[HN Gopher] Beyond Meat fights for survival
___________________________________________________________________
Beyond Meat fights for survival
Author : airstrike
Score : 181 points
Date : 2025-07-19 23:54 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foodinstitute.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (foodinstitute.com)
| northhnbesthn wrote:
| Not a customer but it's a shame it's not working out for them.
| I'm sure they have people who would enjoy it but the feedback
| I've heard was mostly negative with respect to quality of
| ingredients and the like.
|
| At this stage if they scaled back would they stand a chance to
| survive? Or do they owe too much money?
| dgrin91 wrote:
| They owe way too much. The article actually touches on this -
| they have such little hope of paying back their debt that they
| are leaning into this so that they can get better renegotiation
| terms with bond holders
| phyrex wrote:
| That's disappointing, they've done a great job making plant meat
| ubiquitous and took away some of the hippy aura that has kept
| many people from trying plant-based meat alternatives. I really
| hope they can turn it around, both selfishly as a happy customer,
| as well as for the planet.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I posted before: I care more about the nutritional content being
| close to meat than the look and taste; specifically, similar
| macro-nutrient ratios and whatever micro-nutrients are rare
| outside of meat.
|
| I also care about it being cheap in theory, even if it's more
| expensive in practice because the company hasn't scaled up. But
| really, as long as it's not ridiculously expensive, and isn't
| missing some nutrient or balance that would mess up my diet, I'd
| buy it for the environment.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| hmm.. you _would_ buy it but aren 't?
|
| 4 oz raw/patty:
|
| Impossible - 19 P / 14 F / 9 C, 240 kcal, 370 mg Na, 0 mg chol
|
| Beyond - 20 P / 13 F / 7 C, 220 kcal, 260 mg Na, 0 mg chol
|
| 80/20 beef - 19 P / 23 F / 0 C, 287 kcal, 75 mg Na, ? chol
| (high)
|
| Plants hit beef-level protein, ditch cholesterol, trade more
| sodium & a few carbs; beef still packs the fat.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I thought sodium was really bad for you though
| o11c wrote:
| Salt is only bad for you if you don't drink water.
| eximius wrote:
| Zero sodium also kills you because you need electrolytes to
| live. Like almost literally every complex system, there is
| a zone of moderation/goodness/health.
| teekert wrote:
| It actually nearly killed my wife's grandmother. Until
| some doctor realized she avoided salt like the plague,
| gave her some and she made a miraculous discovery.
| teekert wrote:
| *recovery.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| The beef patty numbers are solely raw beef, they do not
| include the seasoning required to make it taste like a
| hamburger.
|
| The McDonald's quarter pounder patty (just the cooked
| patty, no bun and no toppings), which I believe is
| comparable, comes with 210mg of salt.
|
| Since the DRV is 2000mg, the differences aren't as
| significant as they appear.
| asdff wrote:
| >they do not include the seasoning required to make it
| taste like a hamburger.
|
| True for many midwestern homes.
|
| This also doesn't include what you need to do to cook a
| beyond/impossible burger. At least when I've made one,
| they absorb oil like a sponge. A burger will actually
| render out fat and doesn't need any oil in the pan. And
| no I'm not converting to teflon in this lifetime. You
| will find you want to season them heavily as well as the
| taste is pretty plain and heavy on the cooking oil used.
| randycupertino wrote:
| I remember when veggie burgers first came out and they actually
| _featured_ veggies and tried to taste like veggies instead of
| psuedo-meat patties. They were so good! Then everything tried
| to just clone meat, poorly, in taste and texture and they were
| so much worse. But those first ones that really tasted like
| veggies were delish.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Are you a vegetarian? I'm not, and really enjoy a good black
| bean patty. But when I crave a juicy beef hamburger, I have
| one. Vegetarians might prefer to satisfy cravings with
| something closer to their childhood memories than a black
| bean patty.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| I remember the veggie burgers they're talking about and
| they weren't black bean patties. The one I remember had
| potato with peas in it... god, it was delicious
| papercrane wrote:
| It sounds like your describing aloo tikki. It's really
| delicious and sometimes used as a vegetarian burger
| patty.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Unless they have some rare condition that doesn't allow
| them to eat meat, they can satisfy the cravings by having
| the odd burger. It won't kill them.
|
| I honestly don't understand the vegetarian who constantly
| craves meat.
| platelminto wrote:
| It will kill another living thing though. It's not that
| hard to understand - you know it tastes good but don't
| want to cause direct suffering.
| asdff wrote:
| The burger is already in the store. The way the food
| industry works they'd probably kill the same number of
| cows every year to preserve the size of their asset (the
| farm/heads of cattle) and get a subsidy from government
| for the crop loss that didn't sell.
| asdff wrote:
| The thing with vegetarians is they tend to lose their sense
| of taste and smell for meat. Many vegetarians actually find
| the smell of cooked meat pretty revolting/nauseating since
| they are no longer primed for it. Anecdotally I know a
| vegetarian who hates one of these patties, I can't remember
| if it was the beyond product or the impossible burger,
| specifically because they tried and make it a little bit
| more "bloody" like a meat patty which made it disgusting to
| them.
| OldfieldFund wrote:
| The taste of meat repulsed me since I was a kid. I wonder
| what's wrong with me. The irony is I eat it, because it's
| good for my IBD.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Both exist. Portabello burgers are great too. There's nothing
| wrong with choice.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Portabello pizzas are also great. It's not the same as a
| wheat crust pizza but great in its own way.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I'm glad that people have the option of those if they like
| them. Personally, I find the veggie patties to be awful in
| both taste and especially texture. I was thrilled when there
| started being options other than the pervasive gardenburgers.
| deanc wrote:
| These meat substitutes are UPF and that's what you should care
| about more than nutritional content.
| Snild wrote:
| "UPF"?
| RealityVoid wrote:
| "Ultra Processed Food" - I suspect? I disagree, IMO. It
| feels like a oversimplification, it's a sometimes useful
| rule of thumb that works in some cases, but not in others.
| Definitely not the end all be all of nutrition.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| OK, we need to pick something apart here, because I see this
| a lot and it's annoying.
|
| UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread,
| baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are
| actually good for you.
|
| The problem is that UPFs come from manufacturers who are
| trying to get you to buy more of their product, by playing
| tricks with the brain's response to it.
|
| There are food labs where people are having their brain
| scanned while they sip different soda formulations, tobacco
| companies buying food companies to apply their research
| methodologies, and people figuring out packaging noises and
| shapes in order to make your old/slow brain excited at the
| crap you're about to eat (the pringles can is hard to use on
| purpose, for example). This is all symptomatic of a global
| food industry that needs you to buy more food, so needs you
| to consume more food, regardless of nutritional impact.
|
| I recommend reading Chris van Tulleken's book and watching
| (if you can) the documentaries he made on the subject.
|
| Yes, the Brazilian paper that started all this said "UPF is
| harming the health of the nation", but the root cause was not
| UPF processes, it was food industry processes that often
| require them to produce UPF.
|
| It isn't the UP that makes the F bad, it's that some
| profitable but bad F needs UP to be viable.
|
| It is therefore perfectly possible for meat substitutes to be
| UPF _and_ healthy, just as some other UPFs are healthy. In
| fact, arguably they need to be both to survive.
| deanc wrote:
| These meat substitutes use the bad kind on the NOVA scale.
| Gums and binders.
|
| I am current reading the book you mentioned which is why I
| made this comment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal bread, baked beans,
| probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit cereals), are actually
| good for you_
|
| But the less processed the better. And eating something
| else is probably better still.
| rainforest wrote:
| Does it worry you at all that meat is ultimately made of
| whatever food the animal eats and processed into a litany
| of chemicals?
|
| I feel the UPF "debate" is just an appeal to nature, and
| calorie/nutrient density should be what we fixate on.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Does it worry you at all that meat is ultimately made
| of whatever food the animal eats and processed into a
| litany of chemicals?_
|
| As much as the same can be said about plants.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I think the UPF debate just comes down to "things I want
| to be healthy are not UPF, and things I want to be
| unhealthy I call UPF."
|
| It's why the debate rarely exits the semantic stage into
| the empirical stage of argument where we look at the
| human health outcome data on supposedly scary chemicals.
|
| Meanwhile, we also have data on not-so-processed foods
| that are bad for us, and the level of processing did
| nothing to spare us the negative health impact.
| p1dda wrote:
| [flagged]
| tomhow wrote:
| Please don't comment like this on HN, no matter what
| you're replying to.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart,
| we'd be grateful.
| bobajeff wrote:
| >UPF is not inherently bad. Some UPFs (Pasta, wholemeal
| bread, baked beans, probiotic yoghurts, wheat biscuit
| cereals), are actually good for you.
|
| The only thing in that list that I agree with is Yogurt.
| Sure, if you live in Europe where they've banned some of
| the more harmful ingredients and processes and you are
| taking about very limited quantities, maybe they are not so
| bad for you but that just puts in the same league as wine
| or beer.
| ufo wrote:
| Regular pasta, bread, and yoghurt are processed, not
| ultraproccessed.
|
| (the shelf-stable varieties are often ultraprocessed
| though, and are less healthy than the non ultra-processed
| ones)
| ck45 wrote:
| Many (most?) plant based meat substitutes contain methyl
| cellulose. There are studies like [1] that seem to connect it
| to intestinal inflammation.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5410598/
| buu700 wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I don't want ultraprocessed junk food that
| more or less feels and tastes like meat. I want a whole food
| protein source that's comparably healthful to meat.
|
| Products like Beyond and Impossible seem to be designed with
| the unspoken assumption that meat is junk food that meat-eaters
| simply lack the self-control to stop eating. Maybe that does
| represent a common relationship with meat, but for me it's just
| off-putting when I see things like canola oil in place of a
| saturated fat like coconut oil so they can market it as
| "healthier". (But again, all else being equal, I'll still
| prefer non-UPF.)
|
| That's why I'm continually surprised at how little attention
| Meati seems to get. It's been my go-to protein for a little
| while now. It doesn't have high saturated fat (or high fat in
| general) like meat, but that's easy to fix with a little
| butter. What it does have is high-quality complete protein with
| high micronutrition, low carbs, and minimal processing. It's a
| form of mycelium that's fairly similar to lean chicken meat.
| Not quite as nice as a fatty steak, but it does the job with a
| lower mortality rate.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I feel like I'm the ideal customer for Beyond Meat and its
| competitors. I am not price sensitive, I don't mind the idea of
| plant based meat products, and I am willing to try new things. My
| biggest reasons for not buying Beyond Meat are that I:
|
| 1. Would rather not cook, and eating Beyond Meat in a way that's
| financially meaningful for them as a company means me cooking
|
| 2. If I'm going to put in the effort to cook, I want the result
| to be something that I have outsized enjoyment for. If I get a
| middling burger for my trouble, I'm simply not going to care
| enough to do it.
|
| The chicken nuggets and popcorn chicken sound the closest to
| something I can casually heat up, but neither of those are things
| that would replace something in my existing diet. They have beef
| and chicken and sausage and all sorts of other stuff, but they're
| just the meat. They replace an ingredient.
|
| I buy Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls. I'd happily get ones that used
| Beyond Meat. I buy frozen noodle and pasta meals: same deal.
| Sandwiches. Chicken salad. Soup. I'm struggling to think of a
| single product that I can swap out for a Beyond Meat alternative.
|
| I don't need every bit of meat that I consume to even be
| especially good. But if it's only just fine and it's not
| convenient, I'm just not going to get it. If it was cheaper, I
| might consider. Or if it was more nutritious. Or if it was more
| filling than regular meat (or less filling, even). Or if I felt
| strongly about the plant based products that I buy being a
| somewhat compelling meat facsimile. But there's just nothing that
| inspires me to pick up any of their products.
| qmmmur wrote:
| For your own health, I implore you to explore even the most
| basic of cooking.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I do cook, I didn't say that I don't. My point is that if I'm
| going to pay a premium for a main ingredient and go through
| the effort of cooking it, I do not want it to be mediocre at
| best. Beyond Meat, imo, just isn't a more pleasing option,
| and the only reasons that I can see to choose it are:
|
| 1. You really like meat but have reasons to avoid it.
|
| 2. You want to broaden the diversity of foods in your
| exclusively plant based diet.
|
| And that's not me. And probably not very many other people,
| either.
|
| Hell, I buy a lot of vegetarian meals that require a fair
| amount of preparation. But they're not meat substitutes,
| because if I'm optimizing for enjoyment, I'm buying something
| that _tastes good on its own_ rather than _mimicking
| something that tastes good_.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Impossible has Impossible Bowls, which sounds like something
| that would be what you're looking for. They are available at
| Walmart https://impossiblefoods.com/media/news-
| releases/impossible-f...
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Other faux-meat companies like Impossible seem to be doing
| better. Maybe Beyond's product is inferior? Personally, I don't
| choose it over Impossible.
| gonzalohm wrote:
| The article says that impossible food has gone down 50% (the
| stock price)
| ameliaquining wrote:
| Note that Impossible, unlike Beyond, isn't publicly traded,
| so the only time anyone knows for sure what it's worth is
| right after it raises capital. It sounded like the 50% thing
| was some kind of internal projection.
| wk_end wrote:
| Impossible is good enough that - in the right context, if you
| squint real hard - you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish it from
| the real deal. Beyond just isn't there, it still comes off as a
| weird faux meat.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Completely agree. I've made pasta sauces with Impossible that
| are indistinguishable.
| hellcow wrote:
| This is too bad. Beyond and Impossible opened up the door to me
| gradually becoming vegan. It was similar enough to real meat that
| I didn't miss meat anymore, and from there I found other
| substitutions which were healthier. Without them I'm sure I never
| would have started a plant-based diet.
| gonzalohm wrote:
| What have you substituted cheese with? It's one of my favorite
| foods but no substitute has come close to it
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| I replaced it with insatiable yearning. It's not as good, but
| it's all I've got.
| e40 wrote:
| Vegan cheese is made from cashews. If you're in the Bay Area
| try Arizmendi's vegan pizza. Surprisingly good.
| novia wrote:
| I looked them up and I couldn't find any indication that
| they regularly offer vegan pizzas.
| novia wrote:
| In case anyone else reads this later, i found one
| location that does vegan pizzas, Arizmendi Bakery
| (Lakeshore)
|
| They have at least six locations, and not all of them do
| the vegan thing
| e40 wrote:
| Sorry, I should have specified that. The Lakeshore one is
| the one I go to.
| e40 wrote:
| https://arizmendilakeshore.com/menu/
|
| Search for "vegan" ... sorry I didn't specify which
| location.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What is the ecological impact of cashew farming? If it's
| anything like almonds you're not doing the planet any
| favors.
| angry_moose wrote:
| Violife is probably the best for shredded
| (mozzarella/cheddar) but its still not great.
|
| I really like Field Roast Chao slices for things like burgers
| or sandwiches.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| https://kite-hill.com/products/chives-cream-cheese is a great
| option for bagels. I prefer it to normal cream cheese.
| hellcow wrote:
| Sad truth is there isn't a real substitute. You just eat it
| less and desire it less over time.
|
| Unrelated to cheese but MyBacon is fantastic if you can get
| it near you.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| What kind of cheese? If you want something strong like blue
| cheese you can try fermented tofu
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_bean_curd#/media/Fil.
| ..
|
| I haven't tried it as a blue cheese sub dressing but if I
| just taste it on my chop sticks I feel it's at least in the
| same general direction. I'm pretty confident I could blend it
| into a a dressing or put it on a burger as a blue-cheese
| substitute.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Including Miyoko's? https://www.miyokos.com/products/fresh-
| plant-milk-mozzarella...
|
| Damn shame about the corporate drama, so it's possible the
| formula could/might change but the products were outstanding
| for the problem they're trying to solve the last time I tried
| them
| leptons wrote:
| I love Miyoko's products, their oat butter is amazing, I
| use it daily.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It 's one of my favorite foods but no substitute has come
| close to it_
|
| Why do you want to? Lactovegetarianism is far more
| precedented than veganism.
| jurip wrote:
| Cheese uses lots and lots of milk. There are questions of
| ethics (the treatment of dairy cows is often less than
| stellar) and carbon footprint (cheese is worse than pork,
| for example.)
|
| I'd really love to see some good alternatives, too. I don't
| really expect to give up all cheese anytime soon, but
| having a substitute for at least some of it would be
| helpful.
| jjani wrote:
| > cheese is worse than pork, for example
|
| Such figures are usually "per gram of protein", in which
| case, sure. Thing is, it's very common for people to eat
| 200+ grams of pork in one meal, whereas e.g. grated
| cheese on a pasta dish is <10g. A big slice of cheese is
| 25-28g, and half the time it's significantly less than
| 100% actual cheese, with a good amount of filler. The
| only cheeses that one might eat 50g+ of in one sitting
| are extremely mild ones like mozzarella, and those are
| the easiest to replace.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| You are definitely from a culture that doesn't guzzle
| cheese like Americans. So out of curiosity I went to your
| comment history and your previous comment was "Here in
| Korea".
|
| Yeah, growing up in the US I ate more cheese than meat
| which is probably super common among US kids. I'd devour
| the whole bag of cheese sticks if I could. And you can
| look at restaurants like tex mex where the enchilada sits
| in a lake of cheese. Or go to Olive Garden and try to
| find someone who stopped at <10g of cheese when the
| waiter is asking you when you want him to stop shredding
| it over your pasta.
|
| Anyways, I bet it can be hard to transition from this
| dairy-heavy lifestyle to a plant-based diet. I personally
| gave up the idea of a cheese substitute entirely except
| on vegan pizza where it's dominated by other ingredients.
| It's just not as good.
|
| Since there is animal-free dairy milk
| (https://tryboredcow.com/) on the market I wonder when
| we'll see animal-free dairy cheese.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| You can split the difference by shelling out for high
| quality grass fed cheeses only on occasion. In terms of
| treatment it seems to me cows suffer far less than
| chickens and pigs.
| AareyBaba wrote:
| Nutritional yeast has cheese like flavor.
| mirsadm wrote:
| There are 1000s of varieties of cheese and most don't taste
| like nutritional yeast.
| rollcat wrote:
| Deciding to abandon meat is a lot like quitting cigarettes.
| Sometimes you need a long time to ease off, some
| artificial/processed replacement (e.g. nicotine patches), it
| won't feel the same or "good enough", there's a lot of
| psychological struggle, even your body just demands its shot.
| It can take a lot of dedicated effort.
|
| And sometimes it just hits you: this is bad for me, I haven't
| been wanting it for a good while, and I want it gone _now_. I
| 've quit meat just like that, almost exactly 15 years ago,
| never looked back.
|
| I've never liked Beyond or such, it was unlike anything I'd
| actually _want_ to eat. But we should still empower people who
| want to quit, but can 't do so easily.
| angry_moose wrote:
| I've been vegetarian for about 8 years and won't buy them and try
| to avoid them in restaurants because they're too meat-like.
| Unfortunately they've made good non-fake meat vegetarian burgers
| (black bean, wild rice, etc) harder to find.
|
| It's a situation of "You know that thing you don't eat, don't
| like, and don't have cravings for anymore? We made something that
| tastes exactly like it. You're going to love it!"
|
| I'm glad they existed when I first went vegetarian as they made
| the transition easier, but its a tough market when people will go
| off them in a couple years.
| subscribed wrote:
| I'm not a vegetarian and I buy them exactly because they're
| meat-like.
|
| You're literally not supporting a company which, as you admit,
| made your life more pleasant. And might potentially do so for
| others.
|
| I'm confused.
| angry_moose wrote:
| Because after 8 years the idea of eating meat has no
| remaining appeal and is switching more to mild revulsion. Why
| would I order a substitute that is a close copy of that?
|
| I'll still get them if there's literally no other vegetarian
| option on the menu, but that's rare.
| transcriptase wrote:
| There's no way to say this without sounding like an asshole but
| perhaps in 8 years your memory of what meat is like has
| drifted. I only say that because the rest of us wish the fake
| stuff was remotely comparable in taste and texture.
| jahsome wrote:
| Both can be true. I think they try desperately to be meat,
| and they fail miserably.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I both remember the taste of meat and wish meat
| alternatives would taste like it, and I think Impossible
| and Beyond are both very successful at that.
| jahsome wrote:
| For me, it's an uncanny valley thing. It's close, but
| missing something small and intangible which leaves me
| ruminating on the "fakeness."
| gonzalohm wrote:
| Why do you assume people will stop consuming them after a few
| years? I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are
| concerned about the environmental implications of consuming
| meat.
|
| I would replace all animal products if they tasted like the
| real thing. I'm sorry but tofu is not cheese
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > I think most people enjoy the taste of meat but are
| concerned about the environmental implications of consuming
| meat.
|
| I don't think most people think about the environmental
| implications of consuming meat even remotely
| drewg123 wrote:
| Indeed. I've been vegan for nearly 5 years, and I still miss
| meat. Beyond and Impossible make being vegan tolerable for
| me.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| Do you care about the ethical implications of the business
| practices of the brands you're supporting?
|
| https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1927531529883762920
| drewg123 wrote:
| I'm just the opposite.
|
| I'm a vegan who loves & misses the taste of meat. Without
| Beyond (and Impossible), it would have been way harder for me
| to have become vegan. I think black bean burgers are
| disgusting. When picking a restaraunt for a team dinner with
| non vegans, I specifically look for menus that offer Impossible
| or Beyond, and I avoid restaurants that offer homemade
| bean/pea/etc burgers.
| leguminous wrote:
| I've been vegetarian for a long time and I still think Beyond
| burgers are great. I have a pack of them from Costco in the
| freezer. I like black bean burgers, too, but Beyond burgers
| taste like my (distant) memory of a "normal" burger.
|
| In any case, I assume Beyond was relying on getting more market
| penetration past just vegetarians and vegans. There just aren't
| enough of us to get to the revenue they seem to be targeting.
| Personally, I'll be disappointed if they end up disappearing.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| Was a vegetarian for about 8 years and now a pescatarian. We
| practically always have some Beyond products in our house and
| will order them at restaurants. Losing Beyond products would
| be a huge bummer.
| ignormies wrote:
| I'll echo what some of the other commenters have stated:
|
| I'm not vegan nor vegetarian, but I definitely align with many
| of the reasons that one would choose to be so. There are
| environmental and animal welfare concerns with the meat
| industry that simply cannot be ignored.
|
| With that in mind, I try _choose_ a non-meat-based option when
| it's feasible. I do my best to vote with my dollar. Beyond Meat
| and Impossible have made this option available significantly
| more often in the past couple years.
|
| When I shop for meat at the grocery store to cook at home, I've
| effectively stopped buying "real" meat for my standard meals.
| Unless I'm cooking some special or something specific, I simply
| buy Beyond Meat/Impossible for my standard meals. The same
| applies when eating out -- if there's a meat alternative, I
| will go for it (even absorbing the $2-3 upcharge).*
|
| This is not to say that I _only_ go for the meat-alternative-
| based non-meat dishes. I often go for a tofu or mushroom
| alternative too. I don't even think Beyond Meat/Impossible
| taste _like_ the meat they're trying to substitute -- they're
| just simply good, meat-y, protein-y, umami-y flavors that I
| simply can't get enough of.
|
| The more options there are for people like me the better. My
| diet has been able to shift closer and closer to removing meat
| entirely, but it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing battle. I
| just want to eat _less_ meat, not _no_ meat.
|
| * One thing that's frustrating to me as someone that's not
| _actually_ a vegetarian/vegan is that restaurants often make
| the assumption that if I'm choosing the meat-alternative, then
| I must be vegetarian or vegan. No, I still want the cheese or
| the dairy, or even the meat (e.g.: an Impossible Cheeseburger
| with real bacon is still delicious). I'm trying to reduce, not
| _eliminate_, meat from my diet.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| If you care about the ethical reasons for plant-based meat,
| you should look at the companies business practices behind
| the scenes when they think no one is paying attention -
| https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1927531529883762920
|
| Kind of wild how they're treating creators.
| novia wrote:
| You shouldn't take it so personally that they're suing you.
| They're obligated to try to defend their copyright if they
| want to be able to continue using it.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| If you didn't like that, the CEO of impossible foods is now
| proposing a 50/50 burger (50% fake meat, 50% meat) -
| https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1936183159491584134
|
| https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/impossible-foods-growth-...
| pmg101 wrote:
| Sounds mad but it could work.
|
| People seem inclined to buy hybrids over full EVs which is a
| comparable situation.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > You know that thing you don't eat, don't like, and don't have
| cravings for anymore?
|
| That is not everyone's experience with being vegetarian.
| paulcole wrote:
| I don't eat meat but enjoy their products at least once a week,
| sometimes more. Very tasty, available nearly everywhere.
|
| I don't care about the nutrition/health of it at all.
|
| Hope they can turn things around!
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Wish their products had less fat in them. They're tasty, but
| nutritionally they're a whole lot of canola oil.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Their newest release uses avocado oil, fwiw:
| https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/beyond-beef/ground...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is anyone really pretending these are healthier than a grass-
| fed beef patty? Or cooked vegetables?
|
| The health pitch on these products has always struck me as
| incredibly weird.
| onli wrote:
| Yes. Meat consumption is not exactly healthy. It's
| absolutely plausible that replacing it with something like
| this is a net plus.
|
| That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an
| unsubstantiated myth.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It 's absolutely plausible that replacing it with
| something like this is a net plus_
|
| Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely.
|
| To the extent we've found anything out in nutrition, it's
| that processing away from the kitchen is generally bad.
|
| > _That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is an
| unsubstantiated myth_
|
| Nope [1].
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/
| onli wrote:
| > _Plausible. But both unproven and unlikely._
|
| Not sure why you claim that, there definitely are studies
| in that direction. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/
| articles/10.1186/s1291... for example, you can find many
| more. I'm not saying it's absolutely certain, but it's
| definitively not unlikely.
|
| "Processing away from the kitchen" on the other hand is a
| very broad field, and the current thinking seems to be
| that it is too broad. There are absolutely negative
| health outcomes observed there, but it is likely about
| aspects. So at first one has to have certainty about
| which part of processing is bad, to then known if Beyond
| Meat is processed in an unhealthy way. That is not at all
| clear.
|
| There is a big difference between a pizza and a chicken
| nugget is what I'm saying.
|
| > > _That "grass-fed beef" is like a healthy standout is
| an unsubstantiated myth_
|
| > _Nope [1]._
|
| > _[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8728510/_
|
| One study, negative and positive aspects in the
| composition, no tests and thus no conclusion about the
| overall health aspects of eating that. Your nope is
| frankly bullshit.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Meat consumption being linked to adverse health effects
| isn't disputed. Replacing meat with Beyond Meat being a
| healthy choice is.
|
| > _negative and positive aspects in the composition, no
| tests and thus no conclusion about the overall health
| aspects_
|
| This is sort of like saying a study that shows a certain
| food contains lead that doesn't also test for the effects
| of that specific way of ingesting lead is useless.
|
| That said, what you ask for exists [1]. Though I suppose
| now we'll need a double-blind controlled study.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8909876/
| gonzalohm wrote:
| I think the problem is that crappy supermarket meat is really
| cheap, and most people don't seem to care about the quality of
| the meat. For those people, it's hard to justify buying a more
| expensive product that's not even meat.
|
| I wonder if reducing the price (without selling at a loss) would
| increase sales enough to offset the lower revenue
| ipnon wrote:
| The crappy supermarket meat is actually incredibly nutritious
| it just has dubious ethics for an apparently vanishingly small
| market segment.
| gonzalohm wrote:
| But it tastes disgusting, it's one of those things where you
| actually get what you pay
| anoncow wrote:
| What makes supermarket meat crappy?
| xedrac wrote:
| There is no crappy meat, just meat that isn't prepared well.
| sandspar wrote:
| There's crappy meat. Have you ever had cheap salmon
| sashimi? It's completely flavorless, with a rubbery, watery
| mouthfeel. Conversely have you had expensive salmon
| sashimi? A delicate umami flavor with a mouthfeel of
| liquified butter. It's not preparation. They're not the
| same fish.
|
| Different subspecies of plant and animal taste different.
| Farmers have learned to charge more for the ones that taste
| better.
|
| You wouldn't say "there's no crappy tomatoes, only crappy
| preparation." Nah, some tomatoes are simply junk.
|
| Some of the best food cultures in the world - Italy,
| France, Japanese - lean much more heavily on ingredient
| quality than on preparation. Fine dining as a whole
| revolves around ingredients.
| xedrac wrote:
| I was thinking about beef when I wrote this, and
| specifically cuts of beef you would commonly see at a
| supermarket.
| jabjq wrote:
| Bad cuts, like pork loins that are not fatty.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Loin is usually pretty lean. If you want fatty then
| shoulder or belly are a better bet.
| scythe wrote:
| Part of the reason that cheap meat is cheap is because it's a
| byproduct of producing nice meat. Chicken thighs are cheap
| because the chicken seller makes money on breasts. Round is
| cheap because the cow is paid for with the revenue from brisket
| and ribeye etc.
|
| The meat alternatives are a product by itself, and they have to
| justify their whole supply chain. That's tough.
| Barbing wrote:
| Any employees here, sorry what morale must be like at work (I'd
| guess) & hope you get great offers elsewhere!
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's always been awful IMO. Tastes like sawdust with a congealed
| vegetable oil binder and chemical flavorings that approximate
| meat. A straight up bean burger is better and far less processed.
| octo888 wrote:
| Right! Beyond awful
| drewg123 wrote:
| Its way better than a bean burger IMHO. As a vegan, what I like
| most about Beyond burgers are that they are consistent, and
| pretty amazing at not being awful. If I'm in a random
| restaurant with a few token vegan options, the last thing I
| want to do is take a chance on some potentially terrible
| homemade bean or chickpea burger. If they have Beyond or
| Impossible, I know exactly what I'm getting.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Absolutely better than the crappy black bean or chickpea
| patties you'd get at most burger joints. I'd much rather have
| Beyond or Impossible at a cookout as well.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Our local drive in movie theater (remember those) offers
| various meal options including burgers, and I've taken to
| ordering the Impossible there because somehow several times
| in their beef burgers I've gotten significant bone chunks, to
| the extent that I was surprised I didn't break a tooth on
| them.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Yes, you know exactly what you're getting: processed garbage.
| fnordlord wrote:
| It could have to do with how they're prepped. Even the real
| thing can taste like sawdust and grill marks if done
| incorrectly. I'm personally biased towards veggie burgers and
| prefer them over the real thing but in the last year, I've been
| to multiple cookouts where both "burger dudes" and kids have
| chosen beyond over meat.
|
| I agree that the level of process is questionable but, if done
| well, I don't think it lacks in flavor.
| msgodel wrote:
| I bought one of these by mistake during the pandemic and
| immediately gagged trying to eat it. Then checked the label and
| realized what I had bought wasn't what I thought it was.
| beej71 wrote:
| Last I looked, there was an awful lot of saturated fat in their
| burgers. I tended to order something other than a veggie burger
| when their was the only one on the menu.
| thegeekpirate wrote:
| USDA 80/20 ground beef has 7.7g per 113g [0], 90/10 has 5g [1],
| Beyond Meat has 2g [2], and Impossible has 6g [3].
|
| Impossible also has a "Lite" version (which doesn't seem to
| exist near me) with 1g [4], although apparently it doesn't
| taste very good.
|
| [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514744/nutrients
|
| [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/2514743/nutrients
|
| [2] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-CA/products/the-beyond-
| burger/...
|
| [3] https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/3600189392...
|
| [4] https://impossiblefoods.com/beef/plant-based-impossible-
| beef...
| davidw wrote:
| One of the things I've noticed about shopping carefully at the
| local supermarket (Albertsons, in Oregon) is that they very often
| use beef as a 'loss leader' to get people to shop there, so beef
| is often cheaper than it 'should' be, and especially so if more
| of the externalities involved in the production of beef were
| included in the price.
|
| I _like_ beef, but the price probably makes it harder to compete
| with.
| toast0 wrote:
| Ground beef needs to move quickly, and you've got to sell some
| to go with the nicer cuts of meat, so it makes sense to sell at
| low or negative margins.
| xedrac wrote:
| I absolutely love beef. A good ribeye steak, or some smoked
| brisket are two of my favorite foods. I was intrigued by the
| claims these meat alternative companies were making, so naturally
| I tried them all. It's not surprising to me that they are
| struggling. I could barely swallow their products. I think it was
| a mistake to compare these to one of the greatest foods on the
| planet. It set the expectation was too high.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| They work well enough as a replacement in a fast food burger or
| in a dish where the meat itself isn't really the star player.
| Using their ground meat alternatives in a hamburger helper is
| totally fine.
|
| We're not at the point where high quality meat can be replaced,
| but that doesn't mean the product is worthless.
| trhway wrote:
| everybody mostly discusses real vs. imitation/vegan, yet i
| think it has nothing to do with the current BYND situation.
|
| "on an operating basis Beyond Meat lost 45 cents from every
| dollar of sales."
|
| that is a culprit. Bad management. How else can your plant
| based product at comparable to meat prices be a loss instead of
| great profit. Even pure avocados are cheaper than meat. What is
| better and pricier than avocados do you put into your product?
| Then it should taste much better than avocados and meat. Yet
| there is no avocados, it is more like low quality cat/dog food:
|
| "Key components include pea protein, rice protein, and lentil
| protein, alongside avocado oil, refined coconut oil, and canola
| oil. Other notable additions include methylcellulose, potato
| starch, and apple extract. "
|
| That stuff at their prices should be super-profitable.
| oezi wrote:
| > one of the greatest foods on the planet
|
| Given the amount of animal suffering and environmental
| destruction involved in beef, this great taste shouldn't be
| taken so lightly. Everyone should make some effort to reduce
| its consumption.
| rgovostes wrote:
| When Impossible was new and only available in burger format at
| a small number of partner restaurants, I ventured out to SF to
| try two of them. I concluded that it can make for a genuinely
| convincing substitute, but the key is preparing it with a
| sleight of hand to misdirect from the noticeable imitation
| texture and flavor. Those early burgers were made with _thin_
| patties, with flavorful burger sauces and toppings.
|
| As Impossible expanded beyond their launch partners, they lost
| their control over the consumer experience. I think many
| restaurants now serve wretched Impossible Burgers because they
| just substitute a beef patty and don't try to accommodate the
| differences.
|
| If you are _savoring_ it as part of a taste test, it will never
| fool you; the first impression isn 't the takeaway. If beef is
| not the focal point of the dish, as in their Impossible Mapo
| Tofu recipe (https://impossiblefoods.com/recipes/impossible-
| mapo-tofu) or a chili or something, it can slot in pretty well.
| They are nowhere near substitutes for ribeye steak or smoked
| brisket.
| sampo wrote:
| How is their competitor Impossible Foods doing? It's a private
| company, so we can't as easily look at stock prices.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| Not great - https://x.com/joelrunyon/status/1931091407294312956
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| You seem to be single-purpose posting to promote your legal
| case.
| joelrunyon wrote:
| Is the information wrong?
| pengaru wrote:
| Just another processed food product, good riddance.
| dmazin wrote:
| It's interesting that alternative meat consumption in the U.S. is
| struggling but taking off in Europe.
|
| One thing I noticed after moving to the UK: alternative milk is
| normalized here. Like, it's so common to avoid milk that if you
| order coffee without specifying, you will be asked what kind of
| milk you want.
| account-5 wrote:
| What part of the UK does this happen in? I've never been asked
| this. I can only assume you're in London?
| dmazin wrote:
| Woops, sorry, yes, this is in London.
|
| According to Good Food Institute (which is a plant-based food
| lobbying group), 35% of UK households purchased plant-based
| milk at least once during 2023 and 33% of UK households
| bought plant-based meat alternatives at least once during
| 2023.
|
| https://gfieurope.org/blog/plant-based-meat-and-milk-are-
| now...
|
| For a less biased source, a 2022 ipsos poll found that 48% of
| the UK uses alternative milk and 58% " use at least one
| plant-based meat alternative in their diet".
|
| I think things dropped a bit since then due to cost of living
| crisis.
|
| https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/almost-half-uk-adults-set-cut-
| in...
| Adverblessly wrote:
| > 35% of UK households purchased plant-based milk at least
| once during 2023
|
| I'd estimate my household purchased ~200 litres of cow's
| milk in 2023. We also "purchased plant-based milk at least
| once" or twice when we had guests over that don't drink
| cow's milk.
| marliechiller wrote:
| As a counter, I cant remember the last time I wasn't asked
| what milk I'd prefer. In fact, I now prefer oat milk in
| coffee to regular milk
| karahime wrote:
| Having lived in both the US and Europe, I have to imagine at
| least some of that comes down to cost. In Europe, the plant
| based alternatives (at least where I lived) were actually
| cheaper, and meaningfully so.
| dmazin wrote:
| Interesting, in Britain it's completely the opposite.
| Alternative milk is way more expensive.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Same in Germany (~1EUR/l for milk, 2EUR/l for pretty much
| all milk replacements.
|
| You can obviously buy more expensive milk to, which would
| give it price parity... But there are also more expensive
| replacement products. On average, the replacement products
| cost about 50-100% more.
|
| The only way to save money via vegetarian meals is by
| making everything yourself and not the finished products
| from the supermarkets (at that point the relationship
| reverses - making meat meals about twice as expensive)
|
| And I feel the urge to point out the obvious: the reason
| why the vegetarian replacement products get ever more space
| in supermarkets is precisely because they've got a gigantic
| profit margin, whereas the "traditional" milk/meat products
| have razor thin margins
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > [profit margin]
|
| Sure, but if nobody buys them, a 1000% profit margin
| won't get them very far. So I think that it's a good
| enough indicator that more people are buying these
| products.
| danielbln wrote:
| Lidl has oat/soy milk for 99 cents, and the NoMilk clones
| for 1,50. In fact, Lidl had a respectable replacement
| line up now. If you only buy Alpro Milk then yeah, it's
| gonna be more expensive, but prices have come down
| tremendously, especially once the discounters hopped on
| that train.
| archi42 wrote:
| Yesterday I bought some oat-based milk-like at Aldi for
| 90c/l (regular price). It's labeled "oat drink", so might
| not substitute milk. The (literal) "almost milk" product
| is listed online for 1,09EUR/l. They also had options
| based on other stuff for a similar price.
|
| First time I noticed them there, but mind I don't go to
| Aldi that often.
| jakkos wrote:
| This is only true if you buy the chilled branded stuff,
| most of the big supermarkets sell generic soy, oat, almond,
| coconut for PS1/litre
| jjani wrote:
| Here in Korea where soy milk has been a staple forever, its
| price has more than doubled over the last 5 years, now
| ~$1.4/L. Still cheaper than milk currently at ~$1.7/L, but
| it used to be twice as cheap as milk.
| danieldk wrote:
| Also, they taste better? I have been a vegetarian since 1999.
| Even in the small village I lived with my parents, the local
| supermarket had a meat replacement section. Later I moved to
| a larger city and the product selection at supermarkets is
| very large and nice. A few years ago, supermarkets also
| started carrying Beyond Meat products. We tried them a few
| times, but they taste absolutely horrible compared to local
| offerings that have been developed for decades now.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| In my neck of the woods you can easily find plant-based
| alternatives, but I've found that the best ones are those
| that don't try too hard to mimic meat.
|
| From a "macro" nutrition perspective they're also much,
| much better (more protein, less carbs) and don't usually
| contain a bunch of weird oils and other crap.
|
| However, they're usually a bit more expensive than actual
| meat.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Here in hill country Texas, even Walmart sells MorningStar corn
| dogs. H-E-B carries most of the Impossible line including
| meatballs. I made some dirty rice with the IF ground "beef" and
| it was awesome. There's almost no oil in it, browning onions
| and peppers required adding some avocado oil (never use olive
| oil for high temperature cooking).
|
| PS: I'm a lazy vegetarian who will eat a real burger every few
| months. When vegan parm and swiss cheese get as good as the
| real stuff, then I'd go vegan.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > There's almost no oil in the ground beef, so adding some
| avocado oil while browning onions and peppers was required.
|
| Their sausage works well for that, no added oil needed.
| messe wrote:
| > never use olive oil for high temperature cooking
|
| This is a myth and needs to die. Olive oil is fine at high
| temperatures, even EVOO.
|
| https://www.seriouseats.com/cooking-with-olive-oil-faq-
| safet...
| xeromal wrote:
| 350 degrees is not high temperature cooking. Stir fry for
| instance is 500+ degrees and even higher
|
| All this in F of course
| jjani wrote:
| > When vegan parm and swiss cheese get as good as the real
| stuff, then I'd go vegan.
|
| Cheese I really doubt will get there any time soon. It's
| pretty doable to make milk-free cheese alternatives with eggs
| - at least in terms of taste - which is _probably_ per gram a
| lot more sustainable than proper cheese, but there wouldn 't
| be any market for it.
| novia wrote:
| Can you say more? I've got milk allergies and I might want
| to try making this just for me.
| lemonwaterlime wrote:
| You can make vegan cheeses with nut milk.
|
| Here is a video for vegan blue cheese[1]. The basic idea
| is nut milk and the culture for the blue cheese.
|
| [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cxMAl_LiSUU&pp=ygUZR29y
| dW1ldCB...
|
| Channel is "Gourmet Vegetarian Kitchen"
| novia wrote:
| Sorry, I wanted to know about the egg cheese
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Part of their financial woes might come from them paying for
| shelf space at retailers and/or making sale guarantees. A
| grocery chain will gladly carry a poorly performing product
| if the manufacturer is paying them to do so.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > vegan parm
|
| Have you tried nutritional yeast? I use it everywhere I'd put
| parm. The taste is a bit different but as much delicious.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I feel like most coffee shops here in California always ask
| what type of milk you want, too.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| It's not all of the UK, you get asked in London, not in the
| countryside. Same in the Netherlands, you get asked in
| Amsterdam but not much outside.
|
| I guess San Francisco also has much more oatmilk latte's than
| rural villages
| adammarples wrote:
| I don't know I've been in Bristol and Cornwall last week and
| was always asked. I guess you can extend that to anywhere
| they might reasonably expect a Londoner to turn up.
| twic wrote:
| It's more about the density of hipsters than Londoners per
| se. Lots of Londoners go to Canvey Island for a holiday,
| but you probably won't get oat milk there, because it's not
| that kind of Londoner. Bristol and the West Country are
| crawling with their own local hipsters.
|
| (actually, you probably will oat milk on Canvey, it really
| is everywhere now)
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| > Bristol and the West Country are crawling with their
| own local hipsters.
|
| So it isn't only London then?
| Marciplan wrote:
| It's very normalized in any of the medium to large cities in
| the Netherlands.
|
| (take "medium to large" with a grain of salt given that means
| population of 100k)
| rconti wrote:
| Obviously it depends on the venue. We visited many coffee
| shops on our recent trip through the Baltics and then across
| Ireland, and were always asked which of 6 "milk" options we
| wanted.
|
| On the other hand, we were staying in larger cities, stopping
| in towns along major transit routes, and going to the "kind
| of coffee shops" where you would expect such a thing.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Some high street chains already make some of their products
| with plant-based milk by default. I was shocked to hear the cow
| milk being an "option".
| low_common wrote:
| I live in the US and it's normalized here as well. Not sure
| where you lived but there's ample variety of dairy alternatives
| that are offered at grocery stores, coffee shops, etc.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| It's _just_ the prices. Normies here are never going to spend
| more to get an inferior-tasting thing. If it saves money
| though? Suddenly it 's on their radar.
| da-x wrote:
| Boy, the C-suite that sold in the 2019-2021 peak at $150 a share
| knew what they were doing.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| My experience with Beyond (~4 years ago), was that it wasn't as
| good as Impossible. Impossible seemed like meat, Beyond seemed
| like nuts mashed into paste.
| Pikamander2 wrote:
| Yeah, I never understood the hype for Beyond's products. They
| must have just had great marketing or something because their
| meat barely tasted any better than any other frozen veggie
| burger.
|
| Impossible Foods was always more impressive, both from a taste
| and scientific perspective. They invested hundreds of millions
| of dollars into cutting-edge food science, including a new
| plant-based heme production process. That's in contrast with
| much of their competition (like Morningstar, or countless other
| brands) who just slapped together some bean paste and spices
| and called it a day.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Beyond has other products that are decent.
|
| Impossible has better patties last I tried.
|
| But Beyond Sausage is good (though expensive). And Beyond
| Steak chunks are great in tacos: just pop them in an air
| fryer. It's like $6.50/bag which is enough tacos for two
| people.
| ggm wrote:
| Vegetarians and Vegans turn out to prefer less UPF dominant
| protein in their diet?
|
| Plus, they apparently lost 45c in every $1 of sold product.
|
| Quorn, allergy issue noted, continues. Growing edible fungi in
| tanks using classic bioreactor methods works, is economically
| sustainable. TVP likewise. 1960s tech which works at scale.
|
| Me? I liked eating it a bit. I like eating flesh and organ meat,
| fowl and fish a lot. A lot beats a bit. I like inari sushi too.
| So it's not I dislike the veg alternatives.
| mdaniel wrote:
| I know this is about Beyond but I figure the audience that would
| care about this article would be interested in looking at Juicy
| Marbles: https://juicymarbles.com/collections/all-products
|
| I've tried the thick cut filet and just like you're not going to
| mistake Impossible for actual burger, so too with the filet but
| it's a good texture and does help fill the longing for steak for
| me
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Ingredients make it look like engineered soy. Is there a secret
| sauce to making it better than meat for someone who doesn't
| have that level of ethical granularity?
| Klonoar wrote:
| Juicy Marbles is legitimately the best plant-based replacement
| if you're interesting in smoking/BBQ'ing on a grill. I use them
| for pot-lucks with people.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Top two ingredients: engineered soy and sunflower oil. Yummy.
| submeta wrote:
| The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may not
| succeed. I don't believe that. I rather see more and more friends
| and people avoid eating meat or reduce their consumption
| drastically. Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well.
| Twenty years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk
| when ordering a coffee. But these days many do.
|
| I have been eating plant based meat alternatives for four years
| now, and I am never going to go back to eating meat. Yes, these
| products may be ultra processed food, but I cannot justify the
| ecological consequences and the suffering brought upon the
| animals just so I can eat a piece of their muscle tissue.
|
| Our lifestyle is not sustainable, we have to look for
| alternatives. And young folks already grow up with a very
| critical attitude towards meat consumption.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Beyond Meat is industrial plant-based protein. The wealthy and
| upper middle class can afford real plants. That means their
| market is is poor and lower middle-class folks--hence the
| distribution through fast food and mid-grade grocery channels.
|
| They're not buying plant-based proteins. (The conscientious are
| already eating plants.)
|
| Beyond Meat is broken as a mass-market brand. It should be
| restructured as a niche play.
|
| > _young folks already grow up with a very critical attitude
| towards meat consumption_
|
| Statistically insignificant [1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030691922...
| fn-mote wrote:
| > The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants.
|
| I don't understand this take on what (is / should be) a
| premium brand.
|
| The whole dismissal doesn't make sense to me. It's marketed
| at well-off former meat eaters.
|
| The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans just like
| they have for the last hundred plus years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don't understand this take on what (is / should be) a
| premium brand_
|
| It's not. The premium options for plant-based foods are
| vast, fresh and more expensive than BM.
|
| Beyond Meat isn't serving premium. It's premium to the
| lowest-grade ground beef. But that's like saying a basic
| economy seat is premium to Greyhound. Technically true. But
| misleading relativism.
|
| > _The poor will live on rice and tofu or pinto beans_
|
| Globally? Sure. In developed countries, of course not.
| camtarn wrote:
| The market must be very different in the US. In the UK,
| Beyond Meat is the most expensive meat free option in my
| local supermarket, other than one type of fake steak.
| There are some other premium brands at slightly lower
| prices, then cheaper brands, and finally supermarket own
| brands.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Beyond Meat is the most expensive meat free option in
| my local supermarket_
|
| I think that's true here too. The point is it's less
| expensive than both high-quality meat and very fresh
| vegetables bred and grown for taste versus weight.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Globally? Sure. In developed countries, of course not.
|
| Not even the poor immigrants from countries with those
| food cultures? Really?
| zahlman wrote:
| > The wealthy and upper middle class can afford real plants.
|
| I have never understood the implicit premise here.
|
| I can get a 4 lb. bag of split yellow peas for $6 CAD locally
| without even trying to look for a sale; most of my supply has
| been purchased at about $4. By weight, it's on par with raw
| ground beef for protein content, and 4 lb. of that would cost
| several times as much.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I can get a 4 lb. bag of split yellow peas for $6 CAD
| locally without even trying to look for a sale_
|
| Not as tasty as meat or garden-fresh vegetables.
| zahlman wrote:
| Says you. My split pea soup is awesome.
| kaliqt wrote:
| It is sustainable.
| go_elmo wrote:
| Your word, plausible
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It is. Just not at the rate we consume it.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Everything comes down to world population, which has
| quadrupled in a century, making the previously-sustainable
| now unsustainable.
|
| But even many of the climate catastrophists can't get away
| from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any cost'.
| And 'growth' is most easily obtained by creating more
| consumers and more workers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Everything comes down to world population_
|
| This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material
| intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied
| greatly across time and countries.
|
| > _even many of the climate catastrophists can 't get
| away from the mentality of 'we still need growth at any
| cost'_
|
| Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental
| movement falls for it, it _should_ be ignored.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Degrowth is inevitable.
|
| Whether it will happen "naturally" because of climate
| catastrophes and war, or whether we will somehow
| understand this and do something before it's too late, I
| can 100% assure you that the world economy in 2100 will
| be smaller than today.
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| _HN Bio: FinTech + Space + B2C angel & seed investor.
| Jackson Hole local; frequently in New York and the Bay
| Area._
|
| Yeah, I can see why degrowth looks extreme to you. It
| must be rather frightening to lose your sense of control,
| comfort, and purpose in an unsustainable path.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why degrowth looks extreme to you_
|
| To me personally? It's fine. I work fewer hours than I
| did a decade ago, and generally travel and consume less
| than I did then too.
|
| The wealthy can do with degrowth fine since degrowth
| implies deflation. The wealthy were doing fine before the
| agricultural revolution, too, for example.
| 9dev wrote:
| Is it? Even the most simple person should understand that
| a closed system with finite resources won't sustain
| infinite growth. Even if it isn't us, there _will_ be a
| last generation that enjoys growth as the motor of
| wealth. At some point, resources _will_ deplete and the
| standard of living _will_ decrease as a consequence. This
| is logically inevitable. Everyone just pretends this can
| go on and on without stopping, but that's wrong.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Even the most simple person should understand that a
| closed system with finite resources won't sustain
| infinite growth_
|
| As you say, this is simple.
|
| Growth doesn't require increasing use of finite
| resources. A more-productive widget can (and generally
| is) less material intensive than its predecessor. The
| material and even energy intensity of GDP has been
| falling in the developed world for decades. Value is
| subjective; its substrate isn't finite. A world of
| artists producing digital works could be incredibly
| materially unintensice, but still feature growth, as an
| absurd example.
| asdff wrote:
| When we look at the places that have experienced degrowth
| in this country such as the midwestern cities, it is hard
| to argue today that the effects were truly all that bad.
| They still have all the services, institutions, and
| plenty of the entertainment options you'd expect. Major
| hospitals and universities. They aren't full of derelict
| homes either, those have been all more or less razed by
| now.
|
| The biggest benefit is far more people can actually
| afford a life of property ownership in these cities. Look
| at what 250k buys you in these places vs the places that
| didn't experience a degrowth period. We are talking a
| complete 4 bedroom home outright vs a 10% down payment on
| a comparable home.
|
| This might seem perverse why it could be beneficial to
| experience degrowth. But the answer to that is simple: no
| where actually accommodates growth sufficiently to keep
| costs from going out of control. So a degrowth period
| really means prices are no longer being significantly
| influenced by an ever incoming class of high income
| earners, but are more in line with the actual median
| incomes found in the area.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _When we look at the places that have experienced
| degrowth in this country such as the midwestern cities_
|
| Do they work without subsidies from the growing parts of
| the country?
| asdff wrote:
| Look at the map in this linked article (1). Seems like
| southern states are the ones getting most subsidy.
| Midwest for the most part relatively lower on the
| spectrum.
|
| And what is even the subsidy? Interstate road works?
| Hardly matters to your daily life. The other subsidies
| are probably things like welfare benefits or medicaid,
| which might be a significant thing in your daily life if
| you qualify but if you don't are also irrelevant.
|
| Lower property prices on the other hand lift all boats.
| Renters benefit. Homeowners benefit. Corporations
| benefit. At every income level in the market.
|
| https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-federal-
| aid-r...
|
| I really don't think subsidy is a factor in keeping
| things cheap in terms of cost of living. I think it is
| pretty solely due to the relationship between the size
| and rate of growth of the local high income demographic
| and housing inventory. For example it is even cheaper to
| live in Mexico due to this relationship, and there is
| probably a lot less subsidy going on there.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Interstate road works? Hardly matters to your daily
| life_
|
| Sure does if you want trucked vegetables in the winter!
|
| > _think it is pretty solely due to the relationship
| between the size and rate of growth of the local high
| income demographic and housing inventory_
|
| The American housing market is broken. You are absolutely
| correct in that shrinking Rust Belt cities sidestep this
| problem by being in the rare position of housing surplus.
|
| What I'm challenging is the notion that life in those
| cities would be as nice as it is if the entire country
| copied their population and economic contraction.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > This is nonsense. The consumptive, energy and material
| intensity of GDP, as well as GDP/capita, have varied
| greatly across time and countries.
|
| It's not nonsense. In overwhelming majority of cases GDP
| is tied to energy consumption. We have not yet learned
| how to decouple it.
|
| With renewables, there is faint hope, but the transition
| is slower than we would ideally like. It also remains to
| be seen what % can be decoupled by pure solar and wind
| (hydro is already tapped out, mostly).
|
| > Degrowth is an extremist dead end. If an environmental
| movement falls for it, it should be ignored.
|
| So is growth at any cost.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _So is growth at any cost_
|
| Yes. It is. We deeply regulate growth in every economy.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Plant based alternatives may not succeed. I don't believe
| that.
|
| Neither do I, but it's a highly competitive market that
| competes with both the established industrial meat market, as
| well as people actually educating themselves on cooking without
| "meat". I've always seen people buying "meat replacements" as
| kind of lazy, let's just swap one thing out for another,
| instead of find / cook something different entirely. I see it
| as a kind of middle-class virtue signaling, which wasn't helped
| by the fact the meat replacements are (or used to be, I haven't
| checked) _more expensive_ than meat. Even though on paper they
| should be cheaper because growing vegetables should be a lot
| less resource intensive and more sustainable than the meat
| equivalent.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Soy and oat milk is also incredibly expensive compared to cow
| for what it is. Same for most supermarket tofu in the West.
| The cheapest own-brand tofu in Tesco is the same as the beef
| mince (PS6.50/kg).
|
| And even though I like tofu, it's 90% water and that's a
| terrible deal. A 500g pack of tofu doesn't go nearly as far
| as 500g of beef mince.
|
| Meanwhile you can buy it in a UK Chinese supermarket for
| under PS3.50 per kg.
| chronogram wrote:
| In the Netherlands it's dirt cheap in all supermarkets.
| 550g package, so 500g of tofu is EUR3.72/kg, soy milk is
| EUR0.80/l.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Perhaps there isn't much demand in your Tesco. Store brand
| (organic) soy milk is 0.9EUR here in Paris which is cheaper
| than the organic cow alternative - which is subsidized btw.
|
| 6.5PS for seems super cheap for beef and I'm sure tofu can
| be even cheaper when optimized. I find it here at the same
| price but it's organic and grown in France. I wish it
| become more popular where you live so the prices become
| more competitive.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > I've always seen people buying "meat replacements" as kind
| of lazy
|
| Pretty harsh to expect people to throw away their entire food
| culture just to cut down on meat consumption.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Also why does everything need to come with a snide remark?
|
| We buy plant-based meats because we grew up with meat, love
| the taste, and like to recreate our favorite dishes of the
| past.
|
| Everyone loves to use the phrase virtue signaling but seems
| blind to when they do it, like how they would never do such
| a _lazy_ thing like buy a plant-based meat; they 're just
| too much of a culinary epicurean who crafts artisanal
| experiences in their home kitchen.
|
| Yet I'm virtue signaling when I want to eat a burger every
| couple weeks unless I support the beef industry when I do
| it.
| aydyn wrote:
| Beyond meat burgers taste like flavored plastic grounds, so
| until these plant based alternatives can close the taste gap
| its not going to go anywhere. And they have had years to make
| it taste better, so I suspect theres something fundamental that
| makes it very difficult.
|
| It is just too much to ask the public to buy worse tasting food
| at a higher price, all to feel morally better about yourself.
| touwer wrote:
| That says a lot about the public
| nly wrote:
| Food is one of the joys in life that people can enjoy no
| matter where they are on the socioeconomic spectrum.
|
| In the modern age, if you're poor, or just time poor, you
| can enjoy a tasty meal thanks to cheap food coming out of
| the modern food industry.
|
| Why would you pay more for a less enjoyable experience when
| tasty food might be one of the only joys in an otherwise
| mundane or hard-up existence?
|
| This is exactly why McDonalds is popular. It tastes
| relatively good, it's comforting, and it's cheap.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Agree. As a side note McDonalds veggie nuggets are from
| behind meat and they rank equally to the chickens one one
| the taste and processing scales.
| rkomorn wrote:
| The regular nuggets are from behind meat. The veggie ones
| are from Beyond Meat.
|
| (Yes, this is a "nuggets are made from butt meat" joke on
| a typo.)
| r053bud wrote:
| > they rank equally to the chickens one one the taste and
| processing scales.
|
| What does that even mean?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I wasn't clear by grouping a subjective and a (supposed)
| objective opinion. I mean:
|
| - I'd give 6/10 to the regular nugget's taste, and 6/10
| to the beyond meat (sorry for typo in precedent post).
|
| - BM and regular are both highly processed food. 22
| ingredients for the regular (not even counting "spices
| extracts"): https://www.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/c
| h/nfl/pdf/2023_...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The mcdonalds/wendys/etc nuggets are junk, injection
| molded meat paste in 4 shapes. You have to go to popeyes
| or chic fil a to get actual chicken nuggets.
| yndoendo wrote:
| Enjoyment and beneficial two different concepts that
| often get mashed together. Excessive amounts of sugar and
| salt are often added to food to make it "taste" good and
| become "enjoyable".
|
| Food quality is Europe is often better then the USA. USA
| is a heavy user of oil by-product to fertilize the
| planets, which have less nutritious value than non-oil
| based fertilizers.
|
| Those in poverty that are on food assistance programs can
| only use the funds for raw goods. This means no pre-made
| pizza or McDonald.
|
| * Personally, I hate the idea of going to a restaurant
| that benefits a Wall Street ticker and a millionaire CEO
| that pays their real hard-working employees a non-living
| wage.
| voganmother42 wrote:
| Relatively cheap, it feels like fast food now has more
| emphasis on convenience/consistency and less on
| price/value (in my experience in the US midwest).
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Value menu still exists
| aembleton wrote:
| The texture and mouth feel isn't right either.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| can't help but feel like including "plastic" here is just
| hysteria, I eat them regularly and it's certainly not
| accurate
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Yeah i'm a meat eater just trying to avoid cholesterol (it
| has 0) and it's a great alternative.
|
| The real issue is that it's not stocked in many
| supermarkets in the USA. Whole foods for example doesn't
| sell it.
| buran77 wrote:
| > The hidden message of the title: Plant based alternatives may
| not succeed.
|
| I don't see this message in there. If you ask me the real
| message is that companies trying to sell overly processed, way
| too expensive, imitations of "something" will struggle. They're
| trying to sell a very expensive mechanical horse. Just give
| people a car.
|
| Maybe it's a US thing where people are more emotionally
| attached to the concept of the burger. But I think these
| companies would be better off selling plant based stuff that
| doesn't need to be processed to the moon and back with the
| associated costs, just to imitate the real thing, and still
| fall short.
|
| Plant based food has been around for millennia, focus on that.
| More people would eat plant based food if it was more
| accessible in terms of price and effort to prepare. Imitating a
| meat burger wastes resources and results in something most meat
| eaters won't actually find as a good alternative, beyond the
| novelty factor.
| mirsadm wrote:
| Often I think it's largely based on the types of food people
| grew up with. Meat and potato diets seem to struggle with
| reducing the meat part of their diet. People often try to eat
| the same stuff but substitute meat with bad imitations of
| meat. In other places, as an example, Indian food has plenty
| of choices without meat and is delicious.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| Maybe they went with burgers because it's low effort:
| everything else is the same (bun, salad, fries). Just replace
| the patty, which still goes through the same process.
|
| Again, missing the opportunity that vegetarian/vegan food can
| be healthier, not just removing of animal cruelty and death.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| >They're trying to sell a very expensive mechanical horse.
| Just give people a car.
|
| I love this analogy.
| GLdRH wrote:
| Well, that is probably just some kind of perception bias.
|
| Of course vegans or vegetarians have more vegan or vegetarian
| friends.
|
| If it helps you, I know hardly anyone who eats plant base meat.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| As a meat eater trying to casually reduce my meat consumption,
| I find myself buying more tofu, lentils and beans, rather than
| processed meat-like substitutes. I think that is the issue.
| People who want to eat meat will just eat actual meat, and
| people who don't want to eat meat will not feel compelled to
| eat a meat lookalike.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > People who want to eat meat will just eat actual meat, and
| people who don't want to eat meat will not feel compelled to
| eat a meat lookalike.
|
| This is an extremely strong generalization that is obviously
| not true in many cases.
| lambdaone wrote:
| It doesn't have to be true of everyone to be an entirely
| plausible hypothesis for why highly-processed mock-meat
| alternatives are struggling.
| lambdaone wrote:
| Delicious vegetarian food is already a thing, and doesn't
| require new technology, and it's not necessary to completely
| eliminate meat-eating to significantly reduce your ethical-harm
| footprint. It's a matter of changing food culture. Once you
| adapt to an omnivore diet that contains tasty meals from both
| meat and non-meat cuisine, it's actually quite easy to reduce
| your meat intake further.
| jebarker wrote:
| I was raised as a meat eater and ate it for 30 years. I've
| been vegetarian for about a decade for ethical reasons that I
| do believe are incompatible with eating any meat. I consider
| myself a good cook and make vegetarian/vegan meals for my
| family every night. However: I will never stop thinking that
| the taste of chicken, pork, beef and lamb are desirable. The
| conditioning is too strong. Sticking with vegetarianism is
| still an act of willpower for me. This is why I like meat
| alternatives.
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| The biggest issue to me is that beyond and impossible aren't
| just making replacements that are worse than meat, they are
| making things that are worse than the alternatives we already
| had.
|
| A beyond burger might be more like meat than a patty made from
| beans or lentils, but it tastes worse and has a worse
| nutritional profile. Beyond chicken isn't even all that similar
| to chicken and it's a worse substitute than seitan for
| something like wings.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Actually, we'd expect better health outcomes on a plant-based
| meat patty than real meat:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32780794/
|
| Or you could take the position that it's at least
| noninferior. But you'd have to show the work for how you got
| to the idea that it's inferior.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I think it's largely a cultural problem though. Good tasting
| alternatives to meat and vegetarian dishes have existed in
| other cultures for a long time. But Western cultures, you
| immediately try and find a facsimile that needs a start up to
| produce rather than just cook something else.
|
| Same thing with coffee. Just drink black coffee? Nope, let's
| work out how to convert nut juice into something that froths
| using emulsifiers!
| brookst wrote:
| I think the article is more about one company that over-
| expanded and now has massive debt and no chance of repaying it.
| pdpi wrote:
| More like "hyper-processed plant-based faux-meat may not
| succeed".
|
| Beyond Meat's problem is that they're catering to a tiny,
| highly-specific niche: people not willing to eat meat but are
| willing to pay through the nose for hyper-processed fake meat.
| So their audience is:
|
| 1. Vegan or vegetarian 2. Fairly well-off 3. Willing to consume
| highly-processed foods. 4. Craving a beef burger
|
| This is all sorts of problematic as a combination.
|
| First off, people who have stopped eating red meat (even if
| they haven't gone vegetarian) tend to _really_ not enjoy the
| smell of beef, so their craving for a beef burger is under
| question from the get-go. Second, many vegetarians /vegans made
| that choice for health reasons (rather than ethical reasons),
| so "highly processed foods" are a no-go. Once you've cut out
| those two groups, you only get to keep the wealthier people of
| the leftovers.
|
| Honestly, as a meat eater who loves vegetarian food, I just
| don't understand the appeal of fake meat like this. Give me a
| chana masala or a dal dish instead, any day of the week.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There are lots of high end vegetarian restaurants in Beijing
| that focus on fake meat. Pure Lotus is a famous one, that
| goes over the top on everything. I don't really get the
| appeal, I would rather have more vegetarian-honest dishes at
| a veg place (I'm not a vegetarian)
| carstenhag wrote:
| And worse: really expensive compared to other brands or store
| brands. This is my issue with Beyond.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Many buy plant based alternatives to milk as well. Twenty
| years ago only a few people would ask for oat/soy milk when
| ordering a coffee. But these days many do.
|
| There was a period of my life when I went dairy-free as part of
| investigating some health issues. At first I bought almond
| milk. It was clearly not an adequate replacement, and rather
| expensive, so I quickly ended up just dropping it entirely. I
| can't imagine a point to using these alternatives in coffee (or
| tea) -- I'd sooner use an artificial whitener, or again just go
| without (although still with plenty of sugar, knowing me).
| nxpnsv wrote:
| BM is getting rarer on the shelves in Austria. When it first
| showed up, it was something special, but now there are heaps of
| great other alternative meats, often cheaper and made here. I
| guess BM is struggling because of increased competition. During
| my 20 years of plant based dieat it has never been easier to find
| fancy plant based things.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Yeah, there is a camp of people who see headlines like this and
| (giddily) think it spells the demise of plant-based
| alternatives, probably because since they don't shop plant-
| based products, their mental concept is stuck 15 years ago
| where BM was new and experimental, so now they think "heh, not
| surprised that flopped and we can move on".
|
| But what they don't get is that the market has exploded with
| competition. Even grocery stores in places like Houston have
| gone from a couple shelves of vegan products to half-aisles or
| full-aisles of plant-based food.
|
| Beyond Meat might die in spite of the success of the market it
| entered into or helped create.
| crinkly wrote:
| Im not surprised. It doesn't really fit anywhere.
|
| I'm a vegetarian and have been for about 30 years. None of the
| fake meat really appealed to me. I don't factor anything that
| looks or tastes like meat into my diet. The same is true of other
| long term vegetarians that I know. I did try the products and
| they were "meh".
|
| It suspect it mostly appealed to meat eaters who felt a little
| guilty about it due to marketing and social pressure. But the
| expense and the general inferiority of their products was enough
| for it to wear off quickly. I don't blame them for not bothering.
|
| I will add I'm not a strict vegetarian - I'll eat meat in places
| where it's not socially understood what vegetarians are. Arguing
| with some guy in the middle of nowhere in Central Asia about the
| chunk of horse you just got served isn't productive. Whatever you
| want to do is fine.
| coolgoose wrote:
| I am all for eating more vegetables. But putting ultra processed
| mashed up shit to replace the real thing just sounds like an
| avenue for disaster health wise.
| newdee wrote:
| It is, and people seem to ascribe some implicit goodness to
| these companies because they're seen as providing an
| alternative to an implicitly evil industry and degenerate
| dietary choice. Truth is, they're running the same game, just
| with a less wholesome food product.
| mawadev wrote:
| Over here, beyond meat is simply more expensive than just buying
| meat. On top of that, it feels like you eat pure ultra processed
| product magic chemistry and thats not good. So who exactly is the
| target audience for that? I'd totally buy it, if it competes with
| meat prices by being cheaper and if there wasn't so much effort
| into trying to look like meat and taste like meat, which goes
| against the entire premise.
| intothemild wrote:
| My vegetarian wife won't touch the stuff, or any meat
| substitute. It's too much like meat.
|
| I always believed these things are like nicotine
| patches/chewables/etc.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| That's not the right way to look at it.
|
| Just because I went vegan doesn't mean I hate the taste of
| meat. I love the taste of meat. I sometimes treat myself to
| products that taste like meat.
|
| There is no "final stage veganism" for me where I hold my
| fingers together in the "X" shape towards anything that
| reminds me of animal-based foods. And a lot of people seem to
| think this caricature is realistic based on the amount of
| times people think they're trolling me on Twitter by posting
| an image of a sizzling steak.
| makingstuffs wrote:
| The problem with Beyond Meat is that it is insanely expensive. I
| could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger for the
| price of their ultra processed burger.
|
| Don't get me wrong, as a vegetarian, I think they taste nice.
| They are just too damn expensive and not particularly healthy
| which goes against why I am a vegetarian. In Europe we have so
| many alternatives that are insanely cheaper and, as an Indian, we
| have so many alternatives that haven't been processed to within
| an inch of their life.
|
| One thing I found to be a great homemade burger maker is simply
| getting some dried minced soy protein, mix with some eggs,
| breadcrumbs and seasoning before wrapping in some cling film and
| pressing it into a patty. Tastes great, holds it shape and has a
| burger like texture.
| raphman wrote:
| > before wrapping in some cling film and pressing it into a
| patty
|
| Why do you wrap it? Couldn't you also form the burger patty
| without the cling film?
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Pretty common thing to do to help limit cleanup and help
| shape the patties (regardless of what they're made of).
| makingstuffs wrote:
| It allows you to add some pressure to the patty while
| providing it a restricted space in which it can expand. By
| doing so the ingredients seem to form a much stronger bond
| (from my experience). I used to do the same with beef when I
| ate it.
|
| Also, rolling it into a ball and then wrapping before
| flattening gives a much better shape to the resulting patty
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you'd rather avoid the single-use-ish plastic, then wax
| paper usually works as well.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Is this really a problem with Beyond Meat or a problem with our
| policies not correctly pricing meat due to not caring about the
| environment or animal welfare?
| spwa4 wrote:
| A lot of people would say it is a problem with making the
| entire population pay for the moral preferences of a few.
| globular-toast wrote:
| True. People would have said the same in defence of
| colonialism, slavery, genocide etc.
|
| Generations later it's easy to look back and say "of course
| _that_ stuff was bad, I would have fought against it too ".
| aziaziazi wrote:
| "The entire population" doesn't want to eat only beef and
| drink milk, however those are way more subsidized than
| other food. The real winners are food mega corps and a few
| rich farmers.
|
| Remove the targeted subsidies and "the entire population"
| will eat less meat and more peas. Subsidize the peas and
| not the meat and you'll see vegans skyrocket.
| 9dev wrote:
| While the entire population externalises the negative
| effects of their diet on the rest of the world. If you'd
| sit alone on that branch you're sawing off, I'd say good
| riddance! But unfortunately, you're destroying this
| marvellous spaceship we all depend on, just for a little
| convenience.
| bluescrn wrote:
| If you choose not to eat meat because you disagree with
| eating animals, why would you want to eat fake dead animal?
| ainiriand wrote:
| Have you never enjoyed a burger and a beer with your
| friends? Or is that you fail to see the social component of
| eating?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Doesn't seem relevant. There's a decent amount of
| veggie/vegan options these days without using fake meat.
|
| Fake meat isn't really a product _for_ vegetarians
| /vegans. It's is a product aimed at _creating_
| vegetarians /vegans, and that's going to be much harder.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I always feel like people are being intentionally obtuse
| when making these arguments. I'm vegan and know many
| vegans who enjoy beyond meat. We didn't go vegan because
| we didn't like the taste of things which were
| traditionally derived from animal flesh, and it's nice to
| be able to enjoy effectively the same foods without the
| animal exploitation.
| henryaj wrote:
| > Fake meat isn't really a product for vegetarians/vegans
|
| This is just flat-out wrong.
| ainiriand wrote:
| That is probably coming from someone that eats meat.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Food is not _just food_ : it's culture.
|
| These replacements have value because sometimes you want
| the thing that gives you that nostalgia kick or whatever
| specific feeling you associate with food. Old school plant
| based replacements don't always feel right for this.
| jmkr wrote:
| This is a really important point that I think a lot of
| people who aren't vegan don't get. There might be an
| understanding that food is culture (lets order chinese,
| or italian), but realizing that's not a culture you
| experience but a culture you live.
|
| The first thing many new vegans ask is "what do I eat
| now?" The replacement food comes first, and beyond hits
| the mark a lot more than seitan does because we don't
| culturally eat seitan.
|
| And even more so, I think beyond has made it so an entire
| generation realized they could go vegan. A black bean
| burger just never hit the same way.
| jakkos wrote:
| Same way that I disagree with shooting people, but I can
| enjoy doing so in video games
| LightBug1 wrote:
| I became vegetarian early in life mostly because of the
| industrialisation of meat production, and the treatment of
| animals within that system, and the perception that it's
| just an incredibly unhealthy production line (e.g. steroid
| use in livestock, etc)
|
| I recall enjoying meat flavours, so I'd be tempted to try
| this fake meat for occasional, one-off enjoyment.
|
| And I say one-off as my experience says there are enough
| flavours and alternatives out there such that a replacement
| like this isn't really needed at all. That might be the
| real market issue for Beyond Meat (in my life, anyway).
| globular-toast wrote:
| This is a non sequitur, but I don't know. I don't. I think
| the reason is people aren't used to eating plants and find
| the tastes and textures disagreeable. It's a taste that can
| be acquired at any time, though. I stopped eating meat for
| ethical reasons, but I'd only go back if I was literally
| starving. Vegetables taste so much better, but you need a
| cuisine that does vegetables properly, like Indian or
| Mexican. Trying to do a bland cuisine like American or
| British without meat isn't going to be a good time.
| henryaj wrote:
| Why do you fucking think? Because it's tasty. You can
| disagree with the ethics of how we make animals suffer
| because they taste nice and still think they taste nice.
| npteljes wrote:
| Besides the reasons of sheer taste, another good reason is
| culture. Meaning, the preexisting meat-eating culture at a
| place. One of the reasons why vegan / vegetarian / etc
| options are often lacking is because there is no
| longstanding culture of eating those dishes at that certain
| place, and so, a vegan dish will likely come from a meat
| dish, minus the meat. But that dish is created around the
| meat, so without the meat, it will be lacking, like taking
| the patty out of a burger, or taking the meatballs out of
| the spaghetti with meatballs.
|
| So, a quick solution is to create a substitute to the
| missing thing. That way, the culture problem is immediately
| solved, as the alternative dish will the be the same dish,
| just with the questionable thing substituted. As a bonus,
| it will be very similar to the existing, accepted culture,
| so the participant doesn't become an outsider. Also, for
| many, it's easier to adopt, than changing the culture
| entirely.
| zahlman wrote:
| My experience has been that nobody gives a shit if you go
| to a restaurant in a group and order an explicitly
| vegetarian meal that isn't trying to emulate meat patties
| etc.
|
| But they do care if you're trying to drag the entire
| friend group to a vegetarian restaurant.
|
| In university, a group of friends once decided on heading
| out to dim sum for a celebration; one of them was Jewish,
| and ended up basically becoming a vegetarian for a day
| (since pork is all over the place in that cuisine). It
| was a source of lighthearted amusement for all and
| everyone was fully accommodating.
|
| North American food culture doesn't depend on familiarity
| ("the same dish, just with the questionable thing
| substituted") at all. If anything, being a picky eater is
| discouraged and a sense of culinary adventure is praised.
| The service at QSRs has gotten slower in part because of
| pressure to reconfigure their basic ingredients into new,
| unfamiliar recipes. (Taco Bell is basically dedicated to
| this craft -- and the greasy ground-beef slop doesn't
| even really look that different from the black bean slop
| anyway.)
|
| Which is to say, it's not the meat eaters trying to
| impose culture on others. Vegetarians and vegans in my
| experience demonstrate an entirely unjustified
| persecution complex -- the "they'll tell you" stereotype
| arises from the fact that people simply wouldn't care if
| it weren't explicitly brought up. That Simpson's episode
| with Lisa attempting vegetarianism was amusing, but also
| portrayed a world entirely alien to me.
|
| Yes, North Americans eat a fair bit of meat on average.
| That's not at all the same thing as the dishes being
| "created around" the meat. We don't _say_ "meatballs and
| spaghetti" (I even started automatically typing it the
| normal way around); substituting the meatballs for ground
| meat in the sauce is as natural as substituting a
| different shape of pasta.
|
| Whole pieces of meat have a particular cachet, but this
| is because _it 's harder to hide a quality issue this
| way_. Making a patty is missing the point. A hamburger is
| simply not highbrow cuisine. It's one culturally-
| established recipe, out of _many_ , which is preferred in
| the context where it is mainly for convenience as finger
| food.
|
| The proper vegetarian equivalent to a burger is a
| vegetarian wrap. (Or veggies on a bun, if the "bun form
| factor" is contextually important.) The proper vegetarian
| equivalent to a fancy meal with whole cuts of grilled
| meat is a fancy meal with artfully plated grilled
| vegetables.
| ben_w wrote:
| Why do so many people ask this question about _burgers_? It
| 's a fried patty. Even for the meat kind, there's
| essentially no resemblance to the original animal.
| zahlman wrote:
| > It's a fried patty. Even for the meat kind, there's
| essentially no resemblance to the original animal.
|
| Sure, but I would say that means vegetarian cuisine has
| _less_ reason to emulate the form. It 's entirely
| arbitrary. The point of eating a burger is that it's yet
| another convenient way of getting meat _on a bun_. (cf.
| fast-food places describing them as "sandwiches".) The
| social ritual of eating burgers with friends isn't about
| seeing the patty extend past the edges of the bun and
| thinking about the cow. It's about everyone holding
| something they'll enjoy eating, conveniently wrapped and
| portable, and chowing down. The burger is recognizable as
| a "burger" (as distinct from a wrap or a traditional
| sandwich) from the bun before it's recognizable from the
| contents. (Which is part of why the marketplace had no
| problem accepting chicken burgers.)
|
| So anything that holds the vegetables together and keeps
| them inside a bun ought to work just fine. If our
| prospective new vegetarian wants the burger filling to
| _taste like_ (or match texture etc.) a beef patty, that
| 's a personal issue.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| The market decides the price. We don't need politicians and
| biased scientists moralizing about what we can and can't do
| and what we should care about.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| That's not really how the world works. Most governments
| already massively subsidises their agricultural sectors to
| create some desired eating habits in their population. The
| market just adjusts prices around those subsidies.
|
| If all subsidies were removed - in order to avoid the
| influence of moralising politicians - people would eat a
| lot more potatoes, and a lot less beef.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| > That's not really how the world works. Most governments
| already massively subsidises their agricultural sectors
| to create some desired eating habits in their population.
| The market just adjusts prices around those subsidies.
|
| By global average, under 15% of farm revenue is derived
| from government subsidies. USA is below that, at about
| 10%. Not sure if I'd call that massive, but that's
| semantics so it's a little hard to argue against. Does
| potato agriculture get massive subsidies?
|
| > If all subsidies were removed - in order to avoid the
| influence of moralising politicians - people would eat a
| lot more potatoes, and a lot less beef.
|
| The assumptions being that 1. potato farming get
| relatively much less subsidies as beef (and other meat)
| farming; 2. cost is such a factor in consumption that
| price change would cause "a lot" of difference. I don't
| think either are very safe, and as a general statement it
| doesn't follow that just reducing agricultural subsidies
| increases ratio of beef to potato (or meat to vegetable):
| EU subsidies are much higher than US, but USA eats far
| more beef per capita.
| jkestner wrote:
| https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-
| what-da...
|
| Subsidies go mostly to corn and soybeans. Think those are
| multipurpose but corn is used to feed livestock, of
| course. 10 or 15% may be a lot in a low-margin industry,
| and I don't know how it's split among crops.
|
| No all subsidies are direct. For example, water costs too
| little in Arizona so foreign companies grow feed stock
| there to ship home.
| philwelch wrote:
| Farm subsidies primarily happen because farmers vote. And
| you haven't shown any evidence that farm subsidies
| privilege beef over potatoes.
| npteljes wrote:
| The market decides the price, but politics decide the
| constraints of the market. Agriculture in particular is
| heavily involved with the government, because agriculture
| is very risky, and needs large investments. The government
| already decides what we care about, and is already pretty
| corrupt because of the "market" powers - the different
| lobbies - influence it.
|
| A freer market doesn't solve these issues, just exacerbates
| it. A stronger, more independent, more democratic
| government would ease these problems.
| greatgib wrote:
| All in all, despite the fact that it is not real meat,
| nothing proves that Beyond Meat production is better for the
| planet. If you factor production materials, energy,... Not
| sure what it gives.
|
| From what I understood why BM production was limited and
| expensive is that nothing beats nature. Cow meat
| manufacturing process was refined by nature for ten of
| thousands of years to be the most optimized possible.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
|
| Every food is less destructive than beef by a ridiculous
| margin.
|
| And eating any food directly is less destructive than
| losing most of the calories to grow animal biomass. Beyond
| Meat is just mixing together plant products directly which
| is trivially better than growing animals.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's the same policy whether it's real meat patties or beyond
| meat, because beyond beef has the same main ingredient as the
| feed for the cattle: soybeans.
| jplrssn wrote:
| How much soy does it take to raise 1kg of beef compared
| with producing 1kg of beyond meat?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Why does that matter? US ag subsidies are for crops. They
| effect cow prices the same as they effect beyond prices.
| Beyond is more expensive because it doesnt have enough
| competition.
| zahlman wrote:
| Beyond Beef derives its protein from peas, and explicitly
| advertises "no soy".
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You're right. I was looking at the ingredient list of
| artificial meat and it was mainly soybeans, but I was
| probably looking at the wrong brand or outdated
| information.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| Nothing is ever "correctly priced". It's just more obvious
| with certain markets.
|
| Best example of this is when people say they want to pay
| "only their fair share of taxes". That's just, not how taxes
| work...
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Why do you believe it's not healthy? Because of the processes
| food hysteria stuff?
| fakedang wrote:
| It's not hysteria. Beyond Meat uses way too much processing
| in their food. They literally have patented processes to
| alter protein structures.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| What I mean is that clearly processed foods aren't harmful
| because they are processed. All the correlations go away
| when you control for basic things like sugar and vegetable
| consumption. The whole idea that processed foods are bad
| for health is a hysteria.
| ponector wrote:
| Treating food with chemicals usually it's not good. Also
| you simply don't know what exactly are they doing.
|
| Like ultra processed american bread is not so good
| comparing with european wholegrain sourdough bread.
| mistercow wrote:
| Consider how broad the phrase "treating food with
| chemicals" is, and you'll start to see the problem with
| this kind of thinking. The word "chemical" includes
| literally everything that food is made of.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Particularly pointless pedantry. We all know what they
| mean, and are to assume the best reading of what they're
| saying.
|
| Bread, the example they used, is a particularly stark
| example where Americans are subjected to stuff that is
| rightly banned in most of the rest of the world.
| const_cast wrote:
| It's not pointless pedantry at all, because whole foods
| are ALSO treated with chemicals.
|
| When you grow a tomato, you use pesticides and
| herbicides. When you grow meat, you use drugs on the
| animals and then you also wash the meat in bleach to kill
| bacteria.
|
| Why are these chemicals less harmful than, say, citric
| acid used in "processed" minced garlic to preserve it?
| birn559 wrote:
| Processing by itself is not a bad thing. Everything is
| "chemicals" in some sense and what you mean in particular
| is not bad in general.
|
| European bread as of today is highly processed btw.. it's
| pretty rare to find a bakery that actually bakes starting
| with the ingredients. Most just bake pre-processed and
| pre-made stuff coming from a huge factory.
|
| Typical European/German bread is not terribly healthy to
| begin with.
| ayuhito wrote:
| "Chemicals" are overused as a term for sure, but there is
| a huge difference between what's legal in America and
| Europe that brings a shred of truth to the previous
| statements.
|
| For example, common ingredients like potassium bromate or
| ADA are straight up banned in the EU for health concerns.
|
| Reading the ingredient list of American bread is plain
| shocking at times.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| And there are a handful of chemicals banned in the US for
| health concerns that the EU is fine with.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Individual cases are interesting. For example, Wikipedia
| says this of E122:
|
| > In the US, this color was listed in 1939 as Ext. D&C
| Red No. 10 for use in externally applied drugs and
| cosmetics. It was delisted in 1963 because no party was
| interested in supporting the studies needed to establish
| safety. It was not used in food in the US.
|
| > Azorubine has shown no evidence of mutagenic or
| carcinogenic properties and an acceptable daily intake
| (ADI) of 0-4 mg/kg was established in 1983 by the WHO.
|
| Wikipedia's article on E180 is a stub. Wikipedia's
| article on E105 says it's now banned in both the US and
| EU, but it doesn't say _when_ it was banned: did the US
| ever approve it?
| chpatrick wrote:
| I hear they even process it with dihydrogen monoxide!
| ponector wrote:
| I'd rather apply hot dihydrogen monoxide to my dry
| lentils than use compound prepared by Beyond Meat.
| tcbawo wrote:
| I don't understand the downvotes. Replacing foods that
| have been prepared in the same way for hundreds of years
| with foods treated with processes that have _not yet_
| been considered harmful is inherently risky. There are
| plenty of examples of unknown byproducts, isomers, and
| side effects that take years to flesh out.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I have noticed that Americans get wildly defensive about
| their bread, which is mostly objectively inferior, by
| _far_ , to any decent European bread.
|
| I don't know if it's reciting the pledge every day or the
| lack of experience on what good bread actually feels
| like; or if the health effects of eating US bread are
| just taken for granted because it's eaten daily, but
| American bread is bloody scary and should be recognized
| as such.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The 70s/80s want their insult back. You can buy any
| quality you want in the US, when willing to pay for it.
|
| But we still have to listen to complaints that the only
| choices available are Wonder, Lipton, and Budweiser. Not
| true--literally for decades now.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _clearly processed foods aren 't harmful because they
| are processed_
|
| The processing is done with a purpose.
|
| > _All the correlations go away when you control for
| basic things like sugar and vegetable consumption_
|
| Source?
|
| Processed food is, in a sense, pre digested. The simple
| fact that _e.g._ starches and sugars are unbound from the
| cells that contained them before any of it hits the
| mucous linings of your mouth and duodenum dramatically
| changes the food's physiological effects. And it's
| difficult to undo the gastric, gastrobiomic, metabolic,
| cellular and other effects of UPFs with an otherwise-
| healthy diet.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do you have some studies proving out that control for
| vegetables and sugar is all that is needed? I am
| skeptical that just controlling for those would eliminate
| the risks with other processing ingredients such as cured
| meats.
|
| Edit: why disagree?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Well lumping packaged cookies and cured meats together is
| already part of the problem. The former is bad in excess
| because of the high calories and poor lipid profile. The
| latter because of colon cancer risk.
|
| The problem with processed foods is not their individual
| construction per se, but how overall bad diets are easily
| enabled by them.
|
| As far as studies go, I can't give you one that directly
| controls. But look at the "30 plants per week" topic,
| which suggests that overall diversity of fiber
| consumption is more correlated to health than any
| specific details of the diet.
| mind-blight wrote:
| Using the amount of processing - particularly processing
| that hasn't been studied - as a heuristic for health vs.
| unhealthy is pretty reasonable. We have lots of examples
| over the last 70 years of companies claiming a new
| processed food is better or safe, only for it to be
| harmful. And a lot of the changes seemed innocuous:
|
| - Partially hydrogenated oils (most margarines in the US
| for a while) were pushed as a healthier alternative to
| butter, but turns out those are terrible for you due to
| trans fat. And the main difference between a trans vs cis
| fat is that cis fat have a kink in molecular chain and
| trans fats don't. Small change, but huge health
| difference
|
| - The sugar industry paid food scientists in the 60s to
| downplay sugar's impact on heart disease and play up fat
| and cholesterol (Check out the "Sugar Industry and
| Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of
| Internal Industry Documents" published at UCFS). This
| lead to food companies replacing health fats with sugars
| in much of their food over the last 60 years, resulting
| in much worse health outcomes based on bias, paid for
| research
|
| - Apples and other fruit generally have a higher fructose
| to glucose ratio than high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
| But, all of the sugar is surrounded by other nutrients
| and fiber, which make apples a healthy food choice and
| HFCS pretty bad for you.
|
| One of the common patterns is that new processes
| introduced harms that were unknown at the time. Food
| companies have very little incentive to proactively look
| for harms that occur over a longer time horizon. And one
| thing has consistently been true: that closer a food is
| to how we've eaten it historically (chopped/crushed,
| cooked, boiled, fermented, and filtered), the less likely
| it is to have an unknown harm
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The problem of course is looking at foods in isolation vs
| as part of a diet.
|
| You can always say something is fine "as part of a
| healthy diet."
|
| Clearly the problem is when people eat too much of their
| diet from processed foods. Because they are high in
| calories, low in micronutrients, and designed to
| stimulate appetite so people overeat.
|
| But to say that any processed food (like Beyond Burgers)
| is automatically bad _because they are processed_ is
| simply and example of the naturalistic fallacy.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The term is too vague. That's different from "hysteria."
| ben_w wrote:
| > They literally have patented processes to alter protein
| structures.
|
| This is like saying "the main chemical in vaccines is just
| one atom from bleach!"
|
| In that it informs absolutely nothing, is true, and sounds
| scary.
|
| The main chemical in vaccines being water: H2O -> H2O2; and
| the processes humans have been using for millennia to alter
| protein structures being "cooking", "mixing it with alcohol
| or vinegar", or "adding lots of salt".
|
| Unfortunately, patents being what they are, even if you
| linked me to the patent in question I expect it to be
| borderline incomprehensible, which is definitely the
| opposite of reassuring for anyone who cares about health.
| sokka_h2otribe wrote:
| You mean peroxide? Not bleach?
| ben_w wrote:
| Hydrogen peroxide is one of many bleaches:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxide-based_bleach
|
| Hydrogen peroxide in particular is a common hair bleach,
| hence "peroxide blonde"
| cpfohl wrote:
| I mean, so do cows and chickens.
|
| Moving a chemical process out of a living being and into a
| lab can make it safer: you're doing it without the bacteria
| and viruses omnipresent in the natural world, and you know
| exactly what is going into the reaction...
|
| When you "cook" a piece of fish in salt and lime (a la
| Ceviche) you are also altering the protein structures).
| makingstuffs wrote:
| No, nothing to do with hysteria. We simply have not had
| access to the substance long enough to be able to accurately
| say what the long term effects on health are and I cannot
| help but to assume that there has been a lot of unnatural
| processing in-order to turn a small, green, pea into a patty
| which resembles beef.
|
| Processing isn't bad, as such. Turning beef from a steak into
| mince is processing and it is fine. But unnatural processing
| (as I call it) which requires labs and loads of chemicals
| which we wouldn't otherwise consume is only logical to
| presume as unhealthy.
| casper14 wrote:
| The more common term you're looking for is "ultra-processed
| food"
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Which types of processing exactly is implied by that, and
| which are not?
|
| Where's the line drawn, is ground beef ultra processed or
| not? how about a chicken schnitzel? canned sardines? dark
| chocolate?
|
| Which part of the ultra-processing is making the foot
| unhealthy, is it chemicals they add? the fact that they
| heat it up (but at home when you cook you also heat up
| stuff)? something else they do with it?
|
| If you bake fries yourself from potatoes with olive oil,
| is it ultra processed?
| harrisi wrote:
| The term comes from the Nova classification.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification
| bevr1337 wrote:
| Thanks for linking that. Their rubric for ultra-processed
| is easy enough to grok that folks could use this at a
| grocery store. We're on a kick to remove "parameters"
| from tasks right now, so this definition is clearer than
| thoughts like "stick to the outside of the store."
| FredPret wrote:
| Reducing the parameters on tasks, and eliminating tasks
| has been a huge win for us. Tranquility, and still
| results.
| bevr1337 wrote:
| This is venturing off-topic, but can you expand on
| "eliminating tasks." Is eliminating a task like setting
| up auto bill pay, or getting rid of items that I don't
| want to clean?
| FredPret wrote:
| Yes to both. This is my heuristic:
|
| - think about what would happen if something is simply
| left undone
|
| - can I do the same task with fewer steps
|
| - if I relaxed the definition of success a little, does
| it get a lot easier?
|
| - can I farm it out to a person or a service? (Like bill
| autopay, or Instacart)
| rpdillon wrote:
| > Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable
| from processed foods by the presence of food substances
| of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose,
| high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates',
| invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose;
| modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or
| interesterified oils; and protein sources such as
| hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten,
| casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat')
| or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours,
| flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying
| salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking,
| carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in
| their list of ingredients.
|
| They have a different definition of "no culinary use"
| than I do!
| harrisi wrote:
| Earlier in the definition it uses the more conservative
| phrase "no or rare culinary use," which I think is more
| accurate. The point is just to attempt to categorize
| foods by processing levels in a way the public can
| understand.
|
| I am curious what items in the list differ for you.
| When's the last time you grabbed your isolated fructose
| and maltodextrin to season your steak?
|
| The way I think of it is if I were to cook a chicken
| breast or bake a loaf of bread and then write down the
| ingredients, they'd be chicken, oil, salt, pepper; or
| flour, water, yeast, salt. Now go look at the ingredients
| of a chicken breast (raw, marinated, or cooked) and a
| loaf of bread in the grocery store and note the
| differences between the ingredient list. If the
| ingredient list for an item from the store includes
| things a household wouldn't have at home, like fructose
| or maltodextrin, that item would be considered ultra
| processed.
|
| I'll note that I don't eat as healthy as I should, people
| should do what they want, and it's possible to still be
| unhealthy while avoiding ultra processed foods.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I mean, the cattle itself is turning a green pea into beef
| through a highly complicated and expensive process. Call me
| a scientific reductionist but there's no reason you can't
| theoretically replicate that in a lab.
|
| I don't see anything in the Beyond Meat ingredients which
| is a scary chemical. It's just various plant proteins,
| starches, and oils that we've been eating for millennia
| already. Plus some fruit coloring, vitamins, and the like.
|
| That's not to say it is automatically healthy or a useful
| product (e.g. one can certainly argue about too much
| "tropical oils"), but that also doesn't make it
| automatically dangerous either. That is called the
| naturalistic fallacy.
| thoroughburro wrote:
| By "processes food hysteria stuff", do you mean "the growing
| research consensus around ultra-processed foods"?
| vmg12 wrote:
| A category that includes both twinkies and whey protein
| powder doesn't seem that useful.
| druskacik wrote:
| The rule of thumb is that the ultra-processed food should
| not account for a too large part of your diet. The
| protein powder is usually taken as a supplement and in
| small quantities, as opposed to food like twinkies people
| can easily overeat on. But try to make protein powder 80%
| of your protein intake and see how you'll feel in a week.
| square_usual wrote:
| > But try to make protein powder 80% of your protein
| intake and see how you'll feel in a week.
|
| What? I've had >100g of protein from whey protein shakes
| every day for months now. I don't know what you're trying
| to imply.
| FredPret wrote:
| Whey protein is definitely among the better options, but
| I once did what you described, and then switched to
| eating a large amount of chicken breasts.
|
| I definitely feel a bit better, and have a much easier
| time building muscle.
|
| If you run the numbers, you can actually eat a shocking
| amout of protein (300g+ / day) from lean meat while
| maintaining a calorie deficit.
|
| And if you buy frozen chicken breasts from Costco, I
| think it's actually cheaper than whey!
|
| That said - you do you, whey has its place in many
| lifestyles.
| tempnew wrote:
| I've heard you can cut intake by a third if you switch
| from chicken breast to fish. Not cheap but you can get
| frozen tilapia cheap and tuna is safe if limited to once
| or twice a week. Part of the problem with whey is
| processing and potential contamination, but also dyes and
| flavorings, which may be why you felt better without it.
| FredPret wrote:
| Yeah, plus it adds up to a lot of cacao since I bought
| the chocolate tubs from Costco.
|
| And that's assuming it contains (only) what the label
| says. Our caveman ancestors did not eat fillers.
| stef25 wrote:
| > frozen chicken breasts
|
| How do you make that taste good though
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| You cook them before eating.
| FredPret wrote:
| They come pre-brined, so any form of cooking that ends at
| 165F makes them incredibly juicy and good, even directly
| from frozen. BBQ is best.
| throwsbzhshe wrote:
| I've also been consuming 120g daily (about 4 scoops) of
| whey protein powder for 2.5 months now and feel perfectly
| fine.
| piyushpr134 wrote:
| protein can shoot up your sugar levels too. Do hba1c
| tests after a month to make sure they are not
| druskacik wrote:
| Okay, I genuinely thought that consuming as much protein
| powder as you describe would make person feel sick, you
| surprised me. To each his own. The fact remains, research
| suggests overdosing on protein supplements has potential
| health hazards.
|
| _" According to international consensus, the daily
| reference intake of protein for the healthy adult
| population is 0.8 g/kg body weight. However, individuals
| who engage in physical activity may require more protein,
| ranging from 1.2 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight.
| To fulfill these requirements, many athletes and active
| individuals opt for whey protein (WP) supplements to
| increase their protein intake. The appropriate amount of
| WP intake for individuals depends on their objectives,
| current level of physical activity, and body composition.
| Research suggests that a dosage of 20 to 25 g/day of WP
| provides the desired benefits, while amounts >40 g/day
| may lead to adverse effects on the body"_[0]
|
| [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10761008/
| gruez wrote:
| Is that from the protein supplements themselves, or from
| consuming excessive protein in the first place? In other
| words if you ate the same amount but as steaks/eggs,
| would you feel the same symptoms?
| hollerith wrote:
| 40 g of protein per day is only 6.1 oz of chicken
| tenderloins (raw weight) per day which is very unlikely
| to cause the effect described in the paper
| ("hyperfiltration and increased urinary calcium excretion
| which can, in turn, lead to chronic kidney disease
| development").
|
| People who eat a lot of protein die sooner than people
| who eat less, but that is probably because plentiful
| protein prevents the body from entering a state called
| "autophagy". Intentionally inducing autophagy for 5 days
| every other month (by using Valter Longo's protocol)
| while eating plenty of protein the rest of the time is
| probably better for most people than a consistently low-
| protein diet as long as one is avoiding red meat
| (provided the people can afford the protein which will be
| the case for almost everyone in the developed world).
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Doctors actually believe most people aren't getting
| sufficient protein these days, especially people 50+.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| As with all things it depends on you. In general lots of
| protein can impact blood sugar. Whey protein _without_
| sufficient exercise can cause liver issues, so you
| shouldn't go crazy with it unless you're regularly
| monitored by a doctor. (Standard blood panels would
| detect an issue iirc)
| vmg12 wrote:
| > But try to make protein powder 80% of your protein
| intake and see how you'll feel in a week
|
| This is true for any food though. A different line of
| argument would be what if 95% of your protein came from
| whey and all other nutrients came from other sources. As
| long as you get the right balance of macronutrients and
| micronutrients i suspect you will be fine. Unfortunately
| studies on diet are very difficult to actually implement
| so we don't have the data to be certain.
|
| Obviously most ultra processed food is low in nutrition,
| high in sugar, and high palateability so it makes sense
| that ultraprocessed foods are associated with bad health
| outcomes but I think it's a step too far to say that all
| ultra processed food is bad (it's probably a good rule of
| thumb for most people however).
| albedoa wrote:
| Do you think that the poster who used the phrase
| "processes food hysteria stuff" unprompted is intending
| to make a statement about the broadness or usefulness of
| the category.
| vmg12 wrote:
| That's how I interpreted it. I don't think it's enough to
| say a food is unhealthy simply because it's ultra-
| processed.
| actsasbuffoon wrote:
| The bulk of the harm from ultra-processed foods was
| specifically from meats, with smaller contributions coming
| from sugary drinks and dairy desserts. It's the pink slime,
| reconstituted McRib, and hot dogs that are causing the most
| significant health problems.
|
| Beyond burgers have no cholesterol, hormones, or
| antibiotics. They've got significantly lower saturated
| fats. Studies have shown that swapping out regular burgers
| for Beyond burgers lowers your LDL cholesterol and TMAO.
|
| I'm not going to pretend they're as healthy as a burger
| made out of black beans and carrots. But if concerns about
| UPFs are your primary reason for avoiding them then you can
| relax; they're not that bad.
| graublau wrote:
| 9/10 doctors recommend beyond meat can be part of a
| healthy diet.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| A stick of lard can be part of a healthy diet. Just like
| its meat equivalent, moderation matters.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarettes!"
| https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/doctors-
| smoking/more...
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| The obesity crisis, and metabolic syndrome issues, has
| far more to do with sugary drinks and snacks made up of
| flour and oil devoid of fiber and protein. The risk
| attributed to processed meat is cancer, and CVD by
| extension of being meat and fatty, not BC its processed.
|
| People don't really consume that much "processed meat" on
| the daily in the form of salami or w/e.
| rpdillon wrote:
| As a skeptic, I think that they have defined too broad of
| an umbrella in the research, and so they're sweeping up
| huge swaths of people's diet under one label and then
| claiming it's bad.
|
| Up thread, people are talking about using minced soy
| protein. I'm kind of surprised that itself is not ultra
| processed, given that bread flour is considered to be ultra
| processed.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Soy protein isolate is considered ultra processed just
| like whey. The problem is people taking a technical term
| then using it in casual discussion, especially for
| something as complicated and diverse as diet and
| nutrition.
| gruez wrote:
| The problem is that it's not necessarily the case that
| ultra-processing that actually makes the food unhealthy.
| It's a good rule of thumb, but we shouldn't pretend that's
| actually how the world works. This piece summarizes the
| point quite nicely:
|
| >Everyone knows that greens are good for your health and
| red meat is not. But everyone would laugh if I were to
| propose that red foods are dangerous and green ones
| healthy. I could prove my thesis making use of a few
| additional rules, such as postulating that some shades of
| red, tomatoes and apples for instance, should not be
| counted as red.
|
| >The Nova classification system, which sorts foods into
| four categories depending on the degree of processing they
| undergo, uses similar logic. There is no scientific
| justification for the assumption that the number of
| processing steps is of any relevance for the health
| properties of foods. Making "ultra-processed" popcorn or
| chips is exceedingly simple. Making "minimally processed"
| natural yogurt requires some 20 processes.
|
| >Heating is the process that affects foods the most, but
| heating is afforded no attention in Nova. It does not
| neatly fit into the processed or unprocessed scheme. In
| some cases it is essential for public health, in others it
| may induce carcinogens. And in a blatant example of the
| arbitrariness of the Nova classification, putting a loaf of
| bread into a bag moves it from the minimally processed to
| the ultra-processed category.
|
| >The flawed, but intuitively easy to grasp, label of ultra-
| processed food is a handy justification for blaming food-
| related health problems on profit-hungry food companies.
| And it enables politicians to divert funding from serious
| research to meaningless eye-catching interventions.
|
| >Petr Dejmek
|
| >Emeritus professor of food engineering
|
| >Lund University
|
| >Lund, Sweden
| giantg2 wrote:
| It was more unhealthy in the past due to the sodium,
| saturated fat, and possibly some of the
| additives/preservatives. It was unhealthy enough that the
| company even changed to a new formula with avocado oil, which
| might be better, but I haven't looked into it.
| Findecanor wrote:
| Many vegetarian meat substitutes, including the Beyond
| Burger, contains methylcellulose. It is one of several
| emulsifiers both often associated with "ultra-processed
| foods", and known from several studies to affect the mucus
| lining the intestinal wall, increasing the risk for infection
| and suspected of increasing cancer risk.
|
| Being a vegetarian, after having suffered colon cancer twice,
| I now too eat only burger patties I've made myself (similar
| recipe to the one above), and also use only real mayo and
| sour cream, so as to avoid those emulsifiers.
|
| Edit: Downvote, why? Because I am a vegetarian?
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Besides ultra-processed foods 'hysteria,' basic ratios I
| consider here are:
|
| - protein to fat (which is roughly 1.4 in Beyond Meat (20g
| protein / 14g fat in 100g) versus 2.5-3.5 in beef (30+-5g
| protein / 12.5+-2.5g fat in 100g)) - protein to mass (20% vs
| ~30%) - micro-nutrients to mass (a very wide variety of
| minerals, vitamins, and other unknown nutrients present in
| beef) - carbohydrates (not present in substantial amounts in
| meat and around the same amounts in tofu/tempeh as in Beyond
| Meat; but I don't think it's as major a statistic as previous
| ratios)
|
| I eat chiefly vegetarian, and refuse to see why Beyond Meat
| exists beyond 'we can do it and it may get more people to eat
| vegetarian.'
|
| The industrial overhead of producing Beyond Meat and all the
| effort that went into creating it simply doesn't make sense
| to me compared to beans and plant-based protein friends like
| tempeh/tofu/seitan. Latter are an order of magnitude more
| scalable than both Beyond Meat and Regular Meat.
|
| All the processing plants and factories built to make this
| ultra-processing possible, the logistics and supply chains
| set up to bring all the necessary additives and components
| together, the grandiose packaging and marketing efforts... I
| don't get it. It's not a product made for a real audience.
| hellcow wrote:
| > 'we can do it and it may get more people to eat
| vegetarian.'
|
| That's a noble goal in and of itself. Every step to reduce
| environmental impact and animal cruelty has value.
|
| Beyond and Impossible were my "off-ramp" from eating meat
| every meal to exploring vegetarianism and veganism. I'm
| sure I'm not the only one.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| If you're going to eat vegetarian, eat vegetarian. There
| are lots of foods out there.
|
| The idea that normal, healthy people are going to eat
| ultra processed vegetarian slop so they can pretend they
| are eating meat was never going to work.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Burgers were never considered a "health" item so
| replacement with slop qua occasional treat is not q crazy
| concept. As another user has whined about, burger
| restaurants almost always offer some variant of it, and
| grocery chains carry it. Beyond Meat has competition now,
| cheaper too
| santoshalper wrote:
| Well, they do have $330M in revenue and the product is
| all over the place, so I'm not sure your hypothesis is
| correct. Many people simply don't share your view "if
| you're going to eat vegetarian, eat vegetarian". I think
| the biggest problem is that they have not been able to
| get cost under control.
| graublau wrote:
| You needed a product to help you do that? Were vegetables
| themselves unappealing?
| xeromal wrote:
| Vegetables as a meat substitute were. I don't think it's
| wise to pretend meat unto itself is not appealing to many
| humans because it's different from vegetables, grains,
| and fruits.
| throwpoaster wrote:
| Animal agriculture converts scrub land into carbon sinks
| that produce food.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It can. In permaculture models where you are not
| supplying a lot of inputs and able to cycle 100% of the
| manure back on grass it's great. In 20 years of running a
| horse farm the quality of our pasture and hay has been
| steadily getting better because we've been building soil.
|
| Apply huge amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to grow corn,
| badly contaminating the Mississippi river and creating a
| dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico, feeding animals in CAFO
| where discarding of the manure is a problem and that's
| something different.
|
| Real life systems are a little more complex than that as
| a cow might be grown up on scrub land and then fattened
| up at a CAFO for the last few months. Who knows what the
| long term fate of land that is cleared in the Amazon rain
| forest is.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| This is a regionally-contingent oversimplification that
| obscures the much more essential fact that animal
| agriculture _always_ requires substantially more land
| than arable agriculture to produce the same amount of
| food. Land is very much a finite resource and I
| personally would prefer to see a bit more of it left to
| nature (or "scrub", as you call it).
| piyushpr134 wrote:
| Indian here. We can eat vegetarian without this processed
| crap. Happy to see this die. We had equivalent companies
| here in India too. And they also are struggling. Happy to
| see this being rejected by masses
| scythmic_waves wrote:
| Thanks for breaking that down.
|
| As someone doing weightlifting, this is the primary reason
| I don't bother with vegetarian meats. They actually taste
| pretty good IMO, but they don't offer nutritional benefits
| commensurate with animal meat.
|
| It's a shame, really. I'd gladly incorporate them if I
| could get a similar protein : calorie ratio.
| kelipso wrote:
| Plus whatever chemicals (yes, I will keep using this
| word, thank you) they put in it for texture, flavor,
| preservation, etc.
| 9dev wrote:
| There's very successful vegan lifters and athletes,
| though. It's absolutely possible to thrive without meat
| and dairy products.
| cj wrote:
| I dunno. I track macros religiously with daily
| protein/fat/carb targets for weight lifting.
|
| I don't care much about the macros of each individual
| meal (or any individual ingredient). When dinner comes
| around, I'm cooking whatever meal will let me hit my
| targets for the day. If I already got most my protein in,
| I'll happily eat something with "bad" protein/calorie
| ratio.
|
| Granted, 99% of people don't track food intake, so yea,
| probably makes sense to optimize food nutrition for the
| average person eating an average meal looking for an
| average balance of macros on a per-meal basis.
|
| I guess my point is there's a time and place for
| virtually all foods (including junk food... bodybuilders
| regularly snack on things like sour patch kids during
| workouts).
|
| Critiquing beyond burgers for their macro breakdown
| doesn't make sense to me. But criticisms around the level
| of processing is 100% valid IMO. The last package I
| opened up quite literally smelled like dog food.
|
| Edit: Also FWIW, I'm a vegetarian (although eat meat
| maybe once every 1-2 weeks, sometimes beef). Despite
| that, I'm easily able to get 200+ grams of protein a day.
| If I took protein powder out of my diet completely, I'd
| still be able to hit 150g/day at least without really
| trying.
| proee wrote:
| You are not a vegetarian
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how do you get 150g/day of full
| proteins?
|
| For instance, eating lentils, which is one of the most
| proteinated vegetable, bring 18g of proteins per 100g,
| along with 40g of carbs. You also have to eat a
| comparable amount of cereal to get a full protein chain.
|
| Given that amount of proteins you mention, this requires
| eating a very large volume of food (cereals and
| graminacae swell with water during cooking).
|
| I always wondered how vegetarians could reach a highly
| proteinic diet as a result!
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Did you try Tempeh? 20gr of protein / 150cal. It looks
| like a steak.
|
| It's god's food: high prots, fibers, iron, vitamins,
| unsaturated fats. Low carbs and sodium. Super digestive.
|
| Super versatile: from burgers to bolognese to barbecue to
| everything, even sweety for the courageous. My easy goto
| is a dip of whatever open sauce I already have and 1 min
| micro wave heating. A bit more time ? Fried on the pan
| with soy sauce, olive oil and some herbs afterwards.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The parent said "vegetarian meats" so I hope we can
| assume that's not meant to include tempeh and tofu (but
| rather things like TVP or mycoprotein products).
|
| And while we're on the subject, Mike Israetel from
| Renaissance Periodization gives soy protein high marks
| for body builders. Good macros, good price, and highest
| amino acid profile score after milk/meat/eggs. Having
| tofu on hand is definitely helpful during a bulk.
| klipt wrote:
| I know tempeh is easily available in Indonesia, but how
| do you get it in bulk in the US?
|
| All I see are tiny overpriced plastic packets.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I'm not personally a vegetarian though I cook for vegetarians
| quite often and my reason for not using it more
| philosophical: if you're going to cook vegetarian, stop
| looking at what you can't use and start looking at what you
| can use.
|
| Like for example the other day I made a vegan version of my
| pasta and meat sauce recipe but instead of trying to use a
| meat alternative like beyond meat, I reached for some
| mushrooms and end up having my guests ask if I accidentally
| made the dish with ground beef because the texture and
| consistency was so similar.
|
| It's not that beyond meat is bad but why reach for something
| that's had god knows what done to it versus: mushrooms, where
| the only "processing" is ripping them out of the ground and
| washing them.
| graublau wrote:
| Processed food concerns are hysterical is a unique take
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Many people are clearly going overboard and using processed
| foods as an excuse for making the naturalistic fallacy. (Or
| maybe today we would say that processed foods are used as a
| "thought terminating cliche".)
| const_cast wrote:
| It is, mostly, hysteria. The problem is that we're just
| assuming processed foods are bad period, but even if you
| don't eat processed foods you can eat a very poor diet.
|
| Burgers aren't processed, fried chicken isn't processed.
| And, you don't need to process food to make it "addictive".
| People who think you need chemicals and additives to make
| addictive food are just stupid, frankly.
|
| Take whatever food, douse it in salt, deep fry it in fat,
| and boom: you have a 2,000 calorie meal that sets off every
| dopamine receptor in your brain. All natural. No processing
| needed.
|
| The real harm isn't processed foods, it's hyper-palatable
| foods. Foods that are extremely delicious, addictive, and
| easy to overeat. Some are processed, some are not.
|
| Take, for example, high-fiber tortillas. Those are ultra-
| processed, those aren't from God. But, 98% of Americans do
| not eat enough fiber. Fiber can lower your risk of obesity
| and heart disease. The high-fiber tortillas can be a great
| addition to your diet. They're not hyper-palatable - you're
| not gonna sit there and crave them like a drug and then eat
| 2,000 calories worth of high-fiber tortillas.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| There is ongoing research linking depression to ultra
| processed food consumption:
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-
| mood/ultraprocessed-...
|
| Sugar derivatives such as glucose-fructose syrup are
| well-known to cause various problems, among which the
| fat-liver disease that is skyrocketing in the rich world.
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/abundance-of-
| fru...
| const_cast wrote:
| These studies are legitimately worthless, and I'll
| explain why.
|
| 1. Ultra-processed foods contain a lot of hyper-palatable
| foods. You have to understand that UP foods is an
| absurdly broad category.
|
| When you measure the harm of UP foods, you're not measure
| the harm of UP foods - you're measuring the harm of
| hyper-palatable foods, because naturally those are the
| foods people gravitate towards. Because they taste good
| and are easy to eat and overeat.
|
| You also have to understand that UP foods are associated
| with poorer people, which get significantly worse medical
| care and just have overall worse lives. What you could be
| measuring is that poor people are more depressed - which,
| yeah duh.
|
| The key problem here is that nutritional studies are
| almost always observation, NOT double-blind. Because
| following people for decades in a double-blind study
| where you control their diet is very, very, very hard and
| expensive.
|
| If you just replaced all the UP food with burgers and
| fried chicken, would those people be better off? No. So
| you shouldn't be so confident you're measuring what you
| think you're measuring.
|
| 2. All sugar is bad, period. It's not HFCS that's causing
| liver disease, it's sugar in the absence of fiber. We
| know sugar causes liver disease.
|
| If we want to decrease this, we must lean into Aspartame
| and other artificial sweeteners. They are better than
| sugar, period. Straight up, Aspartame is healthier than
| any sugar, including table sugar you put in your morning
| coffee.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| 1. If you had read the study, you'd know that they
| control for sociodemographic factors, lifestyle and
| health-related behaviors. So your point doesn't hold.
|
| 2. Second article says it's fructose specifically. And
| the ultra-processed form allows instant assimilation of
| it, far from the classic forms found in nature. They also
| allow to add much more of it. See:
| https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-
| hig...
| const_cast wrote:
| 1. No actually it does hold - these are still
| observational studies.
|
| Which means they are looking at people who already don't
| eat UP foods and comparing them to people who do. But UP
| foods are more likely to be hyper-palatable.
|
| So you're comparing foods that are likely to be hyper-
| palatable to those that aren't. That's what you're
| measuring.
|
| If you conduct a double-blind study where you compare UP
| foods that are NOT hyper-palatable to non UP foods that
| are NOT hyper-palatable you won't find a difference. Such
| a study does not exist, because it's almost impossible to
| do.
|
| People who are already health conscious will be
| healthier. You're not forcing anyone to eat healthier, so
| you're not measuring anything valuable.
|
| 2. HFCS is 60% fructose, sugar is 50% fructose. Does that
| 10% increase make a difference? Yes. But it's miniscule.
| If you replace all HFCS with sugar, you lower your
| fructose intake only a tiny bit.
|
| Also appeal to nature is stupid. It's just dumb and
| nobody cares about that.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| 1. If most UP foods are hyper-palatable and this is the
| problem (not for instance, the fact that most have very
| high glycemic indexes, among other things), then it's
| fair to use UP as a proxy. It's fair to say that, when
| addressing obesity, it's better to avoid UP foods as they
| are too palatable for our archaic body.
|
| Besides the study doesn't studies obesity (it is a
| control), but depression, which isn't linked to food
| being palatable or not.
|
| 2. Sugar is itself a highly processed food. HFCS contains
| more fructose, which saturates faster the intestine's
| absorption capacity.
|
| Sugar is mostly derived from beetroot and sugar cane. Of
| course you can get diabetes from fruits or sugar beets
| alone, that said it's much harder than from eating UP
| foods.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Not at all. We're in the post-truth era. Anything you
| dislike can be denied and dismissed, and nothing anyone
| says will convince you otherwise. There's no objective
| truth, just what you prefer and therefore insist must be.
| Frost1x wrote:
| There's not much hysteria in that highly processed foods tend
| to give less satiety relative to both their calorie density
| and nutrient content (since your digestive process and
| signals don't trip the same way they do with whole foods).
|
| That alone is a good enough reason to avoid highly processed
| foods in many cases. It's not always true, but it's more
| often true than not.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Pea protein and coconut oil aren't the greatest. Probably
| similar to meat.
| libertine wrote:
| > I could buy a free range, organic and grass fed beef burger
| for the price of their ultra processed burger.
|
| In many countries, it's a heavily subsidized industry. Even if
| you have VC funds, it's not the same as being backed by country
| subsidies.
|
| To be clear, I'm not making a judgment, just saying that meat
| would probably be a lot more expensive.
| npteljes wrote:
| I think that for this exact reason Beyond Meat (or other
| alternatives) need a similar boost, in order to be
| financially competitive as well.
| libertine wrote:
| That's a political decision that needs to be applied to the
| alternative protein industry. However, given the current
| political climate and the acceptance of disinformation,
| that's going to be challenging.
| npteljes wrote:
| Indeed, and indeed.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Aren't they massively subsidized already? It's soybeans,
| after all.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Most soybeans are fed to animals and only a tiny amount
| of soybean calories are converted into meat. So a soybean
| subsidy scales better in the meat industry and makes
| their product disproportionally cheaper.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| and unfortunatly cows raised on soybeans yields trash
| quality meat with high amounts of omega 6 vs 3.
| npteljes wrote:
| I checked out one resource, and they say that there it's
| "pea protein isolate" mostly.
|
| Whatever the case (I'm sure there are soy patties as
| well), I think as long as they are not pricing it cheaper
| than beef, it won't gain widespread adoption. Animals are
| cute and all but people need an incentive that they can
| directly feel.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. It's a good
| national policy.
| kingstnap wrote:
| Keeping groceries cheap is politically important. It's
| the bread in bread and circus.
| rzz3 wrote:
| It'd probably be a better idea to stop the agriculture
| subsidies and let everyone compete and innovate on a level
| playing field.
| npteljes wrote:
| Agriculture is very risky, and needs large investments,
| and has low margins, so it's a good candidate for
| subsidies and other such government measures, like
| insurance. And the people need to eat, so it's essential
| as well.
|
| Leveling is much needed, I agree on that. But in case of
| agriculture, we can only get there by adjusting the field
| on a government level, in the shape of the support the
| industry receives.
| robertoandred wrote:
| > getting some dried minced soy protein, mix with some eggs,
| breadcrumbs and seasoning before wrapping in some cling film
| and pressing it into a patty
|
| Sounds like processing to me
| mind-blight wrote:
| Cool, we have a semantics issue. Processing can mean "any
| change to a food item" such as chopping, cooking, etc. In
| these kinds of conversations, it's often used as "significant
| alterations that are not possible or common outside of a food
| lab". E.g. I can do cured meats, or add corn starch to a soup
| at home. I'm not going to make partially hydrogenated oils or
| pink slime for chicken nuggets.
|
| If you're being genuine and trying to point out that it's
| difficult to draw a clear line between "good" and "bad"
| processing - absolutely! Processes that have been used for a
| long time (decades, hundreds, or thousands of years) are
| generally well understood and safer. Newer processes and
| changes have risks. So, "can I do this in my kitchen" is a
| great heuristic for trying to walk a very fuzzy line.
|
| If you're deliberately misunderstanding the intent to further
| an argument, get outta here with that BS :P
| trallnag wrote:
| Enjoy your home-made herbs and spices instead of dangerous
| lab-made drugs, I guess
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| The company's products in my and other people's views have
| caused a significant wane in vegetarian and vegan burger
| diversity. Gone are the chickpea and black bean burgers on
| menus--your only choice is Beyond Meat-esque burgers.
|
| As someone who doesn't actually really like how Beyond Meat
| tastes, it's unfortunate that it's the only option sometimes.
| As someone who likes food variety and practically needs it,
| eliminating choice is the worst.
|
| I have to concur about processing as well. Indian cuisine has
| so many unprocessed and nutritious meals that are vegetarian.
| So does Ethiopian cuisine. Mediterranean foods, Tex-mex, and
| lots of South American food can be made vegetarian. There are
| great ideas for burgers from here too. See
| https://www.shopdeepfoods.com/product/aloo-
| tikki-141-oz?pid=....
|
| I've wanted to try some of the NYTimes vegetarian and vegan
| burger recipes when I get the chance. My point is, Beyond Meat
| seems to reduce the better-testing and less processed
| competition.
| null0ranje wrote:
| Ive never understood the drive to make meat substitutes
| instead of celebrating vegetarian cuisine. I'm not a
| vegetarian, but if I eat some dish that is vegetarian, why
| wouldn't I want to celebrate the vegetable itself made from
| instead of trying to make some fake meat that never quite
| hits the mark?
| santoshalper wrote:
| I think the idea was that Beyond Meat would be a
| "transitional" product that would provide an ever growing
| vegetarian/vegan population an option that was familiar to
| them. For example, if you do not care about celebrating
| vegetables, and just want to end animal cruelty, but you
| miss the taste of meat, then a beyond burger was supposed
| to be for you.
|
| The biggest problem they have is the exhorbinant prices,
| which relegate it to niche status.
| biztos wrote:
| > just want to end animal cruelty, but you miss the taste
| of meat
|
| Does that actually describe a commercially relevant
| segment of the population?
|
| Intuitively, having known a lot of vegetarians, I'd
| expect the people whose primary concern is animal cruelty
| to be specifically turned _off_ by realistic fake meat.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Well, that's why that thesis seems to have failed. There
| has not been a huge cultural sea change driving meat
| eaters towards the products.
| kuschku wrote:
| Has it failed?
|
| I've been vegetarian since January 2011. Back then at
| restaurants I had to eat side dishes or go hungry, and
| while I spent months searching I couldn't find any kind
| of imitation meat that didn't make me wanna puke. But
| with the modern imitation meat, be it Beyond Meat, Moving
| Mountains, Nestle's Garden Gourmet or Rugenwalder, that's
| not the case anymore.
|
| Food is also a part of the culture, and German culture
| traditionally contains a lot of meat. Which may be why
| here in Germany, these products are hugely successful.
| Rugenwalder (which is a conventional meat factory) is now
| selling more imitation meat products than actual meat.
| Recently they even phased out their meat currywurst
| because the vegan currywurst was selling so much better.
|
| While often times you can just remove meat from the
| recipe (e.g., Bratkartoffeln uses Speck just as
| seasoning, so you can replace it with a bit of soy sauce
| and MSG) or replace it with a simple alternative (e.g.,
| Falafel-Doner), that doesn't work all the time. Sometimes
| imitation meat (whether store-bought methylcellulose
| based, or DIY marinated soy or seitan) is the best
| option.
|
| Even though I had disliked imitation meat for over a
| decade, nowadays even I'll enjoy veggie currywurst.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I don't think anyone disagrees that 1)
| vegan/vegetarianism is growing, 2) vegans/vegetarians are
| being served better than ever, 3) Beyond Meat and similar
| products will be part of the constellation of choices.
|
| The rest of the thread is full of people saying why
| vegetarians will mostly keep eating regular vegetarian
| food and meat eaters will mostly keep eating regular
| meat. And indeed what we haven't seen is the mass one-
| for-one substitution by meat eaters that Beyond seems to
| have bet the firm on. That's not to say the whole
| category will fail.
|
| I don't live in Germany so haven't had the pleasure of
| trying the brand you mentioned. It sounds like they found
| better PMF than Beyond with a more sustainable,
| incremental growth model. It also sounds like they might
| not be trying the same one-for-one raw ingredient
| strategy. Curryworst and packaged meals are already a
| value-added, prepared product with unique flavor profile
| that seems more amenable to substitution.
|
| Tangentially, I think Beyond does deserve some credit for
| taking the first mover risk and bringing the topic into
| the limelight, where other brands can now benefit from
| the consumer awareness.
| kuschku wrote:
| > It sounds like they found better PMF than Beyond with a
| more sustainable, incremental growth model.
|
| Indeed, and I believe the flaw is that food products are
| a low-margin, zero-sum market with no potential for moats
| and limited growth opportunities.
|
| It never made sense to start a typical VC funded startup
| in this space.
|
| But it certainly makes sense for a food manufacturer to
| expand into the vegan market, increasing their market
| share and improving their margins.
|
| > It also sounds like they might not be trying the same
| one-for-one raw ingredient strategy. Curryworst and
| packaged meals are already a value-added, prepared
| product with unique flavor profile that seems more
| amenable to substitution.
|
| Ah, maybe that wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about
| prepared, pre-packaged meals. Just the same like for like
| replacement products beyond meat products.
|
| e.g., 250g veggie minced meat:
| https://www.ruegenwalder.de/de/produkte/vegane-
| produkte/vega...
| jfengel wrote:
| If you ask a bunch of meat eaters how they feel about
| animal cruelty, they'll get uncomfortable. Many will
| admit that they would like to avoid it but don't think
| it's practical. Look in particular at the kind who seek
| out organic, free range, and other (honestly, not very
| effective) ways to reduce suffering.
|
| I suspect the market research turned up a large
| contingent of such. Perhaps not sufficient to justify a
| whole separate product line, but enough to hope that
| economies of scale would reduce price and create a
| virtuous cycle.
|
| So I'm sure it seemed worth a shot. I'm sorry but not
| surprised that it didn't work.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Count me as a conflicted meat eater. It is terrible,
| but...delicious. I would be willing to switch to
| Impossible Foods (much better than Beyond Meat) for most
| of my hamburger consumption. Yet the price is such a
| premium that it is hard to justify. Yes, there are
| scaling problems, meat subsidies, etc which are hard
| challenges to overcome, but not surprising to me that
| most consumers are unwilling to switch to a novel product
| that is more expensive.
| chickensong wrote:
| > honestly, not very effective
|
| Care to elaborate?
| exe34 wrote:
| That's me. The first time I had a seitan dish at a
| chinese restaurant, I was certain they had given me
| chicken and asked them to check. The poor guy went and
| dug the empty tin out of the bin to show me.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Amusing. Seitan (which is - also amusingly IMO - just
| pure _wheat gluten_ ) is functionally identical in
| texture to reconstituted meat.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Beyond Meat isn't designed to appeal to vegetarians. It's
| designed to appeal to people who would be vegetarians but
| aren't because they like meat.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| I'm not vegetarian, but I have a family member that is
|
| He never disliked the taste, on the opposite, he enjoyed,
| but didn't stand by the means neccessary to put it in his
| plate
|
| So eventually he stopped eating it, but having always
| been a curious eater, he's always missed a taste similar
| to meat
|
| As far as he's told me Burguers and some kinds of Chorizo
| are passable enough, but still, depends on presentation
| and it's been so long I don't know if his comparissons
| are still good
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| The miss the taste of meat thing anecdotally doesn't
| happen to my vegetarian friends. It is like without
| exposure they actually lose the taste for meat. They will
| even get nauseous if they smell it cooked because their
| senses are so un primed for meat by that point.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Maybe being surrounded by other vegetarians changes this
| outcome?
|
| Anecdotically, the few (~5) people around me that have
| gone long stints without meat, never went as far as
| getting nauseous, but all of them took special care when
| reintroducing it to their diets
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Is it really that complicated? There are many countries,
| together over 2b people, with cultural hegemonies, where
| eating meat is the not-so-invisible part of the racial and
| national identity. It's like asking why "we" do not
| celebrate non-Abrahamic religions.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| As a vegetarian I actually prefer stuff like Beyond when
| eating out.
|
| The reason is simple: it has higher protein content than
| most other place based fast foods.
|
| I'd love to live in a world with minimally processed high
| protein vegetarian restaurant food (like lots of legumes),
| but the only reliable place to get this that I know of is
| CAVA.
|
| Products like Beyond are at least a step up from carb heavy
| pastas and grains or oily fried vegetables and starches
| which are the staples of most restaurant fare for
| vegetarians.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Plenty of places will give you beans. Are beyond burgers
| really higher protein than a bean? Taco bell the whole
| menu can be subbed for black beans.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| When you get "black bean burgers" they usually have a
| bunch of other stuff in them which reduces the protein.
| Combine with a bun and you get a lot of calories without
| much protein.
|
| Beyond/impossible are not great, but they are better.
|
| A few fast casual places like Chipotle do have pretty
| good bean options.
|
| But your friendly neighborhood restaurant? Probably you
| can get a salad or a Portobello sandwich or some pasta or
| a black bean burger. In relation to those, the packaged
| burgers provide a reliable source of protein.
| curiousgibbon wrote:
| Yes, processed meat alternatives tend to be significantly
| higher protein per unit mass than beans. But other
| metrics like protein per calorie can be useful.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| As a non vegetarian, I also hate how tofu gets treated as
| solely a vegetarian meat substitute in the US. I have no
| interest in having a poor substitution in a meat dish, but
| tofu itself is a core component of great foods that it
| belongs in...such as miso soup or mapo tofu.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Diced, fried in cubes, and served on a bed of cous-cous
| with soy sauce. Might not be traditional in any culture
| but it is cheap and fast to cook with minimal skill.
| rconti wrote:
| I think there are billions of people around the world, in
| every country on this planet celebrating vegetarian
| cuisine, and this is a company participating in a drive to
| provide an alternative. It's not a sinister drive to wipe
| out traditional vegetarian cuisine.
| alewi481 wrote:
| I'm a vegan. I don't longer eat meat because I find
| industrial farming repugnant and environmentally
| problematic, not because I suddenly dislike the flavor. I
| grew up with meat on my plate and liked it. Now I use
| plant-based products to recreate the tastes and textures I
| remember while leaving behind the cruelty and waste. I also
| doubt many meat eaters are pausing to "celebrate the
| animal". They're just grabbing shrink-wrapped, shelf-stable
| convenience foods without much thought to how they got
| there.
| mind-blight wrote:
| Can't agree enough. I just don't think that beyond meat is
| good. I'm a meat eater who grew up vegetarian and still enjoy
| eating vegetarian food. A well done black bean burger (my
| favorite blend is with quinoa) is delicious. I'd eat that
| over a regular burger plenty of times.
|
| If I went full vegetarian again, I'd stick with the classics
| - they taste so much better.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I agree.
|
| I'm not a vegetarian by any means but really enjoyed many of
| the vegetarian items inspired by things like burgers. I often
| found them a great vessel for hot sauce as a condiment v.
| ketchup on meat.
| coro_1 wrote:
| Aggressively marketing the imitation meat is what opened up
| market share for the products in the grocery marts and how
| they got on menus. Marketing up ramp for subpar products is
| too common.
|
| The US is primed for this. Buy the market, invest a lot, then
| invest less in the product. Hate to say, RFK may be on to,
| some things. Plain Heinz catsup in Canada makes the US
| versions (plural) just seem sort of gross.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I also don't see it as much better than Boca Burgers or Quorn
| or many other earlier generation products never mind tofu,
| tempeh, seitan all of which can be great on a bed of rice or
| as sandwich fillers.
|
| Ecologist Howard Odum developed a system of environmental
| accounting based on tracing energy back to the sun
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergy
|
| a calorie of vegetarian food is estimated to require 200,000
| calories worth of sunlight when you factor in energy to drive
| the wind, make rain, all of that.
|
| Invariably there is part of a product or service that you
| can't account for in detail so you take the remaining dollar
| cost and multiply it by the emergy/$ ratio for the economy as
| a whole.
|
| Although you can argue a "cheap" product has a price that is
| subsidized or doesn't represent externalities, this leads to
| the corollary that _an outrageously expensive product is not
| green_ because the money is a license for somebody to do
| things that impact the environment be it the employees
| driving around in a big-ass pickup truck or the executives or
| investors flying in private jets.
|
| There's that and there's also the fact that most people's
| main objection to meat substitutes is high cost.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| I'd always hoped they'd bring the price down over time as
| economies of scale kick in, but man did that not happen. What a
| shame.
| cloudbonsai wrote:
| So the biggest problem here is that Beyond Meat has a huge debt
| due in just 2 years: That's a problem given
| that $1 billion in convertible bonds come due in March 2027.
| Beyond Meat has no way to repay that debt, and the credit markets
| know it: The bonds currently trade at about 17 cents on the
| dollar.
|
| To put the "$1B" number into the context, Beyond Meat sold $300M
| worth of plant-based meats last year, and made a net operating
| _loss_ of $156M. Their total assets are $600M, and the market
| capitalization is only $260M as of today.
|
| If they could magically become profitable at 10% profit margin,
| it would take 20+ years to repay the debt. It's hopeless.
| chronogram wrote:
| That's got to be an incredible expenditure then. Considering
| their pricing compared to the better store brand alternatives,
| while not lacking any scale disadvantages, I expect high
| margins on the products themselves.
| bartread wrote:
| And this as well:
|
| > The company expects the figure to reach about $330 million in
| 2025, roughly 10% higher than it was six years earlier despite
| a huge increase in the number of products offered.
|
| It's not like they have any growth potential to speak of that
| would enable them to service that debt.
|
| It's a bit hard to see who their target market is or, rather,
| it's a bit hard to see that the market segment they're aiming
| for is big enough for them to grow at an appreciable rate. To
| me it reads like they just didn't do their homework up-front -
| e.g., an in depth segmentation - in determining their
| addressable market.
|
| Vegetarians and vegans I know want protein sources in their
| diets but they don't necessarily want meat substitutes, so
| perhaps BM's products aren't that appealing to them.
|
| Meat eaters possibly have low awareness of BM and, unless
| they're particularly principled - and wealthy enough to absorb
| the additional cost - are unlikely to pay the same price, or
| more (at least here in the UK), for meat substitutes than
| they'd pay for actual meat.
|
| Moreover, people I know who are trying to cut down on meat,
| like their veggie and vegan counterparts, mostly aren't looking
| for meat substitutes in their meat-free meals either.
|
| If BM's products were more affordable and better advertised
| they'd have a better chance at widespread adoption but it's
| very hard to plot a route from where they are now to there.
| Also, this doesn't solve for the portion of the market who
| aren't looking for explicitly meaty meat substitutes.
|
| As you say, it does appear hopeless.
|
| (FWIW, I've eaten BM burgers on several occasions. They're
| excellent but I'm not normally willing to pay the premium for
| them versus actual beef patties, or making our own.)
| jebarker wrote:
| I would guess the primary target market is ex meat eaters
| that are trying to go vegetarian but have been raised to
| enjoy the taste/texture of meat. I am in this group. I agree
| it's not a very large market for the reasons you stated
| above. However, maybe BM hoped they could grow that market,
| I.e. convince more meat eaters to give it up for ethical
| reasons.
| Lord-Jobo wrote:
| I am in a similar group; the mostly-vegetarian. Chicken
| when I don't have a real choice, red meat at a wedding like
| once a year or something.
|
| I like beyond meat products, the price is obviously a
| problem but they go on sale locally frequently enough to be
| a good substitute for us.
|
| Something about them I HATE though is that they have two
| burger products that are extremely similar with one main
| difference: product A is kept frozen and requires thawing
| to cool properly and product B is kept frozen and cooks
| from frozen.
|
| They are so similar that we accidentally get the wrong one
| all the time.
|
| Once cooked, both products are indistinguishable from an
| eating perspective. Get product A the fuck outta here,
| please.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Same. Chicken, eggs, and yogurt are the only animal
| products I consume regularly.
| UltraSane wrote:
| "raised to enjoy the taste/texture of meat"
|
| Humans have evolved to enjoy the taste/texture/smell of
| cooked meat
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, their comment gave me a chuckle. lol
| bartread wrote:
| Yeah. HN doesn't really have a sense of humour, which I
| used to find frustrating, but which (having now spent a
| lot more time on other forums, like Reddit), I fully
| appreciate the wisdom of.
|
| I am, along certain axes, a big fan of DIY forums like
| the r/DIYUK subreddit, and it pisses me off to no end
| that when anybody asks a serious question looking for
| serious help the top 5 comments will, as like as not, be
| bullshit, cheap, obvious, "funny" one-liners from people
| whose sense of humour has never evolved beyond the
| playground and that contain zero useful information. I've
| even considered volunteering as a mod on that particular
| sub just so I can delete all of these "humorous" comments
| so that the actual useful information makes it to the top
| of the page. So, yeah, I've come around to the HN point
| of view on humour.
|
| But, nevertheless, like you, I found this funny.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Slashdot's system was best. No upvoting, certainly no
| downvoting, just a small vocabulary of tags:
| "informative", "insightful", "irrelevant", etc. And of
| course "funny". That way you can literally turn the humor
| off!
| jebarker wrote:
| If you speak with vegetarians/vegans who have been raised
| that way and never eaten meat you will find many that are
| repulsed by it. Nurture seems to be able to override
| nature here and, as far as I'm aware, there's no strong
| evidence that we're born with an inherent taste for meat,
| we're just born with bodies that need certain nutrients
| that are easily obtained from meat but can be found
| elsewhere.
| rolandog wrote:
| Why would it have to only be ex-meat eaters? It may be just
| my (admittedly biased) opinion, but I think that Big Meat
| has managed to turn meat-eating into a quasi-religion --
| almost like football. I also try to not shy away from
| knowing where my food comes from, and how it was processed
| and produced; if you know about the cruel and unsanitary
| living conditions for cattle, the underpaid and overworked
| labor that helps process it, and the deforestation and
| water needed in order to produce it... you then find the
| meat does not go down as easy anymore.
|
| Which, not to rain down on everyone's BBQ, but I personally
| find it ridiculous how we have been protecting people's
| feelings during flip-a-patty time more than the
| environment!
|
| Sorry for the rant -- not personally directed at you...
| but, I ... clearly feel strongly about the subject.
|
| Full disclosure: not vegan nor vegetarian, and perhaps even
| a hypocrite for writing a (hopefully not too) holier-than-
| thou rant and eating unhealthy amounts of junk food
| occasionally.
| jebarker wrote:
| I totally agree with your strong feelings on the meat
| industry. The reason I said the main market is ex meat
| eaters is because if you're still eating meat then any
| craving for the taste/texture/smell of meat is at least
| getting partially satisfied by the meat you're still
| eating. There's definitely some market for people just
| trying to cut down on meat though, and that's great too.
| rolandog wrote:
| Thanks for steelmanning my argument.
|
| Definitely agree that texture (and price) will play a big
| factor in weaning off people from authentic meat.
|
| I hope we are able to surpass the challenges we're facing
| and live to see healthy food sources that are also within
| reach (physically and economically) for all people.
| twic wrote:
| I think the company was a bet that if you make a good enough
| meat substitute, then meat eaters will switch to it
| (sometimes), and that's a huge total addressable market. I
| would say that bet has not come off. But that's hindsight -
| the whole point of startups is to take bets.
| bartread wrote:
| I think you're right: that was definitely the bet, but it
| really should have entered their heads that being more
| expensive than actual meat[0] would guarantee the bet
| wouldn't pay off.
|
| _[0] Again, in the UK: I 'm not familiar enough with their
| pricing in other markets to know if that's the case
| globally. IMO you'd have to be out of your mind to imagine
| a meaty tasting meat substitute would succeed in the US if
| it was more expensive than actual meat so, if the high
| price holds in the US, it should be no surprise that
| they're failing._
| zahlman wrote:
| > Vegetarians and vegans I know want protein sources in their
| diets but they don't necessarily want meat substitutes, so
| perhaps BM's products aren't that appealing to them.
|
| When Beyond Meat announced their IPO, I can recall thinking
| quite distinctly: "wait, this isn't the Impossible Burger.
| They aren't even making any kind of breakthrough in the
| 'convincing meat substitute' department in the first place.
| And this stuff is expensive. Who tf is this for?"
|
| > Moreover, people I know who are trying to cut down on meat,
| like their veggie and vegan counterparts, mostly aren't
| looking for meat substitutes in their meat-free meals either.
|
| It's true. I eat probably considerably less meat than I did
| many years ago. Which is to say, still in generous portions,
| but not every day (I still freely eat dairy). When I
| supplement with vegetable sources of protein, I'm just
| preparing legumes (and grains) normally, without even the
| slightest desire to make them "meat-like".
|
| I've had "ordinary" vegetarian burgers before. I don't even
| evaluate them as a substitute, but as their own thing.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| They need to announce that they are working on lab grown meat
| and expect to be shipping 10 million patties a month by the end
| of the year. Then at the end of year say you have a new formula
| that will halve costs and will be shipping 15 million a month
| by mid 2026. Rinse and repeat. Just like Tesla.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet
| tropes.
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. It tramples curiosity.
|
| It seems clear that the purpose of your comment is to "drag"
| an unrelated company.
| mettamage wrote:
| > If they could magically become profitable at 10% profit
| margin, it would take 20+ years to repay the debt. It's
| hopeless.
|
| Why is that hopeless? Maybe I'm too green or optimistic but
| that just requires long-term planning.
|
| Also inflation will make it a bit easier.
|
| One thing I find tough for them personally is that I like the
| Impossible burger a lot more. I find Beyond meat not tasting
| like meat, not enough. Since that's the case, I'd rather just
| have any mushroom/whatever veggie burger. I wonder how other
| consumers perceive this.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > Why is that hopeless?
|
| because you can't take 20 years to pay off debt that is due
| in 2 years.
| rwmj wrote:
| Refinancing, but whoever lends them the money will take a
| long hard look at the rest of their finances and decide to
| pass.
| bradly wrote:
| The article mentions this as an agreement between the
| bondholders and shareholders, I believe, who are both
| mutually incentivized to come to agreement. If I
| understood correctly the bondholders agree to a future
| convertible note of some sort.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| > Why is that hopeless? Maybe I'm too green or optimistic but
| that just requires long-term planning.
|
| They don't have 20 years to pay it off. Debt is due in 2
| years
| bell-cot wrote:
| > If they could magically ... it would take 20+ years ...
|
| It's worse than that - 10% profit on $300M sales is only
| $30M/year.
|
| Vs. "risk-free" US Treasury bonds currently yield 4% to 5% - so
| parking $1B there would earn you $40M to $50M per year.
|
| Nobody's insane enough to loan money to Beyond Meat at US
| Treasury rates. And even if someone was - Beyond would still
| fall deeper into debt every year, because they couldn't even
| keep up with the interest.
| airstrike wrote:
| Debt can always be restructured.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The impossible to pay debt just means the company goes bankrupt
| and new owners can keep operating it without the debt.
|
| That they lose 45 cents from every dollar of sales is the
| killer.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > That they lose 45 cents from every dollar of sales is the
| killer.
|
| Was it always that bad? If so, how did the business get past
| the spreadsheet model phase? There's no way the typical corp
| "re-org" fixes that.
| findthewords wrote:
| Plant-based protein will not succeed as long as government
| subsidize meat production.
| epolanski wrote:
| So if I buy their very cheap convertible bond, they either repay
| it (they won't) or they give me lots of equity?
| aembleton wrote:
| Or you take a hair cut if the majority of bond holders agree.
| pfdietz wrote:
| What I would like to see in a fake meat is a product engineered
| to have lower level of histidine, since there is evidence that
| gut microorganism processing of histidine creates a chemical that
| causes atherosclerosis.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44595008
| aszantu wrote:
| I kinda think beyond meat is for ppl who care about taste. You
| can fake meat taste and texture much cheaper.
|
| For ppl who care about nutrients, artificial meat seemingly gets
| more expensive and you also need licenses probably and what not.
|
| Health wise it's in your own best interest to eat animals that
| fave been able to forage and graze in the sun. See Vitamin d and
| so on. Those ppl won't buy factory slurry.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Headline here is not true; in fact:
|
| > the end of Beyond Meat stock doesn't mean the end of the Beyond
| Meat business ... reorganized company can continue its work, and
| perhaps even go public again in the future
|
| The stock price is simply unnaturally low because there's a
| decent chance it'll go through Chapter 11 soon.
| sub7 wrote:
| The FDA already allows far too much salt and preservatives in US
| food supplies and this fake meat stuff is an absurd amount of
| salt that will 100% give you a heart attack very very early if
| you eat it regularly.
|
| Just like the drug ads on TV, this is one of those situations
| where industry must be reigned in before the market discovers the
| truth.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > The FDA already allows far too much salt and preservatives in
| US food supplies and this fake meat stuff is an absurd amount
| of salt that will 100% give you a heart attack very very early
| if you eat it regularly.
|
| A Beyond Burger has ~300 mg sodium. You could eat one every day
| and come in well under the recommended daily allowance of
| sodium as long as the rest of your diet is appropriate.
| maxglute wrote:
| Not surprised. Expensive, taste like shit. Nice Asian vegetarian
| food exist. A always seemed like stupid amount of resources a d
| effort to cater to burger markets.
| anovikov wrote:
| This is a poster child of ZIRP one step away from Juicero.
| lazylizard wrote:
| i cannot understand the urge to compete with the pig or cow or
| chicken (especially) for meat production. they are so good at
| turning feed into meat.
|
| why not plant based lobster, crab, sea cucumber or sea urchin or
| sharks fin or something similar. that is unproductive? or
| impossible to farm? and perhaps even endangered? something that
| plant based processes are closer to competing on price.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > i cannot understand the urge to compete with the pig or cow
| or chicken (especially) for meat production. they are so good
| at turning feed into meat.
|
| Because they are living, somewhat sentient, animals that are
| capable of suffering. And using them as a food source requires
| that we kill them on a large scale.
|
| And because industrial-scale meat production causes huge
| suffering to the animals caught-up in it, as well as serious
| environmental damage.
| apexalpha wrote:
| It's insane to me that they're struggling despite the burgers
| being _more expensive_ than actual meat in my supermarket.
|
| They taste nice, sure. But my supermarket now also has Mushroom
| burgers, lentil burgers, normal soya burgers... All for 1/3 of
| the price.
|
| The premium product of vegatarian meat is meat, not more
| expensive veggie meat, it seems.
|
| Personally I think this will become that premium spot:
| mosameat.com
|
| But who knows, it's too early to tell.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Whether they taste nice is debatable. They had an odd
| aftertaste for me. I would much rather have a good mushroom or
| black bean burger. They taste better to me, are cheaper, and
| probably more healthy.
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| good get rid of this garbo, give me a cow plz moo
| pif wrote:
| That's good news, fake products need to die. We already have real
| meat and real vegetables, and both are wonderful things.
|
| We don't need this idiot fad of eating one of them while conving
| us that we are eating the other.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| I recently travelled the US (California, Arizona, Utah, Ohio), I
| found it really hard to find vegan options. Some restaurants that
| used to sell vegan burgers or vegan options have stopped
| (McDonalds, Applebees) - because not enough people ordered them.
| Some restaurants that have Beyond Meat burger patties as on
| option "don't have any in stock" - probably for the same reason.
|
| According to GPT o4-mini, these are the restaurants that have
| stopped in the past few years: Habit Burger & Grill; McDonald's;
| Carl's Jr.; TGI Fridays; Del Taco; Denny's; Dunkin'; Wendy's.
|
| I will say beyond meat tasted pretty good, and I would prefer to
| eat that than to go hungry at US restaurants. But it's very
| expensive and very annoying to cook at home (smoky). Not sure how
| healthy it is either - highly processed?
|
| Also, people who are vegetarian/vegan know the health benefits.
| They're not going to pay more to get less healthy.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Beyond is hard to buy in supermarkets too. Whole Foods doesn't
| stock it at all and many others never have it in store even if
| the chain does technically stock it online. I just want it
| because it's 0 cholesterol and tastes the same as meat to me.
|
| This is probably the cause of their problems. You need to be
| one of the big food brands to have leverage to get it on
| shelves in a prominent position and they are small.
| thom wrote:
| Hate these burgers. As a dairy-loving vegetarian, first the
| vegans came along and ruined everything by evicting most of the
| tasty options from restaurants, and then the meat eaters somehow
| wanted vegan food that tasted of animals and that became the
| default option on many menus. Vegetarians (who I grant you are
| difficult to pity as the centrists of the food world) got utterly
| screwed.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| If the supposed tastier option is black bean burgers, can't say
| I agree, and I eat black beans all the time.
| 9dev wrote:
| If you're consuming lots of dairy, and became vegetarian to
| avoid animal suffering, you can just as well eat meat. Not much
| of a difference ethically.
| dolebirchwood wrote:
| That's cool. But "avoiding animal suffering" isn't the only
| reason people stop eating meat.
|
| Sometimes the reason is as simple as: I just think meat is
| gross. No judgment on anyone else who eats it.
| 9dev wrote:
| I added the _if_ because of that. A lot of people aren't
| aware what cows and chickens go through in industrial
| farming.
| pjs_ wrote:
| Beans dude. Beans are absolutely delicious. They grow in the
| ground by accident. A good bean burger is way more appetizing
| than a biosludge patty. Unfortunately nobody is getting rich
| selling beans. But they are all we need here
| 9dev wrote:
| Chock full of nutrients and protein too!
| msarrel wrote:
| They're charging more than beef for something that is just as
| unhealthy. It's amazing they lasted this long.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Here's a really good vegan burger recipe: caramelise about three
| large red onions with garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Drain a
| tin of red kidney beans, keep the liquid, mash together with
| fried onions, add about 100g of breadcrumbs, a teaspoon of Dijon
| mustard, chilli powder, and a pinch of allspice. Add aquafaba or
| breadcrumbs to adjust consistency. Press into round shapes. Fry
| (about six minutes).
|
| Cost: three onions, one tin of beans, some old bread, negligible
| spices. Yield: four delicious, fresh, very healthy burgers.
|
| I am a lifelong vegetarian and the likes of beyond meat are just
| frankly disgusting to me. They're expensive, upf, have a horrid
| texture, and aren't aimed at me. But I guess that's the point --
| their target market is "real men" who want to try being vegan for
| a while, not the likes of me. Yet I fear real men don't want to
| get the message and the demographic who are veggie or vegan have
| better, cheaper, nicer alternatives.
| 1024core wrote:
| As a vegetarian, the problem with Beyond Meat (and other such
| products) is that they're too close to the original. I'm a
| vegetarian; I don't want to eat meat. If what I'm eating tastes
| too close to meat, I begin doubting it. It has happened several
| times in the past where I've been served (real) meat when I
| explicitly asked for a non-meat version (e.g. "beef burrito"
| instead of "bean burrito", etc.)
|
| This is why I avoid Beyond Meat (and Impossible) products: too
| close for comfort.
|
| Vegetables and grains have a great taste in themselves; they
| don't need to imitate meat to be tasty!
| why_at wrote:
| As a vegan, hard disagree. I prefer impossible because it
| tastes even more like meat.
|
| I love vegetables and grains too. Tofu and lentils etc. are
| delicious but sometimes I just want a burger.
| zavec wrote:
| I think this will vary largely based on individual opinion.
| Many vegetarians will feel the same way as you of course.
|
| I'm currently trying to minimize my meat consumption where
| feasible based on some other factors, for several years in the
| past have been a stricter vegetarian as well. My motives for
| that are and were entirely based on cruelty and environmental
| concerns, so for me (and again, I suspect many other people who
| are vegetarian for their own combination of reasons) being
| close to the real thing isn't a downside at all.
| woodpanel wrote:
| The Beyond Meat story for me is a boon since its IPO. I made a
| good fortune betting against the post-IPO rally.
|
| Let's not forget how, in the late 2010s, VC money successfully
| pushed the idea that Beyond Meat et al didn't just taste as good
| as what it mimmicks, but that it acutally tastes better.
|
| Then-Celebrety Chef David Chang even said "it melted my brain"
| (Impossbile Foods). Chain stores around the world fell over each
| other to first announce stocking their shelves with it, then told
| their customers they had to wait due to too much demand in
| existing markets, and ultimately that they won't be selling any
| actual meat at all in in a couple of years.
|
| It was the full display of top-to-bottom class-war, elitist
| groupthink drooling over the power to pull a staple of our
| cuisine, culture and life quality from us - exactly _because_ we
| like it. And then shove super processed improvements into the
| mouths of the dull plebs. And make a killing with eyewatering
| stock prices of up to 190 USD.
| zahlman wrote:
| > I made a good fortune betting against the post-IPO rally.
|
| How did you decide when the rally was over?
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| beyond meat is people!
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Maybe they should simply stop fighting against survival.
| j_timberlake wrote:
| On a positive note, if you eat non-meat alternatives, you both
| avoid funding more factory-farming and you also help fund better
| non-meat options. You can't make _much_ difference, but it 's not
| like this is the only thing going on in your life anyway.
| pedalpete wrote:
| All of the hamburger and chicken-finger alternative meat
| companies missed the lesson where you want to target a high-
| dollar small market first, and then spread from there.
|
| There is WAY too much competition from regular meat, to
| bean/tofu/other vegetarian options that alternative meat just
| can't compete with on price.
|
| From what I've seen, Vow (https://www.eatvow.com/) are the only
| company that has taken a different approach and gone ultra-high
| end with their "cultured meats". Rather than trying to re-create
| a simple burger, they've made meats that can't exist in the real
| world. Their Japanese Qual Foix Gras has been available in
| Singapore for a while now and is coming to Sydney this month (I
| believe).
|
| This product is only sold at ultra-high end restaurants where
| people want the experience and are willing to pay for it.
|
| Vow didn't need to scale manufacturing to huge levels and try to
| boil the ocean all at once. They have a step by step plan ala
| Tesla where they start with the ultra-small scale very expensive
| foods, then move slightly down market, and continue until they
| are able to make affordable mass-market cultured foods for
| everyone.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-20 23:01 UTC)