Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Is there any reason to believe this will happen or is it just pure hopium? Like what are the odds the new thing will be the same, cheaper, less cruel, and better for the environment?

We can't even make non-meat meat that's as cheap as meat and you didn't even have to grow or feed the cow.

View on HN

>We can't even make non-meat meat that's as cheap as meat and you didn't even have to grow or feed the cow.

In the US if you remove the government subsidies from meat production the price of a pound of ground beef jumps ~500%.

https://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavi...

I tried following the footnote to see where they got their numbers and the link is dead. I can’t find anybody that has numbers that look reliable for subsidies to the meat industry. Can anybody point me to some?

Thats so obviously ridiculous on its face, it's not even worth answering. In what nation is ground beef 5x the price of USA?

Yeah, you're right. I suppose I can charitably interpret that number as removing the subsidies that also assist other farmers, but that makes the number far less useful for comparison.

Switzerland and South Korea have exceptionally expensive beef prices, sometimes 300% > US prices, but I'm hesitant to bring them up. I suspect that's more attributable to the availability of farmland and food prices in general than to the absence of subsidy for meat production.

As for the same and less cruel, going by the marketing material on Upside Foods it looks like its probably about same and unless you consider growing cells in a vat torture its less cruel.

https://upsidefoods.com/food

Pricing and environmental impact at scale is definitely still yet to be proven.

Have no idea about cost. I don't have much of an ethical problem with killing and eating humanely and sustainably raised and cared for animals for a reasonable degree of those things, factory farming and assembly line slaughterhouses are not that. Better for the environment seems a no brainer given the ecological costs of the amount of meat we eat. I can't imagine it will be the same as in no difference at all, or undetectable, maybe it will even always be more delicious, but I think it's reasonable to think that for lots and lots of dishes with meat in it, it would pass a blind taste test.

Raw steak, maybe not. Beef stew or chicken curry or a burger - def...

Short term: Odds are very low. Long term: Odds are very high.

Science is not done in TikTok videos.

the same reason that coke is cheaper than water sometimes: Because in the long run it's better for a company to sell and addict you to cheaply made processed food

Reply on news.ycombinator.com