A Stampede of Meatless Products Overrun Grocery Store Meat Cases
wsj.com
wsj.com
I've actually discovered I prefer them to normal burger patties, they're cheaper too. I've never been big on mince/ground meat though, I've never really seen the point.
I'm definitely not a fan of those fake meat products like quorn. They fall into some kind of uncanny valley [1] for food. They are like an inferior, more expensive version of meat.
Historically it was so that the more unsavory cuts or pieces (think the brain, organs, intestine, etc...) and the smaller scraps and pieces of meat could be used. It's not all hamburgers. Meat loaf, steak tartare, meatballs, hashes, sausages, soups, etc... There's a number of other, non-hamburger, ways to eat ground meat that is different, unique, and interesting (from a culinary perspective, anyway).
I find it interesting that the meat burgers are these dry tasteless umami blobs presumably to try to conform to the "low-fat! low sodium!" narrative of how traditional food should be in order to be "healthy", but the veggie ones are so packed with seasoning that I question whether they are in fact healthy.
I often end up getting one of each to balance things out.
Spoiler: he liked it.
Also, at what point is the label about the content rather than the source?
If I make an impossible burger thats indistinguishable from an animal product, does it matter that it came from plants?
What if I clone cells from meat tissue into steaks? Is that meat? It still puts these guys out of business...
Change hurts, but pretending this is a naming issue is just posturing by an industry that uses tons of land for grazing, for growing (multiple states in the midwest dedicated to corn for feed..., and has been shown to treat animals horribly. Why not just say 'what are we going to do' instead of some straw man about semantics and marketplace confusion that doesn't really hold water.
You don't think someone may buy this product believing that it's actually beef? It seems pretty easy to make that mistake to me. Besides if they described themselves as 'beefless beef crumbles' instead of 'beef crumbles beefy' it probably wouldn't be an issue.
https://store.veganessentials.com/beyond-beef-crumbles-by-be...
>If I make an impossible burger thats indistinguishable from an animal product, does it matter that it came from plants?
If I make a chicken patty from a caged chicken that's indistinguishable from organic, free-range chickens, does it matter that it came from a cage? Can I sell it as 'organic, free range chicken patties'?
Of course it matters. Consumers have a fundamental right to know what it is that they're buying.
>Change hurts, but pretending this is a naming issue is just posturing by an industry that uses tons of land for grazing
I'm not going to defend meat industry practices but pretending like this isn't about actual false advertising is wrong. Look at these products.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beyond-Meat-Beast-Burger/13728403...
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beyond-Meat-Chicken-Grilled-Strip...
These are being placed directly next to meat (you know, the animal flesh kind). This most definitely is an issue of false advertising.
At the same time, disallowing vegetarian companies from using the words 'milk' or 'meat' seems like complete overreach. Vegetarians / vegans think of these products in terms of what they are an imitation of, and they want to understand what the product is going for. It's incredibly useful to be able to use these terms. Not to mention they are already the way people colloquially refer to them. I don't think the 'real' versions should have a monopoly on those words at all.
Well let's take it back to my chicken example. I'm raising antibiotic-loaded chickens in tiny cages. I want consumers to think of my meat and egg products in terms of what they are an imitation of - free range organic chicken products. I think this would be really useful to the consumer. It also seems unfair to me that only chicken which is actually free range or organic should have a monopoly on those terms. Should I be able to include 'free range' or 'organic' in my advertising?
You see those chicken strips in my previous comment? What if instead of saying 'REAL MEAT' in big text and then below in smaller text '100% plant protein' - it said 'REAL ORGANIC' in big text and then below in smaller text it said 'cage raised'? It would obviously be wrong to attempt to confuse the consumer in that way. I think people here are confusing whether realistic meat substitutes are a good development (they are) and whether they're meat (they're not.) If we just flip this scenario and pretend it's Tyson using the same advertising practices as Beyond Meat it becomes obvious how wrong this really is.
>Not to mention they are already the way people colloquially refer to them.
I have never heard anyone refer to a patty of soy and pea protein (or beets or heme or what have you) as 'beef' or 'meat.' In my experience they call it a 'veggie burger.'
I completely agree 'Real meat' was confusing. We don't disagree there. Seems like a deceptive advertising compliant is more appropriate there.
> I have never heard anyone refer to a patty of soy and pea protein (or beets or heme or what have you) as 'beef' or 'meat.' In my experience they call it a 'veggie burger.'
You just disproved yourself - they call it a veggie burger if it looks like a burger, veggie sausage if it looks like sausage, almond milk if it looks like milk, nut cheese if it looks like cheese etc. Also you just need to hang around vegetarians more to hear 'veggie beef'. In fact, vegetarians just call it 'meat', 'beef' etc to their friends as long as they all know what they're talking about.
I don't think this disproves me at all. Consumers understand what sort of product they're buying when purchasing a 'veggie burger' and they'd probably know what they're buying if they were purchasing 'beef flavored veggie crumbles' or 'plant-based beef crumbles' or 'veggie burger crumble.' All of these would be totally clear. When you sell that vegetable based product as 'beefy beef crumbles' though I think you're crossing a line. Maybe we'll meet the meat industry halfway and allow 'veggie meat' and 'veggie beef' but I totally get why they're pushing for this because at the very least the terms 'meat' and 'beef' shouldn't be used unamended.
>Of course it matters. Consumers have a fundamental right to know what it is that they're buying.
Yeah, I didn't say they don't have a right to know. I asked what is the line where something goes from Meat matter to plant based meat matter, and whether that matters.
But I'll bite. Do you know where your food comes from? And do you have a right to know? As I understand it, supply chains, including food are largely proprietary and not usually disclosed. You certainly don't have that right with prepared food (restaurant doesn't need to tell you what is in everything and where it came from), or minimally, they don't need to volunteer it or list it on the plate/menu.
So on this point:
>Consumers have a fundamental right to know what it is that they're buying.
I would argue they actually don't.
Allow me to amend my statement then - "Consumers should have a fundamental right to know what it is that they're buying."
Surely you agree with that? The more consumers are able to know about the products they buy the better. To that end ensuring that meat-substitute products are labeled in such a way that consumers understand they are meat-substitutes is good.
I also notice you answered the first question but avoided the second, maybe you can give me an answer:
>Can I sell it as 'organic, free range chicken patties'?
Right now, under current laws, there'd be little to stop you if you got certified organic and met the incredibly minimal requirements for free range/cage free/whatever.
I'll give you that some of the beyond meat stuff might be confusing to some people (though "beyond meat" should get the point across), but to pretend that stores need to have some magic legally protected area just for meat products lest people accidentally purchase dreaded vegetable protein is industry promoted nonsense. Should we mandate that stores keep all the organic food in an organic section? Should we require that the sour cream be kept separate from the yogurt? Is there a legal requirement that nectarines be kept away from peaches?
A meat shelf is not a constitutionally protected phenomenon.
Two things. One, in my example my chickens are not free range or organic. Two, the first part of any legal argument is a moral one. In that first we decide what is morally right or wrong and then we make a law that fits it if appropriate. So ignoring the laws that prevent me, is it morally right to sell non-organic, non-free range chicken as 'organic free-range chicken'? I'd say the answer is an obvious no but maybe you disagree. Following that should we maybe institute a law that enshrines that and helps us keep chicken farmers like me from misleading consumers into buying a product that isn't what it says on the box? I'd say yes.
>but to pretend that stores need to have some magic legally protected area just for meat products lest people accidentally purchase dreaded vegetable protein is industry promoted nonsense.
The article makes it clear that while meat producers are annoyed at the presence of these products in the meat aisle, they are only pursuing legal remedies in regards to the terms used to market them - 'meat' and 'beef' (and I'd bet 'chicken' and 'pork' will follow shortly.)
>A meat shelf is not a constitutionally protected phenomenon.
No one is arguing that.
Good luck with that.
Source (PDF): https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/p1_370368/fr/
Compare that to where I live in the Bay area and it seems to me that vegan products are actually crowding out other products in supermarkets. Esp when it comes to cookies/baked goods.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk
2 : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as a : the latex of a plant b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain
PS: This is a fairly old definition as milkweed for example comes from it's milk like sap.
Seriously, why do you think the government should enforce a monopoly on a word which does a great job of describing "milky" substances? I think that's utterly foolish.
I also purchase almond flour and I have never been confused that it wasn't actually wheat.
Almond, Banana, Coconut, Chocolate, Goat, Malt, Oat, Organic, 2%, Soy, Strawberry and Quinoa milk.
This is why I don't think it's stupid to put the standard wording "May contain traces of milk" on a cartoon of milk.
arguing that "milk" is confusing so we should clarify it by saying the same word again, seems unhelpful to 7 year old ESL Lactose Timmy.
I also realize that it seems silly to put "may contain traces of milk" on a carton of milk, but we should still consider doing it for the same reason. Reserving "milk" for dairy products is not in itself sufficient because many dairy products don't use it ("cream", "kefir", "half&half").
The end goal is that Timmy should be able to look for a specific phrase on the nutritional info, rather than spending all day on the toilet because a bunch of nutritionally savvy and well educated native English speaking felt that it should be obvious.
As a bonus, it makes NLP easier.
So no thanks to that idea. Neither you nor the dairy industry are the boss of how people use language.
Don't forget mushrooms! Stuff in the Lactarius genus are commonly called milky caps.
It's actually a tradition to mess with mushroom beginners by asking them to put the sap from Lactarius piperatus on their tongues, because it's super spicy and burns a ton. But it's also the easiest way that you ID the mushroom and tell it apart from a couple look alikes.
So we’re already in that future and we seem to cope alright.
I have no qualms about the "milk" part, though.
It’s a good example of where the numbers don’t make sense. If you look at the price of the product and the price of almonds something just doesn’t add up
Another analysis is to compare with soy milk.
At a local wholefoods:
32oz Soy milk. $1.99
1lb Soy beans. $1.99
32oz Almond milk. $1.99
1lb Raw Almonds. $6.99
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2476317A1/en
Instead, a small amount of ultrafine almond is suspended in water along with a tasteless long-chain polysaccharide, usually xanthan gum but occasionally other PS such as guar gum, psyllium mucilage or carob bean gum. Xanthan gum is the highest quality in any case.
Source: I once considered trying to start a business around a tabletop ball mill for producing homemade nut milk, and similar assorted accessories. However, after some consideration, this is probably not viable.
Fun fact: Hempseeds are extremely soft, and can be ground to an acceptable fineness by an ordinary blender. However, the resulting hemp milk has a strong flavor resembling undercooked eggplant. It may be suitable as a substitute for coconut in curries (not yet trialled).
Also, almond farming is remarkably water-hungry. 10% of California's water use is tied up in growing almonds.
Many people seem to be under the mistaken impression that in the US cow milk is simply squeezed out and bottled. Whereas in reality cow milk is pasteurized, homogenized, separated, and processed, then re-assembled.
Meaning that cow milk in the US is completely artificial. If you've ever tried milk in the EU or straight from a cow you'd know they taste vastly differently to what is sold as "milk" on a US shelf.
Like coconuts
As an example here is the FDA definition of peanut butter: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...
I understand their gripe with plant products, that sounds like deceptive advertising. But the lab-grown stuff is still meat. I think they're trying to take a yard here.
>High-tech upstarts say the proposed labeling rules are a poor defense, pointing out that on a molecular level, plant-based meat products can contain the same amino acids, fats and minerals as animal flesh.
>“People don’t get angry when you call your cellphone a phone,” said Ethan Brown, chief executive of Beyond Meat.
Yes but if I try to buy a "computer" and you give me a phone, it's not a defense to tell me that it still has RAM and hard storage and a screen, etc. Veggies and tofu rolled into a patty may be a "burger" but it's not "meat" or "beef."
>Jaime Athos, chief executive of the Tofurky Co., which sells imitation tofu-based roasts and patties, objects to any ban on the word “meat” in labels. Consumers hear tofu, he said, and “expect it to be bland or not meat-like.”
Jaime, this is your advertising challenge. You don't just pretend your product is something else.
[1] https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/59e9d405-24bb-431a-b98b-98d...
[2] https://images.wsj.net/im-13668?width=1260&aspect_ratio=1.5
Ahh so this will clear up the contents of what is in hotdog(and other processed meats) and allow me to not be bamboozled into eating fake meat.
This is a non problem being trumped up by an industry that wants to use regulatory capture to make its competitors products less attractive and visible.
Where do you draw the line for what deceptive labeling is allowed and what isn't? How many of the other existing food labeling regulations should we throw out?
What if I label my package to look _very_ similar to a meat product, but put the words "not real meat" in size 8 font on the bottom of the package, is that acceptable?
Then I think you'd have a complaint under existing laws, rather than trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill. The same would be true in reverse, if a product claimed prominently to be tofu based but contained meat.
I think it's very, very telling that part of the desired result for the meat industry is to prevent these products from sharing shelf space.
I think that's fair. We already have a healthy set of regulatory requirements around product labeling, and I'm not really opposed to tweaking the labeling requirements around meat vs non-meat products. Regulating shelf-space does seem to be crossing an unnecessary line.
And if something can be labeled GMO or non-GMO, why can't it be labeled lab-created or bio-engineered or the like? It might be molecularly the same, but what's the harm in letting folks know?
It really isn't, though, in practice. All these products have packaging that is designed to make them immediately recognizable as plant-based products. They want, first and foremost, to be attractive to their core market: Vegetarians. They may make other overtures in an effort to attract people who do eat meat, but those invariably involve trying to sell their being plant-based as a thing that makes them a healthier product. Even the Beyond Meat brand, which is the one that skirts the closest to being deceptive here, by virtue of their name, still has "PLANT-BASED XXXX" written front, center, and in large contrasting color letters on the packaging of their products.
Banning words like "beef" and "meat" from the packaging sounds like something that would actually engender confusion among consumers, by effectively banning phrases like "meat free" from the packaging.
This whole effort reads to me as a rather blatant example of rent seeking behavior on the part of an incumbent industry in response to new entrants to the market.
This. For all the shit that people give Silicon Valley, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are both going to have a huge positive impact on the world. Already they're as good or better than all but the very best meat-based burgers.
Do they though? I mean here look at this [1]. It totally supports your point, "Plant-Based" is front and center in big green letters.
But what about this product? [2]
And what about this one? [3]
And this one? It says Real Meat right at the top. [4]
And these are going in the meat aisle? Right next to real, actual meat? This is blatant false advertising and consumers are going to be tricked by these products.
>Banning words like "beef" and "meat" from the packaging sounds like something that would actually engender confusion among consumers, by effectively banning phrases like "meat free" from the packaging.
Oh come on, get real. This wouldn't be a problem if "PLANT-BASED" actually was front and center on all of these products.
>This whole effort reads to me as a rather blatant example of rent seeking behavior on the part of an incumbent industry in response to new entrants to the market.
Well you're welcome to read whatever you want into it. I'd really like to see you defend those beef crumbles though. What if those chicken strips are right next to actual chicken strips? You don't think some consumer fresh off work or wrangling a kid or what have you is going to grab them thinking they're actual meat products? Of course they are.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Meat-Burger-0-5/dp/B074YGZ77H
[2] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beyond-Meat-Beyond-Beef-Crumbles-...
[3] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beyond-Meat-Beast-Burger/13728403...
[4] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Beyond-Meat-Chicken-Grilled-Strip...
That said, I'd still say those are cases that are much better handled by lodging a false advertising complaint with the FTC. Dealing with that one company using the existing legal and regulatory channels is fine, and they're well-known enough that it would probably put anyone else who's thinking of doing similar on notice.
Dealing with that by using them as an excuse to engage in crony capitalism in order to pass an over-expansive law that is clearly designed to distort the market is not OK. Crony capitalism in general is not OK.
Britannica link (it seems to be more comprehensive than Wikipedia): https://www.britannica.com/story/a-brief-history-of-food-lib...
I buy specific things. I want to buy chicken. I want to know the chicken was raised in a humane way, as far away from cages and their most recent defection event as possible. I'd like to buy chicken raised on a omnivorous diet of pecking whatever seeds and animals they find on the ground, but I'll take vegetarian raised chicken too. I usually buy as much of the chicken as possible minus the feet, heads, and feathers.
Reducing the burden I have to go through to buy meat will increase the amount of meat I buy. Forbidding the labeling of meat substitutes as meat will not increase the amount of meat I buy or decrease the burden of researching and choosing that meat, but it will still offer me with lots of meat-substitutes with heavily regulated labeling that allows me to decrease the burden of researching and choosing my proteins.
Gatorade is mostly water, and salt.
If I sold you a bottle of urine, and labeled it as Gatorade, would you be OK with that? What if I put "natural flavoring" (what could be more natural than this!)?
My biggest gripe with this whole soy/wheat meat is the price. It is literally more expensive then using a chicken to turn the wheat and soy into meat. How is that even possible? Obviously it just milks the vegetarians for what they are worth. Otherwise it would be a great substitute for chicken nuggets style meat products. They have no texture or natural flavor anyways
I get the cattle-based pun, but this is oversold. At the store I see a 200 foot display case with the large majority devoted to beef, pork and chicken and the fake meat over to one side, past the lamb/veal/"etc", taking up no more than 10% of the display case. Customers aren't stupid, and stores aren't either. We want meat; they know how to sell it to us.
Consider: Several eggs feel heavy. A box of eggs feels heavy.
Syntax error.
Edit after downvotes: English grammar is absolutely appropriate to talk about in a forum of people who learn and use languages for a living, especially when the offender is a publication of supposedly professional writers that indicates said professionalism unequivocally by use of a paywall.