Impossible Pork
impossiblefoods.com
impossiblefoods.com
Yes, sourcing ingredients for plant-based meat alternatives still takes resources and, given enough scale, that demand will have negative environmental impacts... But growing plants is still an order of magnitude better than farming animals.
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This seems to be contradicted by [1]. It says that beef it typically 6:1 (plant feed: meat) and chicken is typically 1.6.
OTOH, none of this means that the same amount of net calories are available to the human. FCR is not the same thing as trophic efficiency. In particular, as per the above explanation, FCR is often calculated using wet mass of the output but dry mass of the input.
All that said, the conversion efficiencies for chicken and farmed fish are still amazing.
The only way to reliably (and amicably) decimate global population growth, and therefore growth in the West, is eliminating global poverty and allowing universal access to contraceptives everywhere. If you achieve this, it doesn't matter what people eat or do; and arguably, it only matters currently in terms of how it impacts the pace of environmental destruction, not whether or not it gets destroyed.
It just doesn't get into peoples heads that more converts to green slime will not save the world.
Meat has 2 levels though, you need the industry to feed the pork too. If you skip that step and directly feed us, that's much less production.
> And that means, among other things, a huge increase in already high demand for coconut and palm tree oil
If it does require more coconut and palm tree oil, then that's what we will fix next.
I welcome Impossible Pork, looking forward to trying it.
I am one of those weird people who doesn’t like to eat inhumanly raised animal products, but I just don’t care what other people choose to eat.
(There's also the land use and emissions angle. Arguably meat consumption causes harm to all humans and beyond.)
Well, technically they said that they don't "like to eat inhumanly raised animal products".
But I guess the general argument is whether their stance is inherently consistent.
...which is pointless to deconstruct without further input from the parent.
How about, while hungry they are sickened by the cruelty involved in producing food, but while full, they simply have other, more important things on their mind?
If we slaughter ants and fruit flies while not caring for their rights, what is that different from a cow or dog?
I know this is an unpopular position, but I don't see the logic in animal rights.
Now, when we're talking about maintaining ecosystems, I'm all for it. What's happening to bees is bad for humans.
But creating cattle just to slaughter and eat it, that's just part of our nature. Like a lion slaughters a gazelle. We just evolved to have the tools to breed them...
Maybe cattle breeding is inefficient and pollutes the planet. That's also bad,but it's the best way we've found yet to feed billions of people and keep affordable food prices.
Kind of like if someone has a poorly maintained house in your neighborhood, it impacts the value of your house.
Just because I cycle to work and don't own a car for environmental reasons, doesn't mean I think car owners are assholes - I have owned a car in the past, may do again in the future, sometimes get taxis and lifts, and have plenty of friends and family members with cars.
I was really hyped up to like it, but found it only somewhat like meat. I was impressed with the texture inside. The outer crust reminded me of warm cardboard. To be fair, I might have burned it so I do want to try it again. Really keen to try an Impossible Burger (anyone know if there’s somewhere in Australia that serves them?).
My whole place smelled sickly sweet after cooking it as well. I’ve seen some people describing it as smelling like cat food, which I’d agree with.
Personally I don't think they're particularly healthy - I'll stick to chick pea patties or the occasional beef patty. They are highly processed.
I think coconut oil is somewhat like cilantro, in that certain people get a soap like taste from it, based on some kind of genetic trait.
Though it does have less aldehydes than some other types of oils, which goes against my theory. It does, however, have a fair amount of decanal, one of the aldehydes in cilantro.
Would "soap like" describe the unpleasant flavor at all?
I wish the world had more people like you... I suspect there will be less wars.
Tim Minchin, comedian pianist, is going to share a song he hopes will be a seed for peace (first 2 and 1/2 minutes), the lyrics are “You don’t eat pigs, we don’t eat pigs, why not not eat pigs together ... ... pigs.” (last 2 and 1/2 minutes)
The audience laughs and sings along. I liked the song but the laugh timing, particular when he was playing music but not speaking, made me feel as if there was an in joke I was very far outside of.
"Why not not eat pigs together."
It really shouldn’t be weird. It should be the default. Almost No one would purposely harm an intelligent animal yet it’s to norm to support industries that do.
Except for the fact that human beings have been purposely harming intelligent animals for food for millenia.
Thought experiment: is it ethical to eat animals that have been genetically engineered to be braindead?
I think it boils down to - everything in moderation, including moderation.
It's also why honey glazed bacon tastes amazing.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180614213837.h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)
There's clearly a pretty big public health crisis when it comes to food. So saying "in moderation" is very hard to judge! Clearly the status quo isn't great.
So what's a moderate amount of fat to consume?
It could be half of what people tend to consume. it could be 10%. It could be double!
Given that if you follow "eat what you like" you end up in a bad place, it's kind of hard to lend credence to stuff like paleo.
So you're back to square 1 of having not much of a great idea. My bet is that the moderate amount of stuff that would be healthy vastly differs from what the "average minus 15%" or something would be.
I think there are health concerns here but not so much as a meat replacement.
I don't think there's a health concern in eating any kind of burger infrequently.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't accurate, but the problem is knowing McDonalds, I would also not be surprised if it were.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grade-d-meat/
Your average $20 burger is probably tastier but no better for you. This is pretty simple logic.
(See https://youtu.be/vCHPhIzOUOw for a reasonable review.)
You probably wouldn't eat an animal burger everyday, so you probably shouldn't eat one of these daily.
The particular fats in these plant replacements are not too similar to what you would find in real meat.
(Though to be fair even real american pork is pretty different to what it was traditionally, because of modern pork feed.)
If you want to pass the cholesterol out (dietary or otherwise), then eat more fiber, which sticks to cholesterol and prevents your body from reabsorbing it.
I would probably try to counteract this with lower-sodium pasta sauce, or less soy sauce.
Some will say that's preferable (for multiple reasons). That's partially opinion though. We'll need to get the pig's input on existence to be certain.
Maybe we'll get our shot at that question in a hundred years when AI is ruling over us: better to live in the service of the AI's ends, or better to not exist at all.
Edit: surprised by the downvotes on what are well established facts [1]
[1]: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt-and-sodium...
Good link though.
Too much sodium in the bloodstream causes the body to retain extra water to dilute it. This can cause swelling of the blood vessels, which can cause them to harden over time. That hardening raises blood pressure and makes the heart work harder. When this has happened, reducing sodium intake will help reduce blood pressure by reducing the volume of fluid the heart has to circulate.
But if your blood vessels haven't hardened, there are other ways of helping to regulate your salt levels in addition to, or instead of, decreasing sodium intake. Drinking more liquids will help your kidneys process more sodium, and regular exercise will also help.
People probably add salt when they cook pork, though.
Would there be a different process for "lab-grown" meat ?
Does anyone know if such approval processes are substantially different on different sides of the Atlantic ?
(Not trying to spread FUD at all, just curious.)
That being said, yeah, it's definitely a treat. Coconut oil is not the best thing for you.
Edit: To elaborate a bit, I think foods like this may fall in an unfortunate valley where they are too similar to meat to please some vegetarians but insufficiently similar to meat to please some meat eaters. I tried the impossible burger because I had heard some complaints from meat eaters that it was not "meaty" enough for them - meaning it might not be too "meaty" for me.
Edit: this got asked a lot, so I'll all a related question instead. Is it possible for a burger to have "good taste and good texture" but also not remind you of beef?
Try a turkey burgers, a chicken burger, a black bean burger, ect... There's so much better variety in veggie burgers, (and they don't cause the run to the bathroom, if you know what I mean.)
And, if you ever find yourself in India, try McDonald's vegetarian burgers. Nothing like beef, but still delicious.
Think of a "burger" as a style of sandwich. Some of us are so used to "hamburger" that it's hard to imagine the patty being anything else.
Honestly, it's worth trying a veggie burger. (A lot of people order them with bacon on top.) As long as you stay away from the "I can't believe it's not meat" style, they're delicious.
Ugh. As someone who hates catsup and mustard, I hate the "it tastes the same when it's loaded with sauce" veggie burgers.
The patties actually need to taste good on their own.
Only of tangential relevance, but maybe still interesting: there's no ham in a traditional hamburger.
The name seems to be derived from the German city of Hamburg.
I've heard plenty of anecdotes of recent immigrants / tourists to the US ordering a "hamburger" expecting it to be ham. It's a rather awkward surprise for Indians who will eat pork, but not beef.
(The downvotes are unfair, IMO.)
Yes! I had one today for dinner in fact. The one I ate today the patty was made with mushrooms, tempeh, and wheat berry. Greens, aioli, pickes & pickled vegetables on top.
Impossible is a blessing because I can be a boring eater and still do ad little harm as possible.
(Being a picky eater sucks. I wish I liked food. I promise, it's not because I like being a pain. My policy is that I'll try anything twice, to avoid any initial bias. I'm just kind of broken.)
I feel like there's a really big hump to get over with expanding a pallet, where once you have even just one or two new foods under your belt it becomes easier to learn to like other ones. For me, it was (and still is) kind of a snowball effect. I'm eating more variety of food now than I ever ate before, but I'm still a lot more narrow than other people I know.
I spent a relatively large portion of my adult life trying to learn to eat vegetables, and it wasn't until midway through transitioning to a vegetarian that I suddenly discovered the magic of sauteing with a little butter and salt instead of boiling vegetables until they were all soft and waterlogged and horrible, or baking them until they just turned into hot mush. That was honestly kind of surreal -- years of not liking veggies, and occasionally trying them in different recipes to see if something had changed, and not having anything change. And then in the space of a few weeks suddenly very quickly realizing that crunchy string beans with a tiny bit of soy sauce were delicious and that I really wanted more food like that.
That's not to say you would like the same stuff. The point is, learning to eat more things is hard, and being a picky eater is hard, and just in case you're stressed about it, don't stress about it. Just keep trying at your own pace and don't worry too much. As long as you keep occasionally experimenting, eventually you'll find a few things you like, and your pallet will expand from there.
And even if you stay a picky eater, as long as you're still getting a decent nutritional intake, and assuming you're meeting whatever dietary goals you have, then you're fine.
Ever had a turkey burger? The meat has a different taste and texture from beef, but it's not bad.
Also see alligator, elk, deer, chicken sausage, etc. "Exactly like beef" is not the end-all-be-all of "satisfyingly meaty", even when you only include actual meat.
Beef will never be able to optimize past feed conversion ratio.
Plant-based meat still has a large chunk of the price in processing.
There is definitely a use case for this, I've had impossible stuff with a lot of non vegetarians. In fact most vegetarians don't care about this product.
In the long term, plant-based meat substitutes should be cheaper to produce than actual meat, and if you can get a burger that tastes just like a regular meat burger, but is cheaper, that's also a win. Burger King already features the Impossible Whopper, but at a premium. If that becomes cheaper than a regular meat Whopper, a lot of people, and a lot of other fast food chains will follow. So that's the economical perspective of it.
Or just something to eat sometimes as a way to reduce your personal "meat footprint."
4chan says that it raises oestrogen, but I was treating this as usual 4chan trolling.
There are lots of sites that describe everything these days. 4chan being one example. I was looking for something that had some scientific credibility.
Examine.com is probably the best resource out there for science based nutrition information.
"I drink a gallon of soy milk a week and tofu and tempeh almost daily. Never had a problem with anything, best shape of my life, and highest test levels ever."
^^^ "your situation is anecdotal and thus insignificant for trying to prove some point."
Also, soyabean is mostly GM, which doesn't go down so well in EU either, though some varieties are approved for use - possibly due to further labelling requirements: https://www.fsai.ie/legislation/food_legislation/gmos/labell... and the association with the (over)use of glyphosate.
I've joked before that if I ordered an Impossible Burger and got served a regular one, I wouldn't know :)
It does feel kind of weird eating it. There's definitely a part of my brain that protests when I take a bite. But it's also kind of novel, and I do still occasionally miss meat -- there's also a part of my brain that feels really good while I'm eating it. I like what they're doing, and I'm happy to occasionally grab one when I see it offered.
The thing is, vegetarian food is already really good -- I don't feel like I have a problem finding tasty, nutritious non-meat dishes that are filling, satisfying meals. And that's getting progressively better, not because new foods are being invented, but just because restaurants are getting better at adding vegetarian dishes that aren't just token options. I don't think there's a need for a brand new breakthrough in that area. There is no need to swoop in and invent a compelling dish for vegetarians, we have plenty of them.
It's the space in-between vegetarian and carnivore that needs innovation.
There are vegetarian meat-substitutes that I already avoid because my aversion to feeling like I'm eating that specific meat outweighs the novelty, even though they're not that convincing. I still think it's fine to have these kind of weird "in-between" foods -- my "I don't want to be reminded of that" is someone else's "this is close enough that I could give up or cut back on the real thing." I first started down a vegetarian route once I found a taco-meat substitute that I liked; I might not have even made that initial decision to start cutting back on meat if that product hadn't existed.
The point being, the more people you get to skip a meat meal by eating a veggie alternative, the better it is for whatever your reasons for avoiding meat are.
However, many vegetarians believe there are societal or ethical benefits to promoting vegetarianism that don't necessarily apply to other diets. It might be because they believe they have an ethical responsibility to limit the suffering of animals raised for slaughter, for example. Or they may believe that the spread of vegetarianism will curb the number of livestock and growth of pasture, which will be good for the environment.
That sounds more like a religious argument. At the extreme, some people don't believe that it matters ethically how animals are treated, and there are certainly many people who adopt an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude, or try to only eat meat from animals raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible. People are of course free to make a value judgment on these attitudes, but preaching vegetarianism/veganism on those grounds sounds too much like religious proselytizing for my taste.
I think it's fine and useful to promote non-meat diets by arguing that meat production (as we currently do it) is devastating to the environment, but religious/emotional preaching is IMO what gives a lot of vegetarians/vegans a bad name.
Where is everyone hanging out that vegans and vegetarians are constantly pestering them? And, if you're being honest to yourself, is it really an issue in your life?
Nothing? Or as simple as "I loved watching X tv program, you should check it out too"? Surely there is something you promote in your life? If so, same thing. Why should you impose your tv watching habits on other people?
I believe strongly in things, but I never have the need for everyone else to have the same beliefs. I respect the choices of others.
What a nonsense argument. "I won't inconvenience myself because it's not the BEST way to help the environment and the human race." In that case, I can't afford a Tesla, so I'll keep driving my F-350.
The issue isn't strictly overpopulation. Its overpopulation combined with the amount of consumption. You can solve this either by reducing the population, or reducing consumption, or both. For a lot of people, there are compelling ethical, economical, and personal reasons for wanting to have children or at least avoiding restricting other people's desire for children. So in that case it makes more sense to reduce consumption.
And for others it makes more sense to not having children. As you write, it's also about "personal reasons".
What good is an empty planet?
This is fundamentally the way we talk about morality - not as a matter of attitude or personal preference, but as objective facts we believe are true. Whether any particular moral statement is true or false is what most people would question, not whether moral statements are in themselves motivating. In this way, most people seem to be (1) moral realists, (2) moral internalists.
Assuming you're a moral realist, it's easy to understand why someone would "promote/preach" their diet restrictions on moral grounds - because morality, to the realist, is a matter of fact (either an "objective" morality, or a "relative" (to a culture, time, or place) one). The assumption, also, is that unlike other facts, moral facts are inherently motivating.
To the moral realist, a statement like "eating meat is morally wrong" has a truth value, in the same way "the earth is spherical" or "the earth is flat" has a truth value. The moral internalist further states that this fact is enough to provide some motivation for action, so the statement "eating meat is morally wrong" necessarily implies and states to us that "one should not eat meat" - assuming there is no failure to motivate (as may the case with depressed people or people who face extreme exhaustion, or have some other mental malady).
I hear this complaint a lot about "imposing" beliefs, but mainly when it comes to diet. Why does diet get singled out?
It's usually considered a good thing to campaign for changes in politics (e.g. for/against drug legalisation, for/against vote reform, for/against higher taxes). You may not agree with a particular argument, but I think most people agree that being allowed to persuade people towards a point of view is part of a healthy society.
Why does politics when it comes to diet get such a visceral reaction?
Not true in many contexts, and comes across as preachy and holier-than-thou, especially when using guilt. Campaigning upwards is fine, even for diet, but not downwards.
Do you understand better now?
But I will let you know that I respect your choice of not eating meat, even though you won't accept that I will continue, like the majority of people, eating meat. Have a nice day.
So an excellent ground beef substitute for “utility” use. Nobody’s buying a fast food hamburger to savor the delicious, high-quality beef or as part of a carefully-planned fitness and nutrition strategy.
Can’t wait to see how the pork variant works out.
And imagine the impact if these just displaced 50% of beef patties at fast food joints.
I'd love to see a world where the bottom shelf of meat isle is completely plant based.
Why not use beans, or mushrooms? Or quinoa? Or cauliflower? Or lentils? All cheaper and healthier. And if they don't make sense in your dish...why eat that dish? Food combinations are endless; find something you like made up of the food you want to eat.
I'm not lecturing. I also love meat, but I have trouble wrapping my head around "vegetables and other stuff smashed together to simulate meat". Seems easier to just eat the vegetables.
The best "ground meat" texture I make is made out of overcooked lentils combined with ground walnuts. The texture is terrific! All healthy fats, no animals or palm oil fat.
They do? All of them?
Because people like meat. It tastes good, it's comforting. People like meat, that simple.
> And if they don't make sense in your dish...why eat that dish?
For a lot of people, cooking and eating is something they have to do but don't particularly care for. Maybe homie just wanted to have spaghetti with meat in it like his mom made all of his life. And now you're telling him that he should just eat something else entirely because he doesn't use quinoa in his spaghetti.
I'd rather have a bit of ground beef in my spaghetti than anything you listed. I could do mushrooms but I just... Like meat more.
So, yeah I'm stoked on impossible meat.
I'm not even sure it's "healthy". The entire purpose of the product is to taste and feel like real meat. Although, I'm with you in that I don't understand why anyone would want to eat a food with a mile-long ingredient list because it's "like the real thing". There are plenty of healthy vegetarian alternatives to hamburger, obviously.
It's owned by Nestle which isn't my favorite fact in the world, there are plenty of other brands though that make super healthy burgers out of things like lentils, quinoa, and black beans. Or of course, roll your own.
I think all people need an occasional look at where their food comes from. The amount of animal shit (rodents and the slaughtered animals themselves) in commercially sourced meat has increased in the last decade. If you stood a person in front of a meat grinder and said, "Here, now we throw in the appropriate legally-allowed amount of poop into the mix", fewer people would be in line to buy the end product.
Or if they were allowed to go visit the factory chicken farms and see the sick, diseased chickens that end up on their dinner plates, I think they would be unable to eat it.
Do people not realize that the recent laws aimed at preventing information gathering from factory farms is designed to prevent them from learning what they are really eating?
Plenty of humans have had low, or no, animal products in their diet "forever." You don't need a fancy new food from Silicon Valley to avoid meat.
Personally I think the fake meats are a needless crutch. Yes, creating an interesting vegetarian dish requires more effort than just throwing a fatty steak on a grill (the magic of heat, fat, and animal protein), but with just a bit of effort a vegetarian dish can be very satisfying and healthy at the same time.
More then that, they're a hype-driven fad where a good concept gets ruined by people letting their imaginations run away, like cryptocurrency and driverless cars.
Honestly, I think test tube meat is where the real revolution will come from. (Animal flesh grown without the animal.) "I can't believe it's not meat" will join the ranks of Jello salads and other foods that we no longer eat.
(That, and I think that vegetarian dishes will slowly become more and more popular as people realize that they taste good and eating meat everyday is boring.)
That said, it may not be a bad thing to be exposed to those byproducts of farming. Too sterile an environment (and food) can result in other problems. Obviously we don’t want to overwhelm our immune systems with pathogens but they need to be exposed to them to be ready and also to not attack our own system.
Practically everything we touch in public has someone else's complex human fecal matter on it, plus stuff from other sources.
If you ask me, it's because they've simply been a way to refine sugars and fats into purer forms. This allows us to consume more of them more efficiently, which is an issue especially as our populations are becoming more, not less, sedentary.
I see no evidence that the processing required for "impossible" foods is similar in that respect (but I'm no food scientist).
My favourite (chain fast food) non meat burger option so far has been the one that McDonalds recently released in New Zealand - it's a deep fried, crumbed mashed potato patty with other vegetables in it too. Doesn't pretend to be meat but is delicious.
This is absolutely my favorite kind of vegan food.
The White Castle Impossible Slider is much better than the Burger King Impossible Whopper, IMHO, especially if you want a real demonstration of the similarity to beef.
I assume if you're White Castle or Burger King, you're not buying the same product that lands in grocery stores.
Or maybe you are?
Where did you have this burger? My experience with Impossible Burgers (at The Counter) is not at all like this. They were a pretty good facsimile of meat. I’d go so far as to say they changed my opinion on meat substitutes.
Previously, I was in the same camp as all those here saying they prefer delicious food that doesn’t pretend to be meat - but I think I’d choose an Impossible Burger over that now if I was in the mood for a burger.
Perhaps you got a beta version, or some of a bad batch, of the Beyond Meat?
A well prepared veggie burger is a very different experience from one that's just been thrown on a grill and taken off when it's hot. I've noticed some huge gaps in quality at different restaurants.
Also will add my vote that Impossible is doing a way better job imitating meat than Beyond is, just in general.
The beyond burger tastes like paint and actually gets more red when you cook it. The impossible burger is red when raw, but turns brown and firm like beef when cooked.
https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600189374...
man, they used to have this in Singapore as well but it's no longer on the menu here.
I also tried a Hungry Planet burger which was chewier and tasted stronger and was probably more beef-like overall. Again I don't think it'll deceive anyone but it was pretty good.
Haven't yet managed to get hold of an Impossible Burger but it's on the list.
Has the McAloo Tikki made its way to New Zealand?
My bias is obvious, but I really feel the world needs to get more into Indian food. No other cuisine does vegetarian food as well.
Agreed, when cooking myself (which I do a lot) it's usually Indian recipes. I really came to enjoy the food after I turned (mostly) vegetarian and went to visit friends in Rajasthan many years ago. I used to eat Indian meat dishes (especially curries) but found that I like actually like the vegetarian ones better. It is very easy (and cheap) to cook really good (and healthy; I don't use ghee etc as in the original recipes) and tasteful vegetarian food.
I tried a Beyond Burger for the first time last night (and again tonight). I wasn’t expecting this, but: it looks like a burger, it cooks like a burger, it smells like a burger, and it tastes like a burger (including texture).
That said, I will likely never buy it again, and have no interest in trying new products from Impossible Foods.
My main problem with it is the lack of clarity around how healthy engineered foods like the Beyond Burger really is. Sure, it doesn’t have the cholesterol of real meat, but is a heavily processed alternative really any better?
That's what the nutrition facts label is for. "Being processed" doesn't magically make food worse than non-processed food.
For the Beyond Burger in particular, it's directly comparable to ground beef: roughly similar fat content (depends on the lean/fat blend you get for the beef), more sodium but no cholesterol, similar protein levels, and a bit more miscellaneous stuff like potassium, iron, and phosphorous.
No but being processed at a factory means that it can be treated in a way that makes non-processed food or home-processed superior. By definition, processed food bought from the supermarket is not fresh and has already lost nutrition and it will stay in a supermarket for weeks. No matter how many preservatives you add it's old food. Processing often increases the surface area which makes it easier for bacteria to spread and the food to oxidize. Meanwhile the most significant "processing" you do at home happens a few hours or minutes before eating. Nobody is arguing that left overs are superior to eating food on the same day it's cooked.
The heuristic that factory processed food is worse still holds. In theory you could make healthy processed food but there is no economic incentive for that so it is the exception, not the rule.
This is a critical observation, and should be at the top of this entire comment thread.
There's a fetish amongst intelligent people to try to think "logically", but logic is actually a terrible system for analyzing anything in the real world. The argument that "it is possible for a processed food to be good for you, and possible for an unprocessed plant to be deadly" is a totally logical refutation of the idea that "processed food it bad" but nonetheless is completely nonsensical because we don't live in a world of binary.
The other problem I think is that over time these meat substitutes will evolve to improve sales, and if the biggest buyers are fast food chains, that evolution will tend in the wrong direction.
One of my favourite burger joints recently shifted from offering Impossible v2 to v3 for their patty, as v3 supposedly resembled meat more closely.
However, I thought that v2 tasted much better while avoiding the “uncanny valley” of meat substitutes... I wish they would keep them all available rather than phasing out older versions.
I'm vegetarian and I would definitely eat it, and most of my vegetarian friends would as well (assuming they figure out how to produce it without fetal bovine serum, which isn't vegetarian). But certainly everyone is different. I imagine some people will still have ethical qualms, and I know a number of vegetarians who don't like the impossible burger because they don't like the taste and texture of meat, so presumably they wouldn't like lab-grown meat either.
Actually, there are fringe but growing number of people who hate vegans because vegans kill and torture plants. Plants after all have senses and can feel and communicate with each other. And they find people who eat fruits disgusting since fruits are a plants' womb and eggs.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-...
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/plants-have-feelings...
Just like vegans, these people have too much time on their hands and an unhealthy desire to feel morally superior to others.
It’s like living life on Very Hard mode.
edit: reading more closely it seems that you just have to be clear to observers that it's not actually pork.
(Next two paragraphs quoted:
For example, if one wishes to drink almond milk while eating meat, he needs to indicate that it is in fact almond milk, not regular milk, which is forbidden. In the olden days, this was done by popping some whole almonds into the milk. Today, this can be achieved by having the container on the table, making it clear that it is almond milk.6
The same would need to be done in order to serve a veggie burger that resembles meat, topped with real cheese, or to serve a beef burger under a slice of imitation cheese. It’s fine to eat, provided that the package is nearby and visible, or its parve identity is spelled out on the menu, receipt, etc.
...end quote.)
Who are you indicating it to? Does gods omnipotence not extend to distinguishing different types of milk, or is this so people can police it? (not trying to be snarky - genuinely curious)
(Not Jewish, but I find Talmud very interesting.)
But the real achievement will be Impossible Bacon.
Just shared the exact same sentiment with a friend; while I'm no committed vegan or vegetarian, if I see an impossible burger on a menu at a burger bar, I'll happily order one.
If they manage to make a passable and just as enjoyable impossible bacon strip, oh boy.
Products derived from grapes have special rules as well. https://www.kosher.com/learn/about-kosher-laws/kosher-wine-a...
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/impossible-pork-whats-it-made-of...
In summary: All processed food is bad for you. Not "bad" like cigarettes, but bad in the sense that if your diet primarily consists of processed food, you will gain more weight, and gain it rather quickly.
"I can't believe it's not meat" products are heavily processed and shouldn't be the majority of your diet. Stick with real meat and/or high protein vegetables, depending on your preferences or dietary needs.
And natural here does not mean not artificial. Natural food is the food we've been designed to eat.
Humans aren't designed.
Not really, at least not in any directed way. To the extent that you might say that evolution designed us to do, including eat, anything, it is only exactly whatever we do do.
Also if you are going to say that humans are designed and ignore Darwin's theory of evolution, you are going to lose you credibility on your thoughts on science.
Sugar is sugar. It doesn't matter if the sugar has been added through selective breeding or just added afterwards. The only reasons fruits are a little bit healthier than soda with the same sugar/micronutrient content is the fibers in the fruit that makes it harder to consume too much of it.
There is plenty of evidence that fruit consumption is good for you[1], which will obviously not be reproduced by drinking the equivalent flavoured soda. "A little bit healthier"? This is a joke?
[1] https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/fruit/en/index2.htm...
> "CHOW contained spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colorings, and flavorings. The end result was a foodstuff almost indistinguishable from any other except for two things. Firstly, the price, which was slightly higher, and secondly, the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman."
Neil Gaiman - Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Although, these particular preparations might be closer to MEALS:
> "MEALS was CHOW with added sugar and fat. The theory was that if you ate enough MEALS you would a) get very fat, and b) die of malnutrition."
I know what you're thinking... Impossible Human could make Soylent Green a vegan movie.
Dairy farmers make 70% of their earnings off of subsidy
Why are beyond/impossible not investing in a healthier alternative
Healthy vegan meat substitutes are a crowded space.
Impossible and Beyond went for flavour and price with mass distribution, a novel market segment.
Though I always wondered if the animal rights type of vegetarians eat this stuff, I would suppose they consider it a grotesque display or a mockery to dress up plant matter as animal murder.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/scie...
The thing about meat is that it tastes good
>Though I always wondered if the animal rights type of vegetarians eat this stuff
Some don't like it, but I do. As long as it resembles processed meat instead of intact animal parts (like chicken wings, for example), I'm not bothered by it at all. It might as well be any other processed plant-based food to me.
With further innovations and economic of scale, you'd imagine that one day they'll substantially undercut the [heavily subsidized] meat industry.
Not an economist (and I doubt even they'd know), but I feel like at x% the price of meat, they'll capture y% of the market. And, it'll snowball, as the meat industry loses market share, prices will go up.
[citation needed]
Some people, you will never convince to eat veggies instead, especially if they taste way worse than the meat they love. But if you have an alternative that tastes just as good, if not better, than meat, and is cheaper (with economies of scale), they would be more willing to go with the veggie option.
Well, yes, your wondering is exactly right. Long-time vegan here. (I think most "animal rights type of vegetarians" are vegan–what's done to cows in the dairy industry isn't pretty.) Butchers, ads for eating lambs etc start to seem horrific. I'm not at all interested in fake meat. Yes, the very idea seems grotesque. There's plenty of delicious vegetarian cuisine from around the world without needing or wanting fake meat, fake cheese etc. I haven't missed, wanted or craved meat once in..uh..gee, almost 30 years.
Upvoting this for the pure surreality of this one point