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Thoughts on Beyond Burger and other fake meat

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Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    bpetrosky wrote: »
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    pg5qw8zt169w.jpg
    Nope

    Considering your profile says you will only eat "Meat. Eggs. Fish. Raw cheese. 100% chocolate" I suspect the fact that you won't eat a Beyond Burger doesn't really set it apart from all sorts of stuff that people interested in vegetarian burgers would be fine with, including pretty much everything they eat.
    I am very anti-processed food. I don't care if it's vegan or not. If you wanna be vegan, be vegan, but be a clean vegan. I do eat meat yet there is a lot of meat I don't buy because it has unnecessary ingredients. I watch where I put my money.

    Sorry, if I'm going vegan I'm going to be a filthy vegan.

    We have the most fun!
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    pg5qw8zt169w.jpg
    Nope

    Considering your profile says you will only eat "Meat. Eggs. Fish. Raw cheese. 100% chocolate" I suspect the fact that you won't eat a Beyond Burger doesn't really set it apart from all sorts of stuff that people interested in vegetarian burgers would be fine with, including pretty much everything they eat.
    I am very anti-processed food. I don't care if it's vegan or not. If you wanna be vegan, be vegan, but be a clean vegan. I do eat meat yet there is a lot of meat I don't buy because it has unnecessary ingredients. I watch where I put my money.

    And what is it about processing that is so bad?
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    After41 wrote: »
    pg5qw8zt169w.jpg

    Oh my. I don't want any of those ingredients. Well..water and salt for those pedantics.

    It's okay to not want something. You don't have to eat the burger, It's such a niche item anyway. I just hope this fixation on ingredients in general (not the ingredients in this specific burger) is not causing anxiety around food. I personally want every single one of these ingredients because each one serves a purpose, otherwise it wouldn't be there. From nutritional profile to taste to color to texture to storage safely. I'll take it.

    If it makes you feel any better, most people seem to only really care about these type of ingredients when they are in a meat replacement.

    To be fair, a lot of the concern is because animal foods are nutritious, staple foods. When you replace them with ultra processed/novel foods there's good reason for caution. When you see how much money is being spent to create this market it's even more concerning.

    You accidentally hit on it, but not for the reason that you think. The reason why meat replacements have such a strong negative following against them is because the farmer and meat producer industries are extremely influential in America. A lot of jobs and economic activity in certain states revolve around these industries. And they are terrified of meat replacements because they know that while they are not quite there yet in terms of being ready for wide spread adoption (price point and lack of nutritional improvement being some limiters so far), they also know it's only a matter of time. How far are we from a beyond/impossible type meat replacement that tastes and cooks like meat but has a fraction of the fat and is cheaper than meat? I'd imagine it's single digit years until that happens.

    So that's why they are waging both a PR and regulation war against meat replacements. It's why you see in all these "small government, conservative states", the ones that think clean water regulation is the devil, they are passing new laws to ban the term "veggie burger".

    It's not because they are scared that plant based meat replacements are bad, it's because they are scared that they are good.

    I'm pretty sure "big cattle" isn't sending people to these forums to hate on veggie burgers.

    Also, the ingredients in meat replacements are grown by farmers, largely in "small government, conservative states."


    I don't know whether that's touching naivete about motives or a lack of understanding about how the Internet can and is used. Or are you just questioning whether they send people or bots?

    To be fair, I kinda agree. I don't think most of the disagreers here have anything to do with big cattle. They may have been socially conditioned by big cattle (no idea, I don't live in the US), but it's mostly just a knee jerk reaction because their choice feels superior and/or they feel their choices are being challenged. People don't like societal shifts in general and feel pride in their established beliefs and choices. Choice supportive bias is a very prevalent cognitive bias that we all have, so it tends to have an even larger effect with choices that we identify as part of our identity because of it having certain morality undertones ("I'm a meat eater and my choice is superior and not immoral, therefore the alternative choice must be inferior in some way"). Not to mention that people are generally wary of new things and are slow to accept them.

    While I agree that some, probably most, people defending their meat-eating by disparaging meat alternatives are just circling the wagons on what they're used to and defending the morality of their choices, I was challenging the idea that one particular industry is not following what is today a common business practice.

    It is possible both for

    (1)
    "big cattle" isn't sending people to these forums to hate on veggie burgers.

    to be false (as it would take only two individuals associated with, connected to, or hired by the cattle industry for it to be true) and

    (2)
    I don't think most of the disagreers here have anything to do with big cattle

    to be a correct belief (as it would only take one more than half of the disagreers to not have anything to do with big cattle).

    Companies of all kinds pay people to influence discussions in social media. It's not remotely an unusual thing. When you see first-time posts from someone touting a supplement, a named diet that has books and other products associated with it, directing you to a specific website, do you really think none of them are doing so for a financial motive? Some bloggers are paid (in money or in goods) to say positive things about specific products. Pretty much any company of a decent size or sophistication has social media specialists in their communications departments. But nobody in the beef industry tries to influence public opinion in forums where meat alternatives are discussed?


    ETA
    Since you're not in the U.S., perhaps you are unaware that the cattle industry's tactics in the U.S. have included getting laws passed to prevent labeling that in any way suggests that meat alternatives are in fact "meat" alternatives, getting laws passed people from saying anything bad about beef, and suing people for saying anything that suggests there might be health advantages for trading some saturated fat animal products for unsaturated fat plant protein products. I'm not seeing them getting queasy over the idea of paying for some social media influencing.

    Holy propoganda, Batman.

    Yes, suing those who call your product unhealthy is a telltale sign that you're sending people and bots to infiltrate the forums of a calorie counting app, create profiles, rack up hundreds of unrelated comments and wait for the opportunity to attack veggie burgers when a thread finally arises.

    ETA: I'm not a member of big cattle (my uncle used to have a few cows but I'm a suburban guy) but I can see the reasoning behind labeling restriction against calling a product "meat" which doesn't contain meat.
    Maybe I'm naive but I just dont see that as nefarious even if you can argue that it may be unnecessary.

    ETA ETA: Also, it is not common business practice to infiltrate forums incognito.
    It is becoming common business practice to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, etc. and sponsoring posts/creators on social media is still an emerging trend but even this is still not yet the business standard (most companies still have enough old school influence to believe they should only focus on larger advertising campaigns and value celebrity endorsements above social media content creators).
    Even with sponsored posts, there is a great deal of regulation placed on the content creator and sponsorships must be disclosed.
    So no, undercover "agents" infiltrating small forums like this one for the off chance that a thread about veggie burgers will come up is not at all standard business practice.
    The kind of bots/spammers you're referring to just show up and create a spam thread as their first post.

    I just wish there was some kind of warning before reading posts like the one you quoted so that I can put my tin foil hat on before I read them.
  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    magnusthenerd wrote: »
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    Sylphadora wrote: »
    pg5qw8zt169w.jpg
    Nope

    Considering your profile says you will only eat "Meat. Eggs. Fish. Raw cheese. 100% chocolate" I suspect the fact that you won't eat a Beyond Burger doesn't really set it apart from all sorts of stuff that people interested in vegetarian burgers would be fine with, including pretty much everything they eat.
    I am very anti-processed food. I don't care if it's vegan or not. If you wanna be vegan, be vegan, but be a clean vegan. I do eat meat yet there is a lot of meat I don't buy because it has unnecessary ingredients. I watch where I put my money.

    Truly raw food veganism is pretty unsustainable - on the personal level, not environmental. Most research on actually adhering raw vegans shows they tend to be underweight and malnourished based on blood work as far as I'm aware. Some level of supplementing and some level of processing, even if done personally, are going to be involved in maintaining a vegan diet.

    Anecdotally, virtually every person I have heard of that abandoned veganism due to health problems was someone who was doing raw veganism, layering veganism with additional restrictions (like extended fasts), or demonstrating a hyperfocus on eating "clean." Even assuming it was nutritionally sustainable, the amount of time you'd need to dedicate to food prep would be prohibitive for most people. The balance of nutritional rewards to effort spent would be way off.

    Which is probably not very distinct from the result of stacking up any random collection of multiple restrictive regimens, and not being as well informed as one should be about nutrition. :(

    Okay, so what's the free square in restrictive regiment bingo? Is it clean?
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,261 Member
    oh dear, this thread is going to keep going forever - just when refuting a claim like Pet food is same as veggie burgers!! is exhausted in pops another newbie with something like All processed food is bad!! and off we go again........

    at least the pet food angle was a new one - all processed food is bad!! has been done to death in so many threads already...

    carry on......
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,184 Member
    Clean, slow, vegan, Keto soup. Made in a slow cooker. Without gluten.

    That's pretty restrictive.

    I will stop contributing to the problem. This will be my last post on this debate. I never even MENTIONED fake meat!
  • rodnichols69
    rodnichols69 Posts: 83 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    rodnichols69 wrote: »
    3kygdq15niey.jpg

    There are lots of ingredients that are perfectly safe for human consumption, but are also used in animal food or even in inedible products.

    It's classic blogosphere fear mongering to suggest you shouldn't consume an ingredient because it's sometimes used in a product you wouldn't consume.

    Water is the first ingredient in many toxic household cleaners, for example the Soft Scrub I just used to clean my sink. Do you really want to drink something that makes up the majority of Soft Scrub?

    ETA: And considering the movement toward all-natural, whole food pet foods, not to mention the homemade pet food trend, I'd hazard a guess that many pet owners are buying a pet food because it has the kind of ingredients they would eat. The pet food market ain't what it used to be :wink:

    Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols, Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride, Sodium Ascorbate, Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    rodnichols69 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    rodnichols69 wrote: »
    3kygdq15niey.jpg

    There are lots of ingredients that are perfectly safe for human consumption, but are also used in animal food or even in inedible products.

    It's classic blogosphere fear mongering to suggest you shouldn't consume an ingredient because it's sometimes used in a product you wouldn't consume.

    Water is the first ingredient in many toxic household cleaners, for example the Soft Scrub I just used to clean my sink. Do you really want to drink something that makes up the majority of Soft Scrub?

    ETA: And considering the movement toward all-natural, whole food pet foods, not to mention the homemade pet food trend, I'd hazard a guess that many pet owners are buying a pet food because it has the kind of ingredients they would eat. The pet food market ain't what it used to be :wink:

    Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols, Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride, Sodium Ascorbate, Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12.

    I assume this is the ImpossibleWhopper? I went through the BeyondBurger so will address these (which are quite different from the ingredient list on my pet food, btw (as the top three ingredients there are water, the animal the protein is from, and [insert that animal] liver). It is also quite different from the BeyondBurger ingredients (BB has no soy), which is why it makes more sense to address the specific products individually). Anyway:

    Soy protein, potato protein -- anyone who consumes protein powder shouldn't have an issue

    Coconut oil -- all the rage in keto circles, I cook with it some myself

    Sunflower oil -- eh, just a vegetable oil

    natural flavors -- in almost everything (including the vast majority of protein powders)

    methylcellulose -- it's basically the fiber in plants so anyone who eats veg shouldn't have an issue, and certainly anyone who ever uses a fiber supplement or a food with added fiber should not

    Yeast -- eh, I cook with it (same with starch)

    dextrose -- it's a sugar, common in gels and such, can't be much of it given the sugar content of the product

    The rest of the names that may be confusing are generally vitamin supplements, so anyone who takes those (or eats foods that include them) shouldn't care.

    I'm generally in favor of whole foods as my source of nutrients for the most part, but absolutely nothing in this list looks scary or like it's something that one could not include on occasion in a healthy diet. I'd personally think a diet without veg or fruit would be way more problematic for health reasons than occasionally eating this.

  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    rodnichols69 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    rodnichols69 wrote: »
    3kygdq15niey.jpg

    There are lots of ingredients that are perfectly safe for human consumption, but are also used in animal food or even in inedible products.

    It's classic blogosphere fear mongering to suggest you shouldn't consume an ingredient because it's sometimes used in a product you wouldn't consume.

    Water is the first ingredient in many toxic household cleaners, for example the Soft Scrub I just used to clean my sink. Do you really want to drink something that makes up the majority of Soft Scrub?

    ETA: And considering the movement toward all-natural, whole food pet foods, not to mention the homemade pet food trend, I'd hazard a guess that many pet owners are buying a pet food because it has the kind of ingredients they would eat. The pet food market ain't what it used to be :wink:

    Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols, Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride, Sodium Ascorbate, Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12.

    Ok. Those are ingredients. Is there something there I shouldn't want to consume?
  • rodnichols69
    rodnichols69 Posts: 83 Member
    edited February 2020
    My point was that this is not fear mongering.as some one assumed. Understand what you are eating. There are good options and there are bad. My neighbor makes incredible veggie burgers from scratch using ingredients we can pronounce.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,102 Member
    edited February 2020
    Ultrafiltered Whey Protein Concentrate [which contains Beta-Lactoglobulin, Alpha-Lactalbumin and Glycomacropeptides], Microfiltered Whey Protein Isolate), Maltodextrin, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Cellulose Gum, Soy Lecithin, Xanthan Gum, Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose.

    =

    Pure Protein Vanilla Whey Protein Powder

    Just one of many possible "alternative protein" products, so much more clean, whole, pronounceable than those fake-meat burgers. Not.

    (Both are products that I think it's fine for people to consume, BTW.)

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