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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

God, what a strawman. No one eats fake meat to be healthier. It's about getting away from the appalling cruelty and environmental destruction of factory farming.

However, if you consider that fake meat doesn't create new superbugs from antibiotics overuse, and that the environment is important to your health, you could make a real case that it _is_ healthier.

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> No one eats fake meat to be healthier.

Beyond Meat is marketed as being healthier. Go to Beyond Meat's website https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/ and it begins "Imagine your favorite meaty dishes like burgers and tacos delivering the juicy, delicious taste you know and love, while being better for you..."

It shouldn’t be. Either way, it’s not the main reason that people (like myself) are clamoring for plant-based meat alternatives that recreate the meat-eating experience. pkulak is right. It’s to prevent animal cruelty and help the environment.

The constant daily reminder from the media that Impossible Burgers aren’t any healthier than real burgers are an irrelevant distraction from the point. Animals don’t have to be slaughtered to enjoy a hamburger if it’s an Impossible burger. The only way to dispute that is if you claim that Impossible Burgers aren’t as good as a real one, and dammit if Impossible hasn’t done an incredible job at making a tasty burger out of freakin plants.

> Animals don’t have to be slaughtered to enjoy a hamburger if it’s an Impossible burger.

I realize this is a bit extreme of a characterization, but this argument doesn't sit right with me at all.

It sounds like 'I'm only willing to change my habits to reduce animal cruelty and help the environment if an alternative that tastes exactly like meat exists. Otherwise, what can possibly be done?!'

If you are really concerned about those things, whether the Impossible Burger exists or not should not make a difference. There are plenty of delicious vegetable burgers that already exist. They just taste like the ingredients they are made of (beans, mushrooms, etc.) and not a faux replica of meat.

Can you cite research to contrast the fairly well-known unsustainable agriculture practices that industrial complexes have lead to for plant based? I've yet to see an adequately done comparison between properly managed agriculture and properly managed meat production, e.g. non-monocrops vs. non-factory farming.

Hoping whoever downvoted me leaves a qualitative comment.

However, if you think of these products as a "gateway drug" to more plant-based eating, I think there's still an argument to be made that there's potentially a health benefit eventually. If all you do is eat fast food, you have no hope of dietary health. But if you start thinking, "plant-based isn't so bad' perhaps you'll consider them in other contexts as well. Most people could benefit from eating more plants, at least ones that haven't been processed into oblivion (like Beyond or other fast and convenience foods). Of course, it's possible that people will delude themselves that eating White Castle can be healthy if it's vegetarian, but that is a delusion that implies more willful ignorance than fake meat can be responsible for.

>However, if you think of these products as a "gateway drug" to more plant-based eating

I like to think of them as a gateway drug to meat for vegetarians. Once they get hooked on the taste, they'll soon start craving for the rich texture of the real meat. And there's still no plant-based bacon, which is the "killer app" of meat.

The full marketing copy could use some change but not a lot - the next thing they follow it up with is "while being better for you and the planet."

There are certainly benefits to eating a plant-based burger over a beef based one.

Whats your point?

“Better for you and the planet” IS a health proposition.

If only the planet part is true, then half of their benefit proposition goes away. Half the value proposition of any product is a big deal for that product.

“By shifting from animal, to plant-based meat, we are creating one savory solution that solves four growing issues attributed to livestock production: _human health_, climate change, constraints on natural resources and animal welfare.”

https://www.beyondmeat.com/about/

And as might be expected on a forum full of intelligent nitpickers, people can parse and dissect the structure of this sentence to fit any narrative they'd like.

For example, it says it's solving issues attributed to production of livestock...it doesn't outright claim the "meat" itself is healthier for you in terms of nutritional content.

Drive by any factory farm that stretches for hundreds of acres and the stench alone would convince you that reducing things like that would have a positive impact on human health, both directly and indirectly [runoff of feces and chemicals into the environment, use of antibiotics and hormones, climate change, etc]

It also says it that page:

  WHY BUILD MEAT DIRECTLY FROM PLANTS?

  PLANT-BASED MEATS:
  IMPROVING HUMAN HEALTH

  ANIMAL-BASED MEATS:
  16% INCREASED CANCER RISK
  21% INCREASED HEART DISEASE RISK

  1. “Risks associated with processed meats.” Archives of Internal Medicine.

> No one eats fake meat to be healthier.

I don't know that this is true. This is an NBC News article, written for an extremely wide audience. Consumers are generally pretty uninformed, nutritional science isn't always super straightforward, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case that a substantial number of people assume that meat alternatives are healthier for you.

The article does mention the real impact of meat replacements (though it's not great at this, phrasing it as "As always, it's only about helping a corporation's bottom line" due to the PR from increased sensitivity to climate change et al).

Abuse of the concept of a strawman is really rife here these days. Strawmen are relative to context, and you don't get to project whatever random conversation you feel like onto an article and then claim that it's not sticking to points relevant to that conversation. The article, for all its problems, is not making the argument that meat alternatives have no value.

Yes, this article is very close to being the dumbest possible take. It is difficult to believe it's sincere.

For me - first and foremost is climate impact of livestock, particularly cows. Second is the ethics of current meat production and animal cruelty - the "one bad day" approach to livestock is far more ethical and not at all compatible with current meat consumption and prices. Third is the non-climate impact of livestock like antibiotic overuse and massive monetary and unpriced land use subsidies given to the industry.

“[writer] is writer, certified personal trainer and certified nutritionist behind the popular weight loss blog ... “

I’m not convinced those credentials add up to a position of authority on ecology or internal medicine - or HN-worthy content for that matter...

> It is difficult to believe it's sincere.

I believe it's sincere.

Sincere in the interest of the multibillion dollar meat industry agenda.

I have a hard time believing there is any objective definition of “healthy” foods. It seems to me that the healthiness of a food is entirely dependent on the state of the individual consuming it. A can of spam is “healthy” for a person on the verge of starving to death. Likewise, a kale salad is “unhealthy” for a sedentary person that just consumed 20k calories.

I don’t believe there are any healthy or unhealthy individual food items. Rather, it’s the individuals diet that is healthy or unhealthy.

Straight from https://www.beyondmeat.com/about/

> By shifting from animal, to plant-based meat, we are creating one savory solution that solves four growing issues attributed to livestock production:

> human health

> climate change

> constraints on natural resources

> animal welfare.

You and article are both correct that the 1st of those four is a weak reason.

(FYI, Impossible Foods marketing promotes environment impact exclusively, no human health or animal rights.)

> No one eats fake meat to be healthier

I know people who do eat fake meat to be healthier

> I know people who do eat fake meat to be healthier

I know people that drink fruit juice (sugar) all the time thinking they'll get healthier but end up getting fat.

Point is? People are dumb. It's not the product's fault.

They believe it's healthier because Beyond Meat actually claims it's healthier on their website and in marketing.

It is though. It doesn't cause cancer and it's not injected with antibiotics.

> It is though.

Do you have any data to support this claim? Does any of that data specifically compare the two?

> it's not injected with antibiotics.

You can buy meat that hasn't been

Yes but thats not the meat the article is comparing to is it.

I don't think that claim can be proven yet. It takes a bit for that research to come out to say it may or may not and this is a relatively new product.

Yes, and articles that do their part to debunk misconceptions commonly-held by these "dumb" people aren't strawmen. Popular coverage of misconceptions is a big part of how alternative facts and superstitions lose their power. That's the whole point being made here.

Not really. I would wager most consumers are actually under the impression fake meats are in some way healthier.

The article is not particularly well-written or informative, but I don't think they're making a straw man argument.

Fast food companies will try to market this stuff as in some way healthier, because that's what will sell.

Unfortunately, opposition to animal cruelty and anthropogenic climate change just aren't great motivators of consumer behavior.

Yet. I wouldn't be surprised if consumer preferences shift and it becomes profitable to market meatless meats as more humane and better for the environment.

Thank you - brilliantly said. Not to mention the WHO classified red meat as a carcinogen[1] I don't think they've got plant-based burgers on that list yet (or ever will). So again - healthier.

1. https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/

My understanding is that this is essentially a mistake in that the red meat studies included deli meats like hot dog, ham and bologna.

If you eliminate those meats then red meat alone is perfectly fine.

I ordered the impossible burger because I thought it was healthier. I can't imagine I'm the only one. Their website and marketing insinuates its healthier too although as has been pointed out here in a very tricky way.

I never understood this, people who don't eat meat because of ethical reasons but still like the taste... assuming it's done out of compassion, maybe also work on changing your TASTE for animal flesh! If replicating meat was easy, i would understand, however the extent to which the fake meat industry goes to repicate animal taste suggests that the demand is high. At least this is cognitive dissonance since there is compassion and empathy towards animals while at the same time a high demand for the TASTE of the flesh of an animal. A creature that is supposedly precious and should not suffer or die for the sake of becoming human food... with one small exception: it tastes great so let's ignore that detail and keep loving how these poor creatures taste.

I don't get your argument at all. Taste is hard to change, it's very much hard-coded to our brain. Artificial meat makes it easier to do the right thing, so it seems to me like a very much unambivalently good thing.

A lot of vegetarians/vegans I know think eating vegan food is automatically healthier than eating animal products. Of course, none of them are scientifically inclined.

Healthier than what? I buy antibiotic free grass fed beef from local farms.

Odds are that the PR flack for beef trade association reached out to their contacts in various media organizations and encouraged these type of articles to be written. SOP.

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