Plant-based ‘beef’ reduces CO2 but threatens ag jobs | Hacker News Reader

Plant-based ‘beef’ reduces CO2 but threatens ag jobs

news.cornell.edu

19 pointsPaulHoule84 comments

> Mason-D’Croz said, “with substantial disruptions observed across the food system, particularly in the beef-value chain, which could contract substantially by as much as 45% under the 60%-replacement scenario – challenging the livelihoods of the more than 1.5 million people employed in these sectors.”

There's no way 60% of beef consumption will be replaced by plant-burgers without some kind of coercion.

60% seems like a lot, but it actually isn't: there are a lot of consumers (like myself) who would be more than happy to eat nothing but plant-based burgers, now that they're within spitting distance of meat in terms of taste and feel.

I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian, but the only times I really eat hamburger anymore are when I need a convenient meal while traveling and a plant-based alternative is not available.

Steak and other "whole" cuts are harder, obviously. But 40-45% of beef consumed in the US is ground beef[1], so cutting that by even half would get us half way there. And that seems entirely possible, even conservative, without coercion based on current consumer trends.

[1]: https://beef2live.com/story-ground-beef-united-states-128-10...

> Steak and other "whole" cuts are harder, obviously. But 40-45% of beef consumed in the US is ground beef[1], so cutting that by even half would get us half way there.

Frustratingly it wouldn't, because the ground beef being consumed is largely an afterproduct of cows raised for those larger cuts. Burgers are cheap not because beef is cheap (it's not) but because they're being subsidized by brisket roasts and tenderloins cut from the same animal (there's surely some dairy cows in the mix too, but I'm led to believe that most older dairy animals get slaughtered for non-grocery products like animal feed).

We need to reduce steak/bbq consumption primarily, doing so will make burgers more expensive and reduce their consumption as a side effect.

Sure, but don't forget you can't have steak and other "whole" cuts without also creating an entire cow. There's always going to be random bits of it that are best suited to be hamburger. We can't really just stop eating hamburger and keep eating steak.

I do think that if McDonalds ends up selling a beef alternative burger at or below the cost of hamburger it'll be a huge shift. Their beef isn't great to begin with so the fake stuff might even be an improvement.

>Their beef isn't great to begin with so the fake stuff might even be an improvement.

It's a big improvement (the UK recipe anyway). I love beef but get the McPlant any time I get a McDonalds burger, it's a lot nicer than their beef patties. I wish it came with the option for real cheese, although the vegan cheese they serve it with isn't bad. They just need to lower the price.

The McPlant sold in the UK is fantastic:

https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/vegan-mcplant.htm...

It uses a Beyond Meat patty, and a bespoke non-dairy cheese slice.

Unlike the trial in the US, this product is available in every UK store and is 100% Vegan.

The UK has long had a significant Vegetarian market, and the Vegan market has grown significantly. This isn't even the first Vegan product McDonald's UK has introduced.

Can't wait for it to hit the US.

> Can't wait for it to hit the US.

The McPlant has already been discontinued:

https://www.foodbeverageinsider.com/formulation/mcdonalds-dr... (link credit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32387526)

Wow what the hell. I guess we're just not ready for that.

> 60% seems like a lot, but it actually isn't: there are a lot of consumers (like myself) who would be more than happy to eat nothing but plant-based burgers, now that they're within spitting distance of meat in terms of taste and feel.

Quantify "a lot."

> I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian...

Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

> Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

> Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

It might be an ideology like "I care a lot about climate change," but I think it's unusual for people to make food choices ideologically like that; especially independently, outside of something like a religious group.

I think that puts a limit on the adoption of these substitutes. The vegetarians, vegans, and some other ideologicals will quickly jump on board. After that it will get a lot harder to sell these things.

>> Not eating a burger frequently implies an idealogical motivation?

>No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

I'm not the person you're replying to but I don't see how that follows - wouldn't you try something new on a menu and then keep ordering it if you liked it? To refuse to try something because it doesn't contain meat seems, to use your words, ideologically motivated.

Also let's get real here - we're talking about burger patties, the majority of which will be served by fast food joints like Burger King and McDonalds. Thin, made out of flavourless meat and cooked until they're choking hazard dry.

Idealogical motivation is such a deceptive phrase. We all have motivations. Motivations form a framework that we make decisions from. We like tastes, textures, new experiences (or not), etc, depending on who we are as a person.

Calling eating a plant meat "idealogical" like it's a bad thing is just pure deceptive rhetoric.

Right now beef is cheaper and better tasting. But vegan meat is tech. It's improving and getting cheaper. 3-5 years down the road it might be the more affordable option. Imagine burger chains offering you the same two burgers. You can't taste the difference but one is 50c cheaper and healthier.

How many people would choose the beef?

That's where the chasm will be crossed. Farming can't scale further but vegan beef is tech. There's a lot of efficiency that can be added to the process to reduce costs and improve taste/texture.

> But vegan meat is tech. 3-5 years down the road it might be the more affordable option.

Just like margarine.

> Imagine burger chains offering you the same two burgers. You can't taste the difference but one is 50c cheaper and healthier.

Key word: imagine, as in fantasy.

Honestly, I don't really see that happening, except at the very low end (e.g. swapping out a crap-quality McDonald's beef patty with some plant thing to save a nickle, but I'm not sure if even that would make any sense. IIRC, most of McDonald's beef comes from used-up diary cows (e.g. waste from other processes).

True, no one can predict the future.

So far the price did go down and quality did improve but obviously it might hit a wall. I do feel that these are the type of processes that can be made more efficient at scale but that's a feeling from an external observer. Not an expert in the field.

OTOH the quality of meat is deteriorating due to industrial farming. Antibiotics, bad feed, etc. The quality vs. price problem goes both ways.

> No, but seeking out one of these plant-burgers over real meat probably does.

Where I am, they're roughly the same price as real meat, easier to keep frozen, and I don't appreciably notice the difference (they're definitely not meat, but they're much better than the previous generation of meat alternatives).

Separately, a lot of my friends are vegetarian or vegan, which makes them convenient when I'm having company. But I'm perfectly content with them myself, as someone who loves animal products otherwise.

You have to remember that you don't actually have to have 60% of people quit meat cold turkey to reach that number, you just have to get ~6/10 meals averaged over everyone meals that would have had meat to not be either by switching to something naturally meatless or using a subsitute. You can drastically reduce meat consumption across a population without anyone being vegetarian or vegan.

> ideological motivation

Maybe it's possible you don't literally mean "ideology" but the reasons people choose to consume less meat are typically epistemic:

* Because it reduces their carbon footprint and is better for the environment.

* Because, for them, cutting out meat improves their health. Usually related to cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease, fiber, and sometimes osteoporosis.

* Because veggies and meat substitutes take longer to spoil.

* Because veggies and grains are less expensive.

* Because cutting out meat is associated with long term successful weight loss.

The only ideological reason to switch is animal suffering.

There are other ideological reasons, such as inefficiencies of meat production through grain, water shortage issues, meat factory working conditions, boycotting the importing of low quality foreign meat, possibly others.

I'm sure most people would happily eat a McVeggie patty if it was cheaper than beef and tasted the same.

I wouldn't make that assumption. I wouldn't order that. I would always pay more for the beef. I'm just not going to eat that other stuff.

And that's fine, the point isn't to make everyone go meatless. People with strong preferences are always going to exist. The point is to reduce meat consumption overall in absolute terms.

I just wonder if the market for meat substitutes is already about as big as it ever will be without an ecological disaster or government coercion to increase demand.

Probably not. Beyond and Impossible are considerably better than previous products and there are still many people that aren't aware of that. They are still scaling up because of high demand. As they open bigger factories they'll get cheaper than meat which will drive even more demand.

I think we should work against this point. Eating meat is a fundamental part of the human experience. We're losing our agricultural genomes that can never be replaced. We need to encourage people to eat a broader variety of meats from smaller producers, not eliminate meat consumption.

Agreed, but most people going through a drive-thru are not there to order something healthy.

Actually not even close. The proteins are completely different and one has a ton of carbs. Beyond burger is struggling pretty hard right now.

Wat? Beyond Meat's revenue grew 36% and 14% in 2020, and 2021 respectively, they have a 25% gross profit margin. They're doing just fine.

You need to look at more recent data, it's looking really rough.

Oh I am not debating wether or not it is healthier. I am talking about Fast Food.

I don't know what you want quantified, since it's not a quantitative claim: it's a perceptual claim about how 60% of anything seems like a big number when it can actually be explained by relatively small changes in consumer behavior.

> Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.

No, not really. I like animal products a lot. I think the closest ideological interest I have here is broad environmentalism. My understanding is that that's a common interest, to say the least, and that I am not particularly stringent or earnest when it comes to it (at least in terms of my individual choices).

>>Maybe so, but your food choices seem to be similarly driven by some kind ideological motivation.<<

I'm not a conservative on most issues, but youthful (18-39) conservatives might be more ecologically bent than you would expect, so I'm not sure which ideology you were referring to. The "let it all burn" and "toss it into the ocean" attitude is a dinosaur and people are (finally) seeing the writing on the wall. The Boomers are retiring and starting to die off. Gen X and the generations after are starting to make decisions, and they've always been more ecologically sound on both sides of the isle.

https://www.yccdaction.org/

https://www.climatesolution.eco/the-american-climate-contrac...

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916238283/light-years-ahead-o...

EDIT: formatting

> ...so I'm not sure which ideology you were referring to.

Any ideology that's mainly about something other than food (e.g. choosing a vegan diet out of concern for animal welfare).

You're not going to get anywhere close to 60% adoption of fake-meat without coercion or some unrealistic level of popular ideological commitment.

OK, the animal welfare angle makes more sense to me than the environmental concern. I apologize if I spoke out of turn if I misunderstood. So many people are bringing politics into conversations, which it turns out I may have done, inadvertently =)

Though, honestly, I think they have a better chance at moving the needle with alternative meets like rabbits or even grasshoppers (eventually). Those veggie burgers are pretty bad for you, nutritionally.

It seems you’re right. A few ‘burger chains were trialing meat substitute ‘burgers and have ended the partnerships.

It remains to be seen if this is due to lackluster demand or they’re now developing their own plant proteins with the information they have.

Which ones ended their partnerships? Burger King is expanding theirs, at least as of a month or so ago[1].

I'm not saying it isn't happening, but I'm skeptical of a macro trend away from meat substitutes here. Anecdotally, I've seen meat substitutes show up in more places around me (like Mexican-style fast food).

[1]: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/burger-king-new-impossible-...

Here is one trail that ended: https://www.foodbeverageinsider.com/formulation/mcdonalds-dr... In addition to McD's, PandExpress and TacoBell discontinued trial menu items.

Panda Express and Taco Bell might be different, but that article makes it sound like the trial concluded as planned:

> At the pilot’s onset, McDonald’s indicated the McPlant would be available as part of the pilot for a limited time while supplies last. The company confirmed to Food & Beverage Insider in August the test run concluded as planned.

In other words: they ran a trial, and it finished. That itself isn't evidence for either success or failure, any more than taking a scheduled blood test is/isn't evidence for a blood disease.

> In other words: they ran a trial, and it finished. That itself isn't evidence for either success or failure, any more than taking a scheduled blood test is/isn't evidence for a blood disease.

There might be some ambiguity, but the evidence needle is definitely more on the "failure" side.

This isn't like a routine blood test. They were test marketing a product. If the test succeeded, it would be foolish of them to not roll it out widely and make more money off of its now-measured success. It's very likely the product didn't meet their expectations, but it's hard to say by how much.

> If the test succeeded, it would be foolish of them to not roll it out widely and make more money off of its now-measured success. It's very likely the product didn't meet their expectations, but it's hard to say by how much.

I don't think you can safely assume that. There are lots of reasons to not immediately turn a trial into a full run: logistical and supply chain considerations, contract negotiations for the ingredients, running surveys and tweaking the items based on customer feedback, &c.

This is true in almost every industry except software: you put space between the trial and full deployment because there are physical and logistical considerations that cost time and money.

If it's cheaper, I could see fast food really adopting it.

Agreed. I personally will never eat the stuff unless I'm imprisoned.

Jobs or a habitable planet. Which to choose, which to choose...

Talk about the shittiest take you could have. They don't even claim it'd reduce total jobs, just that it would reduce ag jobs.

This is the same as saying "Solar might save the planet, but those 5 coal miners still working in west virginia might lose their job"

Re-read the comment. I'm pretty sure the author would chose a habitable planet over [ag] jobs.

I'll make my comment more clear. I was agreeing with this commenter.

I've been vegan for a couple of decades now and during that period I've had that time to observe meat eating people get all upset about veganism at various dinner parties during even though I don't advertise it or even talk about it.

What I've concluded is there's just NO WAY the world is going to do the right thing until the entire Amazon rainforest (and forests in general) have been converted to food production for food animals, dusty fattening lots for slaughter stretch to the horizon and all fresh water sources are drained.

So sensitive is the subject of what one consumes!

Maybe once climate disasters become more common and the price of meat becomes far too expensive for value menus will we start to change course. But I doubt it, we'll probably build meat factories in space before that.

In the meantime, those precious ag jobs are probably more threatened by automation than impossible burgers.

Is this really a surprise to anyone? Ofc ag will suffer but isn’t that the point?

This is no different than the complaint that coal miners will be put out of work by renewable energy. They sure will. We don't employ a lot of typewriter technicians these days either.

How many state economies were largely dependent on typewriter repair?

Won't anyone think of the buggy-whip makers?

Anyone else exhausted by the hand wringing whenever obsolescence hits red states particularly hard? Nobody's writing op-eds when corporate realty staff or office front desk staff are laid off due to remote work.

i mean, i feel like there have been lots of articles about how major metro areas moving to remote work negatively impacted the service/hospitality industry in the area.

but also yeah, the red states need to realize that you can't freeze time.

Co2 is important but water is also a pressing issue:Today it takes 441 gallons of water to produce one pound of boneless beef[0]. There are a lot of numbers for this on the the web,and this may not include water for feed and processing/packaging but its a lot of water,when for example, lake Mead is about to become a deadpool. [0]http://meatmythcrushers.com/myths/myth-it-takes-2400-gallons...

Wow, so it's environmentally friendly AND more labor efficient? Great news!

Can’t agriculture workers be retrained to work in other fields? The general consensus seems to agree that our climate is a priority. Now if only there was a way to make those plant burgers tasty

It would also be interesting to see a breakdown on those jobs: it wouldn’t surprise me if many were slaughterhouse workers, who in turn are overwhelmingly undocumented and egregiously underpaid relative to the labor they perform.

Retraining makes intuitive sense to me, but I’m neither a farmer nor an economist. From my lay-perspective, it stands to reason that we’ll need even more plant burger factory workers (and general plant agricultural labor) as demand increases.

The hard problem is making these products have the same nutritional profile of beef, even the low quality one

It's not going to happen anytime soon, just like Soylent isn't goings to replace meals for regular health concious people

This is my concern also.

>Now if only there was a way to make those plant burgers tasty

As bill (the same guy that funded this paper) said [1]"You can get used to the taste difference"

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/14/1018296/bill-gat...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/03/bezos-gates-back-fungus-fake...

[3] https://www.totallyveganbuzz.com/news/bill-gates-alt-dairy-s...

>DM-D and MH acknowledge additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

I've found "vegan meat" to be an interesting microcosm of the entire problem. We allowed our standard of living to exceed what we can sustain as a civilization. And we don't culturally know how to "lower our collective standard of living" in a graceful way. To an extent where we are giving up and our only hope is to "make it taste better" and trick people into thinking a downgrade is an improvement.

This entire article's complaint is an echo of this. We can't fundamentally re-work the underpinning expansionism and expectation of monotonic improvement underpinning the fabric of our society gracefully, we just have to hurt people until they accept living on less. Why re-train when you can just let them starve/die of preventable disease. We have to build a culture of "retraining" of "here is a new thing you can do instead". Without that, the only real decision is which people in what order people get hurt, how often and by whom.

The problem with your "retraining" idea is we've all seen Snowpiercer. We're in the back of the train and we know what you're doing up in front.

That is a clever argument and I like it. It calls out the root problem is that in our implementation of capitalism, we don't feel like we are saving the world for ourselves, or even out children, but for the corporate overlords. We have only spite left to offer, not charity or hope.

To oversimplify it, "I'll preserve coal jobs" (not exact quote) was a vote-winner a while ago. It's incredible that there's a political party holding the world hostage with its temper tantrum of "If the other side wants it, we're against it!", but hey, that's how it currently is.

If I can take the outrage down a notch, political parties survive and thrive on opposition, especially in a two party system. "If the other side wants it, we're against it" is the motto of both American political parties. A voting system that could encourage a multiplicity of political parties, reducing the attractiveness of pure opposition, would be a huge improvement to American politics.

> there's a political party

"A" political party?

Perhaps it's a commentary on how similar the US political parties are. The tone of the comment suggested the commenter is from the US, and thus the US is the only place :-)

Yeah it amuses me how the Democratic and Republican parties and their politicians are so similar practically speaking, but the party-goers(?) scoff at this and try to explain how different they are. I assume to make themselves feel better for voting for one or the other.

Wouldn't want the wrong lizard to get in.

I think they taste as good or better than 90% of fast-food burgers. If you top them with pickles and sauces and veg, then it almost doesn't matter what the "meat" tastes like. Plant-based will likely not ever replaced actually high-quality beef, but that's not what most people are eating.

My go-to plant burger is to caramelize some onions in soy sauce and melt a slice of cheese, then a dollop of Korean chili paste. Tastes great. I also make meatballs with Italian seasoning, air fried, then finished in marinara. It's the kind of recipe I used to make with frozen supermarket ground beef and using Impossible Beef doesn't really make a difference. It's not identical, but it doesn't matter. Still tastes good.

A medium-rare prime rib is only ever going to come from a real cow, but I eat that maybe once a year.

Now if only there was a way to make those plant burgers tasty

Have you tried Impossible ‘meat’? It’s nowhere near replacing a steak (yet?), but to me (a meat eater) it’s as good as the average burger. I will choose it instead of beef for that application nowadays.

Now do email, cars, etc etc

I'm not defending factory meat farming, but have you looked at the ingredients in this fake-meat trash? You'll see palm oil near the top.

Palm oil is disgusting and environmentally disastrous (partly thanks to U.S. incentives that should have been rescinded years ago).

I think sheet meat has promise, but "Impossible" meat is shit meat.

Neither the "Impossible" burger nor the Beyond Burger contains Palm Oil.

Given the ethical and environmental market these products target, it's common for "plant based" meat alternatives to proudly advertise that they are free of palm oil.

I haven't seen where they proudly advertise that. Doing so would be insulting, since they're full of coconut oil.

Neither Impossible nor Beyond use palm oil in anything. Please stop spreading FUD.

OMG it's coconut oil. Feel better now?

OH WAIT EVERYONE: Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are full of coconut oil. MY BAD OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE.

"The Impossible Burger is made from soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, salt, gums, and water and additives"

It's COCONUT OIL, rather than oil from another part of the palm. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!

https://www.mayoclinic.org/dont-get-tricked-by-these-3-heart...

On top of what everyone said, palm oil can be grown sustainably and is not inherently bad as is.

I never said otherwise. But that's not what's happening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/magazine/palm-oil-borneo-...

I have two questions: What is disgusting about palm oil? And, is palm oil more or less environmentally disastrous than meat?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/magazine/palm-oil-borneo-...

I know that oil palms grow where rain forests used to be, but a lot of rain forest is also cut down to feed animals. I don't know which is worse.

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