The food industry’s new favorite protein source: peas
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Why has everything to be some powder in a bucket or some goop in a tube?
It is so strange that people replace animal products with chemistry.
I can understand not to eat animal based products on moral or environmental grounds but replacing those with Monsanto soy and chemistry does not strike me as the proper way to do it.
Do you think the bucketized bean protein powder extracted from peas might be bad for you? Well eat the freaking peas I bet those taste better as well.
American has a rich, diverse, and passionate food culture that includes many whole foods and innovations created there. A lot of processed food is eaten, but so are a huge variety of unprocessed foods.
Replacing animal products with plant protein (beyond burger, impossible burger, many others) is an excellent trend for many reasons, with the potential environmental impact being the foremost benefit in my opinion. I look forward to the day where lab grown and/or plant protein sources are much more mainstream.
And lastly, "Monsanto soy and chemistry" is a ludicrous implication that plant based protein sources are somehow inherently scary or even that they're worse than mass-agriculture raised animal products.
The point still stands. Why would you replace a meal made out of plants with basically the same plants run through a blender and their ingredients extracted by some odd process? Especially if there are concerns regarding the health implications this might entail.
An yes those genetically modified plants are somewhat scary not only for the plants themselves but the awful business practices of the companies producing them. I never said that antibiotics laden mass animal production is any better.
I hope that the eating habits would change towards less animal products. Which would make much more sense then replacing those with artificial products for basically no reason other than habit.
What matters is (lack of) toxicity, harmful, LD50, food safety. 'Artificial' however does not and should not imply any of that.
As for
> Is it only me or is this whole preprocessed food stuff the most American thing ever?
I wouldn't say so. There's innovation regarding this throughout the world.
On top of that, cutting down on meat saves the environment. Is saving the environment an American thing...?
I'd wager that fast food is mostly an American invention, but it got picked up throughout the rest of the world. Like preprocessed food it isn't good or bad per definition.
Of course, the official meaning of the world "natural", as it relates to the list of ingredients on a package, has been diluted to be meaningless, as you say.
It's been restricted to be meaningless, IMO. If we go by your definition of artificial, then a lot of what doesn't qualify as "natural" on food labels isn't artificial either. Many "chemicals" added to food are substances that we've evolved to deal with. GMOs in particular aren't artificial by this definition, as they're mostly about making some food contain stuff that was previously found in other food.
Convenience. I use my blender twice a day. I need 3000 calories a day to maintain a BMI of 22 and to get that from all plants would be lots of work. I’ve eaten 2000 calories of lentils in a day - not pretty.
Doesn’t that basically apply to any sort of cooking process at all? It’s all an artificial transformation of food.
I have a question about this. Aren't all vegetables that we eat now are 'genetically modified' by humans. There were no ancient tomatoes or ancient okra.
Is there implication that GMO's that were made in lab are more scary?
I don't even really have an issue with GMO, but I find the arguments promoting it are often conflating different issues which just seems to muddy the debate and in my opinion seems to create more distrust.
Well I first heard of pea protein from vegan bodybuilders. Bodybuilders need extra protein. Protein without the carbs is useful. I think whey is probably a better idea, since it's been around long enough Galen recommends it for weak constitutions, but I'm not a vegan.
I have no idea what the "food industry" uses it for; presumably a replacement for soy meal, which really shouldn't be fed to people. Then again, pea protein soaked in glophosate probably shouldn't be either.
Plant-based protein is no better, from the health and nutrition context, than animal-based protein. They can even be worse; for example, plant nutrients often suffer from low “bioavailability”—which means that they are hard for us to extract, absorb, and utilize[1].
More on animal protein: http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/
[1] https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/micronutrients-mental-health/
A Native American friend put it thus: Veganism is a choice we can afford to make in modern society. If you were a Lakota living on the plains 500 or 1000 years ago, your choices were to eat buffalo or starve.
The USA is, indeed, one of the most prosperous countries in the history of ever, and one of the boons of that is we get a smörgåsbord laid out before us every day, a veritable cornucopia of foods from different sources of varying quality. It has turned us into picky eaters indeed, a luxury virtually unaffordable for most of human history.
I do not care about vague, unspecified concerns regarding what is "natural" or "processed".
Bring on the processed pea-mush that doesn't suffer as it dies.
Sure they don't really have muscles, so they don't thrash around like animals, and they don't make noise or cry out when they are killed.
On the other hand, when they are wounded they do make chemical compounds to resist predation and to signal to nearby plants that predators are present (e.g. salicylate). This seems vaguely parallel.
Is the moral worth of plant suffering lower because it isn't close enough in form to human suffering?
If we were to encounter a truly alien species, how would you know whether or not it experienced suffering?
I could imagine other alternatives. I knew a fruitarian once (before Notting Hill came out). I suppose you could try and engineer auxotrophy into human cells. I went to a conference once where some people earnestly (but naively) proposed it.
When someone is curious about something it is most appropriate to just respond to what they asked instead of second-guessing their motives.
When a fighter jet is hit by a bullet, it releases chemical compounds to stop its fuel from exploding, and signals nearby forces that threats are present.
The reaction to damage alone does not suggest something is capable of suffering. There are other considerations, and there's little suggesting plants are capable of experiencing suffering (or experiencing anything at all).
So walk me through this, I'm curious how you know whether or not plants have experiences? How would you know whether any arbitrary life form (or object, since you brought up fighter planes) has experiences? What method allows you to make this determination?
Starting from the basics: life is just complex, carbon-based nanotechnology. There's nothing we know that suggests cells are anything more than complex machines. There's nothing suggesting that if you put a bunch of cells together, you get something more than a complex machine. From the other end, we're only sure that conscious experience happens in human brains, though through structural and behavioral similarity, we may assume some degree of conscious experience in a lot of animals. Going this route, around smaller insects you may start to wonder whether what you're looking for is more like a machine, or more like a feeling thing capable of experiencing emotions. Plants are biologically less complex than insects, and have no identifiable "locus of cognition".
I mean, you have to note that when guessing whether or not something can experience emotions, we're projecting our own mental states based on that thing's phenotype. Look how works of fictions - pictures, movies, even textual descriptions in books - can make you feel compassion towards a rock, or a car. A skilled writer could rephrase my fighter jet example in a way that would make you actually feel sorry for it. This means our intuition is not a good judge here. Past that, the best we have (AFAIK) is heuristics, like "has no brain/brain-level complexity = probably can't have experiences".
If everyone in the world would eat the recommended USDA diet (mostly backed by industry and totally not healthy for you) we'd need another Canada to sustain us all [4]. By the way, most of the grasslands are man-made and we should try and reforest those areas to combat losses in biodiversity and climate collapse. Furthermore about a third of all fresh drinking water (not rainwater) is used for cattle [5].
[1]: https://rainforests.mongabay.com/0812.htm / https://scholar.google.nl/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=defor...
[2]: http://peakoilbarrel.com/carrying-capacity-overshoot-and-spe...
[3]: https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment
[4]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[5]: http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/02/18/4-billion-people-...
That's like telling folks to simply eat wheat instead of bread or to eat oatmeal instead of the cereal flakes made from it. These aren't things that you can simply substitute: Pea protein gives variety of texture and allows folks to eat food they grew up with even though they no longer subscribe to that diet. Yes, there is room in the diet for both things, just like there is room for both bread and cracked wheat and other whole grains. There is more to food than simply nutrition and glossing over this is a fault that needs addressed.
And it is obvious that you've not eaten it.
If you disagree with these things... don't eat them. Simple as that.
Having worked for an accounting shop specialised in cow farms I can assure you that one of the main bills is antibiotics and food supplements. Also cow food is usually highly specialised.
More like this https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3265/3239157183_91c5fbc582_z.j...
Highly processed foodstuffs have:
1) longer shelf life,
2) more easily controllable composition,
3) fewer ingredients, which lessens risk of lawsuits,
4) more flexibility to allow for addition to other foods.
Those four advantages combine to help producer recoup costs and avoid negative publicity. Maximize profits, minimize risks; whatever comes out as a result is the "food" product.
It's fine to restrict yourself to a diet consisting only of locally grown, organic, whole foods, and to never eat meat from a chicken whose résumé you can't review first. Just be aware that you are making your food security dependent on the conditions of your region.
Everything does not have to powder in a bucket, but if say 80% of what was sold in a grocery store was, the world would be a much better place.
You are free to buy your old fashion food, and I will enjoy my Huel.
This applies to both cities and remote towns in the countryside. Ensuring safety and stability is often a larger priority than freshness.
I.e. The remote town of 500 people 6 hours away from Salt Lake City won’t have the scale or shelf life to accept fresh kale from the California Coast. Processing helps bring these people food safely and conveniently.
This depends very much on the chicken. If you get good quality chicken breasts (ideally skin on) then they can be very tasty with just some brining and a pinch of salt and pepper.
And whatever you do, don't overcook the chicken breasts as they are much more sensitive to overcooking than other parts of the chicken. Many people cook their chicken breasts to an internal temperature of over 72 deg c (165 F), which can really dry out the chicken, when really don't want to go much over 65 c (150 F).
I am absolutely overlooking by your standards as I prefer it all stewed for about 16 hours! I don’t enjoy the broth cooked longer than 36 hours.
Grilling and other methods of preparation would be totally different. I’m mainly speaking of soups.
> Instead of tasting flavorless and washed out, the chicken breast produced the cleanest-tasting stock, with the most intense chicken flavor. But it also produced the thinnest stock in terms of body.
> The thigh meat also produced a light-colored stock, but it had a muddier, less clean flavor than the breast stock.
> The wings produced the stock with the most body, which makes sense, given the number of cartilage-rich joints in each wing. But the flavor was also not as chicken-y as that of the breast stock.
> Bones also made a stock with a less distinct chicken flavor, but they contributed some bass notes that were pleasant.
> The whole chicken produced a middle-of-the-road stock: not as tasty as the chicken breast stock, but not as muddy as some of the others.
https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/how-to-make-rich-flavorf...
I read some articles like this when I started out making bone broth. Wing broth is this way, thighs are another, they said, etcetera. Since my goal was bone broth I didn’t consider boneless breasts - turkey breasts are great, though. Since my goal was health and allergy avoidance, I went for whole chickens as they’re my ally processed.
I’m mainly now basing my analysis on plucking parts of that whole chicken at different times. Sometimes when I’m hungry I’ve bought a breast or two, boiled it, and compared to the normal stew I make, it was rather flavorless. I haven’t tried extended simmering, I admit.
Surely this is opinion-based, but my belief is that making soups or saucey dishes from chopped up chicken breast with no bones is much less rich than from a whole chicken stewed overnight. Countless grandmothers through history would likely agree.
It's fairly cheap, so it's the default for overcooked, dried-out protein. And sure, lots of things can be a substitute for that.
I don't have a weak stomach, almost nothing makes me feel sick, but that did it to me every time.
Industrially-raised chicken: Bred for extreme fast growth. Slaughtered young. Fed on straight grain. Bland flavour.
Old-world chicken: Grow at a more "natural" pace. Slaughtered when mature. Permitted to forage and eat various food scraps. Rich flavour.
I mean, ground up soy beans are probably mealy too. Tofu certainly isn't. I don't know exactly what the products being discussed in the linked article are, but if they're targetted at meat replacement products they're rather more likely to be on the tofu end of the spectrum than the supplement you bought.
According to the nutritional labels 1 cup of peas has 11% of your RDA of iron. Take away the water weight and I can see that being a problem in large servings.
Sticking to a single brand[1] shows it's significantly high in iron. It's the only brand I recognized, but several other brands have similar nutritional content.
[1]https://www.bobsredmill.com/pea-protein-powder.html#nutritio...
I'm not the OP, just gave it a quick search. That's for pea protein. Further down-thread absorption is brought into play, which is likely why the risk is less than it would appear.
Edited for clarity and formatting.
As far as iron content goes, it looks like the RDA is around 10 mg daily with a tolerable upper limit of 40 mg per dose. It's not clear how much daily intake you need for a person without hemochromatosis to experience negative side effects, but exceeding the RDA by several times doesn't seem like a major problem. Notably, the recommended intake is 1.8x higher for vegetarians vs non-vegetarians.
Heme iron is more readily absorbed (20% - 30% absorbed) than non heme iron (5% - 12% absorbed).
Argh! Don't mix your units, or you'll crash into the surface of Mars [1]. Let's convert that to SI-based values:
8 oz = 227 g
RDA of iron = varies; 8 mg for adult males,
18 mg for adult females before menopause
1 scoop = who knows, maybe 30 g?
Soy products tend to be similar: I've bought some that were seriously disgusting both in taste and texture, but other things are absolutely delicious. A few simply depend on use.
I use it as a milk substitute in coffee/tea/hot chocolate and it tastes pretty good.
I also like the Just egg free mayonnaise, that one really tastes just like mayo.
As an example, peas themselves are likely very healthy, but pea extracts like protein powder and pea-based fake meats are likely not.
This reductionistic nutritional approach where we are trying to extract from a food the one compound that makes it healthy simply does not work.
The food has thousands of compounds, that interact with each other in thousands of different ways. It's not the fiber either, that is another reductionist view, it's the whole food.
Just take a bunch of veggies, put them in the microwave for 10 minutes without any water and add your favorite seasoning: balsamic vinegar, tahini, miso paste, something sweet, and eat the whole food as it comes from the grocery, as fresh as possible.
You can do this to carrots, onions, broccoli, potatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, pumpkin, butternut squash, almost any vegetable will steam in the microwave without any added water.
You can do this to pears and apples also, they are delicious in the microwave. Add beans, lentils, seeds, oats with red fruits for breakfast, and you are good to go.
The move to consuming more plant-based foods is a step in the right direction in terms of public health, but I'm a bit afraid of the backlash that will inevitably come when studies start coming out saying that these highly processed plant foods are not exactly healthy either.
Also, are tahini and miso paste not processed foods? Does heating food not modify a food's chemical makeup?
There is a scale of processed foods from minimally processed to ultra processed https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ultra-proces... less processing is best.
They have been made for thousands of years and are an example of minimally processed tasty condiments with high nutritional value, but 95% of the caloric value of the meal is the veggies not the condiments.
Pea protein extract is in comparison a much more heavily processed food.
Heating does impact the bioavailability (ease of absorption) of the nutrition in food, for some things it increases it while for others it decreases the nutrition.
We have evolved to eat cooked food for about 2 million years, our gut and teeth/jaw is adapted to cooked food.
Grains are also OK, but veggies and fruit are even better, the best cooking method is steaming to avoid forming carcinogenic compounds, that can be produced also by roasting in dry heat.
That's an awfully strong statement. Do you have any evidence or cite?
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=orange%20juice%20sugar%20pulp%...
I think OP is probably right that these meat substitutes are less healthy than eating veg in its raw form, but perhaps the question should be how they stack up nutritionally against the red meat they're replacing.
Obviously pea protein will be missing out on some nutrients found in the parts of the pea which were discarded, so may not be as healthy as raw peas, but I understood OP to be saying that pea protein may be actively unhealthy, and indeed, that anything but unprocessed "whole" vegetables is unhealthy. That's seems unsupported by current science.
>> That's an awfully strong statement. Do you have any evidence or cite?
It depends. Peas belong to the Fabaceae family or Leguminosae that is a big family of creatures expert in alkaloid's design.
Sweet Peas are in the genus Pisum, that is closely related with the wild peas Lathyrus. Lathyrism is a well known neurological disease. Is a permanent damage triggered by eating too many peas from Lathyrus and related genuses. For survivalism and foraging purposes, wild peas must be put in the "not edible thing unless really fainting" category. And only in small quantitites. Not even cooked.
Thus, flour of raw peas should be a little poisonous also until cooked. Workers should have been provided with accurate protection against breathing accidentally the raw stuff day after day (and should assure to wear it). Neurological damages are permanent and not funny.
By the same reason, even if seems convenient and fast to just make a smoothie with raw pea flour you must assure to cook it before to eat it (OR that was yet cooken by the maker before to sell it).
Yet, somehow this is not common knowledge. People think that veggies need to be roasted in the oven for 45 minutes, or boiled to 20 minutes and it's just not true.
You could even make miso from peas...
This is unlike a pea protein isolate burger, which makes a huge part of the meal. Also, there is the level of processing, pea protein isolate is much more processed than fermented condiments like vinegar or mison.
Is there any good, easy way for a consumer to know that a particular alternative milk has been produced in an ethical, healthy way?
Some of the processing techniques use some pretty nasty hydrocarbon solvents, which are largely filtered out.
Just like renewable energy though, it’s not nearly as clean as it seems at first glance. But as in both cases, it’s still progress.
But, as you say, it's still progress.
There is something called anti-nutrients, they prevent you from absorbing minerals or if allergic use up your vitamins to battle inflammation. There are lectins in peas. I don't know how much of the lectins will still be in there after the processing, but I'd avoid plant protein for that reason, exception might be avocado protein, but they're a waste of global resources if you can buy animal protein pasture raised locally. Or if you care for the animals, insect protein might still be healthier, although it might require the supplementation of chitinase.
I had to cut out almost all grains and the foods that make me feel best overlap with the paleo and AIP diets.
But nobody is allergic to meat.
Buy the stock in whoever is making EpiPens.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/06/25/621080751/re...
https://allergyfacts.org.au/allergy-anaphylaxis/food-allerge...
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/ConditionsAndTrea...
Except from Lyme's Disease, perhaps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy
End of the day, all of the not-milk, not-meat stuff is a fad, just like oat bran, low fat and whole grain. You're best to ignore it. If you don't want to drink milk, drink water. Cloudy water drinks are usually a place where you pick up alot of sugar.
The best approach is an omnivore diet that's mostly plant based. By using 3-4oz of meat or fish in a meal you can afford to buy humane, quality meats.
Do note that a lot of pro-milk studies are industry backed. The new Canadian food guide has discarded all industry backed studies and based on science created a new food guide [3]. This food guide removed the "recommended" glass of milk based on these studies with water.
[1]:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1008823601897
[2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16125328?dopt=Citation
[3]: https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/canadians-would-rather...
Come on Bloomberg, you know the answer to that question is yes. It doesn't take a decade to ramp up garden pea production, the plants grow readily from seed.
Rice protein tastes ok (a bit like mushrooms), but casein and of collagen protein are the only ones that are actually tasty by themselves, just diluted with water.
I really really wanted to like pea protein, but calling it wet cardboard is really doing a disservice to the wet cardboard cuisine.
I fear with this kind of campaign behind it it will now find its way to the majority of shakes and meals and the taste will be just everywhere.
But it took me a few weeks to 'enjoy it'. YMMV.
I mean the alternative, rice protein is absolutely :vomit_face:
On the positive side pea protein will keep you 'regular' ;)
Isn't this kind of a strange complaint when you're talking about protein extract of any sort? You're not talking about food, you're talking about an ingredient.
Hemp protein is pretty disgusting, I agree. It's gritty and slimy, and the texture by itself is horrible.
for a brief spell, that is. otherwise it'd be jack's freakin beanstalk!
[0] = https://www.cattlefeeders.ca/project-clean-cow-reducing-catt...
"Phytates (phytic acid) in whole grains, seeds, legumes, some nuts—can decrease the absorption of iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium. [2,3]"
You'll see in a few years when people with these weird supplement focused diets get older different complications. When you don't drink milk, and don't eat meat, don't eat eggs, and rely on a couple of proteins, you're going to have issues due to calcium and iron issues, especially if you are a woman.
> "Studies on vegetarians who eat diets high in plant foods containing anti-nutrients do not generally show deficiencies in iron and zinc, so the body may be adapting to the presence of anti-nutrients by increasing the absorption of these minerals in the gut. [3]"
I do wonder how that differs with individuals on a vegan diet who don't eat any animal products.
It's the same for vegans, or perhaps even better, if you see the links below on cow's milk.
Your parent post talks about how you need cow's milk for calcium and meat for iron, but interestingly enough, cow's milk limits iron absorption. If you search for "cow milk iron" you get a large amount of articles stating this.[1]
Note that the example articles I linked talk about infants and toddlers, because in some societies they are most likely to drink milk. I'm Scandinavian, and here people drink milk into adulthood, but I can't quickly find studies on milk and iron for adults.
Also note that the parent's link doesn't mention cow's milk, but instead suggests you should drink it, even though it limits iron absorption, so it all depends on where you look.
There link between the calcium in milk and bone health has also been questioned. We've all learned that you should drink milk for strong bones, which means that Scandinavians shouldn't have any problems with brittle bones of older people, but it's the opposite.[2]
Another interesting factor is that vitamin c (ascorbic acid) helps iron absorption. A vegetarian or vegan will probably eat vegetables high in vitamin c with their iron sources, which helps absorption.
I've read elsewhere that when an omnivore eats heme and non-heme iron, the heme version is preferred by the body because it's easier to absorb. When you go vegetarian or vegan, you have a two-week period or so of lower iron absorption before the gut bacteria changes and improves absorption of non-heme iron, so that there's no longer an issue.
I've also read that vegetarians and vegans often have better iron values that the general omnivore population. As a single test case, my wife is also vegan. When she donates blood they measure her iron level, and it's always perfect. We eat a mix of fresh vegetables, processed soy burgers, things made from pea protein, and so on, anything that's vegan, so it doesn't seem to be a problem.
But the parent talked about "weird supplement focused diets", which may or may not include vegetarians and vegans and could be talking about people who drink a single everything-included meal-replacement drink all the time.
[1] Some examples:
https://www.aafp.org/afp/2002/1001/p1217.html
"In infants, the introduction of cow's milk in the first year of life is the greatest dietary risk factor for the development of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia. Cow's milk is low in iron, and its iron is poorly absorbed. In addition, it decreases the absorption of iron from other dietary sources. Therefore, the strict avoidance of cow's milk in the first 12 months of life is essential in preventing iron deficiency anemia."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22043881
"Consumption of cow's milk (CM) by infants and toddlers has adverse effects on their iron stores, a finding that has been well documented in many localities. [...] The high protein intake from CM may also place infants at increased risk of obesity in later childhood. It is thus recommended that unmodified, unfortified CM not be fed to infants and that it be fed to toddlers in modest amounts only."
[2] https://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/news/20141029/is-milk-you...
"The risk of any bone fracture increased 16 percent in women who drank three or more glasses daily, and the risk of a broken hip increased 60 percent, the findings indicated.
Lots of milk did not appear to either protect against or promote broken bones in men."
You made that up yourself like it was part of the page you linked lol.
Here's a more relevant quote from the actual page:
"It is not known how much nutrient loss occurs in our diets because of anti-nutrients, and the effects vary among individuals based on their metabolism and how the food is cooked and prepared."
Another quote from the page:
"Studies on vegetarians who eat diets high in plant foods containing anti-nutrients do not generally show deficiencies in iron and zinc."
OK and maybe one more:
"Keep in mind that anti-nutrients may also exert health benefits."
So basically no, anti-nutrients are not worth worrying about.
that are killing dogs (degenerative cardiomyopathy).
Let them grow to adulthood and then eat them?
It's a shame that wheat protein has been demonized. It's a very "neutral" protein, and can substitute for meat well.
There is no other disorder like celiac disease. It’s the only autoimmune disease with a known trigger, which happens to be a food. There’s no way peas would begin to do that.
It is possible to have a rare allergy to soy or other foods that causes a delayed reaction with intestinal changes similar to celiac - I don’t recall if it’s type ii or iv food allergies.
[1] aside for injecting its products with the nutrient fad of the year, e.g. this or that vitamin, omega-3, extra fiber, etc
[2] except for the nuance-less taste buds of teenagers and teen-adults hooked on sugar and salt
Well, the industry cannot be blamed for what is ultimately the consumer's fault in uncritically adopting strange beliefs about food, as hilariously demonstrated by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLk5AAKRem8
I, for one, can blame those with (a) the profit motive, (b) fake sponsored studies and articles, (c) knowingly selling bad foodstuff, over those misinformed and bombarded with ads, targeted by food chemistry to make crap more addictive, and so on, that suffer the consequences...
As long as consumers remain gullible -- as evidenced by even the otherwise intelligent folks here defending plant-based food (highly processed to boot) and casually demonizing meat -- so will continue them being taken advantage of by all sorts of groups.