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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

It really is not that complex to understand:

You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole or you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes.

The market really isn't that big imho, there are already plenty of alternative to meat for most applications, which are cheaper, less processed and taste as good or better

My gf is vegan, she makes home made black beans patties, cauliflower patties, spinach patties, &c. they're all excellent, it's more of a question of habit than taste in my opinion

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This is a very common theory on Beyond/vegetarian meat-like alternatives. At least in my perception, this is incorrect. I eat vegetarian, and know many others in my circles (24-32 year olds, mostly in Ams and NYC) who do, or who try to eat less meat. This:

> you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes.

is very false for my circles. All this means for these people just means "no meat" or "no animal products". These people around me (and I) eat just as many frozen pizzas, microwave meals, and junk food as any other person. We just substitute meat versions for non-meat versions. That usually means making fully vegetarian/vegan dishes, but it's not at all uncommon, especially among those who eat less meat, to substitute meat with meat-like alternatives.

I know very few people who actually care to put in the time to home-make their own patties etc.

I’m from Texas. Total opposite experience.

Vegans and vegetarians are rare pokemons here.

One of my coworkers was a vegetarian and went on a business trip to Texas. His associates there took him out for dinner at a steakhouse. After looking over the menu, he asked the waitress, "Do you have anything without meat in it?" She thought for a moment and then cheerfully replied, "We have chicken!"

When I was in Switzerland I ordered a vegetarian dish at a restaurant, and it came with bacon in.

"I think there's been a mistake. There's bacon in my vegetarian meal."

"Oh, that's not a mistake. Bacon isn't meat, we think of it as a garnish."

This happened in two places, one of them the canteen at my workplace.

Lol yeah. I figure those are common experiences anywhere ppl take their bbq so serious.

That’s why I do buy the idea that there’s a hard cap on the market size. I think all beers and wines tastes the exact same shade of gross.

When I say this, most ppl think I’m being an edge lord or I’m just a stupid asshole. it’s practically attempted murder!

“MONSTER!” “HOW DARE YOU?!”

As a Texan, just the thought of fake meat gives me indigestion. Im nauseous just writing this. My stomach won’t stop gurgling.

My morning is in ruins.

I do believe in some states of the US it was more popular, but I don’t think it’s everywhere. I bet you that as per usual it’s the red-blue divide.

I guess I don't exist then.

I want to eat less meat not because of mumbo jumbo health stuff but because the meat industry is just cruel to animals. I wish I had the fortitude to eat no meat, but my hope is fake meat will get to the point where I don't miss real meat anymore, so I support it.

And sorry, impossible burger tastes better than most vegan varieties, which aren't really just "vegan" by the strict definition but must fulfill some other strange moral criteria.

Have you considered buying whole or fractional beef? In most places it's not hard to find small farms that will sell you a quarter, half, or whole steer that was raised in open pasture. You'll need a chest freezer, but it doesn't cost much more than supermarket beef.

If you don't know where to start, look for 4H programs. You could literally buy and eat some kid's loved school project. No cruelty required.

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole

I think this is wrong, and you're missing where the market is.

From what I've read, the meat alternatives actually sell primarily to meat eaters who feel like they should occasionally substitute meat for health reasons or variety.

Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested.

I stopped eating 99% of the meat I used to eat. I didn't stop liking burgers. So has one of my daughters. Both our concerns are ethical. I would 100% eat bacon if it was vegan and tasted like actual bacon.

There are some vegan bacons where I am in Australia that, while they aren't bacon, are close enough in a BLT to leave me happy. But like a lot of these alternatives, the trick is you need to add the fat yourself: use a fair bit more olive oil than you would with actual bacon, and it rehydrates it and gets the taste and texture way closer :)

But if you are a meat eater that want to eat healthier, you'll be very suspicious of what appear very heavily processed food and just eat actual vegetable-looking food.

That's at least the case for me. Note I'm not saying that these meat substitutes are actually unhealthy, they just look very suspicious to me.

I mostly avoid meat for environmental reasons rather than health reasons. So Impossible and Beyond are nice alternatives. you shouldn't be eating hamburgers super regularly either way so the healthiness of alternatives really doesn't matter to me.

If I'm eating vegetarian, it's probably indian food. They know how to make it tasty and still resembles vegetables and lentils

The problem is that these fake meats are worse for you than grass-raised beef.

Are they? I use Meet Co products a few nights a week in the various stir frys and pastas and such that I make, and got my blood test results in last week. And I am incredibly healthy at least by all the normal markers (and amusingly have too much iron saturation despite not supplementing it, which is weird, likely a genetic thing that they're screening me for now, that my vegan diet is probably keeping in check through coincidence).

Is there something I should read on this topic?

I don’t know what studies have been done in these products; they are too new and their processing steps are trade secret. But in general every processing step removes/denatures nutrients and increases the likelihood of toxic side reactions. And fake meat products involve a LOT of processing steps.

Think of it this way: every molecule in a cut of beef is something that was safe to be in a cow, and is generally safe for humans too. That’s true of beans and peas too. But every processing step denatures the organic matter further through a sequence of noisy organic chemistry reactions with lots of byproducts. Each inorganic processing step is making carcinogens and such, in trace amounts. A raw beef steak is 99.99% stuff that you have been evolved to eat. A beyond burger is probably 98-99% ok. But that extra 1-2% is very important to your health.

Unfortunately this isn’t something required to be studied by the FDA, so it isn’t.

My cholesterol levels beg to differ. When I became vegan, my LDL/HDL ratio dropped from 1.9 to 0.8, triglycerides dropped by 35%. My doctor told me she's never seen such a turnaround without statins.

I've been vegetarian since 2011. I never liked the shitty bean burgers or saitan sausages.

But in 2018, some flexitarian friends showed me these new meat replacements, like Rügenwalder's veggie lineup, Nestle's Incredible Foods and later Beyond.

And it's only at that point that I started including meat replacements in my meals. Now we're including at least one type of meat replacement a day.

And 9 of my closest friends have got pretty much the exact same experience. We're all between 20 and 30 years old.

> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise

Not all of them!

I don't buy meat for myself any longer, and am trying to get away from dairy. However, my childhood furnished me with possibly lifelong cravings for jerky, burgers, nuggets and sausages-- all of which the meat substitutes totally satisfy now. I'm very glad for these options!

Now I just need a good cheese substitute and I can go mostly vegan (I will still likely eat meat & dairy when it comes to leftover food that would otherwise be thrown out, though; my desire to avoid waste is greater than my desire to avoid those things because my body will be garbage all too soon no matter what I do anyway... life is far too short to justify being a purist imo).

> Non-meat-eaters have already weaned themselves off meat taste-wise and are not-so-interested.

This was my experience. A month or two after dropping animal products, my body just stopped asking for them. I couldn’t care much less if I ever had meat or cheese again. I’ve got a massive repertoire of other stuff I crave instead now.

I just substitute meat for legume or dairy based products. For instance, I love black bean burger patties and paneer. If I want to eat meat, I'm going to eat meat. Not some weird frankensteined up soy bullshit.

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole

I love meat and regularly buy these instead of hamburgers. While shopping for vegan Thanksgiving guests I saw some patties that imitate chicken. Going to try those out soon too.

I hope they stick around (Impossible should be ok). They're not the healthiest, but they're a rare semi-reliable vegetarian/vegan option for when you go out to restaurants. Otherwise you usually have to eat french fries or pasta. And they're also higher protein which is difficult to find going out unless you want to cook all your food at home.

It varies a lot depending on where you live, I'm in Berlin and a lot of restaurants have more vege/vegan options than meat ones these days. Hopefully it'll continue and that path everywhere.

Well prepared tofu/seitan/mushrooms are delicious, nutritive, much more environmentally friendly and you don't have to ask yourself if they were raised ethically or in hell like conditions

It's not perfect, and I have nothing against meat per se, but I acknowledge that we can't eat meant 1-2 times a day every day sustainably/ethically and affordably

I have a coworker who came from Germany and that seems to be the case. USA still has very limited options. I don't mind, but I've come to stop going to restaurants outright due to the lack of decent options and only really go with friends for the social aspect.

Or you eat meat, take care of what you in your body, and know these meat substitutes are a gimmick to put "health halos" on highly processed soy products that were formerly just sold to prisons.

For me, and I'm not sure how widespread this opinion is, it's not a health halo. I treat beyond/impossible burgers like I treat beef burgers: an occasional dietary splurge. I like them for a few reasons: more sustainably sourced, signalling with my pocketbook that alternatives are important, getting my kids ok with not eating meat occasionally (meatless Mondays sort of thing).

The main feature then is that these products make you feel better about your consumption.

Personally, I'd say: These products make me feel like part of the solution rather than part of the problem WRT climate change and Lake Mead drying up.

Yes that's what they're designed to do. Make you "feel" like you can contribute to meaningful solution not by pressuring large industrial polluters to do something but rather just make minor changes in your personal consumption habits.

I'm not sure why you're putting "feel" in quotes, voting with your pocketbook is a legitimate way of signalling to large industrial polluters to do something, right?

Not in the least. Consumerism is not a substitute for real policy.

Imagine if instead of freeing the slaves, Abraham Lincoln just instead made "Freedom Credits" that were issued to businesses that didn't use slave labor, but it allowed companies that used slave labor to purchase surplus "Freedom Credits" as offsets so they could claim they're making progress towards their ESG goals. Maybe it would become part of these companies advertising like "Fairtrade" has. The net result is that we would still have some kind of chattel slavery.

As ridiculous as this sounds, this is what we are doing when we defer to market based solutions to help nibble away at real policy issues. Also, consumer choices are already highly constrained by what the market bares.

I think you're mistaking me for Abraham Lincoln... I can't impose policy on the beef industry. Comparing the actions I took to the actions a historic US president took is not really appropriate commentary.

Millions voting with their pocket books can have the same impact; causing the industry to change because of reduced revenue. Especially if we can reach the tipping point where beyond/impossible becomes less expensive than beef.

In this analogy, Mark Rober would be your Abraham Lincoln, his video helped tip me towards eating more plant-based burgers, and has been seen 54M times.

Where I agree with you is that _policy_ is a much more direct and effective method of achieving similar ends. However I don't think eating less meat is comparable to carbon credits. The IPCC specifically lists it as a tried and true strategy for reducing greenhouse emissions.

The substitution of meat for other protein sources has real (albeit lagging) effects on the agricultural economy. Less people buying meat leads to less production of meat at scale, which in turn results in reduced deforestation (and potentially reforestation). Producing less meat leads to less greenhouse gas production at several points in the chain, most notably from reduced number of animals, but also during production and logistics. More forests contribute to carbon capture and biodiversity.

Probably the two biggest obstacles to consumer based solutions have been policy that subsidizes the cost of meat, and the cultural backlash to the idea of eating less meat (despite the many health + environmental incentives to reducing meat consumption overall).

I used to think so too but have long ceased to believe in its effectiveness. Industries love saying they need consumers to lead though.

Because it is a gimmick to make you feel like you're doing something, for the sole purpose of getting money from your pocket into theirs. You're not doing anything. The dr. feelgood insect and vegetarian "meat" products are heavily processed, requiring extra energy, fuel, and manpower.

> You're not doing anything.

Eating plant based meat instead of meat directly causes less animals to be factory farmed as demand is reduced. That reduces suffering, seems like something to me

He he.

Do you have leather shoes? Boots? Jackets? Other leather accessories like a wallet?

Leather upholstery in your car? A leather couch?

Do you consume dairy in any form (ice cream, yogurt, regular milk, sour milk, sour cream, cheese, ...)?

Lobsters were formerly just sold to prisons, but I still love eating the little dudes. This isn't a very persuasive argument.

They're processed, but not soy. Mostly pea protein.

Pea protein is a garbage incomplete protein too.

You're moving the goalposts here, but neither the person I'm replying to nor you are really providing anything compelling about how unfit these are for consumption.

Wrong. Whether it's pea or soy, it's a distinction without a difference. They're substitutes that really offer no real quantifiable or societal health benefit that make people feel better about their consumption.

Sure dude.

What is an "incomplete" protein? I'm aware that the human body needs certain fatty acids that it can't produce. But protein?

Protein is made up of different amino acids. If a food has all 9 essential amino acids humans need its called a "complete" protein.

It really does not matter, since presumably that is not the only food you eat. You need all the amino acids, but like any other nutrient, you don't need them all from the exact same source. As long as all the food you eat balances out the needed nutrients, you are good.

It'd be like saying, apples are unhealthy because it doesn't have literally every nutrient and if you only ate apples for the rest of your life you would be malnourished. Which is true but also a silly thing to say because nobody eats only apples.

Incomplete protein refers to amino acid profile.

There are a group of amino acids that the body has to get externally. There are a few veggies that do have all those amino acids, but I guess soy and peas don't

> There are a few veggies that do have all those amino acids, but I guess soy and peas don't

You guess incorrectly. Soy is a complete protein. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19145965/

Complete in the case of containing relatively minute amounts of some of them. You would have to eat an amazing amount of soy per day to get enough.

This firmly puts you in the first category

That explanation doesn't really work for me. Meat eaters aren't all yee-hawing tailgate BBQ addicts, and vegetarians aren't all paragons of healthy/natural virtue. I know plenty of people who are happy carnivores, who also enjoy a Beyond or Impossible patty. Usually it's an "every little bit helps" thing, cutting down just a little bit on the health or environmental negatives of meat. Sometimes it's just for variety. Either way, there are people who love meat and also will touch these products gladly.

The "variety" contingent includes me BTW. I've enjoyed all sorts of vegetarian meat alternatives over the years - old school soy or peanut-based "TVP" in a can back in the 70s, tempeh, bean-based and rice-based and mushroom-based kinds, etc. I make both lentil and potato burgers according to my own recipes. One of the reasons I prefer Beyond to Impossible is that Impossible tastes too much like meat. I can easily tell the difference with Beyond, though, making it less of a direct replacement for beef and more like a different meat to experiment with. That's far more interesting to me.

Unfortunately for Beyond, I think I'm in the minority. Most in-betweeners seem to have settled on Impossible. Consumers want a direct replacement, apparently. Beyond has simply not won in a finite market. There's no need for a Manichean "two types of people" model to explain it.

> you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body,

That's a false dichotomy there - you're making the assumption that there's only two types of people: 1) meat eaters, and 2) people who care about what they eat.

I can assure you, you are incorrect.

Yep, I dated a 'pastatarian' for a couple years. I don't remember her ever eating a salad, despite being vegetarian. She made a mean potato pizza, though!

I’ve heard of the nickname “beer and potato chips” vegan. There is no reason to think that your protein choice === the healthiness of your diet. I mostly eat chicken and veggies and fish. Not a very rare exception.

As for beyond meat - I find the taste and texture unsettling and a little too sweet. Kind of like it had beets in it. Impossible meats I eat about once a week

Its even less complex than this: its more expensive than its meat or vegetable equivalent, so you're either eating meat or you're eating vegetables and there's no point to sub in plant-based meat.

If you're doing it for cost reasons you'll eat cheaper meat or vegetarian, or if you're doing it ideologically you're eating vegetarian.

There's, at least, a third group that stopped eating meat on ethical or climate related grounds rather than taste or health grounds. My daughter was one, as were a decent number of her peers. Whether or not that's a sufficiently large segment that can sustain an industry, though, I'm not competent to judge.

Climate impact is what made my daughter become vegetarian. I am not yet completely convinced (I eat meat, but in smaller amounts than I used to), but do find the argument persuasive.

Things like BM aren't appealing to me, though, because of the price point. I can just eat non-meat things instead.

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole or [...]

I'm 90% plant-based (I occasionally eat meat). I love beyond meat and prefer it to real meat, but it's more expensive than real meat. One of the more significant egoistic advantages of a plant-based diet is the cost, which generally means it tends not to end up on the shopping list.

Their target market is all wrong. They need to drop the cost below "luxury food" and cater to the crowd who are scraping together cash for a McDonalds.

I'm vegan, but our numbers are so vanishingly small, we're a distraction in this conversation. Essentially the ~entire market for these products is meat eaters, and I don't believe meat eaters care about what they're eating even if they pay lip service to their health, the environment, or animal rights. Meat substitutes will win in the market because the food labs will (and I believe already have) succeeded in making them cheaper and tastier. You can't add extra salt, sugar, and MSG (not there is anything wrong with it) to a 100% beef patty.

I am 100% rooting for Impossible to win regulatory approval here in the EU, even though it's an uphill legal battle. The USA leads the world in junk food technology, and we need better junk food to get us through the energy transition.

> or you are vegetarian/vegan and usually take care of what you put in your body, meaning probably a limited amount of junk/processed food, meaning no fake meat substitutes.

First, for many vegetarians it is primarily moral position, not health position. It does not imply the know or care more about healthy eating.

Second, even people who care for health food, that does not mean they subscribe to junk/processed cultural labels, which are illdefined and often irrelevant to whether the food is healthy or not.

> You either love meat and won't touch these things with a 10 feet pole

Assuming you can afford to eat meat, which many meat eaters might find themselves less able to do if prices continue to climb and/or beef subsidies end.

Ground beef could easily cost $15+ per pound without subsidizes: https://www.aier.org/article/the-true-cost-of-a-hamburger/

Assuming you can afford to eat meat

Last I checked, Beyond Burgers cost almost 50% more pr lbs than the cheapest bulk ground beef in the store. If that changed then there might be a market.

Around here (Cambridge, MA) when it's on sale, maybe it's only 50% higher than ground beef's regular price. It's normally 250% the price of ground beef, with Impossible being even slightly higher priced.

That's the gag with Impossible. Unless you or your parents are owners of a climate non-profit flush with cash, their products are impossible to afford.

Beef subsidies are not going to end.

I'm a meat-eater who is aware of the negative health consequences of excess meat consumption and Beyond Meat has been a great gateway/transition food for me. It tastes great, I'm not too worried about how processed it is because it's still better than how meat is processed (e.g. nitrates), and I hope it sticks around. The biggest downside to Beyond Meat for me is the cost.

I've tried many of the traditional alternatives. Tofu can be great, but getting it there is a lot of effort. Tempeh is ok but only works with some dishes. For me there's nothing quite as easy as throwing a Beyond Meat sausage or patty on the barbecue in the summer.

One thing to watch out for with Beyond and Impossible is that they still contain pretty crazy amounts of saturated fats. I know they’re better overall, but for a lot of people those fats are evidently one of the most substantial risks to their health.

I know it’s considered contentious, but the balance of research around this strongly indicates that reducing saturated fats has profoundly positive impact on health outcomes.

I’m not saying don’t eat them or they’re terrible. They do seem better than real meat as far as health goes. I’ve just been blown away by the amount of fat these things contain and I wonder if people realize how much it is.

FWIW, i'm a vegitarian. The reason i don't eat beyond/impossible is because the one time i tried it, it was lackluster. Nothing to do with health.

Agree. I grew up vegetarian and nowadays (sometimes) eat meat. So vegetarian food for me is not some make believe meat substitutes. And when I do feel craving I would eat normal burger, chicken or lamb curry. It is just eating less meat not looking for daily substitute for meat.

I agree. People complain about GMO seeds like crazy, then expect people are going to eat lab grown meat in large amounts?

Also their obvious social media astroturfing is very on the nose. I don't like being gaslit when I ask questions about why people would eat lab grown meat

It’s either a false dichotomy or there are other alternatives.

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