Comment by z9znz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by z9znz | Hacker News Reader

I used to enjoy oysters in the past, before I learned about the significant health risks that come from eating them raw. If you're unlucky, you can be in for a seriously bad health trip.

Also knowing that oysters are essentially water filters, it seems strange to "eat the filter". I cannot even fathom eating Gulf coast oysters...

Having fake alternatives is nice. However, like the recent topic of the robotic industrial farming weed sprayer, I think it is engineering effort directed to the wrong place.

The #1 problem with transitioning from an animal based diet to plant based is the misunderstanding of what plant based diets can be. Ask a traditional meat eater what a vegetarian meal looks like, and they probably envision taking their steak away from the plate and just leaving some broccoli and potatoes. Indeed that's not very enticing.

Good vegetarian meals are practically art in terms of their combinations of textures and flavors, not to mention colors. But they take a lot more skill to make, so people rarely encounter them.

Instead, everyone is busy trying to replicate meat without meat - namely to replace that steak that was taken off their plate with something that is close to it.

Until we reach scale with lab grown meat (which even then I have doubts about long term downsides), no fake meat replacement is really good. They are manufactured, which means there are extra ingredients (or quantities of) that are not good for you. I think the reason for all this effort is that this is business. Companies want to sell you a thing; but a well made vegetarian meal is really just good plant ingredients and skilled preparation. It's hard to package that into a box which can be sold in the grocery store.

The plant based meat replacements won't substitute for a steak, but they can do pretty well treated as done in some Asian cuisines, as a flavoring element rather than by themselves.

Even in something as simple as a burger, they can do very well -- because a fast food burger is often loaded with sauces and other add-ons that you barely notice that there's a patty in there at all. They could substitute chicken or fish and you'd barely notice.

The best thing is to learn cuisines that feature vegetables cooked with strong flavors. Indian, Korean, and Chinese are notable examples. Doing that it's easy to extend that and add protein with either meat in small quantities, or substitutes, or non-meats like tofu or mushrooms. All very delicious, nutritious, and environmentally sound.

Indeed. I can't help but think a lot of the "plant based" products now are about erecting new toll booths around vegetable products that in a more natural form people could be growing themselves. We should be moving further towards people growing at least some of their own food where possible, not further away from it.

When I first tried the now notorious Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll - which I have to admit are very good - I happened to meet a friend I hadn't seen for a while, and stopped for a chat. His dog was begging for some of the food - and it occurred to me that I had no clue if it was safe for the dog to eat.

> Good vegetarian meals are practically art in terms of their combinations of textures and flavors, not to mention colors. But they take a lot more skill to make, so people rarely encounter them.

Indian food is vegetarian almost by default, has a spectacular variety, and doesn't rely on meat substitutes at all. This, of course, is after having developed and iterated a culture of vegetarianism over almost four millennia (the Ṛgveda mentions abstention from meat consumption, and was likely composed in 1900 BCE – 1700 BCE).

This vegetarianism is a result of the Indian religions' tenet of ahiṃsā, or non-violence.

From pani puri to paneer, and from sambar to sarson ka saag, I feel like everyone should look at Indian food to see exactly what 'vegetarian food variety' is.

There's something for everyone: sweets, spicy (no, not all Indian food is diarrhoea-inducingly piquant), sour, savoury, bitter, stews (also called 'curries' in Anglosphere countries), stir-fried dishes, rice dishes, snacks—the sheer diversity is endless.

Honourable mention to Chinese and South-East Asian cuisine, which do use meat analogues, and developed a breathtaking variety of 'mock meats' centuries ago, and developed their own vegetarian cultures from Buddhism (an offshoot of Hinduism anyway, and therefore an export of Indian culture).

It's a very Western thing to eat so much meat, every meal of every day. More than one-third the population in India calls themselves 'vegetarian' (that's more vegetarians than the rest of the world, combined); the proportion of meals that are vegetarian anyway is significantly higher, approaching 80% or so[1].

Note that in India, 'vegetarian' typically means 'lacto-vegetarian and stricter' (includes veganism and Jain vegetarianism[2], which excludes root vegetables and the alliums).

Seriously, Western people: make Indian food.

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/08/eight-in-te...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism

Replicating meat is important for cultural reasons: people don’t want to reinvent dishes or have them taste different, they want what feels right. Vegetarian substitutes work in many - but most importantly - not all dishes.

Anyway, an interesting company in this space is Meati: https://www.meati.com

Effectively growing steaks/chicken from mushroom root. I’ve tried their stuff over the past day and it’s pretty damn close, and overall feels much simpler than the other fake meats. It’s pretty cool stuff.

I'm with you, I find meat substitutes off-putting.

too much soy, too many seed oils in fake meat for my liking. but if you haven't tried char broiled oysters, that don't carry the same risks, then you're missing out.

The popular fake meats like beyond don’t contain soy, they use pea protein in its place I believe

Beyond avoids it, but the other big name recently, Impossible Foods, uses it. Regardless, the soy panic is absurd.

I must have riled the vegans with this one.

Nah, you’re just regurgitating tired unproven pseudo science for health discussions. Both soy and seed oils are by and large fine, and have both been demonized by dubious PR campaigns.

I have actual documented health issues with both, and must avoid them. but you go right on ahead assuming that everybody fits your worldview.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com