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Comment by mrpigeonpants | Hacker News Reader

I've been using their meat in things like pastas and tacos and it's slightly tastier. The thing that hit me is that we consume so much meat in a heavily processed way that it seems silly a creature should have to suffer and die to make it. I'm all for aged steaks and prosciutto in moderation, but a large portion of the meat is consumed in nugget or other forms that don't really respect the sacrifice of the animal or pollution created.

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Same situation here. For steaks and other things like that, I've moved to exclusively using a local butcher who has all of their livestock grown for them in small quantities on very small regional farms. For the other stuff, I can hardly tell a difference so have been using Impossible products.

It kind of gives me the best of both worlds: kind farming conditions for the steaks/etc. and no farming conditions for the hamburger/nuggets type of stuff. It's a compromise that is consistent with my ethical framework.

There are only so many prime cuts, such as steaks, in a steer. Ground beef and sausages are what you make with the rest of that animal.

In this case it's definitely more about the quality of the animal's condition while being raised. I do buy this shops sausages because they custom make them from the same livestock. I guess my main point is that I've been trying to avoid anything that comes from a factory farm and substituting that with impossible product.

Agreed. I’ve switched to eating mostly vegan because most meat I used to eat was sort of just filler. If I go out somewhere and they specialize in something meat related and I know it’s going to be amazing, then I’ll get it.

Eating lots of heavily processed chicken, cow and pigs just isn’t worth the many costs to environment, animal wellbeing, and potentially personal nutrition.

I recommend everyone to consciously lower their meat intake. It doesn’t need to be forever or for every meal.

Don’t the impossible/beyond meats still have a higher environmental impact than poultry?

I can't seem to find any information about this, do you have a source?

At least for CO2 emissions it looks like they're roughly on par with each other. Impossible Foods claims a 3.5 kg CO2-eqv. per kg product[1]. For chicken meat, the emissions depend a lot on how and where they're raised, but according to this UN report[2] it's roughly 2.7-8 with an average of ~5.4. It's a bit lower for eggs at 2-5 with an average of ~3.7.

EDIT: This study[3] has a more detailed breakdown which roughly matches the numbers from the UN report. For meat: 2.3-12, average 5.7, median 4.3. For eggs: 2.6-7.6, average 4.2, median 3.8

[1] https://impossiblefoods.com/mission/lca-update-2019/

[2] http://www.fao.org/3/i3460e/i3460e.pdf

[3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

Where do you get enough protein to maintain muscle integrity ?

It’s generally a myth that vegans don’t get enough protein. There are tons of vegan based proteins and Americans are obsessed with maximizing protein intake where you really don’t need to.

There’s plenty of vegan athletes and weight lifters. If they don’t have issues as an elite athlete I doubt the average person will have an issue.

Vegan for 20+ years (now 40). I've never had any protein deficiency or any other nutrition related health problems. I weight lift so I take a scoop or 2 of brown rice/pea/soy protein which gets me to what any muscle gain diet guidelines recommend.

I have been eating similarly to the parent poster recently (trying to avoid meat and dairy as much as possible). The three major sources of protein I use now are black beans, kidney beans, peanut butter, and tofu. I also sometimes eat tempeh which can be good in the right contexts.

It takes some effort, but it's fairly straightforward if you can find ways to substitute it into your daily meals. I like taking an existing meal and just replacing the animal products from it. One example I like is a chicken curry wrap. It's just chicken mixed with mayo, curry powder, celery and onions, all stuffed into a wrap. I've substituted a lightly fried tofu in place of the chicken and a vegan mayo instead.

I'm not a vegan but beans and rice go a long way.

Beans also have tons of fiber. You can easily get 20 grams of mostly soluble fiber from a bowl of beans.

As someone who grew up vegetarian and tasted meat afterwards, I feel it's hard for me to understand the attachment of people to meat. I was recommended to add some meat and eggs as a dietary measure along with supplements.

It wasn't as flavorful as I expected it to be. I liked Indian meat dishes a bit but if you substituted meat with tofu or paneer (cottage cheese), you wouldn't notice much of an improvement. Veggies certainly feel more flavorful combined with spices. Meat/tofu/cottage cheese only gives it structure. Although that might be the nature of Indian recipes.

Some substitution you can try for meat burgers:

https://youtu.be/ordrthopTvk

https://youtu.be/3z8-3kUrXKY

https://youtu.be/Y3anbFCWjb4

Go to a very expensive restaurant, your mind will be blown how good meat can taste. Food with lots of spices tends to hide the quality of the raw ingredients, but on their own tofu and meat are no competition in terms of taste.

I dunno, nuggets use a lot of meat that isn’t really saleable as prettier breasts/thighs.

If you eliminate all usage of the 'highly processed meats' such as ground beef, chicken nuggets, sausage, etc., you may make a dent in farm animal populations, but the high-value cuts will still keep the meat industry going.

Animals aren't farmed to make your chicken nuggets. It's a byproduct of using the whole animal, including parts that aren't quality cuts (most of the animal in some cases).

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