I don't have any particular issues with plant based meats, but I really don't like the whole idea that everything has to replicate meat.
There are so many amazing dishes that just happen to be vegetarian/vegan that seem to go overlooked
I don't have any particular issues with plant based meats, but I really don't like the whole idea that everything has to replicate meat.
There are so many amazing dishes that just happen to be vegetarian/vegan that seem to go overlooked
You often hear this take from non-vegans. If someone wants to make substitutes, what's the problem? Who cares?
Making the good option easier is a good way to get people to do the right thing
Because selfish humans love their fucking meat and they don’t care that animals are locked into prisons where they can barely move or clean themselves, generate massive acres of literal shit pools that pollute large areas, the impact that kind of farming has on the environment….
THAT is why there is motivation for replication. Without it how do you shut down these disgusting cow/pig/chicken torture facilities
Yet so many of these people that claim to care about the environment still have children. Hypocrisy at it's finest.
Agreed, meat serves a specific role within traditional dishes. I find well cooked mushrooms to be one of the better substitutes in most sauce based dishes, though it lacks in protein. If we are going full vegan I believe South Indian to be some of the best cuisine in the world.
There is so much flexibility in cooking. I got some beyond meat Jamaican patties this week and I just genuinely wasn’t impressed with the flavor and texture.
I’d argue that bad implementation of substitutes is generally the culprit here. Meshing well with the cuisine is a better move. I’d rather have a curry rice with herbs filled patty.
Anyway I guess my point is that making meat replacement options just taste “OK” isn’t doing a lot of favors.
While I'm sure the meat industry/lobbying has made sure people knew about the drawbacks of plant based meat I think there's several legitimate reasons it hasn't taken off yet. It's firmly stuck in the middle.
When compared to animal based meat plant based meat is:
When compared to more traditional plant based protein, plant based meat it is:
The only benefit of plant based meat is that it's more environmentally friendly than traditional meat.
That's something that most people don't care to pay more for.
I hope R&D continues into plant-based meat as I do think that once the cost comes down below animal-based meat it will see wide adoption. Especially because the price of animal-based meat will continue to rise.
The only reason it's so much more expensive than animal-based meats is because of the amount of subsidies the meat industry gets. Actually, now that I think about it, all of the major pillars of the US agricultural industry, whether it be meat, corn, or dairy, are upheld by subsidies.
I agree, it's also why tobacco in the US is quite cheap even though the health effects are well documented.
That doesn't change the reality of playing field that plant-based meat has to play in currently.
The only reason it’s so much more expensive than animal-based meats is because of the amount of subsidies the meat industry gets.
If the environmental costs of producing it were added as taxes to meat, its price would skyrocket. Related link.
When compared to more traditional plant based protein, plant based meat it is:
- more expensive
- much less healthy
- doesn’t taste as good
Now hold on just a minute!
Plant based meat is expensive and unhealthy, but I'll be damned if I let you besmirch my junk food!
Haha my bad my bad.
In Canada, A&W's "Beyond Burger" is actually even better tasting than a regular meat burger imo.
I haven't really gotten into Impossible or Beyond. I've tried them both but they just don't seem worth the cost or calories. Boca on the other hand make a hell of a plant based burger.
I went through all of the fancy imitation burgers, and ended up deciding that good ol Boca is better. It doesn't hurt that it costs so much less.
once the cost comes down below animal-based meat it will see wide adoption
oh yeah, absolutely. the nanosecond it becomes cheaper is the moment McDonald's and all the other large corporate fast food places make the switch. taste or anything else is secondary to shareholder profits anyways (which in this case is a good thing at least)
Taco Bell has “bulked up” their ground beef with soy for years IIRC. Nobody noticed, because their seasoning and actual beef flavor were strong enough to cover.
My problem with Impossible/Beyond is neither is nearly as good as real beef flavor, and I’m saying this as somebody who was vegetarian for over a decade. Boca and Morningstar were my favorites back when I didn’t eat meat, and I still buy the Morningstar breakfast patties because I like them better than greasy meat patties to start my day.
I've bought impossible burgers and real burgers before and really struggled to taste the difference.
unfortunately I fall into the lucky few who get extreme stomach pain, cramps, nausea and like over a day of horrific diarrhea from Impossible meat, So that basically means I'll never eat it again, and also be incredibly unlikely to try any others.
Took me 3 times before I noticed the pattern and started poking around online about it, to find I wasnt alone.
What is "plant-based meat" vs "traditional plant-based protein"? Like, which things are in which categories? Tofu? Beans? Seitan? Peanut butter?
Plant-based meat are products that try to emulate real meat like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods.
Plant based protein would be everything you just listed.
Just eat some damn falafel, people - it's not hard to make, it doesn't pretend to be anything other than a plant, and bulk dry chickpeas are cheap as fuck and last forever.
Falafel doesn't taste like a cheeseburger. Beyond burgers taste like tasty cheeseburgers.
If the meat and dairy industries were to stop being subsidized, the real costs would skyrocket animal products and plants and plant based products would look much, much cheaper.
https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/
If that is to be believed it says their study in 2015 showed the cost of beef bring brought from $30 to $5 (I assume per pound, but 1/6th cost is rediculous)
That is much higher than I expected
That's not strictly true. The practice of applying the value of subsidies and applying it to retail cost of a product is bad-faith. Not saying some of these subsidies shouldn't be changed.
For example, many of these subsidies just give "Big Ag" an advantage over smaller farms, and actually lower the quality and value of meat on the shelves while raising prices (by hurting competition).
And depending on where the numbers come from, one of the "subsidies" generally included in numbers is the "lease" cost of letting animals graze on national parks. This is an incredibly complicated "subsidy" because it is a net good for the National Parks and for the environment to allow that to happen.
Finally, people generally consider "animal products purchased by government" to be a subsidy. Technically it is, but you can imagine that the army buying what it needs isn't giving an industry an unearned advantage.
Most importantly, these subsidies aren't the government giving ranchers money.
There's no question that some of these subsidies need to be changed dramatically. But you're very likely to NOT see a massive or long-term price jump when they do. (ref)
For me, I buy meat from places that don't benefit from these subsidies, and I generally pay within the range of $1 more or less per pound than stuff from "Big Ag" in my grocery store.
It was almost as if the meat industry orchestrated the whole thing itself.
It did.
... “As a nutrition scientist I have one view…Processing per se isn’t bad. What is bad is food that has no nutritional value.” (Or, in the case of red meat, food that raises your risk of several chronic diseases.)
Nail on head
I would disagree here. SOME of the backlash may be from the meat industry, but some is also from independent experts in fields of nutrition and the environment.
It's the same way I constantly catch vegans making false claims about health or the environment. That doesn't mean there aren't TRUE claims about the health or environment. You gotta see the forest for the trees on both sides.
I will say, at least the Impossible Burger has a much better environment footprint than lab-grown meat ever will.
My take on this (an I'm vegan so there's a possibility of bias) is that most of the mainstream claims such as there being no health downside and a plantbased diet is significantly less harmful for the environment are simply true.
But there is a subset of vegans that for some reason believe they need to justify it further than that who say that plant based diets have some nigh on magical health abilities and they feel so much better etc, pretty much all of that is some form of bs. Just like the idea that humans didn't need to eat meat in the far past due to b12.
All in all, it's an infected debate where vegans/nonvegans just throw false shit out to see what sticks.
Maybe not ever, I'm hopeful for lab grown meat to be a success AND be good for the environment.
The same people fear mongering about the health dangers of fake meat and 'cancer causing' aspartame will happily eat red meat which is several categories higher on the cancer causing scale. As in, definitely proven to cause cancer, rather than a soft maybe
I agree, but disagree. Aspartame is not a real cancer risk, but neither is red meat. Red meat is technical 2A with Aspartame 2B, but both have shown no signs of causality.
Similarly, zero cancer deaths have ever been attributed to red meat (~34,000 have been attributed to processed meat).
Red meat's fine in moderation. Aspartame is fine in moderation. NOTHING is fine in excess.
Can we edit post titles when the article has a clickbait headline, please? Though thanks for the anticlickbait tldr in the body :)
The real reasons plant based meat has not taken off is very simple.
When both of them are comparable to animal meat, we will see mass adoption. There is no conspiracy. The front group mentioned here isn't active beyond North America.....yet there is no adoption in Asia either.
I'm in south America and there's a lot of plant based burgers available. And you know what? The cheapest costs double of a 100% beef burger.
Coincidentally, the half beef, half soy protein burgers are half price of 100% beef burgers, 1/4 of full plant based burgers.
Why is that? The half soy burgers are made by the same companies as the full beef burgers, might be related to economies of scale?
Possibly subsidies too, government there might be subsidizing cattle farming.
I said much the same on the Behaw thread. If price parity was there or a sliiiight premium, I'd probably be at least 80% veggimeat. And then as said on another comment, once mcD's/etc starts using it due to price, people won't think twice about eating and buying it. I don't think the need or want will be reducing long term as we give it what climate change has in sure for us, so whoever cracks scaling production will have it made.
I feel texture is there on most of the bigger name products, and as someone who doesn't usually seek out veggies, I loooove Beyond's flavor profile.
In the U.S. prices for meat are artificially brought down through subsidies. I searched around and saw that in 2015 the cost of beef was brought down to roughly 1/6 the cost.
If we subsidized plant based meats like that they would be less than half the cost of beef. That would bring more people to eating it (not everyone, but many) and that should in theory reduce emissions for all those supplemented purchases.
The only people who enjoy the taste of plant based meat never liked the taste of meat based meat to begin with.
Personally, I hope lab grown meat grows enough to make it a non issue.
I am not a vegetarian, but I buy the Impossible Burger meat sometimes. It’s close enough that you would have a difficult time telling it apart from real meat. Not perfect, of course but I don’t mind eating it.
I eat meat and whitecastles impossible sliders are better than their meat ones. The impossible whopper is about as good as a whopper. Of course some of this is due to the quality of the meat burgers to begin with.
..what? that's just nonsense.
Now that's just incorrect. The people who enjoy the taste of plant based meat probably liked the taste of meat a lot, that's why they're seeking to replace it, but environmental and/or ethical considerations are important enough to them to justify a small loss or simply change in flavor.
For me it is the texture far more than the flavor that makes most plant based "meat" less than fun. Like how turkey bacon is a mockery of actual bacon.
That said there are a couple chicken nugget subs that are good and the impossible burger is decent with strong condiments. But most are just sad pretenders like turkey bacon.
Dishes that are not pretending to be meat are the best vegetarian dishes.
The seperation of the animals and the products their bodies are packaged up to resemble keeps us numb to the horrors of slaughterhouses.
does not matter the quality of life of any animal rasied to be exploited for their body. All of them end up in the same slaughterhouse.
it is illegal to film how your food is made if you eat animals. they want to keep you willfully ignorant.
I honestly don't think it will ever be a thing.
Thank god for beans
But beans are a plant-based meat?
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