Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes | Hacker News Reader

Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes

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280 pointstosh427 comments

Since we're making predictions here, I predict that shortly after we adopt meat substitutes, we'll start to question what's inside them. Then the conversation will change from meat substitutes being good and healthy to something akin to the GMO debate about meat substitutes not being natural. And just like GMOs, whether it's actually bad for you or not won't matter. This debate will be a proxy war between Big Meat and some faceless VC-backed corporations trying to make meat proprietary. Some meat substitutes will actually be pretty terrible but #notallmeatsubstitutes. Unfortunately, it will only take a few bad substitutes to ruin the name of all.

I also predict that meat substitutes, if made cheaper than meat, will be deemed inferior in quality (cheap = inferior, because psychology) and reserved for those who cannot afford real meat (the "meatless masses").

Most of the meat in the market is already something else than what people think meat is.

Meatballs may have more than half chicken skin. Burgers contain 25% filler. Pink slime (= lean finely textured beef) is a highly processed meat by-product. In the US its processed with ammonia but that's not allowed in EU.

"Pink slime" is made by centrifuging heated fatty offcuts, which doesn't turn my stomach that much.

I have a sneaking suspicion that what people find disgusting is the industrial production of meat, and that if Gordon Ramsey had a small and inoffensive centrifuge attachment for his KitchenAid the process would seem less gross.

Eating only lean muscle meat is not a good idea anyway. Not sure the products you mentioned are healthy, but mixing things up a bit with skin, organs etc might be beneficial. Don’t hate the meat byproducts per se.

Most of the preprocessed meat maybe. I've never put chicken in my meatballs. And meatballs are easy enough to make that for the life of me I can't figure out why anybody would buy them premade. Make a large batch and freeze them yourself. They'll be a thousand times better than the trash you can buy at the store.

Which is why one needs to be cooking for themselves as I have while eating my--coincidentally enough--made from scratch spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight.

On a tangential note, I wish it were possible to buy foods specifically because they contain GMOs. I intentionally avoid buying foods labeled "non-GMO" in a feeble attempt to vote with my wallet.

So far, I know of exactly one brand that offers this:

https://soylent.com/blogs/news/proudly-made-with-gmos

I concur with the sentiment. Isn't GMO to create foods that require less pesticides? So wouldn't that be a good thing if there are less chemicals used on our foods, seeping into our soil and water supply? I never really understood why people are so scared of GMO....

I can see GMO foods being owned by the likes of Monsanto, earning healthy royalties on seeds that cannot bear offspring. I think there should be a GMO open source initiative...

Just buy anything that's not labeled non-GMO. Non-GMO is a value add so companies will always voluntarily disclose this information.

That would be very easy if GMO products were labeled.

The industry seems to object to any such suggestion.

mmmm glyphosate.

Also, 10 years later, there will be fads and forwards which talk about eating "Natural" protein, not this fake stuff.

15 years later, there will be science talking about how micro nutrients are missing from meat substitutes and how a natural, healthy and balanced diet is necessary for human beings.

And there will be a movement "Grow your own meat" which proposes to keep bunnies and slaughter them yourself. Members will be proud to be not grossed out of the gore. Groups will discuss the best ways to feed and slaugther bunnies. They will have Thanksgiving bunnies.

The nutrition science in 2019 is clear and has been clear for decades.

A high carb low fat low protein whole food plant based diet with (cheap) vitamin supplements and maybe linseed oil:

- is the healthiest diet.

- is the cheapest diet.

- is the most efficient and environment friendly diet.

- is the most ethical diet with regard to immoral animal suffering caused by humans.

I concur but I see a potential third tier: we might have the Meated, the Entomeated, and the Meatless.

With strata within each caste of course. The grass-fed yak-meated vs the factory-pig-meated; the wild-grasshopper entomeated vs the squishy-larva entomeated; and the fresh-veg meatless vs the Wal-Soylent meatless.

>I also predict that meat substitutes, if made cheaper than meat, will be deemed inferior in quality (cheap = inferior, because psychology) and reserved for those who cannot afford real meat (the "meatless masses").

I think there will be such a period, but eventually it'll swap.

Both because more affluent people will tend to be more pro-animal welfare and so synthetic meat will be more associated with the successful, and because eventually (probably distant future, but who knows) all the meat substitutes will just taste better than real meat and anyone who's ever had a meal won't be able to deny the reality.

Well one of the wonderful things about the current meat alternatives is they are relatively easy to make at home from a few basic plant ingredients that are really quite easy to say, yeah, thats fine, and the end product tastes good.

Its when you get into the territory of that "natural flavor" ingredient listing that things get really weird in food. Think la croix soda. Freakish, really unnatural flavor, almost salty even, but somehow they have two things listed. Water, Natural Flavor.

People don't seem to bat an eye at that, but having seen firsthand beverage formulation work (not la croix) its a pretty odd thing. Dozens of small glass vials with oil extracts with intense fragrances of orange, lemon, lime, cherry, etc. Even among one of those, there might be dozens of variants, each a different oil from the plant that produces that orange smell.

How carcinogenic are these things? Do they have any poor side effects? Why aren't they listed individually? Have there been studies on each one?

Its like the FDA caters to large companies not wishing to share beverage and food formulations, despite a cancer epidemic.

Great points @jameslk. I will add a few points to your predictions:

* There will be a meat substitute options catered to groups with higher net income.

* Nations dependent on meat products for export will try (in)directly impact society's view on these meat substitutes.

* We will see issues with IP laws associated with meat substitutes

* There will be 'generic' meat substitutes similar to the prescription drugs.

> I also predict that meat substitutes, if made cheaper than meat, will be deemed inferior in quality

I'm not sure if they'll be universally cheaper than meat. There's a lot of diversity in meat substitutes in the Netherlands, and you already see quite a price difference between the "high-end" meat substitutes, and the basic store brand soy burgers. We seem to be going in the direction where there are "inferior" meat substitutes, and high quality ones that are considered better than at least cheap meats.

People have already been questioning what's inside meat substitutes. The most recent scandal I can recall involved vegan fake meat which tested positive for eggs, probably used as a binder.

Hopefully the cheaper meat substitutes end up in all the processed and consumer food that is most unconsciously eaten and already of the lowest quality. Thinking Taco Bell.

> Then the conversation will change from meat substitutes being good and healthy to something akin to the GMO debate about meat substitutes not being natural.

While I actually haven't seen this debate online,I hear it in real life when the subject lands on those meat substitutes available where I live.

People who look at the ingredients list see a lot of E-numbers and things that sounds even scarier.

There might be a big regulatory war to ban using the word 'meat' in marking substitutes.

There already is to some extent. In Netherland, there's the "Vegetarische Slager" (vegetarian butcher) which produces fairly convincing substitutes of specific types of meat. But they can't call their fake chicken "chicken", or their fake beef "beef", because there's no actual chicken or beef in it. But they do want to make clear to the consumer that they're meant to be substitutes specifically for chicken and beef.

Now they can sell it as long as they spell it differently. So we get lots of fake meat with spelling errors now.

I love how your mind spiraled with this and even came to a headline of "meatless masses."

I won't be surprised if meat substitutes end up being much more expensive than meat is today (and "normal" meat even pricier). My prediction is for meat prices to rise as more and more people reduce consumption, maybe a couple of generations from now meat consumption will be a luxury item.

RealMeat will never be replaced with some mystery goop made of soybean and seaweed powder. You will never have the nutrient diversity of a real living tissue in a mystery goop. And cow body is way more alike to us than seaweed.

I like how you use the term 'goop' to subtly slander something you disagree with.

Somebody has been watching too much Soylent Green and reading too much Marx

I predict you can decide for yourself what you want to purchase and the free market will address this problem without the need of any concern.

> make meat proprietary

We'll have to download filet mignon from thepiratebay to get around the 'French cuts of meat' DLC.

FWIW I think he's predicting something which is already beginning to happen. Carl's Jr. (Hardees to you midwestern/east coast folks) recently added Beyond Meat patties to their menu (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-beyond-meat-carl-s-jr-idU...). For a small price extra, you can get a not-farmed-meat burger and they're promoting it pretty heavily.

I dropped in a while back, was surprised to see it on the menu, thought "eh, what the hell", and it was pretty good. I have the kind of palate that would make Gordon Ramsay cry himself to sleep, so I wasn't able to tell the difference between one of their Beyond burgers and one of their regular burgers. Probably helps that their items are a mess of sauces and nonsense too.

Anyway, now when I go back in, I find that I'm having to justify to myself getting a farmed meat burger vs. a Beyond burger, and ... there's not really any justification for it.

I doubt most of Carl's customer base debate personal ethics while staring at the menu, but still, there's no way I'm the only one.

This is also happening at White Castle, where they are selling Impossible Burger Sliders for 1.99. I will say I didn't particularly enjoy it but I will also say I it was the first time I've been to a White Castle when I'm sober, so YMMV.

Impossible is rolling out their 2.0 burger which reviews say is much better.

Funnily enough low quality patties like fast food burgers have been using more soy protein as a filler for a long time. Maybe one day they'll be honest and sell it as 50% vegetarian burgers or something.

National:

McDonalds: "Yes, every patty is 100% real beef with no fillers, additives or preservatives." Burger King: "Our beef patties are made with 100% beef with no fillers, no preservatives, no additives, no nonsense." Wendy's: "100% pure beef across the menu"

Regional:

Carls Jr: "100% Pure Ground Beef." Sonic: "100% pure beef patty" Jack in the Box: "100 percent beef"

Funnily enough, it's the more expensive casual restaurant chain burgers that tend to contain textured soy protein and other things. Fast food is pretty much always 100% beef as others have pointed out.

I've definitely noticed this as someone allergic to soy protein. The big fast-food chains are generally safe. It's fast casual, local diners, and that kind of thing that's the problem for me.

Source? The fast food restaurants I can think of all claim 100% beef patties.

Also cheap dog-food is mostly vegetables or fillers, but that fact never seems to be brought up when vegetarian dogs are discussed.

My last three trips to A&W have been for the Beyond Meat burger. Like you, my palate can't really tell the difference. Like you, I don't see any need to go back to an animal burger.

They've also started carrying them at the local grocer, so I'll probably bring them home for BBQ season.

Ya especially if they can get it for less than the meat burger. Once that happens it will be huge.

I think ground-beef is easier to mimic with vegetarian substitute for whatever reason. Probably because fast food meat is already so weird and processed. Same with vegan sausage/hot dogs versus the meat-based sausage.

Obviously if someone loves eating expensive steak, that would be hard to replace with a vegetarian substitute.

Sonic has mushrooms mixed in with the patties of certain burgers it sells.

In general I’m bullish on biotech but best case for tissue culture meat still leaves me sceptical. Most of the hype focuses around beef substitutes, beef cattle is about as inefficient as animal agriculture gets at ~3% efficient on an energy basis of edible parts.

Dairy jerseys and laying hens are both ~12%, with meat chickens ~15%. The best replicating eukaryotic cell culture I know are certain yeast at 50%. So a best case scenario is factor of 3 improvement, I'd welcome results from multicellular organisms that got anywhere close to that but I haven't seen it.

Supposing there are no improvements to be had on the cell metabolism side; dressing percentage for broiler chickens is 70% so getting rid of brain, digestive tract, immune system, etc. doesn’t improve things that much. Keep in mind that tissue cultures are a lot more picky about feedstock than whole animals. Good luck shovelling hay into that bioreactor. All of the processing that the feedstock takes will claw back your productivity gains and then some.

Margins are slim at the bottom. As capital intensive as modern farming is, biotech puts it to shame. Once you factor in amortizing all that equipment this is a non-starter.

The only appeal is from an animal welfare angle. Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.

Energy efficiency is interesting, but it is important to see the whole picture. Maybe we should be using a land efficiency rating instead?

Take reindeer meat as an extreme case. Their energy efficiency from converting lichens to meat is not going to be 100%, but the alternative use for artic land are quite few.

Applying the same line of thought, we can find examples also for beef. There are cattle farms here in Sweden that use highland cattle to graze forest areas, including protected forests. They keep down bushes and other plants which results in an increased bio diversity. A win win situation for everyone involved.

Typical cows in the US gain 50% of their meat mass at the feedlot, mostly from eating corn. Also, large parts of our natural environment are degraded by running too many cows on it, including a lot of "protected" areas.

So sure, you can find whatever example you want.

The typical car is diesel and the typical power plant is coal. A lot of typical cases is the worst case scenario or close to it when it come to the environment, because they prioritize the cost aspect over everything else.

Here is a nice policy theory for you. Lets imagine that with magic we could removed all the cost associated with slaughterhouse for the farmer. We could change the whole meat production in Sweden to operate exclusively on land not suitable for any other food production, and that without changing meat prices. The difference between the economics for a highland cattle farm and a cattle farm using feed from farms is by my understanding significant less than the cut that the slaughterhouse take.

It might not be very applicable to the US since large part of Sweden is forests, but it is not hard to find areas in the US which are not suitable for farming. From a land efficiency perspective, I suspect a lot could be done which isn't currently done because of the economics involved.

With reindeers it is probably highly dependent on region. For example in Lapland of Finland there are way too many reindeers than the environment can support, so they are largely kept in pens during winter and fed protein feed, hay, collected lichen, dried feafy branches etc.

Plus Finland produces about 2 million kilos of reindeer meat per year, so it is really miniscule part of the diet.

Very interesting, I did not know that. When people here in Sweden talk about it it is exclusively in the context of the indigenous population in the north of Sweden, where reindeers are presented as free roaming in an area that is about 30% of the whole of Sweden. In raw numbers that is about 200 000 reindeers in the area of around 100 000 km2. I do not know if in practice this still mean that they feed them protein feed and hay.

I do know personally a farmer that operated highland cattle in a nature protected forest. They do need hay during the winter months, but that is about it. For the rest of the year it is water, salt/minerals, and some shelter in case of really bad weather like large thunderstorms. The benefit for the forest is significant and directly noticeable, and looks like a really very well managed open forest. In contrast spruce forests which is the norm in the south part of Sweden tend to be extremely overgrown, which is currently recognize as an major threat to bio diversity. Several species has gone almost extinct because of it. There are a few other nature reservation that also use highland cattle with similar setup.

Technically highland cattle could survive the winter months without hay but it would not be legal.

> Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.

Can that be true? Animals from U.S. factory farms generate >1 million tons of manure per day (open-air lagoons of animal waste are a special treat) and are responsible for an impressive percentage of methane emissions.

There was a recent freakonomics podcast [1] from which I learned that greenhouse gas emissions mostly come from cattle breathing, not their manure (I guess the manure imagery that often goes along with describing livestock environmental impact is just used because it's evocative?). Also that livestock farming in the US only contributes 3% of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions [2], which I wouldn't call a particularly "impressive percentage".

[1]: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/

[2]: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

> Also that livestock farming in the US only contributes 3% of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions

"Worldwide, livestock accounts for between 14.5 percent and 18 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The percentage is lower in the United States in part because our overall greenhouse gas emissions are so much higher than other countries"

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/climate/cows-global-warmi...

> Can that be true? Animals from U.S. factory farms generate >1 million tons of manure per day

Factory farms probably don't count as "humane husbandry".

I've heard of desertifying areas in the Sahel being made greener again by having goats graze there periodically.

Didn't the poster above say humane animal husbandry? What you describe it not humane animal husbandry.

Please describe sustainable humane animal husbandry at this scale.

> So a best case scenario is factor of 3 improvement

Isn't the best case scenario that we replace cow-grown beef with lab-grown beef - that is, improved energy efficiency of 50/3 = 17 times?

>Dairy jerseys and laying hens are both ~12%, with meat chickens ~15%.

Does the efficiency for chickens include processing and sanitation? 15% sounds really high. Labs ought to have a much easier time dealing with no feces or feathers. And the price of chicken at present in the US is reputed to depend on undocumented immigrants working for below-market wages, which hopefully isn't an issue with technomeat.

As for dairy/eggs, those alone aren't enough of a meat substitute or we'd all be vegetarian already.

You forgot about antibiotics use - unlike with traditional approach you can grow cell culture in sterile conditions.

Antibiotics are a small enough improvement that they could be phased out without much impact to consumers. If demand were there or externalities accounted for, it would be an easy transition. http://www.sandersonfarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ABF...

How do plants compare?

Do you happen to know the efficiency basis for insects?

The usual comparisons are easy to misinterpret since insect productivity is often quoted on a dry weight basis and the data is less robust. But it appears to be as efficient as chicken, or possibly slightly better.

I predict that the biggest market for lab-grown meat (in vitro cultivation) is going to be growing for meat grown from the cells of animals that aren't economical, practical or even legal as meat today.

People seem to be assuming that just because they mostly eat beef and chicken today that they're going to be buying lab grown beef and chicken, but ultimately they only eat that because it's economical to raise those animals with current production methods.

With in vitro cultivation there's no reason you wouldn't have say elephant meat one day, and a blue whale the day after that. You could even have some human meat, it's not like growing some muscle fibers in a test tube is unethical.

Initially there'll be a big market for the novelty of exotic meats, but over the long term it's highly unlikely that the meats we have today optimized for mass production will objectively taste better than potential alternatives, or even that the market will restrict itself to naturally occurring species of animals.

You'll be able to buy tuna with the texture of pork, or any other possible combination of tastes and textures.

Compared to camel, giraffe, horse, zebra, gazelle, whale, dolphin, human, shark, eel, (most) bugs and worms, elephant, ... etc., I've got to say that whoever came up with pigs and cows were doing their job properly. They taste better than all of the above.

Of these, I've eaten horse, whale, shark and eel. Actually, probably I've also eaten bugs.

The shark that I've eaten is perfectly good, and better than many other fish types (taste wise). Eel was good, but has to be prepared appropriately. Try it Japanese style.

The other two, not worth it. But again, probably something to do with preparation. Perhaps the way the French prepare horse is better than the way the Japanese do?

I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to eat human flesh. I'm surprised you've listed it.

Other animals that taste good include crocodile and kangaroo.

My point being, that taste is very subjective. You'll find people who want to eat those flavors, but don't want to eat the real thing.

I lived in Japan for 10 years.

You like roo? I like crock and gator (and snake and squirrel, but not armadillo), but never took a liking to the former.

EDIT: My point is simply: for me... nothing really stacks up to cow flesh.

EDIT2: I suspect we don't disagree about the generic "I've eaten everything, at least once, man" conclusions very much. (Although I still find shark to be about a smelly slab of meat as a bear or a badger. Don't even get me going on pure carnivores like fox or coyote).

I'm actually shocked. Have you tasted basashi (raw horse meat) against raw wagyu (Japanese style beef)? IMHO basashi is much better. It has an almost "super-cow" flavour. One thing that's important, though. Most izakayas don't serve enough basashi to justify having it fresh. They freeze it. Not only that, but they serve it still frozen. Basashi needs to come up to temperature. Similar to beef, frozen horse meat sometimes has a tendency break down and pick up a liver flavour. A lot depends on the way it is slaughtered and bled -- most basashi actually comes from Canada and there are very few slaughter houses in Canada. If you go to Kumamoto and go to an izakaya that specialised in Basashi, you should be able to get good fresh, Japanese horse meat. It's amazing (again IMHO).

Edit: Fix error in describing slaughtering...

I'll have to take your word that humans aren't as tasty as pigs or cows.

But coming from somewhere where horses and whales are regularly eaten I can assure you that if you're used to the taste and live in a culture that knows how to prepare those meats that you'd definitely prefer them any many instances.

What diet people prefer has a lot of inertia. If you presented say a Briton in the 1850s with spicy Indian food they wouldn't like it in anything like the numbers their descendants do today. Food's an acquired taste, and takes a while to take hold. So you can't just say try gazelle and declare "meh".

Which goes to the point I'm making. I don't think that in the year 3000 when lab-grown meat is perfect (can grow muscle fiber, bone, fat etc.) and indistinguishable from the "real" thing nobody will order up pork or beef.

Rather, there's going to be the same growth in different sorts of products at the expense of the absolute market share of any one incumbent as we see in beer, soft drinks cookies etc. for the past decades.

Now that by-and-large doesn't happen with meats because raising live animals presents you with all sorts of scalability and production limitations.

Camel, horse, shark & eel are pretty common foods.

Shark, in australia, is the most common fish-and-chips. It tastes/feels in the neighborhood of cod, the white flaky sea fish that even unadventurous eaters like. Eel & camel are popular but not economical to produce.

Beef is, IMO, one of the blandest red meats. I prefer venison and much prefer mutton.

I wonder if they produced human lab-grown-meat, how many people would eat it out of curiosity.

> or even legal

Food of the Gods, by Arthur C Clarke (1964)

https://write.as/r9ov30n76ib5u.md

I was brought up vegetarian, and while I gave it up when I got married and had kids, I've never really grown to love the taste of meat. The thing I'm most annoyed by is that nice tasting veggie dishes are often being replaced in restaurants with horrible tasting meat-substitute dishes trying to capture the taste of beef or whatever. This is probably just me against the universe though.

I'm on the opposite side of this. I've eaten meat for the first 23 years of my life, but my current partner is vegan. A large part of our relationship has been discovering that vegetables are actually good to eat when they're not an afterthought to a meal. I go out of my way to try the meat substitutes now, because I'm holding out that one of them will actually be good enough for me to show my carnivore friends.

For many years, I've wanted to try being vegetarian as a way to reduce my environmental impact. To me, meat substitutes are the last missing piece in the puzzle, the piece that shows that its possible to consume staples like hamburgers or spaghetti and meatballs.

Not all of the meat substitutes are good. Not all of them have to be. But a more sustainable future, where meat (and especially seafood) are cultivated in a way that has a less harmful impact on the environment, is a future that I want to help facilitate.

As a long time vegetarian and off-and-on vegan, I suspect you'll be less disappointed if you look for and cook meals that just don't include meat, rather than substituting it for something else. There are tons of them, and many are incredibly tasty.

Indian restaurants, for example, often have entire sections of the menu that are vegan or vegetarian without substituting in fake meat.

It's a little more work initially, but after a while you won't miss the meat, whereas if you're eating fake burgers you're going to be reminded they're fake every time you eat one.

I found transitioning to vegan to be almost impossible when I stuck to my old meal routine. All my meals had the same fundamental, irreplaceable component; meat. Chicken and fries. Steak and veg. Slow-cooked beef stew. Bangers and Mash. Fish and chips. Burgers. Pizza. Wings. Veg was a side thought. I tried at first to replace all this with plant 'replacements' but kept failing miserably.

After some research on what vegans actually eat, not what I thought they ate, I swapped to a diet of porridge, curries, chillis, stir-frys, stews, pastas, soups, and salads, which were meals I loved and could do easy, mostly in one pot. At first I could have the meat I craved, but over time I could do a straight 1:1 swap of meat for peas, beans, seeds, nuts and lentils, without tarnishing the quality of the meal.

People fail at the first hurdle when they try to replace a bacon sandwich, pizza, hamburger or steak with something that is a fundamentally different food. Replacing bacon with a sliced mushroom is like trying to replace a water pipe with some electrical wire. They're both great, but for different things. Likewise, replacing some berries in a bowl of cereal with pork cutlets or a fried egg would likely make you a guest on Strange Eaters. It works both ways.

If I've discovered anything during my lifestyle change, it's that eating is 95% habitual, and any argument I had against vegans in hindsight was because I didn't want to have to break out of my habit. I now have no interest in eating meat again, because I'm in a new habit and to have a steak would be breaking out of that again.

At risk of sparking an ethics debate, why do most people who turn vegetarian out of conscientiousness seem to very disproportionately do it for environmental reasons?

I mean, on one hand, it makes complete rational sense, because it's self/species-interest: reduced meat consumption should decrease the effects of global warming and other issues, and you want a world that you and future generations of people can safely and healthily live in. I get it.

But are you then still not doing it for selfish reasons, or at least species-selfish reasons? If hypothetically some new technology could suck all of the excess carbon out of the atmosphere and replant things and otherwise 100% negate all of the environmental effects of all the different kinds of meat production, would you and other vegetarians with similar motivations no longer feel any reason, or ethical obligation, to be vegetarian?

>why do most people who turn vegetarian out of conscientiousness seem to very disproportionately do it for environmental reasons? ...are you then still not doing it for selfish reasons, or at least species-selfish reasons?

You seem to have answered your own question there. It shouldn't be surprising, although yes, it surprises me too I guess. (I became vegan because..how to put it..Humans have no right to treat animals as if their lives are nothing, as if they're just things for humans to eat, if we can easily avoid it. Which I can. I'd rather not be killed, and want to avoid pain, so I figure non-human animals want that too.)

I don't think your premise is correct. The data I can find[1][2] suggests that vegetarians and vegans are principally concerned with animal ethics.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257659/

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/10062622/data/veganuary-infogra...

I think the spark that starts the vegan is one reason but as the transition happens you start embracing more of the arguments for veganism.

I decided to switch to a plant based diet for environmental reasons. I calculated my carbon footprint and noticed I could cut it in half by excluding animal products, so I did. Then I learned the health effects by losing weight and stopped having migranes I previously had approximately bi-weekly since late adolescence. They just stopped. The energy dips I used to have after lunch? Gone. Breath smells better. PH balance restored from being way too acid. There are so many things that are just fixed by eating plants instead of animal based products. I also learned to love that there is no bone, sinew or thick rubbery fat in whatever I'm chewing. I used to hate fish bones or a piece of fat in a steak or burger I'd have to spit out in a napkin.

Then it started to dawn on me how inhumane I'd been to other species on the ground of them being a part of my diet. I've always loved animals and the outdoors but some animals I'd been okay with murdering and eating. It just felt hypocritical. Not to mention that my argument for it was that _it tastes good_. Who do I think I am? Scaring and killing living beings because they _taste good_? Fuck me. I don't want to support an industry based on the evil premise of destroying the planet by killing animals because they taste good so from now my money will go to my plant based diet. Less money than before, I might add.

I think it is hard to claim that you care about the animals and ethics once you realise what goes on to produce milk or eggs which is what most vegetarians (lacto-ovo-vegetarians, really) consume and support.

I do it for selfish reasons. Veggies are cheap and easy to grow and full of minerals and protein. And high fibre legumes and grains are really good for gut bacteria

Not anti meat, just pro plants

As someone who is a "save the planet" vegetarian, I am mystified by your comment. No, I wouldn't start eating meat if there was a magic machine that sucked carbon out of the atmosphere, and I am not claiming my personal reasons for not eating meat are somehow not selfish.

But most of all, that's not the only reason I'm a vegetarian.

I don't think you're going to end up with a good discussion if you start it like this.

Speaking from personal experience as someone who often seems that way, it's because environmentalism is a rational argument that people can easily approach without having the urge to defend their own morality (which doesn't make for great dinner conversation).

Why did you expect a vegetarian to be less selfish than anyone else?

As a staunch lover of meat I am fundamentally against meat substitutes. I love vegetarian dishes and eat them often, but I will not touch a meat substitute if I can avoid it. Many asian foods include tofu and that’s fine.

My reasoning is that if a dish is supposed to be vegetarian, or it just doesn’t include mat because it doesn’t need to, then keep it vegetarian. Veggies are delicious. Why ruin a perfectly good dish with fake meat?

If a dish is meant to include meat, then just use meat. It has different macros and very different taste than current meat substitutes. Why ruin a perfectly good dish with fake meat?

If you’re gonna not eat meat all the power to ya, don’t eat meat. But don’t then try to replicate meat with not-meat that’s just lazy. Explore the world of proper vegetarian and vegan dishes. You might be pleasantly surprised by how great they are.

> But don’t then try to replicate meat with not-meat that’s just lazy.

Considering the amount of effort going into developing meat substitutes, "lazy" seems like a strange characterization. Besides, if someone has decided for reasons external to taste that they're not going to eat meat but they miss it, why shouldn't they try meat substitutes?

I know meta-discussion on HN is frowned upon, but seriously, I just have to ask those who down-voted this comment: why? Just... why? What is the problem with this sentiment with respect to its contribution to this thread?

If it helps, I think this is a reasonable point (don't try to fake the meat, just skip it - i've thought it myself often).

I haven't commented in here in SO LONG, and I know I will pay for the insurrection of asking the invisible commenters to justify yourselves, but I just can't help it because I do not understand how down-voting this is justifiable in any way with respect to content moderation.

As a meat eater I fully agree. If it's going to be made of vegetables, fine. But I'm put off by foods pretending to be something they're not.

Penn of Penn and Teller discussed on his podcast how he stopped eating meat and had a similar stance on foods pretending to be meat. Then he was compelled to try a particular meat substitute and discovered that it was actually not just trying to be meat but was actually better than meat - meat has grisle and bits you don’t really want to eat, the substitute is only “the good stuff.” Better texture, etc.

It was an eye opening anecdote for me (as a meat eater).

One of my worst meals ever was a vegetarian Asian meal in Salt Lake City. The dish was “Chicken...” something or other. The “chicken” was tofu shaped like a chicken wing with feathers. No where on the menu did it say the place was vegetarian.

I have nothing against eating tofu. I enjoy tofu. But the bait and switch ruined the meal for me.

These restaurants are somewhat common, and are usually run by Buddhists. I've never seen one that lacked a label; while the individual menu items might be confusing, there's usually a big clue.

Here's the one near my apartment, it has vegan in the name of the restaurant: http://www.gardenfresh.us/

Best Thai restaurant outside Thailand I’ve ever been to is called Plumeria in San Diego — it’s completely vegetarian (optional egg) with meat-like substitues.

I never order chicken satay as an appetizer (even in Thailand) as I usually find it bland, the texture too dry, and generally boring — but I will always order the “chicken” satay from Plumeria ... better than meat.

So your problem is because it taste worse, and not like chicken. Your problem is not because it's made from vegetable.

As a meat eater, yeah, agree. My wife and I have reduced our meat consumption by ~50% over the last few years, and we've done it mostly by finding dishes that were veg*n to start with, as opposed to meat substitutes.

> that nice tasting veggie dishes are often being replaced in restaurants with horrible tasting meat-substitute dishes

Ha, this is a problem my wife has started having after impossible burger became popular in the bay area. All our favorite burger joints now serve that, instead of the brilliant vegan burgers they used to have (including my workplace).

I was brought up omnivore and have been vegetarian since August 2018 and love the meat substitutes. Beyond Burgers and Field Roast sausages helped me with the transition to plant based.

I've met a lot of vegetarians and vegans, and they're about 50/50 as to whether they want to eat meat-like things.

And yeah, there are several restaurants I stopped eating at because they replaced perfectly fine veggie dishes with things that were more meat-like.

The target market niche for meat substitutes is very plainly not former vegetarians who don’t like the taste of meat.

Yes, I'm aware of this, and I realise I am just an old man shouting at a particularly niche cloud. But many restaurants are foregoing some variety in vegetarian dishes that they previously had to offer meat substitutes. I happened to quite like a lot of veggie burgers, for example, but I do not like the faux beef burgers that have replaced them in some places.

So much this.

I am a meal eater with a majority vegetarian friends group, so I inevitably cook a lot of veg food.

Greek, Indian, Thai and Chinese customers lend themselves really well to vegetarianism and I'm surprised that it isn't catching on in the US. (Especially Indian)

Meat substitutes don't hold a candle to a single one of these for items.

I've tried the current state of the art in meat substitutes ( impossible) and it's still bad.

Some Buddhist monks are known to make plant protein taste like meat and resemble the texture of meat. These are served with regular vegetables. Anyhow, some are better than others. Of course palates are quite personal.

I sometimes taste Raw meat to make sure its fresh. Its pretty much tasteless. Its all about how its prepared.

You can make a brother with nothing but meat and salt and it will be flavorful. That's a big part of why making meat substitutes is so hard.

This is what lifelong meat eaters experience, but I just can't comprehend. There is no meat that on its own is particularly tasty to me. Chicken, at its absolute best, tastes like a disappointing roast chestnut. What's worse is meat doesn't really marinade as well as everyone makes out, so often I'll be enjoying a dish but I keep chewing and realise I just like the sauce and then that fades and - yuck - you're left with meat.

Again, this is my very narrow experience as a vegetarian who lapsed well into adulthood and just didn't learn an appreciation of the savoury flavours involved. Objectively it's clearly people love the taste of meat.

I'm a lifelong vegetarian who has very literal tolerance for the taste of meat. Can we give it up with these meat substitutes already? Even if they absolutely nail the taste of real meat, I don't want my food to taste like that.

> Can we give it up with these meat substitutes already?

Who should give up on them? The people who like them? The manufacturers? There's clearly a market for good-tasting meat substitutes. If they serve enough peoples' wants and are nutritious while being better from an environmental perspective, why not just live and let live?

Let me tell you as a lapsed vegetarian, the worst thing isn't even the taste - these people eat stuff that doesn't even dissolve in your mouth. The first time I had lamb, I just chewed for about five minutes before realising I was going to have to overcome my gag reflex to force this tasteless brown stuff down. I'd be horrified if we started replicating _that_.

There are many industrial complexes at play that's putting a constant negative pressure on the quality of our lives, including the quality of our food and food availability.

Maybe it's my rural background and associations, but I see a powerful psychological effect to eating meat from a real animal, and that won't disappear because some meat substitute tastes pretty good. I like falafel, I like shiitake mushrooms, I like a good veggie burger, but there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered and butchered. I feel like I'd lose something essentially human in giving that up.

Maybe it's my rural background and associations...

Almost certainly. People tend to feel that however they grew up is the one right and true way to live. It can be an extremely difficult feeling to escape, even in cases where they actively very much want to leave it behind and live some other way, for example people who were abused and are in therapy and trying hard to find a better way to live.

I don’t think the parent commenter is claiming that his/her way of life is “the one right and true way.” I think the point is that people’s own preferences are influenced by how they grew up and thus changing their diets dramatically will not be so simple.

By 'we' - he means essentially every culture and most humans throughout history.

We are essentially omnivorous by nature.

We mostly all ate meat, not just 'some rural people'.

We literally evolved around it, so it's part of our composition in a very, very fundamental way.

Can you explain what you mean with 'psychological effect'?

And what exactly of eating the flesh of another animal makes you human.

I can understand our ancestors having to hunt and kill animals to survive.

But I don't think modern society needs to kill so many animals (billions) and destroy the environment to survive. It's a rather inefficient way to feed the world.

That's where I see meat going in the next few decades. Most meat eating right now is mindless and low quality and convenient. Definitely not some farm-to-table experience.

I agree, my "loyalty" to meat is strong, but irrational, even after I was a strict vegetarian for 7 years (a long time ago). If someone brought me something that just tastes better, they'd also have to make a convincing case of better nutritional benefits and that's not really a field with stable results and opinions. Price has nothing to do with it at all...

Many vegans see a powerful psychological effect to eating meat from a real animal -- you probably weren't thinking of them as examples of people like you!

> there's no substitute for the flesh of an animal — especially one I raised, where I know its diet, its experiences, and how it was slaughtered and butchered

When PG said eating meat might sound perverse one day, it's hard to imagine how a comment like this might come across. I'm not a vegetarian and even I find it difficult to differentiate between the above justifications and the ravings of a serial killer.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Instead, take this guideline to heart:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Oh, you see, that's easy — a serial killer kills people. Is it maybe more moral not to think about where your meat comes from? If you are eating meat, but you can't contemplate the death of the animal that provided it, maybe you're not as morally elevated as you think.

One thing i’d genuinely like to see more of in the US is easy and sanely priced access to wild game.

Deer populations being what they are, and populations of environmentally troublesome species such as feral boars being what they are, it seems like a net win.

i would love to be able to get my hands on venison or boar that’s been processed in a USDA-approved way, because the meat’s high quality, the animals had lives entirely free of cages and farms, and we really do kind of need to balance out herd sizes in the northeast.

it is currently a regulatory nightmare to do this at scale, which is why nobody does. I can solve my own problem with a 6 week wait and a slug gun, but it’d be nice to address the conservation need at a more moderate scale.

I live in New Zealand, and I recently switched basically entirely over to wild game for red meat. I can buy it in my local supermarket, it's more expensive than cheap meat but actually less than the high-welfare farmed meat that I bought previously. It's also very tasty. I'll probably start ordering directly from the provider (http://www.game-meats.co.nz/) soon since they offer a much wider range of products than the supermarket has.

Here in New Zealand there's an additional bonus that deer and boar are invasive introduced species which are considered noxious pests, so I like supporting an industry which controls them.

What a coincidence. In the US they are also pests, often regulated under relaxed hunting laws. Them and certain varieties of rabbits.

> One thing i’d genuinely like to see more of in the US is easy and sanely priced access to wild game.

That could pose a problem with Chronic Wasting Disease (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease). Prion illnesses are no joke, so widespread consumption of wild game in North America presents a small but concerning risk of spreading the disease to humans.

Chronic wasting disease wouldn't affect wild hogs, though, and wild hogs are destroying the environment in Texas.

The people in Texas are doing far more damage to the environment than any number of hogs could.

Arby’s has done venison sandwiches but of course it’s farmed meat.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin hunters take 300,000 deer each season, each state probably has 4-5 times that total population.

To put that into perspective, the USA slaughters something like 40 million cattle per year.

From my understanding many fast food chains shy away from using hunted meat for supply chain reasons.

The problem is that if it becomes profitable then the "wild" game will slowly transition into farming.

it’s already happened, but supply is low and prices are correspondingly exorbitant.

Deer and pig populations are indeed out of control in many places due to a lack of predators. More hunters are needed. An intriguing example of pest control was a series of videos of wild hog hunting in the most Texan way possible: from a helicopter. Exterminating 80-100 hogs per flight! Hopefully something is being done with all of that pork, but I do imagine regulation makes it very very hard to sell.

I know some folks give it to charities. Others eat it. But a lot gets wasted. Ultimately they're pests, so wanton waste doesn't apply.

This seems like a problem that could be easily solved by reintroducing wolves. Of course, then you have two problems.

Wolves tend to leave people alone. Bears on the other hand...

In most (all?) states in the US selling hunted game, such as deer or boar, is illegal.

Conflicted opinions on this. I very strongly support the right to hunt, and also find it vastly more humane for the animals. On top of this I also tend to take a libertarian slant on most things. However, in this specific case you have a textbook tragedy of the commons waiting to happen. The reason game is so widespread is specifically because of these laws. When it was legal to hunt and sell game meat/products we hunted numerous species far beyond sustainability.

Maybe one solution would be to offer limited vouchers that enable an individual hunter to market some fixed amount of game -- not all that different from how wild fishing/crabbing/etc is handled. But I think it's clear that without extremely judicious management here you'd likely see over-hunting rapidly take hold, and that's no good for hunter, animal, or society.

it’s not illegal to sell game meat per se, but the hoops you have to jump through are (probably intentionally) prohibitive.

it’s illegal to sell anything without a USDA stamp on it, and economy of scale means that it’s not profitable to have an inspected and cleared process and processing facilities just for game.

Other perfectly reasonable nations don’t do this—and in part due to the fact that deer are an invasive pest in New Zealand, you can buy wild game meat pies in gas stations for about 3 bucks there.

Doesn't the US already have hunting seasons and quotas?

It does, but we're talking about seriously overpopulated animals which are destroying ecosystems - wild pigs are the biggest concern there. For those, even where there are permits, there usually aren't quotas. And despite no limits, there aren't enough hunters to keep them in check.

I'm a vegetarian, but I think he's underestimating the cultural significance of meat for a lot of people. As a male, I've seen a fusion between meat and perceived masculinity at many BBQs. It's on par with owning a gun or driving a big truck, etc. It's more than a food, it's often used as bonding ritual for men.

Sure, pockets of New England, California and other liberal towns might widely adopt meat substitutes but I wouldn't be surprised if many other communities don't.

Asking them to give up meat is like asking them to give up part of their identity. I don't think price will change things, only a cultural shift.

You can grill impossible burger just fine.

And there are tons of cars that work just fine and use less gas but people still buy SUVs.

Price and mechanics will move some people but don't underestimate how strong culture is.

Plus it's veggie patties or the Impossible Burger gets locked with hippies, vegans, California, liberals, etc. there will be tons of people who will never touch it.

Never is a strong word; especially when people idolise high end athletes that turn to a vegan diet for an edge (i.e. MMA)

> there will be tons of people who will never touch it

Having spent some time in the southern central U.S. in the past, this is right on the money. Preserving the cornerstones of the culture they grew up with is orders of magnitude more important to some of these people than just about any other criteria.

However, their children are increasingly realizing the ridiculousness of it and making smarter choices. This results in them doubling down, further entrenching themselves and becoming more alienated from 'outsiders'. Eventually it will stabilize down to a handful of freaks left with their little collection of hobbies they manage to get a tiny fraction of folks interested in every generation, and the rest of the world will have long since moved on.

It's funny how different aspects of one's identity hang together. You'd think that diet should have little to do with someone's views on politics or gender, but when I learned that Jordan Peterson adhered to an all beef diet, I thought "Yeah, sounds about right."

It's very difficult having a conversation with his fans, I learned.

There is also (perhaps unsurprisingly) a sustained criticism of the meat industry from vegan feminist academia, which links it not only to the idea of meat as something masculine, but also the way we speak of women and meat (or even food in general), from "fine piece" to "chick"/"bird", "cow", "Christmas cake" etc. This is further linked to the exploitation of female animals. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the main proponent of the theory right now.

He’s talking about meat stand-ins, things designed to mimic meat in every way. Definitely a market for that.

But fantastic meat substitutes already exist. I’m not vegetarian but never order meat with Indian or Chinese or Thai food and am thrilled with so-called mock duck, chicken and even fish. And when that’s not available, tofu does the job. At home, bolognese, tacos or chili with fake ground beef are awesome and I look forward to those being on menus too. I agree we’re at a tipping point.

Seitan is nice! A lot of americans who are in the demographic to be into substitute meat won't touch it because it is literally a blob of gluten with sauce.

Seitan and tempeh are by far the tastiest "substitute meats" because they don't really try to morph into a "nugget" or a "burger" but just show what that plant protein is like at its best

Surprised you lump those together. Seitan is the best, but I've never found a tempeh recipe we can tolerate.

I think where seitan excels is where the meat it is substituting is heavily seasoned and in smaller pieces.

I’d never eat a seitan log as a Thanksgiving turkey substitute, but ironically one of the things you discover when you begin to substitute meat is that a lot of “classics” are flavorless. Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh can be bland and rubbery, which is why they are fried or smothered in sauces as a rule.

Speaking of texture though I think Chipotle made a mistake by using tofu in their meat-substitute filling - it’s just too smooshy for most people. Seitan would have been more successful and I bet they were just afraid of using that word on the menu.

>Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh are bland and rubbery, which is why they are fried or smothered in sauces as a rule.

Come visit. I'll bake you a chicken, and i only need about 6 ingredients to change your mind. (salt, pepper, chicken, butter, thyme, dijon mustard optional).

Turkey has never been a favorite of mine, but I had an exceptionally good one that was salted and peppered and then cooked in a big green egg.

Fish has a wide range of flavors, and you clobber them by overwhelming the dish with sauce. I prefer smoked (mmm, kippers. mmm, salmon) or raw (mmm, tuna) over cooked, for sure.

> most fish flesh can be bland and rubbery

yikes. i think you will have a better experience eating in a seafaring culture - the british, french, norwegians, coastal china, japan, even new england? i think something is quite wrong if you think cod, haddock, sole, tuna, and salmon all taste the same.

> a lot of “classics” are flavorless. Chicken, turkey and most fish flesh are bland and rubbery

That's because most people enjoy tastes that are loud rather than subtle. It's a bit about educating your palate, but also about sitting down to enjoy the food itself rather than the food being an accessory to some other activity.

They are only rubbery if you overcook them.

I think any change in this would be generational. I grew up eating meat, and I have no interest in meat substitutes.

Also, the track record on substitute foods isn't good. Look at the health disasters caused by artificial sweeteners, artificial oils, etc.

You do have a good point about the track record of some substitutes, but that ignores the track record of the health and environmental damage of our current meat consumption.

"Look at the health disasters caused by artificial sweeteners, artificial oils, etc." - Can you point to some examples?

Synthetic trans fats were used in food for decades, but turned out to be a public health disaster, causing huge numbers of deaths:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

I suppose there’s this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra

It was never legalised in most developed countries, though, and I’d call it more a historical oddity than a health disaster.

I assume they’re talking about aspartame myths on the sweetener thing. Some countries ban cyclamate, though there’s not much evidence that it’s actually dangerous. There’s lead acetate, I suppose, but that hasn’t been commonly used for centuries.

Yeah, I don't eat meat at this point because of health problems, but I miss it, and have zero desire to switch to that. and you are absolutely correct on substitute foods.

In contrast, I'm only eating meat now because of health - along with Himalayan salt for electrolytes.

His statement about how it will increase economic inequality is pretty interesting. Meat substitutes/alternatives are often marketed ideologically as something that will help reduce economic inequality since it would eventually become more cost effective than trying to raise something to slaughtering age. I'm not sure how it being a startup is a problem, but didn't think about the smaller farms who would be out of business.

I've never heard of meat substitutes being "marketed ideologically as something that will help reduce economic inequality"—that's such an odd argument to make.

What I have heard before is: - more resource-efficient and green since livestock farming requires a lot of feed and has a higher carbon footprint than all vehicles combined, and - that it's less cruel than raising animals to be slaughtered.

In terms of economics, a cheaper meat substitute would just mean a cheaper source of protein for people, comparable to eating vegetables.

As a side note, does anyone know why Paul Graham has been talking about economic inequality recently? Is it just politics season and that this is a debate issue?

> does anyone know why Paul Graham has been talking about economic inequality recently?

Back in January of 2016, in the aftermath of the occupy movement and the height of the US presidential campaign, he penned this essay as a sort of "defense" of inequality:

http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html

We're ramping back up to another presidential election, the concerns about inequality have only gotten greater, and for the first time, mass transformation of dietary habits via technology as a way to combat climate change has gone from a niche to a national topic.

In keeping with that 2016 post, using the opportunity to again point out the difference between zero sum inequality vs real wealth creation where a good share goes to incentivize invention.

To raise chickens you need a hen. Add a rooster and you're now the proud owner of a chicken farm. Seriously. Ideally you'd setup a roosting spot for them. And you can tweak their diet to increase their production, growth, etc but chickens 'free ranging' with very minimal support is how they were cultivated for millennia. The one and only problem you run into is that roosters are very loud. The point is that anybody can start raising chickens with very little cost.

'Meat substitutes' are going to be grown in fairly sophisticated labs and sourced from artificially reproduced or otherwise obtained cells. And it's not going to taste like e.g. chicken once the cells are grown. The taste you know from various meats is a product of that animal's physiology and diet. The meat will also not have the same texture. So once you grow your cells in a lab you then need to artificially flavor them and then artificially generate a meat-like texture. The upfront costs for this will all not only be very expensive but there will also be a minefield of intellectual property, patent, and other such barriers all throughout the field. This is why the first artificial meat companies are working on is hamburger -- you can simply grind up the cells and then dump in lots of flavoring.

I expect we'll see the same thing happen to meat that happened with genetically engineered plants. The entire industry will be rapidly monopolized. And our new 'Meatsanto' will undoubtedly lobby the government for favorable treatment which at the minimum will include them being able to label these artificially flavored and textured cells as simply 'chicken'. Add in artificial undercutting of prices and other incentives and you'll see Meatsanto gain more and more marketshare, perhaps including licensing their technology to ranchers now put out of business. And it's at that point, once the monopoly and dependence is established, that they begin to squeeze their new monopoly and start printing billions.

----

I think there's a pretty simple rule of thumb. Centralization leads to wealth inequality, decentralization leads to more equitable wealth distribution. When you add barriers to entry, you create centralization. As an example of this consider shoes. At one time shoes were an industry that used to support countless thousands (millions?) of cobblers, apprentices, and their local market interrelations. It's now been replaced by a small handful of multinational corporations that produce billions of shoes worldwide at immense profit margins. Of course in exchange shoes are undoubtedly now higher quality than they've ever been, and you can pick up a reasonable pair of shoes for a few hours of minimum wage, but I do not think more affordable shoes positively affects wealth inequality as much as removing immense number of jobs and redirecting all proceeds to a handful of companies does to negatively affect it.

I live on and help operate a small family farm (230 head of grass fed cattle) and I don't think that meat substitutes will hurt our sales or margins, unless and until their quality results in a broad shift in societal attitudes that leads to meat itself becoming illegal.

I do absolutely think that it will reduce the demand for industrially farmed, feedlot-fed, commodity-priced meat, and this is a good thing.

Where should I be shopping, to ensure that my meat comes from family farms like yours?

Search for “csa meat”. Community Supported Agriculture. It’s a good start.

There's no substitute for actually visiting a farm and seeing how they do things.

A lot of the 'grass-fed' beef out there is grain-fed in a pasture.

I'm a carnivore and my diet is 100% meat (health reasons). Should I be concerned about moves like this? Do you think this will negatively affect the price of meat for consumers?

Hope you're right. Keep providing high quality red meat and you'll always have a customer here

I would not be surprised if meat substitutes inevitably end up increasing the value of real meat.

If you think about it, eating meat is really a terrible thing to do. Most people who eat meat would never be able to kill an animal, I suspect. I know I wouldn't. And the conditions in which the poor animals are kept make it a billion times worse. That's the thought that made me switch to being a vegetarian after eating meat my whole life.

Terrible isn't really the right word here. Keeping animals in cruel conditions, terrible. Eating meat, not so much. It's a natural part of the animal ecosystem. I often find that those who hunt are also much more appreciative of animals and thereby more careful with their consumption.

That being said, we're in a position where our consumption (or more importantly, manufacturing for consumption) is out of hand and is causing great deal of harm. I'm all for meat substitutes.

I have to doubt this kind of thinking. Sure they may not have personally butchered a cow, but your typical human will happily crush insects, or poison and trap various pest animals. Plus the usual hunting and fishing.

If it was still necessary to personally cut the heads off chickens to get chicken meat, I suspect you'd see virtually every household doing so.

> Most people who eat meat would never be able to kill an animal, I suspect.

This is wrong. For the vast majority of human history it has been local people Killing local animals to survive. In all of human history, 99.9% of people are absolutely willing to kill animals in order to eat them.

Vegetarianism and veganism is a modern thing that has come about from the removal of people's daily lives and their food sources. It's a historical accident.

I strongly disagree with this line of thinking. Please let me explain. I do understand that meat eating is environmentally disastrous and is current meat industry practices make it ethically questionable. We're on the same boat, trying to make this planet a better place for the next generations. I simply think forcing consumers into guilt is the worst possible way to solve this problem. I do not think eating meat is morally bad; at least it's not any more morally bad than a wolf eating a prey. What is morally bad is farming animals in cruel cages like they're a piece of plastic. This is not a consumer problem. Consumer is abstracted out of the morally wrong parts of those practices. If we want change, we need to change the economy. Meat should become more expensive. Meat industry should not be allowed to practice their cruel practices. Going door by door and chiming how bad meat eating is, does not help this problem. We will not see any large scale changes by guilting people out of meat eating. We need to fix producers.

Well yeah but if the whole goal is to minimize suffering in the world as I assume yours is, the lines get very blurry very fast. I would probably not personally beat a Chinese kid that's building my phone too slowly in a sweatshop, yet I still use a phone, and all the other electronics and clothing produced like that; and I'm going to assume you do have some of these products as well. And then of you really wanted to get into it you start having a conversation about "well, what is suffering" "how does something suffer, what are the requirements, when does something become able to suffer, can computers suffer?" (The computer suffering thing is actually one of my favorite conversations to have)

Making iPhones does not require beating people. Industrial meat production requires mutilating, imprisoning, and slaughtering animals (edit: obviously I'm not referring to cultured meat tissues, which does not exist on the market).

People have deeply held ideas about food. It's often directly tied to their personal ethnic or religious identity. Notice how many holidays and traditions have special foods, and how much effort often goes into it.

Here in the US there are people who would genuinely shoot you if you tried to get rid of Thanksgiving turkey. I don't see that changing in the next 100 years or so.

I think he's wrong about people not having loyalty to meat. There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world. Think of the practically cult-like following bacon has. I recall a thread some years ago on Reddit's r/fitness with someone asking for vegan protein sources due to certain allergies or other health restrictions and it was spammed with dozens of comments along the lines of "bacon" and even one that suggested semen. People have their diet deeply embedded in their self-image. Cheaper and tastier won't change that many people's opinions. Meat will stay at least a luxury food even if the alternatives are literally superior in every tangible way - it'll be signalling at the very least. Cheaper might actually make it into a "poor person's food." But there'll also be aversion to "lab grown" instead of "natural" and things like that - see resistance to GMOs.

I think you're very wrong and pg is spot on.

I remember when Vegan/Vegetarians were sneered at in the UK 25 years ago, but they aren't now.

In the space of 25 years it's gone from being rare to see veggie options, to it being the norm to have at least 25% non-meat options on the menu. Attitudes change, and once it's gone, most people will eventually find the idea of rearing animals to kill repellant.

If you can deliver me meat taste and texture without the environmental consequences of meat rearing, I'd definitely switch. I'd even pay a premium, though in reality it should rapidly become cheaper than the labor/land intensive meat industry.

I think you’re very wrong.

Vegans/Vegetarians are still sneered at in the US. Any non major city/college town in the South/Midwest is still dominated by meat and the associated culture.

Thanksgiving alone is a nearly insurmountable hurdle. “Tofurky” is still a gross joke to most people.

You and PG are both vastly underestimating the emotional attachment people have to their current way of life.

I agree with "eventually" I just think it's further along than PG and you think.

This might be the case where you live, but it's definitely not the case in many countries around the world. I like to travel and part of the reason I gave up vegetarianism is because I was tired of eating the same stuff over and over again while traveling because there were no other options (caprese sandwich in Europe). Not to mention the extreme difficulty of limiting carbs and sugars while maintaining any kind of taste in vegetarian diets. As for synthetic meat, which is what pg is talking about, I can't possibly see it making inroads if it costs more than meat, which it sounds like pg is implying. Most people can barely afford meat as it is.

Restaurants have to have at least one veg option on the menu. This is mostly due to migration from different countries, not Vegans. By offering a veg meal you can serve a halal/kosher/"hindu" dish.

I'm pretty sure the "hatred" towards vegans and vegetarians isn't actually hatred, but defensiveness. I think most meat-eaters wouldn't care about veganism and vegetarianism at all if there weren't so many vegans and vegetarians trying to moralize to the rest of world how they ought to be eating.

As a vegetarian who makes a point of being low key about it, not bringing it up unless asked, etc, there is almost endless judgment and questioning put forth in my direction. Every time I go out for a work lunch and order the black bean burger, or meatless sides at a BBQ joint or whatever, people want to dust off their freshman philosophy class ethical arguments.

People with non-normative beliefs stand out from the normative culture just by virtue of existing. If we must defend ourselves constantly it sounds louder. I understand that can be annoying to people like you.

> There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world. Think of the practically cult-like following bacon has.

It's not that much hatred for veganism as rejection for something that is different in general.

The first vegans came mainly from outcast communities, like hippies, or pet lovers.

There is also the problem of feeling they are being judged: you'll often see somebody defensively saying "I could never be a vegan because of so and so" while nobody ever asked.

At last, we still live in a society with a macho touch, and meat is associated with being manly.

So really it's not about veganism, but about deeper issues from our society.

The fact there are more veggies and vegan today is a good news though: it means the society is becomming more tolerant, more open minded, and have the technology to support a less destructive lifestyle.

Like with every deep change in society, the best we can do is to help everybody get along and support each others. Cooking wars are just a symptom, and not the proper battle field.

I'm vegetarian. I never bring it up, but when other people find out about it they will not shut the fuck up about it.

They will tell me why they aren't vegetarian, they will ask me why I'm one, and they will tell me about all the vegetarians or vegans in their lives who they claim won't stop talking about it. I suspect that's more than a little projection.

Meat is just a part of some people's identity, just like sexuality, religion, and politics. And they react along the typical spectrum of reactions for those things.

Same here. I have a rule to never tell people about my diet unless they ask and never attempt at proselytizing. At least once a month somebody will tell me how preachy vegetarians are and attempt at interrogating me.

I definitely see a lot of mockery of vegans among my circle of friends/acquaintances. Not outright hatred, but definitely mockery and it's not directed solely at vegans. It's just that vegans tend to be rather vocal about their choices, and they tend to be very social media adept and like to arrange eye-catching demonstrations in public, at least around here. I think a lot of the mockery comes from insecurity, I know some guys who are very adamant about their Manly Personality, which has meat, booze, beer and cigars as mandatory elements.

There is a segment of vegans who are very enthusiastic about calling non-vegans "murderers" and shaming them for "eating corpses" and the like. It's a small fringe group, but they are very vocal, and are deliberately very attention-grabbing.

Since I sometimes move in the same or adjacent social circles, I do know quite a few people who are vegan, and they're pretty relaxed about it, outside of occasional activities in protests and the like. I like talking about recipes with them, stuff like finding the best egg substitute for Belgian waffles, always a great way to get a vegan very enthusiastically chatty about a subject they really care about :-)

I'm very open-minded about food, so while I do like dishes with meat, I'm also very enthusiastic about good veggie dishes, and I don't want to judge people for their dietary choices.

There is a ton of literal hatred for veganism and vegetarians in this world.

I think there is a ton of literal hatred for vegans and vegetarians, who tend to position themselves as morally superior to meat eaters and brag about how they are kinder and gentler than meat eaters, often while being openly cruel people. They are frequently seemingly oblivious to the glaring contradictions between their self image and their actual behavior.

I've known at least one person who used the label vegan while not actually being vegan. She was vegetarian and sometimes ate vegan, but calling herself vegan for the moral superiority points. She was a high-handed judgy person who was openly, consistently and persistently ugly to me when I was homeless and extremely ill.

(When I have remarked on that to vegetarians trying to lecture people about stuff, they are almost never sympathetic to how awful that was for me. Their default reaction boils down to a callous and narcissistic "Get over your crap, honey. #NotAllVegans. Your one time totally unimportant negative experience shouldn't be used to impugn my stellar character!")

Maybe if more people eat vegetarian burgers because, meh, climate change and clean eating for my own health and similar reasons without it being treated like some cult you need to join to save your soul, open hatred of meatless meals will go way down.

My daughter recently said something about "narcissistic ideology" - something that is adhered to, not because it's true, but because it gives a sense of moral superiority to the adherent. I think that's an interesting label for the type of person you had the misfortune to run into.

You hear the same kind of thing about atheists. Consider that the few outspoken individuals you meet who are like this are rare and most people in that group are just quietly trying to live their lives. They're not seeking an argument or your approval, and you aren't even aware of most of the people you know who fit into that group. So your known encounters with that group are rare, and you carry your own personal bias, so any negative experience is magnified.

You're right, but meat will go up in price, and I think rich people aren't as stubborn when comes to sticking with class symbols that become unfashionable and stigmatized. I think high-quality meat will be like cigars, a former status symbol that a few eccentric people stick with for personal reasons but whose connection to opulence is stuck in the past.

With fashion turning against it and most people sticking to mass-produced food for economic resaons, there will be a huge decline over the next generation or two. People in rural areas will be able to raise their own animals, but it will be forced underground as a moral outrage like cockfighting is today.

There's 'meat' that we eat, and 'meat' as in dead animal. We've got quite good in the west at separating the 2.

I don't think steak and other cuts of meat are going anywhere that quickly. But mince, 'chicken' breast, nuggets, sausages, that kind of stuff, I can see switching fairly quickly if there was a decent, cost effective alternative.

As a recent vegetarian, I’m over the meat substitutes. There are only two products I’ve liked, otherwise... the non meat substitutes are way tastier.

A good veggie burger patty beats the Impossible burger, in my book.

Agreed, no meat substitute I've had tastes the same or even good, including Beyond Burgers and such. A good veggie burger, that is not trying to be faux meat, but instead is highlighting the veggies, can be great. And unlike every faux-meat substitute it has the added benefit of not making me sick to my stomach...

Agree with you. Luckily, the similar look/feel/taste of meat substitutes isn't much geared to vegetarians, but to those stuck on meat who aren't willing to give up what they've been accustomed to.

Everyone's preferences and taste buds are different.

I'll take an Impossible Burger over a veggie burger any day.

What is not widely recognized is that the other non muscle meat parts of the animal are even more valuable, in health and taste. Think of the organ meats, think of the bone cartilage for making broth, the marrow. Think about how much more delicious and juicy the meat tastes when cooked with the bone left in. I've been adding bone broth to my homemade tempeh and it adds so much the cooked dish, that it tastes almost as good, though different, as when using muscle meat.

Would substitute meat be cheaper than regular meat? Sure, the inputs might be cheaper eventually, but it's not as if the firm that solves the riddle will simply give their IP to competitors.

Depends.

Animals are inefficient at turning plants into meat, so from an energy inputs point of view you'd expect the substitutes to be cheaper. But then farming is heavily subsidised, and we don't know what competitive advantages the substitute companies will end up having.

I find that these meat substitutes, vegetarian, and vegan options do not do very well because often times they are not only inferior in taste, but they cost way more. I do not see many people changing their mindsets until they can make these things significantly cheaper than eating meat products. As it is currently, vegetarianism and veganism are pretty much only available to middle class and higher people who can afford to make those choices. Healthy and environmentally-friendly options should not be a premium! They should be the default, mainstream, and accessible.

Note: Yeah, it can be cheap to go meatless if you do all the cooking yourself, but with premade products or meals at a restaurant, the vegetarian/vegan options are often priced higher, convincing no one to try them instead of affordable, flavorful meat-based dishes they are familiar with.

I think you’re right that they need to be more affordable, and I think they will be as the market grows.

>If you made something that was cheaper and tasted better, most carnivores would switch.

Too bad we won’t be able to say we did it for reasons better than “taste good” & “cheap”. Like. Better for the earth and climate. Or. Gasp. Does not facilitate cruel and immoral industrial farming that commoditizes life.

I like meat subs and they are increasingly becoming satisfactory substitutes for people who enjoy the act of eating meat minus the ethical and environmental burden. It is possible to mostly get essential nutrients from pulses, vegetables and grains, so for me, the meat subs are effectively just for fun additions and I do not expect them to be substitute what one might expect to get from eating meat which is often something that people misunderstand about a plant based diet. If you are serious about reducing your meat consumption and able to keep an open mind about plant based meats, I suggest working your way through many alternatives available in the market, it can actually be quite a lot of fun to sample what different people and companies have come up with!

I think the term 'meat' is very broad. Taste-wise there will (and maybe already are) meat-substitutes that are comparable to animal-meat. But these are very artificial products and healthwise maybe not a good choice.

Animal meat itself varies in it's nutritional properties, depending on how the livestock is treated. Grass-fed, free range beef is not the same as grain fed, factory raised.

I'm not sure about in-vitro meat, but I doubt it is from a nutrition standpoint even comparable to, for example, high quality beef.

My point is, meat != meat and often I read only about mimicking taste and texture. For me the nutritional profile is more important (also ethics, but this normally goes hand in hand with meat-quality).

But these are very artificial products and healthwise maybe not a good choice.

Even if they actually are fine heathwise, it might be hard convincing people of that fact. My wife for example refuses to buy frozen ready made veggieburger patties and insists on making them from scratch because she wants to know what she's eating. There is no way you could convince here to buy these artificial meat substitutes over ground beef no matter what they taste like or what health arguments you make.

Which is... odd, really. Buying ground beef, you’re putting a fair bit of trust in the supply chain, too.

That's an argument you should be grateful to lose.

One problem I can see is that a lot people who philosophically might be early adopters of these sorts of products also tend to be in the Michael Pollan 'natural' food camp and on principle avoid heavily processed foods.

Paul is right. Recently I read the book Clean Meat, which cited studies on how people choose what to eat. Two factors overwhelmed everything else: taste and cost.

>Cheaper and Tasted Better

Sure, if you can make a Burger that tasted better than average Burger made with Real Angus USDA Choice, preserving all its protein and nutrition benefits, healthy while being cheaper. I am all for it.

( Lots of Meats Subs ( Not just Burgers ) tends to Add other ingredient making taste or looks better, but in reality aren't as healthy to consume as compared to Meat. I can see the Market force will drive Meats Sub to lower cost while being more like process, unhealthy type of food, which kind of defeat the purpose. )

This has added benefits to Supply Chain where Cattle has a long lead time to slaughter and don't adopt well to sudden demand. Compare to possibly mass manufacture plant based Meat Sub.

The problem is I have yet to taste any Meat Substitutes that is remotely close to being as good as meat. They are good I won't mind having them, but given the choice I would pick meat any day.

And all of them were comparatively pricy. If these Meat Subs aren't at least 30%+ cheaper while being as good or better tasting , it will remain in a niche for those non-veg people. I think the price to quality is something we won't see in the next 10 years. And getting people to changes its attitudes will take even longer than that.

Can't wait to see the meat substitutes (Impossible, Beyond Meat) break away from their current association with luxury foods and become much cheaper.

When I met two guys from Impossible ~3 years ago they told me they wanted to make a ground beef substitute at $0.20 a pound. That would, as PG says, make it almost indefensible to eat real beef in many situations.

Personally I'd be all over any kind of savory food that's high in protein. I don't care if it resembles meat. Quinoa is excellent and it's a staple of my diet. I feel generally healthier when I eat less meat, and I feel better about my impact on the world as well. I suspect there are many others like me.

I like good meat but I agree that most people will eventually switch over for the simple reason that the vast majority of meat on the market, isn't that great and matching that with lab grown stuff is already possible and will eventually become vastly cheaper and more scalable. There's the industrially produced, water and hormone injected chicken, beef from calves that were grown in a box in months, and all the other low quality stuff we substitute for not being able to afford the premium stuff. That's why a lot of meat comes in sausage or minced form.

A good steak might be hard to match for a while but replacing a typical Mac Donald's burger with something that is actually nicer shouldn't be that hard.

Talking about substitution like food is some thing that you just pick the 'best' possible at any moment and just eat that.

You don't want to eat the same thing over and over again, there are infinite number of recipes based on meat, and whatever that substitute is going to be, isn't going to replace everything else, it's going to be yet another option on the table in the best case scenario.

Also, take it from a jew in Israel, the saying "stolen water will sweeten" is very true. The fact some things are not "Kosher" here (say pigs, sea food) just make the people who oppose "Kosher" to want them even more.

If you think morale has anything to do with changing people's eating habits, you're so wrong.

As a hardcore carnivore who became vegetarian leaning vegan 4 years ago I can only hope. One of the replies saying “in California” rings very true.

My best argument in favor of plant based is the anti biotics being so unregulated in meat production.

I don’t see why this is that thought provoking of a prediction. We have already seen the shift from dairy based milk to almond, soy, oat milk, etc. We probably could look at milk choice in coffee in urban areas vs nationwide, etc. and get an idea of the potential percentage of the population that chooses a dairy substitute. Similarly, my guess the market adoption for dairy free cheese substitutes is quiet low. With meat, I highly doubt it would be broadly abandoned across all types of meat. For instance, maybe the impossible burger overtakes the burger, but people still like steak and there is no substitute.

I don't hold too many theories that the majority in the tech community disagree with. But one of them is that we consistently underestimate nature. I'm open to being proven wrong, but I just can't believe we can artificially mimic what an animal is able to produce, better than the animal can do it and for less money.

When we raise chickens, we're not only generating chicken meat, we're also making eggs, and chicken poop used for fertilizer. So you not only have to mimic chicken meat, you also have to make it cheaper even after the chickens costs were lowered due to egg and fertilizer production.

Good luck.

Tastier, cheaper, AND equally nutritious (or even more nutritious). I see this as kind of inevitable. It will take a lot of iterations though before the nutrients are optimized. We still don't really have a good understanding of the role played by all the components of food, and the interactions with gut bacteria specific to a person.

Rather than the pretend-meats like impossible burger and beyond burger, I am more excited for lab-grown meat. That is much more likely to have the exact same features are actual meat (because it is, after all, actual meat). Minus the moral and environmental concerns.

it seems inevitable that fake meat will reach a texture and taste level that's "good enough" for fast food titans to offer alongside the normal, bargain (dollar menu ish) type stuff. if you add in the economic arguments - fake meat being way cheaper logistically i'm guessing and only going to get cheaper, perhaps order of magnitude levels so - then i would wager that the lower-end options will be the fake meat stuff (which those of "lesser means" might switch to consuming) whereas the "real meat" becomes the more affluent option.

Fast Food Titans have been mixing in soy with meat for a while already.

There are some sketchy chicken dishes, like the subway chicken, who have claimed to be about half soy, although subway disputes it. But at least in terms of beef, I couldn't find a company in the top 5-6 fast food burgers that don't claim 100% beef.

I'm not sure his prediction is true. A lot of people do have loyalty to meat. There are already some really tasty alternatives. They just may not exactly duplicate the taste of every kind of meat, or even taste like meat at all, but they do taste very good. Some people eat low quality, tasteless meat. People still buy meat, because it's what they know and what they grew up with as a symbol of luxury.

I hope his predicted switch comes, but I disagree with his argument.

Living in SC, we live on the edge of the urban-rural divide. I anticipate the urban transition to meatless happening pretty quickly but I could see substantial opposition from rural people for a couple reasons:

(1) they’re closer to the people actually farming cattle. (2) a general distrust of science (3) the price drop to the traditional meat market as tremendous new supply floods the market.

You think meat prices can drop? I thought Tyson etc. have already destroyed the margins at the price of horrible conditions for the animals. Where can you go lower from there?

Meat substitutes.

I feel like his comments do not apply to all of the world. In Japan for example, meat consumption is so prominent that we hardly ever consider not having meat. Sure, there is a lot of hamburger here but for the most part people stick to meat in its natural state - lots of pork, beef. Trying to convert Japan from a pork eating society would probably be a feeble attempt.

You might be surprised to learn that the consumption of most common meat was banned in Japan from 675C to 1872CE:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-japan-became-hooked-on-m...

That was an Emperial ban when emperors had power. Pulling a similar stunt now would be impossible.

The question will be are we making Margarine 2.0?

I've had the same thought - vegetarianism is a proven healthy diet choice, the problem is, its not really something you can manufacture and make money off, because its just plants. Enter manufactured meat substitute, its made of plants, so it must be healthy, but that's not necessarily true. Much of the health benefits of a plant diet seem to come from trace phytochemicals and no one really knows which ones work, and there seem to be interactions between them (e.g. antioxidants).

Isn’t modern meat production already margarine 2.0?

There are various moral dilemmas that are brought up when discussing diet involving animal foods:

1) Environmental impact 2) Animal suffering 3) Nutrition

Often times people focus on number 1 in spite of number 2 or 3. What if moving away from animal foods in our diets causes an increase in heart disease, cancer and overall mortality?

https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases...

With 3% of emissions coming from cattle, the average person could do more by driving their car less, avoiding transatlantic flights and having less children. Just having one less child is equivalent to 60 people on the vegan diet.

https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/gfx/news/hire...

I am skeptical of any imitation meat until they can guarantee to provide the identical nutritional profile of real meat. In the meantime the best we can do is buy locally sourced, grass fed foods that are net zero emissions.

> What if moving away from animal foods in our diets causes an increase in heart disease, cancer and overall mortality?

This seems like a very strange thing to say, given that the scientific consensus seems to suggest we'll see the opposite effect:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26853923 - This comprehensive meta-analysis reports a significant protective effect of a vegetarian diet versus the incidence and/or mortality from ischemic heart disease (-25%) and incidence from total cancer (-8%). Vegan diet conferred a significant reduced risk (-15%) of incidence from total cancer.

Wrt driving less, people go for the easier option, and it's far easier to eat less meat than to drive less.

In the meantime the best we can do is buy locally sourced, grass fed foods that are net zero emissions.

That is effectively calling for a drastic reduction in meat consumption. If people ate only grass fed animals there would be a lot fewer animals to eat overall. Add "locally sourced" and the consumption limit is lower yet for most people.

I'm afraid that in the search for the perfect, drop-in replacement for meat we're in fact heading towards the uncanny valley. People who grew up eating meat won't simply switch over to eating something which taste and look 99% like meat when that 1% tell their brains there's something wrong with their food.

I imagine there will still be a market for natural meat and it will me a premium product. As for the replacements, people are already used to hamburgers and sausages.

I'm all for replacing my meat with "clean meat", but why not some sort of technologically advanced food that tastes like something new and is good for you? Surely top scientists can come up with something like that without trying to emulate existing food!

I was a vegetarian for three years a long time ago. I eventually gave it up, but I do go through phases where I try to limit how much meat I eat still. One of the best lingering benefits of it is I gained more of a taste for vegetables and seem to enjoy vegetables more than a lot of people around me, now.

But one thing I noticed when I was vegetarian, is how some people almost seemed personally offended by my choices, and there were people who would literally wave meat in my face and 'mmmm, you want this don't you!'

There are people out there who really don't give a damn about the lives of animals and are proud of eating meat, makes them feel like a proper man/human whatever. It's going to take some serious reprogramming (or flapping meat substitutes in their faces) for these people to even consider giving them a try (That was another thing I most often heard from people "Oh I could NEVER stop eating meat." I bet you could if you tried a little. It's not THAT hard.)

Thinking about how good the beef I ate last night tasted, and if the substitute is going to taste even BETTER and be CHEAPER at the same time, I can't wait for it to arrive.

But until this is reality, I have no reasons for reducing consumption of real meat.

I wonder - along the lines of PG's prediction - if those startups will also be patenting their meat-substitute products and what effect that will have on the pendulum swinging back to non-patented real meat / animal products.

If we can get the US government to stop subsidizing meat so heavily, and prices for meat go up, people will eat less meat. I'm convinced the only reasons why it's consumed so much is due to artificially low prices.

I doubt meat substitutes are going to share the same section of the supermarket as meat. If anything, they'll be categorized as frozen food, just like french fries and TV dinners.

I think meat substitutes will go in the way of margarine. Margarine is a cheaper substitute for butter, but butter is still preferred amongst most people.

Won't the government just subsidise meat farming to keep it competitive? It's what they do at the moment.

I'm looking forward to the cow/pig/sheep/chicken extinction event - no one will keep them around, except maybe in zoos, if the whole world is vegan.

Edit: a downvote? this is totally serious - what are they going to be - released back into the wild where they roam free? There won't be any more, except as I said in zoos, if the whole world goes vegan

Chickens will probably stick around. A German company has discovered a way to determine a chick's gender while still in the egg. That will end the cruel practice of tossing male chicks into a grinder. And will allow cruelty free eggs to be produced. As long as the hens have space, comfortable quarters, and allowed to keep living in those conditions after they stop laying.

For those who are vegan for purely ethical reasons, this will allow them to have eggs.

It's not a good idea to be confident predicting how anyone will see your ethical argument. There's a lot of things people still consider cruel left in egg production after the practices you mention change.

I thought most vegans are against eggs? Laying eggs is cruel to chickens I've heard (just quoting here)

There are robust feral populations of each of those in different parts of the world. It takes surprisingly few generations to "undo" the domestication too. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_wild_cattle

There will never be zero people on the planet keeping hens for eggs, you've lost your mind.

Why are you looking forward to them becoming extinct, though? What's the benefit to anyone of that?

A vegan society could still keep sheep for example to keep grassland under control?

Just a bit odd to look forward to an innocent species _being wiped off the face of the Earth_.

They were all modified through the generations to make them a commodity. If they have no purpose, them going extinct is not a bad thing. Most of them are optimized for meat or other purposes and they probably can't survive outside. It would be humane to let them go extinct after we transition. FWIW we already wiped them off the Earth, you don't find a lot of wild cows or chickens other than the ones we have modified.

Chickens, cows and pigs are overbred to have more meat etc. some of those breeds can't walk properly anymore... They are far from what their early ancestors were...

I was pointing out that the people who say we shouldn't eat meat haven't really thought it through. I would guess that this would be an unintended consequence of their actions and I've never heard it said - the only reason these animals exist is because we've bred them for food - if we don't eat them any more then they'll no longer exist.

You apparently have no idea how important those animals are to the health of soil (and growing good vegetables)

And that is the vast majority¹ of all living mammals: https://xkcd.com/1338/

¹ By weight, at least

We still need milk, eggs.

We do not "need" milk or eggs. If you think that's the case, we also "need" meat.

"need" is too strong a word here, especially as milk gets more expensive if you cannot sell excess meat (and not everyone wants milk from hormone-treated cows).

I think the assumption is that we can grow substitutes for those too?

Milk and eggs are not vegan.

If meat substitutes are pure chemical, why do you stop there? I mean why social pressure only against eating meat not against eating plants? Yes, there is a difference between animals and plants, but they both have life, right? Why don't you just eat 100% chemicals?

Because modern religion is against eating meat but not plants.

I wonder if insect protein will ever go mainstream...

Small aside about the “small farmers” thing, some of my SOs extended family are farmers. they used to be handling pigs, but for reasons ended up transitioning to growing mushrooms, and the end result for them has been better all around. They also stopped growing rice cuz it’s cheaper to just buy what they need and focus on other food

I bet that most staple foods are already under huge systems and small farmers already can’t compete in that space if only for scale. Ultimately if we end up making everything from corn anyways small farmers won’t have success but that’s the same in every industry (yay for late stage capitalism)

Kill billions and billions of animals for taste - and you're considered normal.

Eat rice and beans, refrain from causing harm - you're a freak.

Err. Animals are killed in the production of those too. The question then comes down to how many, which is the subject of much argumentation.

Ah, a billionaire dude with no experience in the subject talks about it of course :-)

How do you know he's a billionaire?

Capitalism isn't required for meat substitutes to be researched and developed. Transition programs, agricultural or job sectoral, or subsidies would be available in any sane society for small farmers if they were pushed out of the cruel practice of animal slaughter.

We don't need saviors. We don't need the rich. We just need each other and the will to move beyond private ownership of the factories, farms, and shops.

This whole discussion reminds me of the LED benefits promised. We would save so much energy. Same thing here- we will have so many calories with so little agri-culture- and we will all give it back to nature.

Fast forward - and i cant see the stars in my city.

Moreover, they disrupt circadian rhythms of all animals around cities that can't get good sleep due to blue/daylight component of LED lights installed in the cities.

"If you made something that was cheaper and tasted better, most carnivores would switch." Based on what evidence?

Catholics have a meat substitute for JC's flesh and it is much simpler.

Please don't do this here.

I guess this is news ️

Good luck getting beef and pork off my table

Beef and pork are some of the worst meats for our health. If you're gonna eat meat, best choice is lean, white poultry and fish.

I would be interested to see any rigorous science to support this statement. I am persuaded that it is a myth.

This is purely anecdotal (although not uncommon) but I went keto/low carb in 2013 and immediately felt great. In recent months I have made fatty meat and eggs the majority of my diet - very few veggies, no fruit - and I have never felt so good and energetic.

Protein and fat are amazing.

Most people are omnivores, not carnivores as PG stated - however the trend seems to be moving towards the health benefits of eating as carnivore - a purely meat diet; it's the food you don't eat that improves health, meat is a healthy food for most people.

We have the sugar lobby who paid researchers to create propaganda that fat was the culprit. We have companies incentivized to sell fad diets, we have every participant of the food industrial complex trying to push for their product to be consumed - and we have governments who are trying to keep the lobbyists happy and perhaps for the purpose of keeping the economy stable. They all aren't going to be promoting or funding research that will give results against their own interests.

Two videos I recommend everyone watch relating to diet:

Dr. Georgia Ede - 'Our Descent into Madness: Modern Diets and the Global Mental Health Crisis' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlVfwJ6RQU

Dr. Jason Fung - 'Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk

No surprise to see this comment getting downvoted. :-P

Meat eaters (and haters), see for yourself the recent discussion on meat vs plants:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19235684

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19177116

Thanks for the links. I decided to respond to a comment in one of those: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248599

I'm writing a book that will be comprehensive with all of this, there's too much misinformation/outdated information and misunderstanding out there to do combat one-on-one.. Shoot me an email matt@engn.com or follow me on Twitter @mattamyers if you want to keep in touch, probably will be a few years before I publish the book.

Hey loceng, I don't normally comment on the meat subject. "Veggies are good and meat is bad" is a modern day religion.

Looking at you past posts it seems that you are dealing unsuccessfully with depression. Here is something that will work with a very high degree of certainity. Go all red meat. No spices, no lean meat, no veggies. Nothing but red meat and salt for a month. Go for the fatty and gelatinous cuts: Ribs, steaks, brisket etc, but no lean cuts. You may have to stick with it for life. I'm a carnivore (only meat + eggs) for 6 years now. I had other health issues but not depression. There are lots of anecdotes from the web about depression of all kinds reducing or disappearing.

Sincerely hope that my post also helps someone else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com