
| hamax wrote:
| The modern definition of meat meaning animal flash
| evolved from the old more broad definition. And now it's
| evolving again to again include plant based meats.
|
| It's how the language works and I'm not sure why would
| anyone be against using the broader definition when it's
| useful.
|
| I don't see anyone complaining about coconut milk and
| peanut butter.
| avolcano wrote:
| I don't really understand this. I've never seen a package of
| plant-based meat and found myself confused, much in the same
| way I've never seen a carton of oat milk and thought it
| contained dairy. What's the concern here?
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I've never seen a carton of oat milk and thought it
| contained dairy
|
| I have no issues with "<plant> milk" products and labeling
| them like that, but people do get confused about their
| nutritional profiles, thinking they're substitutes for milk.
| They're not, and they're chemically different enough that
| they're not good substitutes for cooking. About the only
| thing they're good substitutes for is liquid milk, though I
| hear oat milk foams up well for a cappuccino.
| danShumway wrote:
| > but people do get confused about their nutritional
| profiles
|
| By that logic, should 2% milk be allowed to be called milk?
| What about chocolate milk? Nutritional profiles can vary
| wildly between different brands and products, especially
| when we're talking about meat -- so where do you draw the
| line?
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Look, you're raising an interesting point but this is not
| about meat vs. not meat (or "what kind of meat"). For
| instance, I was recently made aware that about 80% of the
| milk sold in Greek supermarkets (I'm Greek) is UHT
| ("long-life"). That goes for the milk _displayed in
| refrigerated isles_. OK? Supermarkets put UHT milk in the
| fridge - so people will think it 's fresh. Most likely
| it's the dairy companies that direct them to do so. Some
| brands even put UHT milk in clear plastic bottles, like
| the ones used for fresh milk. Last time I checked there
| were maybe three brands of pasteurised (i.e. "fresh", not
| long-life) milk in the refrigerated isle in the three
| supermarkets I visit frequently.
|
| And yet, I remember reading (and could perhaps dig up
| again with a bit of effort) a study claiming that Greeks
| don't like to drink UHT milk and prefer fresh milk. Well,
| perhaps that's what they _think_ but in practice most of
| the milk on sale (and so, very likely, most of what is
| consumed) is UHT.
|
| Note: "fresh milk" is not raw milk; "fresh" milk means
| milk that's been pasteurised, but not ultra-pasteurised,
| and that's been knocking about the dairy industry's
| plants and refrigerated trucks and the like for about a
| week. "Fresh" is a misnomer. Even if it wasn't, people
| don't seem capable of distinguishing it from UHT milk
| anyway.
|
| Bottom line: people don't know what they're consuming.
| Like, they really have no idea. Myself I hadn't noticed
| all that but it was pointed out to me by a friend who is
| a dairy scientist. In fact, I'd been drinking a UHT milk
| and thinking "hey, that tastes kinda sweet". I even kinda
| liked it. I mean, there's nothing _wrong_ with drinking
| UHT milk! Don 't get me wrong- it's just as nutritious as
| "fresh" milk. Except, I had no idea. This is disturbing.
| It makes me wonder- what else am I missing? What else is
| sold to me as one kind of food but is really something
| else than what I expect?
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Well chocolate milk does come from brown cows, according
| to 16 million americans
|
| https://iheartintelligence.com/millions-of-americans-
| think-c...
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I find it more likely that 16 million Americans decided
| to take the piss when answering that particular question,
| perhaps offended that such an obviously dumb question
| would be asked of them with a straight face. I would be.
| zajio1am wrote:
| That agrees with the lizardman constant:
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-
| and...
| ben_w wrote:
| 16 million Americans have, by definition of the scoring
| mechanism, IQ 70 or lower. I suspect the only reason the
| number thinking it's from brown cows isn't _higher_ is
| all the people who don't think milk comes from anywhere
| but the supermarket selling it.
| bigfudge wrote:
| But how many believe in qanon? I really wish we could put
| that down to a warped sense of humour...
| dabbledash wrote:
| I don't know about the meat issue, but I've seen women in
| mother's groups ask "what kind of milk" people were going to
| be giving their babies after they were done giving breast
| milk or formula. Some people seemed to genuinely think that
| something called almond milk is actually a _type of milk_ in
| some meaningful sense just because of the name.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Wait until they find out peanut butter isn't a type of
| butter.
| ben_w wrote:
| Nor made of nuts ;)
| Falling3 wrote:
| Are you implying that children that are weaned shouldn't
| have non-dairy milk substitutes?
| dabbledash wrote:
| I'm fine with them having non-dairy beverages, but they
| aren't "substitutes" nutritionally just because they have
| milk in the name. If your 1 year old is drinking almond
| milk (30cal and 1g protein per 8oz) instead of whole milk
| (150 cal and 8 gr protein per 8 oz), you need to adjust
| what you're feeding, just like you would if you were
| giving any other drink.
|
| The issue is some people seem to assume liquids that are
| labeled milks are actually like each other in some way
| that goes beyond flavor and texture.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| And skim milk is 85 and 8, while soy milk is 130 and 8.
|
| So I agree that different kinds of 'milk' have wildly
| different nutrition, but it's not really about dairy vs.
| non-dairy.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Yes, the problem is not dairy vs. non-dairy, it is with
| feeding kids who have been weaned a vegetarian or vegan
| diet in general. For instance, the following is a recent
| study (July 2020):
|
| _Vegetarian and Vegan Weaning of the Infant: How Common
| and How Evidence-Based? A Population-Based Survey and
| Narrative Review_
|
| _Background: Vegetarian and vegan weaning have
| increasing popularity among parents and families.
| However, if not correctly managed, they may lead to wrong
| feeding regimens, causing severe nutritional deficiencies
| requiring specific nutritional support or even the need
| for hospitalization. Aim: To assess the prevalence of
| vegetarian and vegan weaning among Italian families and
| to provide an up-to-date narrative review of supporting
| evidence. Materials and methods: We investigated 360
| Italian families using a 40-item questionnaire. The
| narrative review was conducted searching scientific
| databases for articles reporting on vegetarian and vegan
| weaning. Results: 8.6% of mothers follow an alternative
| feeding regimen and 9.2% of infants were weaned according
| to a vegetarian or vegan diet. The breastfeeding duration
| was longer in vegetarian /vegan infants (15.8 vs. 9.7
| months; p < 0.0001). Almost half of parents (45.2%) claim
| that their pediatrician was unable to provide sufficient
| information and adequate indications regarding
| unconventional weaning and 77.4% of parents reported the
| pediatrician's resistance towards alternative weaning
| methods. Nine studies were suitable for the review
| process. The vast majority of authors agree on the fact
| that vegetarian and vegan weaning may cause severe
| nutritional deficiencies, whose detrimental effects are
| particularly significant in the early stages of life.
| Discussion and conclusion: Our results show that
| alternative weaning methods are followed by a significant
| number of families; in half of the cases, the family
| pediatrician was not perceived as an appropriate guide in
| this delicate process. To date, consistent findings to
| support both the safety and feasibility of alternative
| weaning methods are still lacking. Since the risk of
| nutritional deficiencies in the early stages of life is
| high, pediatricians have a pivotal role in guiding
| parents and advising them on the most appropriate and
| complete diet regimen during childhood. Efforts should be
| made to enhance nutritional understanding among
| pediatricians as an unsupervised vegetarian or vegan diet
| can cause severe nutritional deficiencies with possible
| detrimental long-term effects._
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7370013/
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I don't see that the OP said anything about there being any
| kind of confusion. I think you're responding to a different
| concern than the one they expressed.
| DanBC wrote:
| Meat == food, not just flesh. This is a very old definition for
| the word. It's also still used to describe the bits of nuts
| that we eat ("coconut meat").
|
| meat, n.
|
| 1. a. Food in general; anything used as nourishment for men or
| animals; usually, solid food, in contradistinction to drink.
| Now arch. and dial. green meat: grass or green vegetables used
| for food or fodder (see green a. 4). See also hard meat,
| horsemeat, whitemeat. meal of meat, meal's meat: see meal n. 2
| 1e.
|
| a900: tr. Baeda's Hist. v. iv. (Schipper) 568 "He eode on his
| hus & thaer mete [v.r. maete] thyede."
|
| c975: Rushw. Gosp. Luke xii. 23 "Sawel mara is donne mett."
|
| a1050: Liber Scintill. xlvii. (1889) 153 "Nys rice godes meta &
| drinc."
|
| c1175: Lamb. Hom. 135 "Ne sculen ye nawiht yimstones leggen
| Swinen to mete."
|
| c1200: Ormin 3213 "Hiss drinnch wass waterr ayy occ ayy, Hiss
| mete wilde rotess."
|
| a1240: Lofsong in Cott. Hom. 205 "Ich habbe i-suneged ine mete
| and ine drunche."
|
| a1300: Cursor M. 898 "Mold sal be thi mete for nede."
|
| c1380: Wyclif Wks. (1880) 206 "Alas, that so gret cost &
| bisynesse is sette abouten the roten body, that is wormes
| mete."
|
| c1440: Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1903) 185 "Thy mete shall be mylk,
| honye, & wyne."
|
| 1477: Norton Ord. Alch. v. in Ashm. (1652) 76 "Without Liquor
| no Meate is good."
|
| 1578: Lyte Dodoens ii. xlvi. 205 "These kindes of lillies are
| neither used in meate nor medicine."
|
| 1623: Cockeram ii, "Meate of the Gods, Ambrosia, Manna."
|
| meat, n.
|
| e. The edible part of fruits, nuts, eggs, etc.: the pulp,
| kernel, yolk and white, etc. in contradistinction to the rind,
| peel, or shell. ?Now only U.S. exc. in proverbial phrase (see
| quot. 1592). Also, the animal substance of a shell-fish.
|
| c1420: Pallad. on Husb. iii. 708 "A stanry pere is seyd to
| chaunge his mete In esy lond ygraffed yf he be."
|
| 1530: Palsgr. 245/1 "Meate of any frute, le bon."
|
| a1562: G. Cavendish Wolsey (1893) 30 "A very fayer orrynge
| wherof the mete or substaunce within was taken owt."
|
| 1592: Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iii. i. 25 "Thy head is as full of
| quarrels, as an egge is full of meat."
|
| 1613: Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 506 "Of the meat of the Nut
| dried, they make oyle."
|
| 1679: J. Skeat Art Cookery 30 "First take all the meat out of
| the lobster."
|
| 1766: Museum Rust. I. lxxxiii. 370 "Low or swampy grounds don't
| answer well for potatoes,..the meat being generally scabby,
| close, wet and heavy."
|
| 1802: Paley Nat. Theol. xx. (1819) 313 note, "The meat of a
| plum."
|
| 1900: Boston Even. Transcr. 29 Mar. 7/3 "Force through a meat
| chopper with one-half pound nut-meats, using English walnut
| meats, pecan-nut meats."
|
| 1902: Fortn. Rev. June 1012 "A bit of crab-meat."
| ben_w wrote:
| I guess that explains "mince pies" in the UK. For non-Brits:
| they are a traditional Christmas sweet pastry the size and
| shape of a cupcake, filled with "mincemeat", which is meat-
| free and not to be confused with "minced meat".
| delibes wrote:
| Yes, as long as this isn't going down the route of "consumers
| will get confused" by terms like "oat milk".
|
| People aren't that stupid and the arguments against using the
| word milk annoy me. I think it's a sign that people are
| changing their diet and the dairy industry is worried.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I once bought " _I Can 't Believe It's Not
| <bold><huge>Butter</huge></bold>!_". I'm that stupid :(.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=I+can%27t+believe+it%27s+not.
| ..
| [deleted]
| delibes wrote:
| :) There's always one. FWIW I noticed Flora do a plant-
| based range now that's quite good. They label the 'butter'
| as Plant B+tter.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > People aren't that stupid and the arguments against using
| the word milk annoy me.
|
| People are not stupid to try to kill corona with
| disinfectant: https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-
| trump/
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> People aren't that stupid and the arguments against using
| the word milk annoy me. I think it's a sign that people are
| changing their diet and the dairy industry is worried.
|
| Well, calling plant mince patties "burgers" annoys _me_ and I
| 'm not the dairy industry, nor affiliated with it.
|
| Can we leave the annoyance aside and have a reasonable
| conversation about it? Here's my concern: it's perfectly
| reasonable to suggest that everyone should eat less meat than
| they eat (or rather, not _everyone_ ; just the people in
| cough, certain regions of the world where "meat" is
| synonymous with "food"; that is really not the case
| everywhere in the world). But in that case, let's promote
| plant-based cuisines, like Indian or Mediterrannean, with
| dishes that can be cooked at home with cheap and healthy
| ingredients and that do not rely on the production lines of
| the same large agribuisenesses that are responsible for
| destroying the environment with industrial farming (which
| includes mass-produced meat- _and_ plant-based foods).
| TECHBEAST2k wrote:
| Meat-substitute just sounds like a more generic way to say
| plant-based meat? Meat is also defined as the edible part of a
| fruit or nut. /shrug
| sparrc wrote:
| should we also rename coconut milk? coconut cream? peanut
| butter?
|
| should we rename mincemeat since it rarely if ever contains
| meat anymore?
|
| and what about hot dogs...those don't contain dog do they? do
| we have to rename those too?
| nomagicbullet wrote:
| I agree. Why call something that is not meat "meat"? It seems
| that the only valid arguments is that the term is used as a
| marketing strategy to confuse consumers or appeal to their
| subconscious.
| simias wrote:
| It's because it's meant as a meat substitute. As far as I'm
| concerned it's very much conscious, if you want to make the
| veggie version of, say, a chicken dish you'll buy "veggie
| chicken" which is meant to have similar characteristics
| (usually in terms of flavor, appearance and consistence, not
| necessarily nutritional).
|
| It's hard for me not to dismiss these concerns are pure pearl
| clutching (or is it concern trolling? I'm not up to date on
| my internet debate lingo). If people really don't pay
| attention to the meat products they buy and they end up with
| veggie meat by mistake, there's a very good chance that they
| would've very easily ended up with some crappy ultra-
| processed low quality "technically meat" product instead.
| They might actually be better off with the plant option,
| quality-wise.
| dirtyid wrote:
| >press some soy to look like a chicken leg.
|
| Are we even that there yet, seems like wide marketing died off
| after innovation in the space churned out one ground beef patty
| mcnugget meat product after another.
|
| I don't mind deceptive labelling if for mass appeal. I do want
| meat substitutes that actually behave and taste like meat in
| more than ground form. It's not viable substitute for vast
| majority of cuisine from around the world, that's before even
| getting into delicacies like offal.
| unsigner wrote:
| This.
|
| In the EU, you can't sell a concoction of palm oil, whey
| protein, fillers, flavors and colorings as "cheese" - you need
| to label it as "breakfast spread" or something like that.
|
| There are different words you are allowed to use for fruit-
| based drinks depending on how removed they are from actual
| fruit.
|
| Why not apply similar standards to the ersatz meat?
| exyi wrote:
| The goal is to taste / look / behave like meat so why not call
| it plant-based meat? In the end, the properties matter, not the
| production process.
| [deleted]
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