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Comment by strict9 | Hacker News Reader

Compared to a diet of pure fruits and vegetables and grains as the guy says? True, Beyond/Impossible aren't as healthy as that.

But he's literally comparing a veggie burger to a salad, not what it's replacing: ground up cow meat that's reassembled in a factory. You won't find everything in ground beef listed on a label.

Fake burgers are a transition and off-ramp for people looking to eat less meat. Not people living a purist lifestyle like the Whole Foods CEO.

Beyond Meat/Impossible serve as nice punching bag for people denying the impact of the beef trade has on the environment and this article is catnip for them.

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Actually misses the point entirely.

Comparing a Beef patty to a Beyond Meat patty shows roughly comparable macro nutritional values. [1],[2]

Beyond Meat "wins" in that it does not have any cholesterol, and no trans fats. But each has comparable calories, and fat levels. (Though it should be noted that Beyond Meat is most likely much better for the environment oz for oz).

The issue that the Whole Foods CEO is taking is that Beyond Meat is marketed as a healthy alternative to meat. It is only marginally more healthy at best. Replace a cheese burger with Beyond Meat and you still have something that is unhealthy.

I'd liken this to the same diet fad marketing that vegetarian food was healthier. This lead to Americans believing they were being healthy while over consuming pastas and other processed grains simply because they omitted the meat.

1: https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/

2: https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/ground-bee...

How is "marginally more healthy _at_ best" defined?

Vegetarian food is healthier, and reduces all cause mortality. Here's one of many studies that say so:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31387433

The study is about plant-based diets, not "vegetarian food."

I don't have access to the article, so I'm not sure what they define as a plant-based diet, but Harvard defines them as a diet focused mostly on plants, not one that omits meat (vegetarian) and/or animal products completely (Vegan).

I wouldn't argue a diet based around plants is more healthy than one that is not, but I wouldn't generalize and say vegetarian (read: no meat) is more healthy than one that does involve meat.

> How is "marginally more healthy _at_ best" defined?

Just comparing the nutritional values between 4oz of beef vs 4oz of Beyond Meat.

No it isn't, and that study isn't even about vegetarians.

Studies done in the USA can have very disparate conclusions because questionnaire studies are terrible w.r.t. diet "in your study, "The ARIC study did not assess whether participants were following a plant‐based diet.", the average person eats insanely unhealthy (> 70% overweight) and the average american's idea of meat is basically fried bread with condiment levels of meat. It's further confounded because vegetarians are usually higher SES or conscientious about what they're eating in the first place.

So you would expect to find studies disputing this and also studies that find the health effects of vegetarian diets are not unique. And you do:

(2012) Vegetarian diets, low-meat diets and health: a review. Public Health Nutr 15: 2287–2294. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22717188

> CONCLUSIONS: The health benefits of vegetarian diets are not unique. Prudent plant-based dietary patterns which also allow small intakes of red meat, fish and dairy products have demonstrated significant improvements in health status as well. At this time an optimal dietary intake for health status is unknown. Plant-based diets contain a host of food and nutrients known to have independent health benefits. While vegetarian diets have not shown any adverse effects on health, restrictive and monotonous vegetarian diets may result in nutrient deficiencies with deleterious effects on health. For this reason, appropriate advice is important to ensure a vegetarian diet is nutritionally adequate especially for vulnerable groups.

2017 study shows "no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28040519/

An Austrian study suggests vegetarians are less healthy and have a lower quality of life, and higher rates of mental illness: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...

In Australia, which I think has one of the highest meat intakes in the world, "We found no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28040519?dopt=Abstract

That study does not say a vegetarian diet is more healthy, it says that people who self-report following a vegetarian diet are more healthy.

And you would expect people who eat a vegetarian diet to be more healthy on average. They're likely more affluent, educated and aren't drinking, smoking or eating junk food as much as the general population.

Real beef patties definitely don't have any trans fat, unless maybe they contain weird additives. Trans fat comes from hydrogenation of vegetable oils.

Real beef patties contain trans fats, as does dairy.... About a 1/2 gram of the fat in a burger is trans fat.

https://nutritionfacts.org/2014/02/27/trans-fat-in-animal-fa...

Sort of this. Also remember the meat alternatives like Beyond are processed foods and there's more to health than just comparing macros. Ingredients for Beyond:

"Water, Pea Protein Isolate*, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Sunflower Lecithin, Pomegranate Fruit Powder, Beet Juice Extract (for color)"[0]

[0] https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/

Edit: I am aware you can buy processed burgers/meat. But you can also buy/make burgers from meat that is not processed. I am not aware of a process to make meat free burgers/meat without processing and a ~dozen ingredients

This is true. I've made this point in another post about Plant Based Protein Meat Alternatives.

To simplify the discussion though, I focused on the nutritional values, which seem very similar to beef.

Not all ground beef is bottom of the barrel ground beef. Obviously buying the cheapest thing in a 10 lb tube isn't exactly a recipe for success, but let's be honest, the Beyond Impossible crowd probably wasn't purchasing that to begin with.

Yeah, I don't understand why people suddenly act like they're nutrition min-maxers when it comes to this subject.

Like every kind of nutrition would have the same effect in everyone. Extrapolating data of some thousands of people to 5 continents of all ages…

Absolutely. Oreos are vegan and nobody would argue they're healthy. As processed as some "meat alternatives" may be, it's still a better path than meat for health.

Objectively, nicorette is unhealthy, but doctors will recommend it all day if it helps you quit smoking.

How is Nicorette unhealthy?

It contains nicotene -- a well known carcinogenic.

I'm not so sure that's the case: https://cancer-code-europe.iarc.fr/index.php/en/ecac-12-ways...

Nicotine does not cause cancer.

Nicotine is not, in any way, a "well known carcinogen".

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

From the abstract of your paper:

Recent studies have shown that nicotine can affect several important steps in the development of cancer

Also from the paper

>At present, it is not possible to draw a conclusion whether nicotine itself may act as a complete carcinogen

If you're going to quote it, include the bits that don't agree with you as well. The paper basically says "it may affect the role of other cancer causing agents, but we're not sure yet. We cannot say that nicotine is, in and of itself, a carcinogen"

Also reach back in time 30 minutes and remember that you claimed nicotine is, by itself, a "well known carcinogen", which is false.

Nicotine is NOT a carcinogenic. Lots of things in a cigarette are, but not the one thing that people want from it.

https://blog.dana-farber.org/insight/2018/07/nicotine-cause-...

The local news and hospitals were citing a recent upward trend in the numbers of teens with a certain lung symptom. They linked it to vaping in teens. At the very end of the segment they said the lung issue could be caused by nicotine alone being inhaled, didn’t matter it if was vape or smoke.

Which would be a ridiculous use case. Everything is deadly at a high enough dose. No one in their right mind is vaping pure nicotine. It could kill you via skin absorption alone.

It's an immunosuppressant. Which can be useful at times, but the immune system has an important function and you probably don't want it suppressed except as a specific measured response to a particular problem.

Nicotine is a stimulant, and stimulants are not without side-effects. There isn't a stimulant known that doesn't put stress on the cardiovascular system. Nicotine increases blood pressure, heart rate and vasoconstriction.

Reminder that a low-grade stimulant like caffeine is considered to have deleterious effects.

> Americans switching from beef to plant-based patties would be equivalent to taking 12 million cars off the road for an entire year.

But they point out 372 million people not eating meat is the same as 12 million cars off the road for 1 year! Where do they get these garbage numbers?

CO2 numbers for each and division?

probably analysis of the carbon emissions that beef and beef externalities produce compared to the average emission of a typical car and then aggregate that into a single comparison to highlight just how much beef and beef production emits to the environment.

The title of the article states that meat alternatives are good for the environment so how did you arrive at the conclusion that this in any way denies the impact of the meat trade on the environment?

Yes, processed vegetable oils and extracted pea & soy proteins are worse for you than ground beef.

> Fake burgers are a transition and off-ramp for people looking to eat less meat.

This is similar to the argument for vaping vs. smoking, and just yesterday there was report, and have been in the past, about the harm caused by the other chemicals in vaping liquid which IMO may make it worse than smoking.

The question is, are we going to find out soon that the additives in these fake meat burgers are worse (or at least equally bad) for health than real meat?

The additives are not new. So probably not, but maybe.

Vaping isn't worse than smoking. Take it from a pack a day for 27 years smoker who just started vaping 2 months ago.

I don't wake up any longer coughing so hard the neighborhood can hear it.

There are 1,300 deaths in the US every day from smoking. Are these in the papers? You know the answer to that.

There has been 1 reported death by the CDC from vaping, and people are losing their minds over it.

We don't even know if it was because of vaping; we know that someone got sick, and they smoked a vaporizer.

>which IMO may make it worse than smoking.

This stuff isn't subjective. No one with any amount of credibility attached to their name is making that claim, so what's your basis for it?

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