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Comment by CannisterFlux | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps labeling these non-animal products as something other than meat might be a good thing.

Long term, I think we animal-eaters are on the wrong side of history. Providing humans survive the climate crisis and collapse of civilization, maybe a couple of hundred years from now the people will look back at us and wonder how we could consider ourselves civilized while killing and eating animals. A bit like Roman gladiator fights. It will seem very shocking to them.

The alternatives, lab-grown meat and whatnot, will be the norm and only psychopaths would kill and eat animals. With that in mind, if these products start to distance themselves from real (killed-animal) meat now then they are getting a head start on marketing. They won't have to remind people later that they were the good guys all along.

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I don't think it will be the "wrong side of history" any more than using animals for transport prior to technology. It's not purel= senseless violence it's just the best way to make meat with the current technology, it'll probably be looked back on as "haha remember when they had to raise and keep an animal purely to transport them slowly".

Animals raised for transportation or muscle power were treated much better than meat animals are today. They also provided utility throughout their lives, while meat animals are raised for the exclusive purpose of slaughter.

Animals used for transportation and labor are often shackled and beaten the duration of their short lives, worked until they’re too injured to continue, then slaughtered. Those raised solely for meat might have it comparatively easy.

That's just not how labor animals work. Just like human laborers, animals need rest, and they're darn expensive. You can't drive your workhorse or your ox 24/7, it would die early and you would just be squandering your investment.

For meat on the other hand, you can lock your cow or pig or chicken in a cage exactly the size of its body with no stimulation except the food being shoved down it's throat, it'll get fat and you can sell if for meat. There is no downside to mistreatment.

Maybe once we evolve into herbivores, we'll look back in disgust. But until then my kids have incisors and eyes on the front of their face, just like their mother and I, and most predators on the planet.

If you want to have a conversation about factory farming and animal cruelty, I'd imagine we'd agree on a lot.

As flawed as appeals to nature already are, these aren't even particularly good ones. Your incisors are laughably small and dull compared to those of a literal mouse and you have fewer of them than a cow does. Fruit bats and gorillas both have forward-facing eyes and neither would know what to do if you handed them a ribeye.

I'm not going to criticize you for your diet choices. I just ask you don't do the same to me, and act like we haven't evolved to eat other animals like so many other species.

I'm criticizing your understanding of comparative zoology and evolutionary physiology, not your diet. I would actually love it if you tried to criticize my diet because I have some bloodwork, double-blind studies, and WHO guidelines I think you'd find very persuasive. Oh well.

This belongs on /r/iamverysmart

Compelling argument

Not disagreeing, but providing a different perspective. By maintaining labels that associate lab-grown or plant-based with the "real-deal" (not a "fake" or new/different) meats, perhaps more people would be willing to try the alternatives. People are resistant to change and many stick to what they "know". It's part of why the milk industry is fighting for nut-milks to not be labeled as "real" milk. If the alternative has that "other"/"outsider" label, there's more resistance from the customers.

That milk issue is ridiculous. Nut milk has been referred to as such since the middle ages or earlier.

In France you can't label nut milk as such, so they call it "nut based drink".

It doesn't matter. Customers call it nut milk. Recipes call it that. Restaurant menus as well.

It will be the same with burgers. It doesn't matter, and it's just a waste of time and resources.

When Napster came out with an alternative to the CD, the industry mocked it, then attacked it, but never tried to learn from it. As a result, GAFAM arrived and took the whole market.

When youtube came out, TV did the same. As a result, the Valley arrived an took the whole market.

The meat industry is doing the same with vege alternatives. They first mocked it. Now they are in the fighting phase. But these products are already as tasty as the average meat (not speaking of high end steaks, but that's not what people eats every week). The difference is that IF and BB can provide consistent quality across the entire production. And since it's made from plants, it will scale way better than real meat, from sourcing to production, so it will get cheaper. Because of the green trend we currently got, not to mention the ethics surrounding the topic, it will be an easy way to get a guilty pleasure while feeling you are doing the right thing.

I understand why Gates has invested in it.

Your different perspective boils down to "it's ok to lie and mislead people with food labeling if its in a good cause".

So you would like corporate interests to just say whatever they want about the contents just because you THINK it might be better for OTHER people to not know what they are eating?

I would put people mislead by the "nut milk" label in the same box as the people putting their dog in the micro-wave to dry it.

We should not thrive to protect those people from their own stupidity. We are short in resources, I'd rather see those invested in schools to provide education to their children.

So if you look at my other comments maybe you'll see a theme.

Nut milk can be made at home, so can peanut butter.

This is highly processed fake food thats designed to trick you into thinking it "feels" like meat. A process that is not designed to make it actually healthier for you in all the processing.

This is the English language so yes there is nuance in how we use it.

It's important to me that we not start to label industrial food pastes as X when they are still just industrial food pastes.

What's the "veggie" in "veggie burger"? It's not ground chickpeas anymore, don't conflate the two very different things.

To be clear, these laws are saying you can't use the word "burger" with anything other than the flesh of animals.

Not meat - burger.

Nobody is being fooled by the "veggie burger" containing animals. Nobody. It's a non-issue.

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