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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> Plant-based meat, on the other hand, can be both cheaper and less gross at the same time, and it might help them cut down on calories and improve their health image.

Which is “less gross” is highly objective.

> I wonder what impact it'll have on climate change when McDonalds stops buying real beef.

Would be a nice longbet, “McDonald’s will stop selling beef burgers by 20XY”. I’d be on the “no” side of that bet.

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They will eventually stop selling beef burgers made from real cows. Lab grown meat will replace them. I don't know enough about the current state of lab grown meat to give an estimate for XY, but it seems inevitable to me.

Ground meat is almost certainly the lowest bar for substituting. I'd argue the artificial meat is already pretty close (although probably at a higher cost, at least at the low end). There are probably gourmet burgers that are still better--though high-end meat cuts are at least somewhat of a waste in a burger.

Somewhat amusingly, I first had an Impossible Burger not knowing that it was not real "meat." I didn't find out until a few months later. It tasted like a perfectly good burger to me.

[ADDED: Lab-grown is apparently more accurately used to specifically refer to food made from animal cells. I guess "plant-based" meat is the more common term with "meat" distinguishing from traditional vegi-burgers in the grocery freezer.]

Impossible Burger isn't lab-grown meat

What would you consider Impossible Burger, if not lab-grown meat?

A plant-based burger. Lab-grown meat is made from animal cells

The "lab-grown" term is [EDIT: sometimes and apparently incorrectly] used for plant-based meat substitutes like Impossible Burger. It probably shouldn't be, but it is.

I honestly don’t think there can be any argument there. Plant-based meat substitutes have been around for a long time, are emphatically not “lab grown meat”, and I have never heard anybody refer to them as such. That’s a distinct category which has also been receiving a lot of attention in the past few years.

For example:

https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-impossible-foods-lab-grown-ve...

http://www.makery.info/en/2018/05/07/jai-teste-limpossible-b...

I expect with actual lab-grown meat substitutes starting to get attention, people are more precise to distinguish between the substitutes today.

These say "lab-grown veggie burger" and "lab-grown Impossible Burger" but never "lab-grown meat"

I have never heard anyone so confused that they can't tell the difference between "animal that was never alive" and "made from vegetable products". This isn't confusing, and I will need evidence to believe that it is "widely used". I don't think I've ever even heard someone attempt to conflate the two before you.

But I acknowledge that just because this is completely obvious to me and I've never met someone who was confused about the difference doesn't mean they don't exist.

I honestly don't care what people call the different types of meat substitutes. Plant-based meat seems a bit odd to me because it's not, you know, meat. But it seems to be the term in use.

Yes, I understand that there is a difference between grown from meat cells and made from plants with components that make it look and taste more like meat.

I haven't seen many offerings saying plant-based meat.

I've seen plant-based burger, plant-based sausage, etc.

There are only 579,000 results for that phrase from a Google search.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22plant-based+meat%22&oq=%2...

102,000 of those are "plant-based meat alternatives". 46,700 are for "plant-based meat substitutes". I'd imagine there are quite a few other synonyms that continue to winnow it down.

I guarantee you that people are only doing this by accident when you see it.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lab-grown-meat/

I, too, used to confuse Memphis Meats with Impossible Food / Beyond Meat.

It's just that news of lab-grown meat and outfits like Impossible Food kinda sprung up at the same time in the news within the last 5 years and it's easy to confuse the endeavors. In fact, I see this misconception enough that I think IF/BM benefit from the confusion.

There is no meat in it, lab-grown or otherwise. It is made of plants and chemicals. It just tastes similar and cooks similar and gets used similarly.

I suppose you could call falafel a lab-grown kibbeh or kofta ball? But nobody does.

A plant based substitute...? They aren't growing meat, have never claimed to be meat, and are marketing specifically to those who don't eat meat

When they do that it will take most american farmers down with them, along with all the people working in the meat plants. The environment is not good, but of course the alternative is unemployment, especially when most of the farms also go under.

I would prefer we help transition those people to new careers than continue to destroy the environment with beef production.

That would be nice. How many else are going to be focusing on that transition?

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this question.

I think the conditions most animals are raised in would be considered gross by virtually any observer who took a close look. Subjective, sure, but the same way that emergency room surgery is only subjectively gross.

If you’ve ever made the trip to Auschwitz, you’ll be able to find many parallels to modern dairy farms and factory farms.

it's a matter of volume. i don't expect beef to go away but the volume sold will massively decrease. there will always be the "real deal" crowd who will pay higher prices for it.

Always? What if the other stuff is just better? It’s not like cow is some platonic ideal for a burger patty, and other ingredients can only approach but never surpass it.

Of course, some people will want to taste dead cows similarly to how exotic meats have an audience today. But McDonald’s would not be the venue for something like that.

Shark fin soup is actually not that tasty (or so I've heard), yet people eat it and pay a lot for it.

The texture is nifty, the taste is whatever soup it's in. Its the kind of food with no taste of its own, but it speaks up whatever it touches.

> It’s not like cow is some platonic ideal for a burger patty

Well, no, that's lamb.

"Gross" being defined as amount of chemicals, likelihood to be spoiled and/or make you sick, etc.

Beef won't go away completely in 20XY; maybe not ever, which is fine. But at the scale and quality standards of fast-food, and with the recent progress in the meatless space, I would bet McDonald's will stop selling it in my lifetime.

"Gross" should also include treatment of the animals. Animals raised in CAFOs, for example, are treated in a way that's pretty gross.

I don't like this definition of gross. If it were true, then cooking something would serve to make it far more gross. Hundreds, if not thousands of new chemical compounds are created via the Maillard reaction.

Food that can make you sick isn't necessarily gross tasting.

Spoiled food is definitely gross, though.

Pedantry isn't helpful. You knew what I meant by "chemicals": flavor additives, preservatives, antibiotics, etc.

None of which are generally present in fast food beef.

No, I didn't know that when you said "chemicals" you meant "food additives that are recognized as safe but I dislike".

Thank you for clearing that up, much appreciated.

> Spoiled food is definitely gross, though.

There are probably more than a few foods you eat that are technically "spoiled" - it's just termed differently, like "fermented" or "aged".

> Which is “less gross” is highly objective.

As soon as they proudly put pictures of the animals and their living conditions on the packaging. You can put a field of corn or beans on packaging.

You can even put an image of the big machine with giant blades in the field.

Try that with meat and tell me again which is less gross.

For what values of XY?

Those aren't variables, it's a common-era year in Base 36, so in base 10, that's A.D. 94,534.

At least, I think that's about when it's likely to happen.

Fast-food beef is retired dairy cows and flavorings made in a lab. Gross. Many people don't know or don't care. There are enough people that do care to significantly impact their bottom line though. For better or worse.

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