The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?
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* Nearly all of the rangeland and high desert in the western US was destroyed by cattle and sheep grazing over the past 150 years. This is a billion dollar industry with the emotional buy-in of millions of people so I'm skeptical that it will be reformed in our lifetimes.
* My digestive system got wrecked trying to be on a mostly vegetarian diet over several years after the housing bubble popped. The gist of it is that the lectins (and other defense mechanisms in the husks) of legumes and nightshades disrupt the mucus lining of the intestines, which leads to leaky gut and stool getting into the body cavity and blood (leaky gut), which may lead to autoimmune diseases like colitis and arthritis. Something about animal protein heals this lining, probably because humans evolved as scavengers eating leftover kills and carrion from top predators.
* I have not yet seen studies comparing the healing and regenerative properties of meat compared to plant protein, especially concerning bodybuilding. In my own experience, there is simply no comparison between the two. Beef, eggs, salmon, tuna, turkey and chicken simply dwarf any gains obtained from bean burritos (I wish this wasn't the case). I don't know a solution to this, although I'm guessing that a portion of the gains are hormonal. Maybe someone can isolate the animal compounds and make supplements similar to creatine, BCAAs, glutamine, taurine, etc.
Not to knock current meat alternatives, but I view them sort of like compact fluorescent light bulbs, as a 10 or 20 year stopgap until we have true test tube meat (LED bulbs).
In order for meat alternatives to compete with meat, someone will need to reform the federal food subsidies that keep meat an order of magnitude cheaper than it should be. An impossible burger should cost LESS than beef, not more.
Do you have a citation for this? I've never heard anything like it before.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319593.php
My feeling is that it's similar to how allergies/cancer/etc often have 2 or more triggers that must coincide to set off the condition.
So for example, maybe people who wouldn't typically have gluten sensitivity (a lectin), ended up with it because they distrupted their gut flora by eating, say, the glyphosate in oats (especially processed oats like Cheerios). It could also happen if they eat compounds not typically encountered in nature, like those present in GMO foods.
Western medicine has a blind spot when it comes to these holistic effects because it tends to mainly study single root causes and cures. We also don't yet have enough long term studies, because GMOs only went mainstream around the late 90s and we're only just today able to start tackling big data with machine learning. But many people were wary of herbacides, pesticides and GMOs because there were no long term studies yet. Unfortunately a lot of unscientific practices got rammed to market during the George W Bush years, and during the dot com boom years before that under Clinton where money trumped public health concerns. Ok and really all through the 80s as well...
For anyone who reads this, and especially vegetarians dealing with IBS, what really helped me was the glutamine powder you buy at any workout supplement shop. Then I laid off legumes and nightshades (especially peanuts and peppers) for 6 months to let my gut rebuild. Use a pressure cooker to break down the lectins in beans, and also try de-husked grains like white rice instead of brown rice, or say sourdough bread over whole wheat bread. Then be aware that the gut is always breaking down and rebuilding, so treat it maybe like red meat or alcohol and try limiting yourself to a day or two of beans/salsa in a row instead of eating them every day. Also the Gundry ProPlant protein powder (hemp, flax, spirulina) helped me. If you're under 40 and don't yet have IBS, you might be seeing other symptoms like puffyiness, weight gain and lethargy that feels kind of like chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. For me, that coincided with discovering I had sleep apnea. I had been chronically tired for as long as a decade.
This sounds wrong. Glyphosate targets an enzyme in plants. The residual levels in human food are extremely low, so why do you think those levels would affect our gut biome?
I found a relevant paper: "administered at up to fifty times the established European Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI = 0.5 mg/kg body weight) had very limited effects on bacterial community composition in Sprague Dawley rats" from paper titled "Glyphosate has limited short-term effects on commensal bacterial community composition in the gut environment due to sufficient aromatic amino acid levels": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026974911...
Can you refer to any papers that contradicts that?
Edit: I just read your first link on lectins: maybe Gundry has a point, but the crass commercialisation ("Dr. Gundry developed that are sold under the GundryMD brand", affiliate links to Amazon) of that article really detracts from it. It seems obvious to me problems with lectins could only affect a small percentage of people, given that the foods Gundry says to avoid are eaten commonly or staples in some populations for a long time. Note I very strongly agree that we should try a variety of different solutions to health issues (kinda scientific but not!), and I admire that you have found something that is helping you. I do dislike prosyletising of information without balance, and some of what you say is veering towards misinformation IMHO.
Edit 2: For completeness: some bacteria do have the enzyme affected by Glyphosate, which has been investigated to see if it affects bees via their gut biome. And the paper showed an effect on gut bacteria with 50x legal dosage if there were insufficient aromatic amino acid levels. The question is: does the maximum legal dosage affect the gut biome enough to be a problem? Given the crap our gut biome handles, and the fact it is a breeding ecology, I am sceptical.
Microbiome variance is a relatively new area of research but studies have already highlighted links to IBS/IBD, autoimmune conditions, and psychological conditions.
A lot of specialty vegan and dairy-free products are filled with them to turn plant-based ingredients creamy or milky. They're also very common in non-specialty processed foods that many vegetarians eat more of than omnivores.
News article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-emulsifiers/study...
The study: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14232
Coincidentally, I also had sleep apnea at one point, though exercise exercise (very minor weight loss) made it go away.
[0] https://www.livescience.com/62914-what-are-lectins-plant-par...
[1] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-weight-loss-on-the-pl...
To my knowledge, pesticides and glyphosate in the levels present in most food don't really have any effect on our internal microbiome, which is mainly non-plant based and the few plant based single-cellers in that biome aren't that harmed by glyphosate and should quickly develop immunity.
Umm...did you cook the plants before eating them? Cooking destroys like 99% of lectins.
>Something about animal protein heals this lining, probably because humans evolved as scavengers eating leftover kills and carrion from top predators.
This sounds like total pseudo-science new age woo. No organism EVER directly incorporates foreign protein into itself. Its always broken down completely first, so the structure or origin of these "animal proteins" doesn't matter.
Signaling of disdain and contempt not required.
> Cooking destroys like 99% of lectins.
Citation required.
> Its always broken down completely first
It's
Ummm
We are talking here about the lining of the digestive system. You know, the system that takes in whole foods and breaks them down. You bet the digestive system's walls are exposed to the proteins.
Sadly, as most of us probably know already, that would require the buddies of Big Agriculture to do work that directly attacks Big Agriculture. Won't happen, not now, not ever. There's simply too much money in it.
I think the only thing that might shuttle this process along is that Big Agri starts coming out with their own plant-based alternatives, like Tyson is doing. Once the big money gets into the political environment, that's when things will really change. I look forward to the prices taking a dive when that happens.
I really doubt that.
Plus the meat I did consume had some mixture of tendon/cartilage in it. Once I figured out what was missing it has been only smooth sailing for my stomach.
Regarding meat and bodybuilding, I would like to comment that there is simply no comparison for the amount of vitamins and mineral in meat, plus the absorbability of not having lectins and oxalates to leech them. There is a reason why both my grandmother's insisted on cooking their children liver once a week and they all grew up very healthy individuals.
> The vegan meat substitutes are made from mixtures of pea protein isolates, rice protein, mung bean protein, canola oil, coconut oil, and other ingredients like potato starch, apple extract, sunflower lecithin, and pomegranate powder with a range of vitamins and minerals. Beef products that "bleed" are achieved by using beet juice
Just sounds like a veggie burger that tastes better, and has a VC-funded marketing budget.
I feel like it's all marketing and they're just riding the hype wave caused by other better products or peoples desire for one. (I assume the Impossible Burger is better - they seem to have gone into more effort to replicate beef, but I haven't tried one)
The texture is like a persian koobideh kabab, the taste is meh, but I couldn't stand the ammonia like smell. The aftertaste lingered for most of the day and I had to ventilate my kitchen to get rid of the odor. I'd rather eat a Dr Praegers veggie burger.
Their Beyond Meat Sausages (Brat) are much better but I'm not sold on the idea of these processed foods.
I didn't buy any Beyond Meat stock.
I had the Impossible Burger at Burger King, and it's now my go-to for when I want a fast food burger. It won't fool you, but it's about equally satisfying and it makes me feel less bad about the environmental and ethical impacts of a beef burger.
I will say that I've mostly eliminated red meat from my diet due to ethical/environmental/health concerns, so convincing me to try and continue eating one of these is much easier than convincing a die-hard carnivore, or even a middle of the road meat eater.
I wouldn't say Beyond Meat were terrible, may be because I have low expectation of these type of patties anyway. But Impossible Burger is slightly better than Beyond Meat, but still far from Real Burger. I definitely wont be trying it again until they have another major version upgrade.
Yes, they talk about meat like Software Development.....
Most places can't perfect the basics, but have some kind of truffle oil, bacon, foie gras (I'm exaggerating for effect a bit here) monstrosity on the menu to compensate.
Most of the people over 5 I've seen eat a beef burger that way are also over 50, not under 10.
> I tend to view it like soylent. It's definitely not as good as a good beef burger, but it's good enough to consider eating regularly for convenience and health reasons.
Does Impossible actually have convenience advantages?
I prefer veggie burgers that don't try and pretend they are something they are not.
The future is vat-grown meat, not ersatz meat.
But if you think beyond meat is bad, try some vegan cheeses some time. I tried 3 and they all tasted like 6 parts soap, 1 part nail polish, and "hints" of cheese.
To a large extent, I bin this work in with things like Soylent, until proven otherwise: a narrow attempt to create an edible substance with poor alignment to actual human biological needs.
But what exactly is an exponentially superior food?
In this case, perhaps the ability in time to produce 10x the meat ('meat') at 10% the environmental damage of our current output.
We're adding ~85-90m people per year. Most of them are going to want to eat things like beef, fish, chicken, bacon and so on. A billion new people per decade is an enormous increase in demand for meat, to say nothing of the already existing several billion people in the bottom 1/2 with rising consumer demands for meat.
It looks like we're going to be able to solve this problem and relatively soon (it will still take decades to fully scale up globally and perfect complex products, however that will occur). It's an exciting time, getting to watch the innovation and real store-worthy products just starting to take off at a consumer level.
I kind of get your point, but couldn't you have said "the technology is going to improve" instead?
[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745731823/the-u-s-has-nearly-...
This is false. You can grow crops almost anywhere in the U.S. using water intensive techniques.
You won’t be able to do it at scale while funneling all the profits through a single entity though. It can only be done with smaller farms and more attention from a larger number of specialized farmers. We know more about how to do this now than any time in history.
If you want to have a single entity collect all the profits you need a one-size-fits-all methodology, and cattle grazing is that.
So that’s the trade off. An existential one for big beef companies.
Cattle also destroy the plants that maintain soil health and allow you to store water in the landscape, so it’s a vicious cycle. Fairly easily undone building berms and planting pioneer species.
On the show Alaska the Last Frontier, they use federal land to let their cows graze during the summer.
Mass production in unhealthy factory styles is the majority source. Any incentive to end that process is a net gain in my view.
People's preferences haven't changed. Beef continues to be very popular, as do public fountains. The choice not to consume meat (at least here) is mostly associated with pretentious, upperclass people who like yoga and are keenly interested in social justice (there is even a word for this type of person: fresas, which literally means strawberries but here means, well, that type of person).
Eating or not eating meat is more about adopting cultural, class, and identity signifiers than any real correlation with the local water situation.
Peoples' preference for war hasn't changed either (most people don't want it), but we still find ourselves in conflict at every turn. That's because you can't go too long without confronting the objective physical reality of scarcity of resources.
No, more like life style participation.
>I guess, in that case, the "unpretentious, lower class people who hate yoga" would have those tree huggers to thank.
We need many countries to make national-level policies about this. The Instagram people are a smug drop in the bucket.
>we still find ourselves in conflict at every turn. That's because you can't go too long without confronting the objective physical reality of scarcity of resources.
That correlation seems made up. Has there been an increase of scarcity-driven wars? Most wartorn places don't seem to be resource scarce.
I was always angry to see them out grazing on public lands in the Sonoran desert where they trample emerging small cactus and graze down the nurse plants small saguaro need to get started. They also trash sensitive riparian areas. There was no animal like that there, cattle should not be in that area in my opinion, most especially on public ground.
However environments that natively supported animals of that size, plain or grass type areas, no problem, lease it out. Cattle actually do environmental good in these areas helping to keep brush down and building grasslands.
Unfortunately this isn't most of the public ground in the Western US.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-some-restaurants-are-t...
If you don't feel that strong surprise, then I think the other arguments may or may not work for you. But if you have that sense that it is strange and perhaps off, then this article is heartening.
I don't understand this. We are animals. Why is it specially prohibited to us that we eat other animals?
Note also that, as animals, we are not plant-eaters: we can't survive on plant matter alone. We are made [1] to eat other animals. We are omnivores, yes?
So why is it unethical for us, specifically, to eat other animals when it's not unethical for other animals?
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[1] By evolution, obviously.
You almost answered your own question. "Unethical" is a foreign concept for animals because they don't even have ethics. Humans do, and these ethics have implications for how you should or should not treat other sentient life.
There has to be some kind of justification for the moral judgement that "eating other animals is unethical". And that justification cannot be "eating other animals is unethical", itself.
We can recognize that animals are conscious. Very rarely do animals consciously want to die, and very demonstrably the way most humans prepare and kill animals for consumption is observably harmful to them - they experience pain and suffering throughout the process.
I don't think we have laws against harming each other exclusively because we operate at a mental capacity to talk about those laws. Because its still illegal to kill a human being operating at a mental state reduced below that of most of the animals we eat due to disease or impairment. We constructed the social contract to not harm each other both out of the selfish desire to not be harmed ourselves and out of the empathy to project that if we do not want to be harmed or killed most other people would also probably not want to be either, and we could agree to prohibit that.
It is a definite leap to extend such courtesy to animals, because they generally don't have intent or goal. Animals are great at conveying their desire not to be harmed and to avoid known sources of harm - electric fences, getting a door slammed on their tail, etc. Some can even mourn death as seen in dogs, elephants and dolphins.
Its not that great a leap then to presume that most animals don't want to die, even if they cannot understand the concept in much the same way that young children under 8 generally aren't treated as inhuman just because they have yet to comprehend the concept of death. Hell, humans don't even achieve object permanence until they are upwards of 3-4 years old some times but again you don't have different laws depending on intellectual capacity on whether it is allowed to hurt or kill someone.
We base all those rules and laws on the presumption that other people are conscious, regardless of their intellectual capacity to express or comprehend said consciousness, and that the rules we can agree upon between ourselves that we don't want to be harmed and thus we prohibit causing harm to one another should also apply to those who cannot express such desire as long as they are still human.
We also have ample law about animal cruelty and abuse, again enshrining the recognition of consciousness in other species.
If we can recognize animals as conscious, recognize their propensity to have wants and desires, recognize their desire to not be harmed and to be ill affected by harm, and even in some cases their desire to express mourning and loss in death than the only reason you wouldn't apply the same rules we use between ourselves to prevent harm to them is wholly arbitrary - it isn't on an intellectual basis, and it isn't on a perceptive basis, it would be purely human exceptionalism for no greater reason than "I am human, screw everything that isn't". But that wouldn't be consistent in law unless animal cruelty was considered acceptable universally, so its presently a strong contradiction in most societies.
If you demonstrably don't need to eat animals to survive, you recognize their consciousness, and you extend personal protections you want for yourself to others because you can empathize with them, then it comes down the same mechanism that can help abate racism or sexism in society - exposure to the maledicted class is often very effective in informing people on the empathic response they should be having to most sapient biological life. Consult /r/happycowgifs for more info.
To summarise your comment (please correct me if I'm wrong): we should not eat animals because a) they're conscious, b) they do not want to be killed and eaten, and, c) we should apply to animals the same rules we apply to humans.
If I haven't misunderstood those- then I don't think that (a) is a particularly strong justification. On the one hand we know of societies where cannibalism was normal and even mandatory. For example, one of my favourite books of all times is "History of the conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador who campaigned with Hernan Cortés [1]. He reports the cannibalistic rituals of the Aztecs. It's a prime example of humans having no compunctions to eat other humans, consciousness and all (and offer their hearts to the gods, and sell their other parts to the town market, in the case of the Aztecs).
(c) is also not very good justifications because of cannibalistic socities: if a society accepts that humans can be killed and eaten, then it treats animals in the same way as humans if animals are killed and eaten in that society. Then, there is the example of Buddhist societies where the belief is that the souls of humans may reincarnete as animals. Literally, eating a cow might mean eating your grandfather or your grandmother (reincarnated) and you know that you, yourself, may come back as a farm animal and be slaughtered and eaten. Still, nonhuman animals are killed and eaten, and karma applies to everyone equally, human, animal, or plant.
As to (b) I think that even mordern societies accept that there are situations where the will of the individual is subsumed by laws and even the right to life is not absolute (the US, the leading Western democracy, exercises capital punishment). We incarcerate people who do not want to be incarcerated, we separate parents from their children who do not want to be separated, we even kill people who do not want to be killed.
Yes, we have rules against cruelty to animals. But those laws, I think, never cover putting an animal to death in an acceptable manner that minimises its suffering when the purpose is to eat it. Pretty much every human society throughout history has accepted that at least some nonhuman animals may be killed for food. Restrictions are placed often on what animals can and cannot be killed or eaten (Hindus won't kill cows, Muslim and Jewish people will not eat pork and will only eat animals killed in a special manner, etc). However, there is always some class of animals that the majority of people will eat unquestioningly.
In the article above, I note, for example, that the subject is killing and eating cows. Not, say, chicken, fish, insects, sheep, pork, horses, dogs, cats, snails, deer, ducks, etc etc. In fact, some of those animals (insects, in particular) have been offered up as an alternative to killing and eating cows, although not by the author of this article as far as I can tell.
It seems to me then that the justification you offer is not perhaps the one envisioned by the author of the article, or perhaps, a certain viewpoint that the article represents. For this veiwpoint there seems to be a particular issue about eating spedifically beef. I am not sure I understand this but, beyond the obvious commercial interest in marketing a product as anti-beef eating, there also seems to be a heavy focus on a particular demographic, which I think is in particular a US demographic.
Finally, personally I don't accept your three justifications. I understand full well that the animals that have died so that I may eat their flesh are conscious and do not want to die. I do not feel there is anything unethical in killing an animal to eat it, because this is how eating works: you have to kill something to eat it and that something rarely agrees to be eaten. I myself will one day die regardless of whether I agree to it or not. I may be killed, and I may be killed and eaten (e.g. by a shark when I swilm in the sea; or even killed without being eaten in that case). I don't think killing and eating other animals is human exceptionalism. I think hyman exceptionalism is responsible for the idea that eating other animals is wrong: no other animals seem to have such rules; why should we, of all animals, have them, if not to pretend we're not like other animals?
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_D%C3%ADaz_del_Castillo#...
Edit: I should say I do feel compassion for the animals that have died so that I may eat their flesh. For that reason, I make sure ot never throw meat away. The poor animal died so that I could eat it so I may as well eat it.
Also- what does amount have to do with ethics? If it is unethical to eat meat then it is unethical to eat any meat at all.
Is your comment only about the ethics of meat eating in America (I think you mean the US)? The rest of the world also eats plenty of meat.
- it's trivial to find a class of animals that doesn't eat flesh (e.g. elephant) so i'm assuming you meant to say omnivore here
- evolution doesn't "make" things in that way. it could be that it provided an advantage, it could be that it is bound to something else that provided an advantage, or it could be completely coincidental.
for example, suppose our optimal setup is eating 100% fresh spinach but we can live at 80% by eating non-spinach stuff including meat. so in that sense, we weren't "made" to eat meat. it's just adaptive for reproduction.
from a layman's point of view it was probably advantageous to be able to eat both things, but our guts do more closely resemble herbivores than omnivores (gorillas e.g. are almost purely herbivores)
"Make" is a metaphor. I just don't like to use the turn of phrase "we evolved to do X" because it leads to just-so stories. And it's common to use vague evolutionary arguments to try and support all sorts of personal opinions: "We evolved to do X so we should not do Y", etc.
The point is that we are an animal that eats other animals and plants. I don't think that this is any more controversial than saying that a tiger is an animal that eats other animals and a sheep is an animal that eats grasses.
So, as animals that eat other animals and plants- what is wrong with us eating other animals?
it clearly makes the argument "as animals, we are not plant eaters". did you really mean animals? or did you mean omnivores?
Many people are vegans and thrive.
I additionally wouldn't hold it against a tiger or lion for eating me. I'd certainly attempt to avoid it, but I won't blame the animal. Animals eat other animals. We're animals. While not eating other animals seems morally virtuous, I don't necessarily see it as a moral imperative simply because we can think about it in a more abstract way than other animals likely can.
Second, theft, murder and rape aren't necessary for immediate survival. Also, animals don't commit murder in nature, because the target of the murder has to be a human, and it has to be within the context of human law. Same with rape and theft.
In the context of nature those actions are just competition for resources. I'm actually not entirely sure what your point was.
Second, I'll amend my statement to be "theft, rape, and the killing of members of your own species". Murder is a word with many uses, legal and otherwise. But again, my word choice had nothing to do with my point, but you seem intent on getting hung up on pedantry. As for your immediate survival comment, I've never been presented with a situation where my survival depending on eating an animal. Remember - what we're discussing is eating animals, not eating in general.
I think you know exactly what my point what but seem quite intent on purposefully missing it.
Philosophically, it fails as an Appeal to Ignorance. Practically, it fails for a few reasons. Many of the plants we consume don't need to be killed and have evolved to expect and depend on our consumption of them. Additionally, the animals we eat need to eat plants. So anyone with a genuine concern for the suffering of plants would immediately forego the consumption of animal products.
I concur however, that if one has a genuine concern for plant suffering then only ethical course of action is suicide.
Exactly, so if we kill the livestock and eat it, then less plants will suffer.
"...these are the cries of the carrots, for tomorrow is the harvest time, and for them, it is the apocalypse!"
Its not death that is the issue. It is pain and suffering.
This is the result of the special status accorded to humans. One side of it is that we are the only animals capable of moral reasoning and so we should abstain from eating meat even if other animals do it, because we are uniquely placed to understand the harm it causes. The other side of it is that we are justified by being special among all animals to treat animals in the way we do.
Both sides of the coin start from the belief that we are not like other animals. This is obviously a very anthropocentric view: we, ourselves, think we're special. Most likely, no other animal does.
If you are in fact twelve... well, stop it anyway.
But on the other hand I have some questions that I’ve not seen addressed. I’m a small farmer. My wife and I raise sheep. Ruminants can be raised on land that isn’t really productive. Maybe in some cases beef production is taking away land that would be otherwise farmed, but in my experience that’s rare. So, if we transition to plant-based meat, where does the farmland come from? We’re already losing productive farmland at an incredible clip. If we suddenly need to put millions of acres into new soybean or pea production, where does it come from?
And second, at least in theory, mixed animal/crop production systems can be closed loop. If done properly, with fallow periods and crop rotations, you don’t need external agricultural fertilizer production. Granted, that’s not the way most crops are produced now, but a lot of us are arguing that it should be - we should have local agriculture, with less centralization and more intentional closed loop farming practices. If we really do go mostly to a vegetarian diet, that possibility dries up. Agriculture becomes more and more reliant on external chemical inputs. Small producers are even more marginalized than they are today. Are we sure that’s what we want?
These alternative meats taste good with all the stuff you also associate with hamburgers (bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, sauce), but on their own, they do not come close to beef.
Cheap meat, like ground beef, will be replaced first, but I think it will be much more difficult to replace specialty meats: Iberian ham or Wagyu for instance. Good luck making something plant-based that tastes like that (not saying it can’t be done though).
I think the next sticking point will be price. Impossible burgers still cost more at the moment. But if the price of Impossible burgers comes down or if the price of beef goes up I think you would see a change from a novelty item to a true alternative.
That has nothing to do with why eggs are cheap. Completely separate breeds are raised for eggs vs meat. The birds used for meat are killed at only 6-7 weeks typically. They never rarely if ever lay a single egg. Eggs are cheap because layer hens have been bred to produce several times their natural number off eggs combined with other practices like forced molting that increase production. And those hens are killed after a couple of years to be used for cheap meat. You have the subsidizing relationship backwards.
If the main concern is environment I get it and go for it. But if you are claiming that plant based burgers are healthier or tastier you are borderline delusional.
Last time I cooked a Beyond Meat burger I noticed it was 30% canola oil. 30% CANOLA OIL, might as well just inject cholesterol and fast forward a heart attack.
I still get nightmares when I think of how bad the flavor was, think of the most processed food you possibly can like jolly ranchers and then imagine a salty fatty version of it.
I legit don't understand how this trend keeps going even though vegetarian burgers made with vegetables are delicious and way healthier and there are alternative cuisines like Indian or Mediterranean that gives you loads of options that aren't basically CANOLA OIL.
There's also 0mg of cholesterol.
Nutrition Facts: https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/
Edit: I should add I'm not saying this is the best food choice. 1 tablespoon of oil is about 13g. So you're basically eating a little over 1 tablespoon of oil.
If I understand correctly, coconut oil is the worse kind of fat you can consume. Is that incorrect?
Yes, the Beyond Meat burger does have a substantial amount of canola oil. But what's this about cholesterol and heart attack risk? Canola oil is one of the healthier oils - it's low in saturated fats and high in monounsaturated fats which are shown to actually help fight heart disease. The amount of cholesterol in a Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger is 0.
Let's compare that to even a lean burger (85/15): whose 4oz patty contains 102mg of cholesterol and a blend of saturated fats, trans fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. It's terribly unhealthy, and the risks associated with the consumption of red meat are well known.
The Mediterranean diet you promote also includes high amounts of monounsaturated fats (Olive oil). If I've overlooked some other deep seated risk associated to canola oil, let me know.
They aren't, really. Of course, in the circle, none of this matters.
I avoid most seed oils, e.g., safflower, sunflower (regardless of how the seed oil is grown or refined) but canola is the single oil I take the most care to avoid. I use olive oil almost exclusively.
I don't have a decent theory about why it is particularly bad for me. Sorry I can't be more informative.
1) Canola oil is one of the healthier oils. 2) Monounsaturated fats help fight heart disease. 3) Naturally occurring trans fat is the same as industrial trans fat 4) Red meat has health risks
EDIT, included sources, with comments: [1] Canola oil may have dramatic negative effect on weight gain and brain health: "Effect of canola oil consumption on memory, synapse and neuropathology in the triple transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17373-3?error=dat...
[2] No clear benefits of MUFA-rich diets: "Monounsaturated Fatty Acids and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Synopsis of the Evidence Available from Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546618/
[3] High trans fat intake associated with lower sudden cardiac death: "Natural trans fat, dairy fat, partially hydrogenated oils, and cardiometabolic health: the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4816962/
[4] Claims on red meat risks that are limited to epidemiological studies (surveys) that are unreliable, do not factor for confounding variables, and do not conclusively prove anything. Keto diet, for example, has shown to lower cardiovascular risk factors: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452247/
Epidemiological studies are surveys. They are not scientific proof of anything. This is an incredulous position to be taken by the WHO and makes me seriously question their values. They state they are small increases of risk, but do not even go into confounding variables inherent in surveys. True science isolates a variable and proves that there is a causation. It does not do so by correlation.
Regarding monounsaturated fats I was going off of some offhand knowledge -- while the AHA agrees with the claim generally[1], it looks like the truth may be more complicated[2].
Regarding the general un-healthiness of red meats:
* There are [3] numerous [4] studies [5] showing a link to an increased mortality rate.
* Red meat was categorized as Group 2A (probably carcinogenic to humans) by the WHO[6]
If there's more claims I made here that I can help to cite I'd be happy to.
[1] - https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
[2] - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/monosaturated-fat...
[3] - https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1957
[4] - https://jaoa.org/article.aspx?articleid=2517494
[5] - https://web.archive.org/web/20120313084043/http://archinte.a...
[1] - WHO Says Meat Causes Cancer?:
But are these plant burgers actually claiming or marketing themselves as healthy?
The only places I have seen them served are in restaurants and bars alongside burgers and unhealthy bar food - which I think you might be surprised is a big chunk of many people's diets. I have many coworkers who eat next to no vegetables.
I am hoping they can provide a spring board into more traditional plant based foods for people, including the Med and Indian cuisines you mention.
Yes. A snippet from the top paragraph of Beyond Meat's Product Page:
"Imagine your favorite meaty dishes[...]while being better for you [...]"[1]
[1]https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/
Edit: Beyond Meat is not claiming they are healthy, just that they are healthier.
Edit 2: Looking farther, they also state that they are "IMPROVING HUMAN HEALTH" on their about page. This would likely still fall under that they claim they are "healthier" rather than healthy, though.
Eating a burger with less cheese is better for you and healthier, all other things equal, but very well may still not be good for you or a healthy choice overall compared to some other food entirely.
In the end, if the faux-burger is healthier for you than the real one, it's a net positive to switch to it if you eat the same amount. There are plenty of things that can be said about psychological effects, and causing people to eat more, but I think the most important thing I think to say about those aspects at this point is "we don't know, so it's not appropriate to apply too much weight to those considerations."
I will go back and add ier to my comment.
Just a question though, would their claim of "IMPROVING HUMAN HEALTH" fall under -ier or -y?
Some might view the -ier style statements as weasely or waffling, but it's also the most responsible way to describe most foods in my opinion, as there's often just a matter os scale that tips something from healthy to not (or outright dangerous, even). An orange is a healthy snack if you can make use of the vitamin C and don't already have an overabundance of sugar. If you don't need vitamin C or already consume a lot of sugar, there are probably better sources of vitamin C and an orange might not really be a healthy choice.
> Yes.
That's not how I read that at all, look at your own quote again.
> "Imagine your favorite meaty dishes[...]while being better for you [...]"[1]"
Evaluate the context -- they're not claiming that a Beyond Burger is better for you than unprocessed vegetables. They're saying it's better for you than the other places you get "your favorite meaty dishes like burgers and tacos".
Healthy > Unhealthy: Unprocessed vegetables > Processed vegetable burgers > Processed animal burgers
They are not marketing themselves as "healthy" (what does that even mean?) -- they're marketing them self as better than animal.
I'm not claiming that they said that either?
They claim they are better (read: healthier) than the products they are trying to replace (read: meat).
>they're marketing them self as better than animal
So... healthier than animals?
I understand there's some semantic ambiguity, but come on.
For what its worth, I have nothing against Beyond Meat or their mission.
In the short term, I consider them healthier because of that, but I certainly don't think that processed foods are healthy in the long term, regardless of whether or not they contain animal products.
Source: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/link-red-meat-cancer-need...
Is a real burger more processed than a Beyond Burger, what I call a 'Pea-Protein Patty'?
Suggested reading: https://ancestral-nutrition.com/beyond-meat-is-beyond-unheal...
Sugar, not fat, is the real problem. And those researches that took bribes in the 60's to turn us all against fat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...
Cholesterol is not bad - your body produces way more than you ever ingest on a single day.
[1] - https://www.dietdoctor.com/triglycerides-and-heart-disease
She was obese.
Not being meat doesn't mean healthy by default. This misconception is becoming as bad as preferring "0 fat, replaced with loads of sugar".
Processed foods are the majority of the issue. Not "grains". Carbohydrates are not the devil here, yet people dance around it in so many ways.
Try this...
Most processed foods have a high carb to fiber ratio. That's bad. It's also a leading indicator that those products (not whole foods) have a bunch of added sugar and/of fat. The ratio should be lower than 10:1 (carb to fiber) [0]. Many state 5:1 is what you should shoot for. But so many overlook how carbs are good. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with carbs and fiber. Most people don't think 5 grams of broccoli carbs are bad for you, but it's obvious when you compare those 5 grams from broccoli to 5 grams of carbs from Oreos. For reference:
Broccoli: 91g (1 cup) contains 6g of carb and 2.4g of fiber. No fat and 1.5g of natural sugars.
Oreos: 34g of cookies (3) has 25g of carbs and 0.5g of fiber. One wouldn't be surprised to hear those cookies contain 7g of fat and 14g of added sugar.
So, no... Being a processed food "vegetarian" isn't healthy and it's a crappy argument vs a "vegetarian" eating whole foods under a plant heavy/focused diet.
Finally, most don't know that each gram of fiber cancels out each checked gram of carbs with regard to sugars. High fiber diets are crucial to sugar regulation. And this is crucial to diabetics, but not many are taught. [1]
[0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-trick-to-recognizing... [1] https://dtc.ucsf.edu/living-with-diabetes/diet-and-nutrition...
"Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. "Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat," Grossschmidt explains."
https://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.htm...
Did I state otherwise? No.
First you started by saying how "Processed foods are the the issue. Not "grains". Carbohydrates are not the devil here"
and then
"But so many overlook how carbs are good. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with carbs and fiber. Most people don't think 5 grams of broccoli carbs are bad for you, but it's obvious when you compare those 5 grams from broccoli to 5 grams of carbs from Oreos."
According to you then barley and legumes which are loaded with carbs (Good carbs, not Oreos carbs) and fibers are good and doesn't make someone fat, because as you wrote, processed foods are the issue, right? Nowhere in my post i say anything about "copious amounts", you did.
Do I believe processed foods contribute to obesity and health in a negative fashion? Yes. Quick comparison of carb/calorie load of processed vs raw shows the story rather plainly. It doesn't take too much insight to gather that if you compare them side by side those processed foods contain a whole lot more of what you don't want per gram. Saturated fat, sugar, cholesterol, sodium, etc. Those things are fine in moderation, but most processed foods are high in one or many of those things.
And, no - carbs aren't the devil. Eating too much of anything can make you fat. My point is that people use the strawman of saying that by there are fat vegetarians (there are) because it's not hard to eat a crappy diet and be vegetarian.
My guess is that you're on something like a strict "Paleo" diet and have a hard time rationalizing how carbs are part of a healthy diet. But your point is so poorly made I'm not sure what you're arguing. If you're trying to hang me out to dry because I stated fibers are good and didn't qualify that by overeating them they can make you "fat", well then - you got me. I assumed that was implied knowledge and we didn't need to explain simple logic as well.
My guess is that lab grown meats (or some complete protein yeast type product much closer to meat than the clumsy impostors we see now) does replace animal grown meat shortly enough. So I agree with author, only it won't be Beyond Burger type things.
It's really about efficiency more than anything else.
The efficient way isn't chasing cows around and fencing them in and feeding them grain and cutting them up and eating half of them. That really makes only a little more sense than chasing deer through forests with pointed sticks. It scales poorly and is expensive.
But I do agree, these plant substitutes aren't it. The protein is poorer quality and the flavor is much poorer quality.
Getting people to care about abstract environment or animal rights is a losing battle. But offering the same flavor, same nutrition at a lower cost doesn't need selling.
Burgers are typically made from 80/20 ground beef. That's 80% meat, 20% fat.
Refined Canola Oil & Soybean Oil however have artificial trans fatty acids and are high in omega-6 which is inflammatory.
Pro/anti inflammatory of o6 effect is determined by the o6/o3 ratio which is ok in canola oil. Though even better in some other vegetable oils like olive. But olive oil would have too strong a taste for this application.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjugated_linoleic_acid
In other words, the trans fats that result from heating a vegetable oil are almost certain bad for you -- probably really bad -- whereas the trans fats in meat we don't know a lot about, but what we do know suggests that they are good for you. (Conjugated linoleic acids are sold as nutritional supplements.)
And that ratio is before cooking. A nontrivial amount of the fat cooks out on the grill.
The assertion that "people promoting plant based burgers have either never tasted beef or never tasted a plant based burger" doesn't apply to everyone. For reference: I have over 20 years under my belt of cooking all types of meat. As of 3 years ago my sous vide was a commonly used component in cooking. I owned multiple types of grills depending on what I was cooking (pellet and ceramic - still own the latter). I invested thousands of dollars in the art of cooking meat. I studied cooking techniques and styles, took classes, and I would commit copious amounts of time cooking different meats. Overnight pork shoulder cooks to get juicy, buttery pulled pork. 5+ hours (including setup) for perfect ribs. A handful of filets vacuumed in various herbs and spices and cooked in the sous vide for half a day to be finished with a 500F sear on the back end for a perfect finish. I haven't eaten any white or red meat for over two years now and don't miss any of it.
Is there a gap that hasn't been filled fully, as of yet? Sure. But like I said - I don't miss it. When I have a taste for "meat" I turn to Impossible and Beyond Meat now. The article (which it appears you didn't actually read) does a good job of summing up the difference between the two. Although I will argue that the Beyond Meat products aren't as bad as the author states.
And yes, these products are "processed" - but they also don't make up the majority of what I consume week over week either. Comparatively meats are more processed than most think and from slaughter to table that process involves a whole lot more risk with regard to a tainted product. And let's not forget what people buy frozen in the store that somehow passes as "ground beef". Can you still get legitimate options on that side of the red meat aisle? Sure, but as the article states that's not butcher ground blends of the stuff you want in your ground beef. It's all the remnants you don't in a slurry of chemicals to kill off the things you don't want to be ingesting.
Your last point misses the point. While I will agree that there are some fantastic veggie burgers out there Beyond and Impossible aren't going after that market. That's not their target. But, maybe, in the transition to alt meats we gain some new perspective on trying those, and maybe that ends up being a stepping stone to further, better choices for both health and environmental reasons.
Your comment would be fine without that first bit.
Upvote for that last bit. I haven't tried a synthetic burger yet so I don't know about your comments on taste etc, but it has to be said that there is a very, very long way you can go to feed yourself on plants before you have to eat a fake burger.
A few things:
1. Cows are not optimized to make meat: Animals aren't a food factory. Animals eat other animals. We are animals and happen to have a wide variety of what we can eat
2. There are distinct benefits from eating meat (vitamins), in which it's incredibly inefficient from getting them from plants
3. The feedlots and environmental problems, that's an issue of our economy. Theres a particular expectation on output.
4. The impossible burger: The author is incredibly disingenuous about the comparison. He is trying to claim that the burger has so many bad aspects but completely ignores how ultra-processed the beyond burger is.
5. The author is completely obsessed on cows. There are MANY more alternatives to cows that you can eat.
> 2. There are distinct benefits from eating meat (vitamins), in which it's incredibly inefficient from getting them from plants
Raising meat with today's common production methods (feed lots) is incredibly inefficient. In fact, a plant based diet can meet all nutritional requirements with just B12 vitamins. Many vitamins and minerals in meat and dairy are there because of supplementation, not because they're natural.
> 3. The feedlots and environmental problems, that's an issue of our economy. Theres a particular expectation on output.
Which is why plant based diets, both processed foods like these burgers and un/ lightly processed (beans, nuts, tofu and tempeh, pulses) are a solution. They can be grown much more efficiently than meat and take a huge load off of our environment and emissions.
> 5. The author is completely obsessed on cows. There are MANY more alternatives to cows that you can eat.
Cows are also some of the worst animal agriculture product emissions wise and a good chunk of the standard American diet. It's also definitely the star of these fast food restaurants he discusses that these plant based meats are aiming for.
How expensive is that? How much variety do you have? How easy is it to not do correctly?
Any time I've looked into vegan diets it seems as though you don't have all that much choice if you want to get your vitamins and amino acids.
You can live on a poor diet for a long time, but it will do damage, so whether this type of vegan diet is easy to screw up is also very important.
Those require processing, and often times the supplement industry isn't exactly that clean. (I'm looking at you cheap fish oil sups)
Also you should consider the efficency of what the equillence of plans would take. (More plants requires more land+water, which requires more infrastructure, more transportation, etc). Also, don't forget about soil quality and erosion. You can't just grow infinitely on the same land. Let's not forget yield loss due to pests and diease.
Cows are huge and they feed a lot of people with very little waste. (Assuming you don't throw out the organs and bones)
---
Overall, I would be interested in a thorough look at both sides per person. Most of the articles I've seen from vegetarians and vegans have been completely ignoring the logistics involved and overall impact.
B12 comes from bacteria, and is very frequently supplemented into cattle as well. Animals do not produce their own B12, it's from bacteria consumed in the soil.
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/livestock-biosecurity/cobalt-def...
> Also you should consider the efficency of what the equillence of plans would take. (More plants requires more land+water, which requires more infrastructure, more transportation, etc). Also, don't forget about soil quality and erosion. You can't just grow infinitely on the same land. Let's not forget yield loss due to pests and diease.
> Cows are huge and they feed a lot of people with very little waste. (Assuming you don't throw out the organs and bones)
I am not sure what you think feeds animal agriculture. Huge amounts of plants (and therefore fossil fuel energy via fertilizer) are required to produce a much smaller amount of animal protein. With the size of animal agriculture, most are not roaming around grazing grass, they are eating farmed plants [1]. Because it takes many plant calories (I've seen estimates from 10-25 plant calories for one calorie animal) animals are using way more land, fertilizer, transportation, no matter how much of the animal is being used
[1] https://sentientmedia.org/u-s-farmed-animals-live-on-factory....
>According to the latest Sentience Institute analysis, the percent of U.S. farmed animals living on factory farms is…
* Broiler chickens (99.9%) live on factory farms
* Turkeys (99.8%) live on factory farms
* Egg chickens (98.2%) live on factory farms
* Pigs (98.3%) live on factory farms
* Cows (70.4%) live on factory farms
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/is-the-livestock-indus...
> A 212-page online report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says 26 percent of the earth’s terrestrial surface is used for livestock grazing. One-third of the planet’s arable land is occupied by livestock feed crop cultivation.
The fact that we grow more than enough food for the world and most people on it go hungry is a political problem, not one related to food going to livestock instead of starving children in Africa.
Places with water shortages don't grow animal fodder like corn (for beef) or soy. (for pork) The Central Valley spends much more of its limited water budget on almonds, walnuts, and pistachios than it does on cattle. There is some corn grown in the central valley, but it's almost all sweet corn for human consumption. Most animal fodder is grown in the Midwest and great planes where they have plenty of water.
Sure, it takes a lot of animal fodder to get a relatively small amount of beef, but you get significantly more animal fodder from one acre of land than you do human food. Remember cattle eat the entire corn plant, stem and all; they can digest cellulose, we can't. Humans either eat very small plants, (lettuce, celery, asparagus) or they eat a tiny portion of the plant. (Fruit or vegetables) Corn plants grow twelve feet tall and are densely packed together.
There are numerous things we can and should do to improve the ranching industry. Banning antibiotics for growth is step zero, antibiotic resident disease is terrifying, and it trumps any and all concerns about food. Stopping agricultural subsidies for corn is the next. Prices should reflect the true cost, not the cost once you've subsidized the externalities. But these are political problems, not intrinsic problems with meat.
https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/micronutrients-mental-health/
Almost by definition it would be weird if vegan diets were not diets full of deficiencies, since they do not partake in wide amounts of food groups eaten for at least millenia. (And we have no record of any vegan societies, though a few vegetarian -ish ones.)
1) they taste like ass
2) they're super-processed full-of-refined-oils junk food
I don't doubt we'll see these phased out of restaurants pretty quick. Right now they're a new fad to try, but sooner or later omnivores will realize there are literally no benefits to eating this crap over actual beef. Only the true vegans will be left, and they're just not enough of a market to sustain the supply chain problems that come with having yet another type of patty (see: the McRib).
The funniest part is actual vegetarian burgers aren't even that bad. Yeah they taste different than beef, but they're in the same format, taste fine, and are quite a bit healthier. This pretend-meat is just bad.
> White Castle initially tested its Impossible Slider in just a few locations in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago in April 2018. It was such a hit that the company quickly expanded the program to all 380 outlets. “People are coming back for it again and again,” White Castle’s vice president, Jamie Richardson, said with a touch of astonishment.
> Resulting foot traffic was so strong that Burger King decided to serve the Impossible Whopper in all 7,200 restaurants, marking the moment when alt meat stopped being alt.
It reminds me of the joke, "I don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than you."
I can probably only consider the end of the beef industry getting near when:
a. There are more people I see opting for the plant based food, instead of beef;
b. When there’s really a shortage of cattle that produces or slaughtered as beef.
There’s a moral aspect of eating plant based foods, but I cannot see anyone transitioning easily from animal based meat products to select plant-based foods as their main source of sustenance. It will take a lot of discipline, willpower and of course, the availability (and affordability) of plant based food products for someone considering the shift.
But for reference, quinoa burgers, chickpea burgers, mushroom burgers, black bean burgers, sweet potato burgers, beet burgers - all taste great and are more appealing for most vegetarians/vegans.
It's great that we have companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible working on this - this is the work that will eventually lead to the meat industry going away for good, or at least becoming a niche industry - but until we can synthesize actual meat many people will hold out.
If you have a problem with the beef industry, you can deal with it like all the other problems with other industries, from financials to pharmaceutical. You regulate the industry.
This is anecdote, but a growing number of people are discovering the same thing. Beef is great food. It will not go away.
Even with a goal of 0g of carbs per day there's a lot of room on the plate for above-ground vegetables and natural oils.
Beef is an okay food, but there's lots of alternatives that seem to outperform it for many metrics.
The plant-alternatives both 1) lack the abundant, bioavailable nutrients found in animal products and 2) include a lot of highly-processed and inflammatory ingredients like seed oils.
And I think you're underselling beef by calling it an "okay" food. The meat we get from cows and other ruminants (and particularly organ meats like liver) are among THE most nutrient-dense and bioavilable foods available to humans.
Last time I checked, not all beef is consumed as hamburgers.
The alt meat craze (if there is one) is due to the novelty factor. The interest will decline over time.
That said, what does a raw Impossible Burger taste like? A raw hamburger?
Imagine wolfing down a raw one in front of a group of unknowing and terrified onlookers.
The author of the article explicitly mentions using Impossible Burger for non-hamburger applications:
"It looked identical to ground beef, so that’s how I treated it. And that’s how it performed. I made sliders, kebabs, nachos, chili, Bolognese sauce, even a little tartare (note: the company frowns hard on this)."
https://beef2live.com/story-ground-beef-united-states-0-1043...
I know most of mine is. Not necessarily in the classic sandwich form, but there's spaghetti sauce, moussaka, shepherd's pie, chili, pizza, and throwing it into a big bucket with other foods and spices and mixing it up and eating it with a spoon. Tastes good,man.
That said, it wasn't nearly good enough for me to buy instead of meat. Maybe the day will come where it will be, but definitely not yet.
In Brazil we eat that - proper beef from real cows grown on grass. Burgers are seen as what they are - fatty fast food. Actual meat is something else entirely.
So I disagree that this is the end of an industry. I think it's the beginning of change in an industry, but not its end.
I may be cynic, but that is not sound good. If your net losses outpace your net revenue, no matter how good that meat is, you are not going to make it.
And, why did the share prices (BYND) fall since July 26? Someone exiting?
There is no such thing as "alt meat". Is a bicycle alt SUV? Or alt vacation for extra work hours? alt paycheck is a sub sandwich?
What is the point of trying to match what you are trying to eradicate?
So, where is the beef?
Statements about how "inefficient" cows are in making meat re calories ingested, usually fail to mention that for most of the cow's life they are eating grass on a range, which is not used for anything else. We didn't need to make that grass, it's sitting there. Statements on the use on land assume we would have condos and coffee shops sitting there, but for the cows on it.
True, if you limit the 3% to wild grass. But most cows are still primarily fed grass until their final few months when they are fattened on grain.
However most cattle are certainly finished on grain without a doubt. Grain that could possibly put to better uses (or not grown and save the fuel and water).
Here's another one:
https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/cows-eat-a677816334f1...
The largest number of cattle, currently, if you counted them all up, are still on pasture.
Not that this detracts from your point, mostly a minor semantic quibble.
If a group of kids were fed healthy, home-made meals all week and then get a piece of chocolate cake on Sunday night, it's clearly misleading to say "100% of these children were raised on chocolate cake!".