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xdennis

> The problem is, consumers aren't actually confused.

Nonsense! I was tricked. They:

* make the products look like real sausages and cheese

* sell them in the same packages

* label them in large letters as the real thing

* write "vegan" in small letters

* put them next to the real things

It's all done to trick people.

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I was going to suggest this is an over generalization but interestingly when searching for example images you seem to be right — every image I looked at had things like “vegan” or “soy” in much smaller letters than things like SAUSAGE or CREAM CHEESE.

I eat a mostly plant based diet and primarily recognize the options by brand so I never really noticed this. E.g., I know that Soy Station brand “cheese” is never real cheese despite anything else the label may say. Ditto something like Field Roast’s various “meats”.

At my local grocery store in Massachusetts, some fake meat products are now displayed in the meat section. The thing is though, they (Beyond, etc.) are sometimes more expensive than meat! In some contexts its considered the premium product, and its also there so people having a barbecue or something can provide an option for non-meat eaters. I don't believe at all that they're trying to trick anyone--its more than that. They're trying to position their products as a standard choice, not something from the "health food section."

Its so ironic because vegetarians I know gag when they walk by the meat and fish section and smell everything raw. Making them go there to get their protein seems a little cruel

Don't you have fridges with everything wrapped in plastic? I would expect the non-meat equivalents to be there alongside those that contain meat. It would be strange to have them at a butcher or a fishmonger counter, but most supermarkets have a fridge of pre-packaged processed meat products with varying quantities of meat and filler.

IIRC, Beyond Meat requires that their products be displayed in the meat case because their target customer is a meat-eater.

They don't require it, they request it. Frankly a terrible idea in my opinion because a lot of meat eaters, like GP here, have a persecution complex and this only feeds into that. My grocery store keeps it properly in the "meat substitute" section.

To be fair, Beyond Meat does have prominent "Plant Based" text on its packaging: https://brand-directions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/New_...

> * put them next to the real things

Firstly, plant-based products are real things.

Secondly, I think a supermarket here in Denmark explained it best: They put the same type of meat-based and plant-based together because that's where customers expect them to be, it's simply easier for the products to be found.

Dumb semantic game with the world "real". When they are pretending to be non-vegan/meat based products the word "real" means the original they are copying.

>Secondly, I think a supermarket here in Denmark explained it best: They put the same type of meat-based and plant-based together because that's where customers expect them to be, it's simply easier for the products to be found.

This is well and good but I think the parent comment brings up a good point in that the distinguishing characteristic of the product is being minimized in the packaging - this is deceptive, right? You'd instead think that you'd want the distinguishing element to be boldly labeled, so minimizing it does make it seem at least like comfort with the idea of people mistakenly purchasing the product.

It depends on the brand.

For instance, as someone else noted in this thread, Impossible has clear labeling. [1]

An example of the opposite might be Just Mayo, which is not, in fact, just mayo. In 2015 the FDA sent it a warning letter [2], and it had to adjust its packaging to make it clear that it was a plant-based product, although the name remains.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31941934

[1] https://qz.com/576679/the-fda-decides-that-vegan-just-mayo-i...

Especially when you consider that the profit margins on real meat and cheese are pretty tight, while the profit margins on flavoured soy are huge.

I wonder how cheap flavored soy will be in a world where there isnt a meat industry producing cheap bonemeal and bloodmeal fertilizer

How significant is it as a source of commercial fertilizer? A rounding error, from what I can tell. An article on the situation in Germany gives it the potential to replace 5% of phosphate, if all of the bonemeal was used, and currently, barely any of it is used that way.

https://idw-online.de/de/news642547

It isn't. Not to mention that 80% of the soybeans are used to feed livestock anyway[0]. This is a bullshit argument, as most tend to be when it comes to this topic.

[0] https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/food_practice/susta...

But when we're all vegetarian, where will the bullshit come from?

What is a real sausage? >80% pork? >50% pork? <80% pork? >20 beef?

There's loads of different amounts of meat in sausages. Does it have to have a certain amopunt from an animal to be real?

You are just describing food marketing — It's all designed to entice you.

They do this with eye drops, too. If you're not careful, you'll get homeopathic eye drops which are just water. And it's hard to see tiny print when your eyes are sore and they sell them in the pharmacy, next to real medicine.

I'm still not sure what "apis" is, but I hesitate to put anything related to bees in my eyes, given that this is a common allergen and I'm allergic to enough things already. One can only hope they dilute it out properly, or it might be worse than useless.

APIs are how computers talk to each other.

Not APIs, but apis, allegedly some bee extract.

Yeah, not something I want in my eyes.

As long as they don't dilute it so much that it becomes a fatal toxic dose!

No harsh chemicals! Just purified water, borate buffer, silver sulfate, sodium nitrate... Wait, what? Are we sure this is homeopathic?

Did you take it back or did you try it?

I think vegan products deserve some kind of tobacco like warning label. Let's say 60% standardised "NOT MEAT COULD HARM YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN".

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