Nestlé to Debut Plant-Based Eggs, Shrimp | Hacker News Reader

Nestlé to Debut Plant-Based Eggs, Shrimp

foodprocessing.com

41 pointsstelza2676 comments

I remember when margarine, and other plant based fats were being touted as the healthier alternative to animal fats, and in the end, it turned out that these artificially oxidized plant oils ended up being a direct cause of heart disease.

I'm afraid of products such as these for the same reason, because we have no long term health data.

I'm happy to eat plants of all sorts, in their natural form. A slurry of plant fats and proteins which approximates eggs sounds like nasty factory runoff.

Could you please cite your sources for your claims? They are rather bold and contrary to what I've learned.

> I remember when...

> I'm afraid...

> I'm happy to...

It seems a little absurd to me to ask the OP to cite the source(s) of their thoughts, emotions and memories.

A quick search readily brings up multiple articles about margarine and heart disease.

Women who eat four or more teaspoons of margarine a day have a 50 percent greater risk of developing heart disease than women who eat margarine only once a month

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/05/us/study-links-heart-disea...

Margarine intake and subsequent coronary heart disease in ...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9229205

Butter vs. Margarine - Harvard Health

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/butter-vs-mar...

From the Harvard Health link:

> From the standpoint of heart disease, butter remains on the list of foods to use sparingly mostly because it is high in saturated fat. [--] Some of the newer margarines that are low in saturated fat, high in unsaturated fat, and free of trans fats are fine as long as you don't use too much (they are still rich in calories).

I would say the jury is still out on newer margarines. Give it a few years before drawing conclusions. Our understanding of food chemistry is still in its infancy and we routinely overturn things that have been "common knowledge" in this area.

Plus it doesn't have any bearing on the detail that such articles can be readily found with a quick search, so there's no need to ask the OP to cite their sources.

Ah makes sense. Trans-fats were definitely bad. But you can get trans-fat free and even lower staturated fat content margarine today.

don't be anti-plant

I've banned this account for trolling. Doing this on HN will get your main account banned as well, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Good point. Another issue I take with these substitutes are the amount of ingredients used to make the fake counterparts. Whilst a burger is most meat, a “veggie burger” contains dozens of highly processed ones.

> Whilst a burger is most meat

Meat that is fed almost exclusively corn: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/that-burger-youre...

It's not exactly healthy either.

There's three classes of veggies burgers to me: the old fake patties, such as Boca burger; the newer, less pretentious patties full of recognizable veggies; and the latest, ultra-processed fake meat, such as Impossible and Beyond. The second class, the ones not afraid to show they're just beans, grains, and veggies shaped like a disk, are the most appealing to me. They're also the most versatile.

As a meat eater I liked the occasional Boca burger. They were always just stupid expensive (recollecting college) and never stuck in my mind as a periodic way to reduce meat consumption.

But I am one of those people with a hybrid only because I like the gas mileage.

What's wrong with having lots of ingredients?

I'm happy to eat plants of all sorts, in their natural form. A slurry of plant fats and proteins which approximates eggs sounds like nasty factory runoff.

I don't get this trend anyway. There are lots of perfectly good vegetarian dishes out there.

Why do we have to whore out the food industry to the tastes of meat eaters in the name of saving the planet? Can't wannabe "virtuous" meat eaters learn to eat vegetarian foods without making them look and taste like meat?

The whole thing is some form of insanity.

(For the record: I eat semi-vegetarian in that I eat less meat than most Americans and some meals are meatless. I have been accused of being vegetarian by meat-and-potatoes people and vegetarians also openly hate on me for my "crimes" of eating a sensible diet that fails to fall into either political camp.)

I'm a big proponent of vegetarianism, and I think there's a lot of value in these "transitional meats." I've convinced one friend to vegetarianism over the years by cooking "meat-like" replacements for them... this is the type of person who might say "oh I've considered it before, but I could never give up hamburgers" to a vegetarian.

Overall if the goal is meat reduction, then it's a win if you can get someone to occasionally buy a transitional meat instead of the real thing.

I've had more luck trying to get people to eat plant-based meat-likes than cricket-based foods, anyway.

Meat consumption reduction to 2-4 meals a week feels ok. Some cheese and eggs other days. This is totally bearable.

What I feel is really detrimental is the fitness culture pushing for no carbs and 2 grams of proteins per kg of body weight.

If fitness culture were the main problem I think we'd be ok. Most people in the US are not even remotely fit.

The other end seems much more common... we've got big boxes of cheap frozen hamburgers sold in supermarkets that consist largely of beef heart, tongue, and whatever other garbage is left behind. The baseline for what consists of meat in the US is almost literally what's swept off the floor.

I'm a proponent of eating animals - and I don't think there's a lot of value in these fake meats.

But hear me out.

We eat too much meat and I loathe the industrial complex that supplies 'technically meat' - at the expense of it actually being good and the lack of welfare that brought that price down. The average turkey is tofu-taste with suffering. Nobody should want this (and I genuinely don't see how anybody enjoys eating it).

On the converse, a grass-fed, heritage breed, 28 day aged cow rib-eye is amazing. Not cheap, it shouldn't be cheap, it should be a rare treat - is amazing, and I'm not giving that up.

What I dislike about the "tech startups selling fake-meat" is that they're treating us like fuck-wits. #press-release Burger King is now selling our patty, only available at BK!! Nobody who cares about their food was going to BK in the first place. Saying "BK customers can't tell the difference" is a f'in low bar.

Sorry, I'm meandering. I just meant that the world is full of amazing vegetarian/vegan food - homemade hummus, pitta and roasted veg. Might be my favourite meal. Few toasted pine-nuts chef's-kiss Switch up to vegetarian and there's even more amazing choice and dishes.

What we should be pushing is that a felafel-burger is amazing. BK selling a beetroot coloured chemical concoction and telling us their customers can't taste the difference, is not a 'win'

So I agree with you conceptually, that would be a better way to eat meat and I'd likely join in if that were our reality. But I think you may be overestimating how daring Americans are with food... or just how familiar they are with food in general.

A lot of the country has almost a toddler-like relationship with food. They like what they like and you have to practically shove it down their throats to get them to try anything new... just look at the restaurant options available in some parts of rural america... they're basically large chains microwaving frozen foods (at least the south gets exposure to some authentic mexican food and barbeque... the midwest is... well... limited)

People literally die because they will not eat healthier to save their lives. It's not at all unusual for a diabetic person to lose a limb and still not change their diet.

I'd wager that a meat-like replacement that tastes enough like meat and looks like meat will be more successful than anything on the BK menu containing the word falafel. It's like tricking children to eat healthier by putting a food they don't want to try into a fun shape.

I'm only an infrequent visitor to the states - but I feel you're selling your country short.

Everywhere I've been, there's been an immigrant selling their food - first place I randomly had Ethiopian food for example. But also my first Tamale, which seemed pretty normalized.

I think people not being able to cook, is maybe the hurdle we need to clear - or not having the confidence to cook. My mum let me help out, I got taught at school - not to any great standard, but enough to instill in me the confidence that after a few tries you can make anything you want (and now I have fun seasonal arguments when I produce a meat thermometer and ask her to stop killing it)

Typing that actually helped me out. It's not that I have an issue with meat substitues - it's that they seem to be pasting over the symptom, and missing the cure. Getting somebody to buy their Beyond-Meat-Patty from BK is good, but it would be better if they cooked themselves, or picked up something from their local-vegetarian-Indian restaurant - "STOP GOING TO BK"

Whole Beyond Meat thing seems to be some weird stop-gap - filling a cheap-meat hole. "Just Stop Eating Cheap Meat"

I mean... I'm American, and I don't think they're selling us short.

>Whole Beyond Meat thing seems to be some weird stop-gap - filling a cheap-meat hole. "Just Stop Eating Cheap Meat"

For a variety of reasons (if nothing else, even just economics wise) this is unlikely to ever happen in America.

At the very least, we lose nothing by trying to solve the problem both ways - substitutes for the low end of eating to move people who wouldn't otherwise move, and better education/skills/etc for the general range of the population where it's lacking.

Say what you will about the consumers, but making plant-based food that appeals to them is a worthy goal.

Beyond beef and impossible have been successful because meat eaters are willing to choose them and like them.

Put another way, can't you learn to like an all meat diet without sneaking in vegetables or making them seem like non-meat? (Well, no, you like what you like, and you probably won't make huge changes without incentive).

Personally I don't know of anyone who eats the fake beef in my social circle. They are pretty horrific when you look at the ingredients: Tertiary butylhydroquinone, Erythosine, Propylene glycol, Ferric orthophosphate. Ugh.

But lentils, carrots, potatos, brocolli, peas, beans, onions, mushrooms, nuts -- that's fantastic.

One real downside of Beyond/Impossible is that every restaurant I've been to that had a decent plant-based burger (i.e, their own veggie patty) has just switched to ordering one of the big two.

Stuff tastes less interesting now.

+ Tertiary butylhydroquinone - anti-oxodant, found in crackers

+ Erythosine - Red No3, found in basically all red foods

+ Propylene glycol - found in peanut butter, eye drops

+ Ferric orthophosphate aka Iron Phosphate - used to treat anemia ,found in your multivitamin

My feeling is that "meat appreciators" aren't choosing them. They're being eaten by people who just default to a meat a their protein of choice - and we'd be better off pushing something that's non-meat and tastes better.

I mean just consider the 'vegeburgers' these places previously sold. There was clearly no attempt/inclination previously - and I feel the meat substitutes now offered come with as much care.

It wouldn't surprise me if this were less about saving the planet and more about hedging against the possibility that factory farming ceases to be sustainable such that prices for real meat increase enormously. Such a circumstance would create a huge new market for relatively inexpensive meat substitutes, competing on palatability probably far more than nutrition.

Yes, someone with more business sense than me who is also more invested in turning a profit smells money. That's basically the real reason it gets done.

If people really want to save the planet and eat less meat as part of that goal, there are better ways to achieve that. But those ways tend to be harder to monetize effectively than creating a product that inflexible, overprivileged people will snap up and feel virtuous about.

I like meat. It sucks, because I recognize the ethical implications of eating meat. I tried being vegan briefly and I dearly missed eggs.

Saying "existing vegetarian food is good enough, let's not see what else we can do, everyone should just get over it" seems a bit silly to me.

Traditional vegetarian diets allow for eggs. Vegetarian and vegan mean different things.

Your extremist attempt to go from presumably a meat-centered diet to absolutely no animal products at all is not really a counterpoint to anything I've said.

> Traditional vegetarian diets allow for eggs. Vegetarian and vegan mean different things.

Yes... I'm aware. That's why I said vegan.

> Your extremist attempt to go from presumably a meat-centered diet to absolutely no animal products at all is not really a counterpoint to anything I've said.

Your post was hardly a formal argument to be taken down through rigor. You said you don't "get this trend", saying that there are already good vegetarian meals. I explained that I would like more vegetarian meals to replace things like eggs.

If you think this wasn't a "counterpoint", examine your own post first.

Are meat eaters the target audience here? I was always under the impression that the target audience was vegetarians that longed for a burger et al.

As a meat eater, I can't imagine myself ever even trying a plant-based "meat" product. If I want veggies, I eat veggies. If I want meat, I eat meat. I know, crazy.

I invite a food scientist or some such type to correct me (it's HN, so there's probably one lurking around somewhere), but the margarine issue was due to high concentrations of trans-fats coupled with the already high concentrations of saturated fat.

I believe a number of the "vegan" butters on market shelves today strive to avoid this issue, hence it's not necessarily the same... or, rather, to put it another way: just because something was done wrong once doesn't mean it can't be tried again with a better formula.

It's not like regular butter is being phased out here, and people really shouldn't be consuming so much of this stuff (butter or vegan butter) period.

This sounds sounds like conflating plant-based foods with hydrogenated oils from the early "low fat" days.

Do you have some specific concerns? Specific processes? Specific ingredients? (like heme iron https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/heme-iron/ )

Nature is very kind and provides enough food to survive even without meat. I personally avoid all these ultra processed plant based products targeted to vegetarians/vegans and favor classic veggies/fruits

Don't forget that in the game of capitalism companies are in a never ending quest to develop new products, this simply is the next iteration. Just like cigarettes and alcohol were marketed as medicine, these things will be marketed as climate change or animal cruelty solutions

I don't believe that food, like many other industries, needs to be disrupted. I'll stick to veggies and fruit, pasta, bread, local stuff if possible &c. all the basics we've been eating for hundreds of years, processed food is poison, plant based or not

you don't think there's long term health data for things like pea protein, soy protein, and omega-3 fatty acids?

> A slurry of plant fats and proteins which approximates eggs sounds like nasty factory runoff.

Assuming that you're talking about all plant-based processed foods with this, you can pry tofu and vegan breads from my cold, dead hands.

Vrimp is officially the worst branding I have heard since Kraft rebranded to Mondelez.

Otherwise very cool! I've started eating Impossible or Beyond burgers wherever they have them because I like the flavor and honestly beige blend of 1000 cattle [1] isn't a particularly appetizing product.

Looking forward to expanding this to eggs and, uh, vrimp.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/05/there...

Link without paywall: https://archive.vn/uXzaz

Vrimp reminds me of the McPlant from McDonalds... it almost seems intentionally bad.

> beige blend of 1000 cattle

true, most chains are inedible, but I just can't get past the aftertaste - feels too synthetic and unhealthy.

I feel people tho tout "you won't believe it's not beef" have never tried either of them.

I agree it’s definitely not beef but I like it as it’s own thing.

Its hard for me to understand exactly how the term "plant-based" came to be an acceptably descriptive name for a category of food. Is it so hard to just put the name of the plants in the name of the food? I think most people would be skeptical of going to a bar and ordering something off the menu that was simply called "Animal-based Wings."

It's probably because the concoction contains so many elements that it's difficult to label.

No it's because so many people have an allergic reaction to the idea (and ideology) of Vegan. People who eat plant-based tend to be more (health based) pro-veggie than militantly anti-meat. It's trying to promote a healthy vision with out the quagmire of the extremists.

It's a terminology used to entice those who feel like they'd need a replacement for the things they're used to, and yet might have a bad perception of the plants used in these products (like eww that tastes bad) - so it's a term for the general population.

Also these products as mostly a combination of plants, like it wouldn't be right (or maybe even legal) to say that the vEGGie is soy eggs.

My pet theory is that it's actually because vegan and vegetarian are too charged of a term at this point.

"Plant based" is fairly neutral and doesn't outright prescribe a hard line.

In Germany, most vegan products have a "Vegan", "Veganer" or similar prefix/suffix. Brands that don't really care about vegans but really just want the money then bring out "plant-based" products, because there are no rules around that adjective.

On Plant-Based burgers you could still have mayonnaise with eggs in it. Or sauces that aren't vegan.

Also, they try to go for people that are really against "vegan" food because "plant-based" sounds less aggressive. In my opinion (am vegan), it's bs.

Eh, it varies. I've ordered meat loaf, hot dogs, and fish and chips in bars. I've bought containers of mixed nuts without looking to see what kind of nuts were inside. I'm not a big juice person but lots of people buy juice blends without checking the ingredients.

If they listed the shit they put in them nobody would eat them. Same thing with hot dog sausages or chicken nuggets, when you've seen the factory videos they're puke inducing

I would think there is a big difference between using anuses and other misc. parts in hotdogs and mung bean protein in a beyond burger in terms of what's revolting.

Foods that can be "engineered" these days are getting quite impressive, at least on a technical level. It seems that we're getting close to turning soy, yeast, etc. into almost arbitrary flavors.

Using this knowledge for new vegan products seems better than just creating increasingly bizarre flavors of chips or junkier junk food.

I tried the Tuna recently and think it is close to indistinguishable when you don't put too much attention on finding out if it is real or not. I would say it does it's job for most dishes, specially for things like ready-made sandwiches in a supermarket.

I am a big hater of canned tuna and my vegetarian wife once bought the plant-based tuna from Nestle. It's a disaster, it's as stinky as the real one. I hated the smell as much as the real one. So they did nail it. Therefore I see their egg and shrimps as a big opportunity. Honestly, I could never understand why vegetarian products can't reproduce the meaty flavors better. There are so many chips and junk-food products with fake smells who taste closer to the real thing than most replacement products, while being vegetarian or even vegan.

A big part of meaty flavor is the tasty animal fat. I find a lot of veggie products just taste like vegetable oil mostly, not too appetizing and makes you feel pretty gross after a meal.

I wish there wasn't such a focus on making (and failing) meat flavor. I know vegetarians who don't even like eating the beyond burgers because it tastes a little bit too meaty for them, and obviously it doesn't taste meaty enough to get people to stave off meat en masse, so I don't know who that product is for. I wish we would lean into existing cuisine that doesn't use meat, like falafel, which is my favorite vegetarian food by far.

if it is plants, it is not Eggs

best way for a product to not work is to label it as "plant based" *insert_animal_food_name*

The product is called “ vEGGie.” The branding is silly, but certainly doesn’t seem deceptive.

If you consider a chicken that only eats corn, an egg is made of corn (and air, water and whatever the chicken eats that's not her food). It's just that it's fabricated by a chicken.

This is so very annoying especially in vegan restaurants. Why is everything called "Chicken" or "Beef" when its really gardein? I wish they would just call it ground chuck or something so its clear what you are being served. It's confusing even for vegetarians sometimes.

Are you equally pedantic on the colloquial classification of nuts when a large portion of the "nuts" we eat are actually drupes? Or fruit vs vegetable classifications? Perhaps language is a tool used to convey meanings and ideas in ways that are quickly and concisely understandable. The "plant-based" insert_animal_food_name allows people to understand that this food item is meant to mimic an animal-based food item, except it's derived from plants.

That's a good point and a good question

My personal issue is i then expect the product to taste similar

I got disappointed when i first tried "almond" milk, i was expecting the taste to not differ from the cow milk i used to drink, and it was simply just a disgusting taste.. that made me puke..

Vrimp sounds like something I would stay far away from. Other than that, sounds cool.

Vimeo

Vine

Vrimp

Vrump

It's depressing to think that a group of people were paid to think of a name and after many months and countless meetings they came up with vrimp

I'm sure hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent engineering this name

Do they list ingredients and nutrient facts anywhere yet?

What's next? Plant based vodka?

The articles use of a comma vs & made for a bit a confusing read. But maybe that was intentional since got me to open it.

I have one question... Why?

https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-02/ipbes_global_a...

Page 28:

>Globally, land-use change is the direct driver with the largest relative impact on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, while direct exploitation of fish and seafood has the largest relative impact in the oceans (well established) (Figure SPM.2) {2.2.6.2}.

>Over one third of the world’s land surface and nearly three-quarters of available freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production {2.1.11}. Crop production occurs on some 12 per cent of total ice-free land. Grazing occurs on about 25 per cent of total ice-free lands and approximately 70 per cent of drylands {2.1.11}. Approximately 25 per cent of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions come from land clearing, crop production and fertilization, with animal-based food contributing 75 per cent of that.

Background on IPBES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Science-Poli...:

>The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an intergovernmental organization established to improve the interface between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services.[1] It is intended to serve a similar role to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[2]

People didn't wait for ultra processed plant based food to be vegetarians/vegans. If anything it's just capitalism catching on a trend now that the market is big enough.

Nestlé doesn't give a single fuck about ethics and morality

According to this [1], producing tofu for protein consumes more energy (fuels), and emits more greenhouse gases, than producing chicken. Tofu wins in total calories produced, but chicken wins if we only look at the amount of protein produced.

We don't know what fraction of plants can be used to produce these plant-based egg and shrimp, what what happens to the parts of the plants that they were not able to put into use in these products. We don't know if they are more or less efficient way to turn plants into protein, than poultry or dairy.

[1] Tables B2, B3 in https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/soy-vs-animal-p...

Vegans are vegans for many reasons, the environment is just one of them. Maybe Tofu is not as easy on the env as chicken, but on average a plant-based or completely vegan diet is way better than a meat/fish/milk/egg-based one.

Anecdote from Germany: Anti-Vegans or Meat-Conservatives always like to say "Yeah you vegans say your food is way better for the environment, but then you only eat avocados which need tons of water!!!" which is of course completely wrong (and the avocado water thing can be helped).

When Nestlé’s involved the answer to that question is always money.

I won’t be surprised if they start convincing some third world counties that meat is bad and to eat their products making bank while causing widespread malnourishment in the process. It would not be the first time.

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