Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line
plantbasednews.org
plantbasednews.org
In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
The 95.8% of the world population that isn't in the US. This is simple to deduce because everywhere else calls "a piece of fried chicken in a burger bun" a "chicken _burger_". Only the US calls it a "chicken sandwich". Some of Canada might now use the latter through US influence - any Canadians here?
KFC is a representative example, they call them "KFC chicken sandwich" only in the US, "burgers" effectively everywhere else.
A piece of hot chicken between bread in Italy would likely be a panino, france a sandwich, spain a bocadillo, Portugal sandes, Japan a sando, mexico a torta, Argentina a sanguche.
I think you overestimate how many people use burger for things that don't refer to the American concept. A lot of cultures have hot sandwiches and thus (ham)burger is often distinctly the American concept of a ground beef patty. Where this breaks down outside of the Commonwealth is often from cultures without things in bread that got exposed to the generic burger via fast food chain terminology. Not surprising there.
> Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun?
A _burger bun_ makes it a burger.
> Good luck finding a country outside of NA where they call their chicken burgers a "chicken sandwich".
I gave you several examples already. There's a whole lovely world of food outside of fast food.
Wealthy hippies, vegans, and yuppies.
I'm an occasional buyer of their product, but the issue for me is just the versatility. It's really only a replacement for the most generic ways to prepare a burger/sausage. The moment you try to use the ground beef in, say, a chili recipe, it's a totally mis-matched flavor
At this point, in Germany at least, discounter brands like Lidl and Aldi have beaten Beyond Meat at their game though. They produce alternatives that taste as good or better, for significantly less money.
I am more than a little bit outraged that animals who were raised in miserable industrial production facilities to meet an ugly end are having their parts sold for less than a decent alternative simply because of subsidies distorting the market.
It’s a pity that Beyond is getting so much attention because they’re not the best ambassadors for meat alternatives. People will try it, and then decide to wait another 5 years before trying again.
I don't feel like they have a niche anymore, but there was a time I considered them my top choice, before impossible dethroned them.
We don’t need meat alternatives. Vegan diet is cardiovascularly extremely healthy, seems to protect against most cancers, tastes good and is most importantly ethically and environmentally only viable option at this point. It’s pretty cheap as well, tofu, lentils and veggies are not exactly expensive even without all the gazillion subsidiaries pumped into meat production. [Of course your vegan diet can consist of eating only canned soda and potato chips and that is not healthy nor cheap, but the problem there is that you are a moron, not that you are vegan].
So the problem with meat alternatives is that you don’t really need them and if you want burger patties etc. you can make them at home pretty easily or these days buy cheaper alternatives sold in most supermarkets.
Vegans have a problem with avocados and beans now? THat's where the "grease" comes from in these fake meats.
I get where you are coming from. I try to buy unprocessed as much as possible, but there are days where I want something that I could do myself or buy premade from the grocery store. On days like that, I'm glad I have the option to buy premade even if my self-made version tastes better, is healthier, and often cheaper.
Besides that, its a good tool to get the general omnivore to reduce meat consumption. A friend of mine does eat meat but is lowering her consumption of it. Having a convenient alternative that she doesn't have to think about and can just get prepackaged helped her half her meat consumption in a effectively a few weeks.
Seems like a broad statement that I don't agree with, but why would it be the most important aspect unless the framework is a religious one and that's where your ethical framework derives from? It's a dietary choice, nothing more, and if you feel that way it's perfectly fine to do so, but don't blow it out of proportion.
I personally tend to enjoy some vegan food, and enjoy the people in my life who are vegan or choose other restrictions as they see fit, but if they decided it was important beyond that, such that it might impact our relationship, I'd let just let them because it's a bit silly. Eat meat, don't eat meat, pick your suppliers of whatever you eat carefully if you have the means and choose to, have your personal principles whatever they are, all the more power, it's just not much more than that, no?
You come off as very militant in that sense.
I have never tried BeyondMeat but I’d be surprised that it’s so bad.
And I have eaten many classic vegan burger alternatives based on lentils, peas and chickpeas. They didn’t aim to taste like meat and were actually edible.
I'm a huge burger fan and stopped eating meat at home, thanks to this wave of vegan alternatives.
Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option.
The impression I’ve gotten is for the latter.
Did it really? I have hear some complaints that before "gluten free" meant it doesn't contain those allergens at all and now it only means "there are no grains on ingredient list". And with amount of cross-contamination in food industry that is nowhere near enough for people with allergy.
for a lot of people that could be a selling point
(not you, themselves!)
A lot of Indian/Brahmin food is exactly that. Its insanely delicious.
And we have Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat(is that the name?). Both instead of going "vegetarian done well is superb" went to "sorry its a sad reminder of a hamburger". And thats a problem. Nobody wants to be reminded that this is $10/lb and real hamburger is $5/lb.
Ive also had problems with other 'meat substitues'. They're almost always plasticy or fake tasting, or chemically off.
Whereas my tofu saag is delicious. And no meet or cheese needed... Although my favorite is saag paneer (cheese). I stay away from the fake-almost-but-not-quite foods.
So like, sure it's fine, but it is already in a tough competition with other plant based foods.
I’m glad you like the beyond meat though. Good for them to have actual consistent customers for the 2x / year I end up eating it!
This has been the exact opposite of my experience.
source: vegan for 14 years, vegetarian for 2 years prior to that, carnist for the initial 22 years. :)
There's no premium for the plant based versions I don't think (or if there is it's small enough that I never noticed), and I think you're underestimating how many vegans/vegetarians still want junk food.
This is a good filler product.
Going vegan is not a zero-cost choice. It can be difficult, expensive, and in some cases even impossible due to health issues. Some users here complain about the meat subsidies without acknowledging that meat is pretty great when you're in the bottom of the economic pyramid and need food that's cheap, quick, and will provide a fair nutritional value.
I don't think you can live in a modern city without supporting some type of cruelty, as most phones and clothes alone would already be a no-go. It's not that people don't have empathy, but rather that there's only so much one can do in a day and one has to pick their battles. If you want to dedicate extra time and energy into animal well-being that's great, but let's not point the finger at those who lack those extra resources as if it were an individual moral failing.
I grew up in a poor household and we were vegetarian, because we saw animals as living things with feelings, not commodities whose pain and suffering is meaningless.
I agree you can't live without some level of cruelty, but you can certainly live without contributing to one of its most obvious forms.
The riches of capitalism is built off of the suffering of humans, that doesn't mean it isn't important to try to minimize the suffering of other animals that literally have no ability to escape their circumstances.
I want not-meat that is definitely not meat.
There are plenty of meat eaters who want to eat these as a way to cut down their meat consumption. They don't want to become vegetarians, though.
Why not? I think there's a false conflation of veganism and health food (and gluten-free, though that's not relevant in this discussion). I love burgers, and fried chicken, and crappy chicken nuggets, but I don't want more animals to have to suffer for my sake than is necessary. I disagree on how hyper-specific that niche is.
IMO the core problem is that meat is so heavily subsidized that it's hard for them to compete.
This is the real problem. Without all the government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would be closer to $30-$40 today instead of the $8-$10/lb it is now. $38 billion dollars in the US each year to subsidize meat and dairy, but only $17 million goes to fruit and vegetable farmers. It's completely backwards, especially considering the climate impact on meat and dairy farming.
There are massive tax, fuel, land tax, health care subsidies for our farmers.
Even doctors who cater to the remote areas where farmers dwell get extra payments from our governments.
https://www.health.gov.au/topics/rural-health-workforce/clas...
Very common in the United States, too.
There are a lot of doctors who get their student loans reduced or paid off by state and local governments in exchange for working a certain number of years in less-desirable locations. I've worked with a number of them.
There was an entire TV show based on it that ran on CBS for five years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Exposure
Source? That seems implausibly high.
Using your $38B/year subsidy figure gets us $112/year in subsidies per American. There's no way you can get $30 unsubsidized price from that unless you think the average American only eats beef once a week.
I would have thought once a week is high.
Though median could differ from average. 12% of Americans eat half the beef
https://sph.tulane.edu/how-mere-12-americans-eat-half-nation...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-usa
Given the $112 subsidies per year above, that would add $2 per pound of beef, that would slightly raise the price not balloon it to 30-40 as poster claimed. So he was bullshitting.
Regardless, it goes without saying (from other, more well-sourced research) that the disparity of subsidies and government assistance provided to industries that ultimately exist to produce meat compared to industries that produce fruit/vegetables is fucking absurd.
People did indeed become vegan in isolation before the internet, just as they do today.
What exactly is the distinction you're trying to draw between "old vegans" and "new vegans", and how do you see it pertaining to this conversation (especially under a comment pointing out that plant-based burgers struggle to compete with traditional beef because of beef subsidies)?
People regularly cut out meat, alcohol, sugar, dairy, gluten, caffeine, fats, etc. based on things they’ve read, moral considerations, medical recommendations, and personal health observations, not because they’ve joined a community that eschews such things.
Indeed. I ate at two different vegan restaurants in a city I visited recently and they both were on par with bar or diner food, but vegan. Plenty of vegans (I'm not one, but I've got eyes...) clearly don't have a problem with that.
Is it niche? Yes, but vegetarians were always niche.
While the late 2010s fixated on “protein” and “macros” - allowing products like Beyond or Soylent to shine.
Much of the health discourse around the 2020s has focused on quality of the ingredients and “processed foods”. So naturally Beyond is caught on the crossfire.
Is there a future where this stuff is proven to be better for you in the short and long term? I sure hope so. But there’s way too many unknowns right now and it’s expensive to boot.
Why do you think that "ethical vegans" like the "taste of plants" any more than anyone else? The whole point of being an ethical vegan/vegetarian is to not consume animals, not because you don't like the taste.
Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers. Sure, they're not perfect from a health food point of view, but they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty. So from a health conscious point of view, it's a decent substitute.
Then there are the people who just want to reduce their meat consumption overall. Maybe they're not vegan or vegetarian, but they're trying to watch their saturated fat intake, or reduce their carbon impact, or they suffer from gout and are trying to reduce the amount of meat they eat to ease that.
Sometimes you just want to go out with your friends for a burger, and the Beyond patty can make a better substitute than a black bean or mushroom patty that used to be common.
And at most restaurants, I've never noticed a "premium" for it, it usually costs the same as a beef patty; it just provides another option, for the days I want to skip meat. I have, for a long time, done a low meat diet; I don't avoid it entirely, but I try not to eat it at every meal. It provides a nice alternative for that.
Is it a bit of a niche market? Sure. But, not every product needs to be for everyone.
I just did a quick search on Uber Eats in NYC. Every Beyond Burger I found was between $3-5 more than a regular burger. That’s the reason I stopped eating them, I actually quite like the texture and flavor. I just don’t like the price.
I often have some at home and instead of having two red meat burgers have one and one of these, occasionally when they go on sale at Costco I’ll buy a bunch.
I am not vegan or vegetarian but do seek ways to reduce my red meat intake which years ago was grilling ribeyes 4-5 nights a week. I was unreasonably unhealthy and having alternate options helped balance my health out over the long run. I like both beyond burgers and impossible. I wish they were cheaper than hamburger meat, when I compare to buying hamburger meat in bulk it’s still more expensive at this point
It doesn't seem such a clear cut ethical decision to me. Certainly there are some forms of raising livestock that are terrible (broiler chickens come to mind), but there are other forms that actually seem quite pleasant for the animals most of the time (e.g. free-range cattle).
https://www.dominionmovement.com/facts - Ctrl-F "free range"
You actually could find a reliable and cost effective source of ethical ranching, it typically requires buying e.g. a whole side of beef from a specific ranch.
Not very convenient, but if you worry so much about the conditions of the animal, that gives you a way to choose one that fits your standards.
Yellow Pea Protein, Avocado Oil, Natural Flavors, Brown Rice Protein, Red Lentil Protein, 2% or less of Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Pea Starch, Potassium Lactate (to preserve freshness), Faba Bean Protein, Apple Extract, Pomegranate Concentrate, Potassium Salt, Spice, Vinegar, Vegetable Juice Color (with Beet).
Except for Vinegar, every one of these is an industrially processed/extracted/refined ingredient that humans never ate until within the last ~50 years.
We have no way to even know if many of these are safe let alone healthy.
I don't know of any evidence that these things are a decent substitute for meat and salt which humans have been eating for our entire history. And for those who actually believe animal fat and salt are unhealthy one could make burgers with lean meat and less or no salt.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avo...
"In three cases, bottles labeled as “pure” or “extra virgin” avocado oil contained near 100 percent soybean oil"
You don't necessarily know what you are getting when you buy a processed ingredient, and there are huge financial incentives to not sell a top quality product when you can substitute other things or use cheaper processes to make it.
Some portion of avocado oil sold today is refined with hexane, heated during the refining process, and likely heavily oxidized before consumption. (This is evidenced by the above paper, oxidized = rancid, and it's not a binary either/or there is a spectrum of how oxidized/rancid a fat can be.)
But there are many reasons to believe natural/traditional foods may be safer and healthier than new industrial foods. To name a few:
1) There's reason to believe our bodies may be more adapted to eating natural or traditional foods, having eaten them for hundreds of thousands of years rather than one or two generations.
2) Many highly processed foods have within decades of their introduction to our diet been found to be really bad for us. Refined sugars, refined oils, refined flours, artificial sweeteners, many of the weird additives, many synthetic compounds like methylcellulose (someone close to me is extremely sensitive to this one), on and on.
3) These new ingredients, new kinds of refining and processing, and even synthetic food compounds, do not have to undergo any rigorous testing to be shown to be safe before being added to food. Even if they do some studies for some of them, how would you really know it's not causing serious long term problems for say 1% of people? Or even 10%? The size and duration of a study you'd need to find them to be safe would be expensive and they generally don't do it, since they're not required to.
4) These new ingredients often introduce novel molecules to the body that the body may not be adapted to. I hope I don't need to explain how many novel molecules that were invented and widely used in recent decades have proved to be highly toxic.
5) We have a huge increase in severe chronic disease in recent decades. I won't claim here that this is primarily because of the changes to our diet from industrially processed foods, but diet is a top contender given that it's one of the biggest things that has changed in the human lifestyle, along with all the other novel substances our bodies come in contact with now.
6) We know of tons of people who were healthy to age 80, 90, 100, eating primarily/entirely natural foods. We don't yet have any examples of this with people eating a large portion of modern industrial foods that didn't exist 80 years ago. This is not proof that they're dangerous, I'm just saying we don't know and have reason to be cautious.
This is an argument that no white people should be eating pineapples, mangos, bananas, kiwifruit, etc. Hell, probably not even apples.
White people's African ancestors are over 50,000 years ago.
Different kinds of fruits from around the world may well have more in common with each other than categorically new synthetic compounds which are found in processed food.
Pretty much all people ate real foods - plants, animals, and fungus, and ferments of these, all over the world. There are categorical chemical differences between this stuff and much modern food.
By this logic, you shouldn't eat modern meat, as its very different from the one our ancestors were eating. Modern meat is mostly fat
Not particularly because it has more fat though. While it's true that wild deer for example especially in warmer climates can have very little fat, there are plenty of animals that were traditionally eaten all over the world that have much higher proportions of fat. Fish, geese and ducks and many kinds of birds, whales and seals and lots of aquatic mammals, bears, etc.
I'm not trying to argue in favor of industrial beef at all I'm just trying to say that natural animal fat isn't necessarily unhealthy. (I really want to know actually if it is, because I do eat a lot of it, and have for much of my life. As far as I can tell I'm very healthy but I'm always open to learning. I have not yet found any compelling evidence for natural animal fat being bad.)
I‘m pretty sure humans eat potato, rice, peas etc. since a pretty long time.
I‘m also pretty sure that the meat our ancestors ate is a lit different from the meat we have now coming from animals optimized for meat production and fed with whatever produces the most meat and costs the least (mad cow disease anyone?).Not to mention the amount of meat we eat today compared to back then.
The problem with processed food isn’t that it is processed but that it makes it easy to consume too much
Peas != extracted pea protein
They're not the same thing.
I do agree that wild meat is probably a lot healthier than modern industrially farmed meat. Just as wild plants are probably often a lot healthier than modern monocropped plants grown with synthetic fertilizers rather than healthy soil.
Not to mention all cooking really is is a bunch of refinement, extraction, chemical reaction, and heating processes anyway. I refine & extract & process in my kitchen all the time, including separating protein in milk (cheeses) or wheat flour (chaap, seitan, or for the starch) for example.
Your point on cooking is fair. And, I'd still argue that modern processes introduce new types of chemistry that didn't exist in human food until very recently.
I can't stand this type of thing, just like people who get upset at terms like "oat milk" or "soy milk."
Not really a dig at you, sorry.
TBH, I haven't heard the complaints about the use of "oil" in that context.
Humans have been eating some of these for thousands of years. I know "extract" is a scary big scientific word, but most of the time it's just immersing the grain in hot water, strain it to remove the pulp, then boiling the liquid to concentrate it. You can separate the starch and protein from any bean or grain in your kitchen with some basic kitchen equipment and hot water.
People weren't doing that at a mass scale before people figured out they could make money by increasing addictiveness, once technology was good enough.
There are tons of products where the base ingredients are at least 2 steps away from actual traditional ingredients. Sometimes (frequently) the base ingredients aren't even food, they're purely petro-chemical based. My dad used to joke that the same plant that makes ingredients for paint and tires makes articial flavors for food :-)
Bah, I withdraw from this discussion. It's full of people that can't see the forest (ultra processed food everywhere destroying people's health through its addictiveness) for the trees (technicalities about some ultra processed foods being available in the pre-industrial era, on a much smaller scale and in much smaller niches).
Pea starch might be the most benign of all of these. I'm not making an argument that pea starch is bad either, just that it's not quite the same as peas, and isn't quite the same as home-made pea starch, and we don't really know if this is a problem.
For example, with pea starch, they use defoaming agents like siloxanes, as well as sulfur dioxide, sodium hydroxide, and others. And, because it's a concentrate of just part of the plant, you might get a heavier dose of pesticides or heavy metals depending on what part of the plant these bind with. (Sure, if you eat equal portions of each part of the plant, extracted, this factor would balance out.)
There's a spectrum of course with these things. Some things like refined oils might be far more harmful than the extracted starches based on the chemistry I've looked into. I'm not particularly afraid of pea starch but I just don't buy or eat processed food generally unless I'm in a pinch.
what absurd scaremongering! Do you know how yellow pea protein, for example, is "refined"?
You take dried peas and grind them into powder. Pop in a centrifuge to separate protein from starch. Not exactly pumped full of "toxins"!
> Avocado Oil
You literally press avocado flesh. It's been done for centuries. It's not some crazy refinement process.
> brown rice protein
This is just ground up rice mixed with amylase or protease to isolate the proteins. There's nothing scary here. We've been eating it for millennia.
etc
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/study-finds-82-percent-avo...
"In three cases, bottles labeled as “pure” or “extra virgin” avocado oil contained near 100 percent soybean oil"
You don't necessarily know what you are getting when you buy a processed ingredient, and there are huge financial incentives to not sell a top quality product when you can substitute other things or use cheaper processes to make it.
Some portion of avocado oil sold today is refined with hexane, heated during the refining process, and likely heavily oxidized before consumption. (This is evidenced by the above paper, oxidized = rancid, and it's not a binary either/or there is a spectrum of how oxidized/rancid a fat can be.)
If I see "avocado oil" as an ingredient, sure it could be simply pressed avocado flesh. But it could also be a rancid hexane-refined oil potentially cut with other stuff, and I'd bet that's more likely because it's probably a lot cheaper for the manufacturer.
I don't know as much about how the starches and proteins are extracted, I'd bet it's more benign, but there are added chemicals - even if they are considered safe, it's still not quite the same as eating actual peas and rice.
If those 2 things are your barometer for healthy… it’s not a clear win.
> Water, Yellow Pea Protein*, Avocado Oil, Natural Flavors, Brown Rice Protein, Red Lentil Protein, 2% or less of Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Pea Starch, Potassium Lactate (to preserve freshness), Faba Bean Protein, Apple Extract, Pomegranate Concentrate, Potassium Salt, Spice, Vinegar, Vegetable Juice Color (with Beet).
From: https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
It's important to remember also that not athletic individuals are high achieving bodybuilders with super strict macro diets. Most other sports only require a moderate attention to diet, especially at an amateur level. Bodybuilding is very diet focused, rather than strength and skill focused.
I seriously doubt that health-conscious people would pick hyper-processed plants that are meant to resemble meat over plain meat+bread+vegetables that make up a non-fast-food hamburger.
If you buy a Beyond patty, it has way more sodium than ground beef you'd buy at a grocerty store. Comparing it with a fast food burger isn't really fair.
Who's buying Burger King more than grocery shopping?
You asked "Who's buying Burger King more than grocery shopping?"
My point was that groceries in general don't matter, only burgers. Some people almost never eat burgers at home and eat them exclusively at places like Burger King.
We're not comparing fairly here. A finished hamburger patty is not pure ground beef. Did you ever make a hamburger patty yourself? You add salt and spices at a minimum.
A more fair comparison would be looking at store-bought hamburger patties. That's the same category of food.
I just compared Beyond (0.75g salt per 100g) and block house American Burger (0.88g per 100g). The patties are somewhat similar in weight, too (113g and 125g). So both in absolute, and weight relative amounts the Beyond burger has less sodium.
I don't eat that these days, my burgers are actually 25% beef and 75% lentil/seasoning. Still under 0.5g/100g
What matters is not so much the natural form, it is how the product is typically consumed.
But of course I see your point that with home made meat-based patties, you are in control of how much salt you want to add, while with factory made patties, you have to take what you get, it's typically not possible to "take away" salt. Mind you, though, the latter argument holds for both plant-based and meat-based factory-made patties.
Also, do you expect the vegan alternative to have exactly the same nutritional values as their meat counterparts?
Look, I don't even know why I'm defending Beyond here, I'm certainly not a fan (as a matter of fact, I don't like their beef patties). But I think the arguments you've made are not entirely fair.
If you're salting your recipe with traditional ground beef, you're doing the same with Beyond. If not, same.
I do not expect or even encourage the content of any alternative to match the nutritional value of the real deal.
A typical pinch of salt is 300mg. Not 2300mg.
When the base product has 3x as much sodium, that is a problem. It doesn't need that much because as you stated, you can add salt during cooking. As a great example, let's take a use case for Beyond which is taco meat. I add taco seasoning (my own which is about 30% sodium compared to a traditional) and now the Beyond version is still roughly 250% the sodium content.
I can't remove the sodium they add. It's not a product I like or desire. It's more expensive. It's less healthy (note how often I mention reduced salt) for myself.
Also, I have been a strict vegan in life for about 5 years. I still didn't eat Beyond (aside from tasting it) during that period (it was available).
I'm not really trying to attack Beyond here, it's all personal preference at the end of the day. I make 95% of my food, from bread to tomato sauce to pickled peppers and hot sauce. When I am reaching for a vegan protein, I reach for lentils.
It's good to eat sans salt on bbq with your desired (typically salty) toppings.
I know people salt the patty while cooking, but the topic at hand is Beyond and their patties.
The whole "salt" angle is bikeshedding - no one advocated Beyond for salt, they pick it for all of the other health benefits (fats, cholesterol)
Nothing whatsoever is stopping Beyond from removing salt and allowing people to salt their own burgers, as they already do.
I'm on blood pressure meds. I regularly check in with doctors on things. No, you shouldn't be eating unlimited salt, but sugar and cholesterol are killing (and debilitating) many more of us.
But anyway, I think a pre-seasoned vegan ready made burger patty should only be compared to a pre-seasoned meat burger patty. It's an Apples and Oranges comparison with little meaning.
If you compare the high sodium of a vegan ground beef replacement with ground beef, that's fair game. The one from Beyond here is actually a good example of too high sodium. I won't judge. I only care about the comparison, not the company.
The comparison here is shop-bought burgers or those you would buy in a burger restaurant, which WILL have salt and likely more than a Beyond burger.
I have no opinion about the economics of the brand itself; as a vegetarian I've always thought they were over-priced, and also that it was a shame I don't have a huge range of alternatives, as I actually like spicy bean burgers and can't find them any more*. In fact, because of the limited alternatives in my local markets, I got a kit for making my own burgers from dehydrated soy mince and/or mashed kidney beans.
* I don't know how much of this is "bean burgers are no longer popular" vs. "I moved country and Berlin has never heard of them"; for Quorn I do at least know it's the latter.
Do you have a link or name for this? I also prefer black bean or lentil burgers, but I've been making them by hand really.
There's probably also a cheaper source for the form and squasher if that's all you need, but it came with them so I didn't look for that separately.
People who buy burgers or eat out are likely to get less healthy burgers, if you look at highest selling supermarket burgers, both meat and vegan options are ALL high in salt for example.
The vast, vast, vast majority of people do not have any reason to restrict salt intake.
"Increases likelihood" is bullshit at best (manipulation more typically) without quantifying how much, and how much would it need to be to be remotely significant.
The health-conscious are famous for their hamburger usage.
If you're comparing the healthiness of a premade vegan burger patty, you need to compare it to a premade (or equivalent homemmade) beef patty. You can't take salt out of the beef patty comparison and say "look it's better"
Edit: But you can compare it to actual products on shelves. The first frozen burger brand I can think of that would be a good comparison is frozen Bubba burger. If we compare the sodium content, Beyond patty is 3-4x higher in sodium. Beef wins! :) Although Beyond has half the fat.
https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
Also, I like the taste of Natto (soybeans fermented in straw) though that's generally thought of as an acquired taste.
Meat: 1. Those who buy from butcher (health conscious) 2. Those who buy packaged products from supermarket.
Vegan: 1. Those who make homemade plant-based alternatives (eg.lentil burgers) 2. Those who buy Beyond burgers from supermarket.
Hence I think most people are trying to compare apples to oranges, which is not the correct comparison to make when weighing up each type.
Ingredients: beef
https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
Ingredients: a bunch
It’s ultra processed food devoid of micronutrients with low quality protein and poor bioavailability.
Health conscious folks would definitely not choose this. In fact, it’s all the things you try to avoid as soon as you start being health conscious. Folks who want to believe they are being health conscious may be convinced via marketing to buy it, but anyone seriously invested in their nutrition would steer very clear of these.
This product will only succeed if its reasonably cheaper than the cheapest meat (not just beef). It is and forever will be inferior to meat as a food product for the vast majority of consumers. Perhaps in some vision of the future the dominant consumer is Hindu and they may find the product acceptable, but they'll still be price conscious.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-maga...
Please tell the British Heart Foundation that they're "the crazy kind of health conscious" :-)
> Ultra-processed foods: Ultra-processed foods typically have more than 1 ingredient that you never or rarely find in a kitchen. They also tend to include many additives and ingredients that are not typically used in home cooking, such as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, and artificial colours and flavours. These foods generally have a long shelf life.
Are there ingredients actually in the Beyond burger?
> many additives and ingredients that are not typically used in home cooking, such as preservatives, emulsifiers
Since when? Salt is a highly effective preservative, egg yolk is a powerful emulsifier, and they're largely used for those exact purposes.
The amount of bullshit in "healthy eating" and fitness fad space never ceases to amaze me.
The kinds of food processing methods that remove from raw food the parts that are unhealthy or undesirable cannot have in principle any kind of harmful effect, when the processed food is used correctly. They may have only an indirect harmful effect because the availability of pure food ingredients may enable some people to use such processed food in an incorrect way, by making food that has an unbalanced composition, for instance food that has too much sugar.
On the other hand, the food processing methods that cause irreversible transformations of food, i.e. mixing various ingredients and/or using certain food treatments, e.g. heating, are quite likely to have harmful effects on food quality, when they are done in an industrial setting, instead of being done at home. The reason is that an industrial producer has very different incentives than those who cook for their family, for friends or relatives, or at least for some loyal customers who appreciate good food. An industrial producer cares only for the appearance and taste of the food, and for its production cost. So any useless or even harmful ingredients will be used if those reduce the production cost, as long as the food still looks appetizing and it has a good taste provided e.g. by excessive sugar, salt and bad quality fat.
So the problem is less that food processing methods are bad per se. The problem is that most producers of processed food cannot be trusted to use processing methods that are good for the customer, instead of being good only for the producer. Now there are a lot of regulations that prevent some of the most harmful methods of food adulteration that were used in the past, but they are still not severe enough to ensure that every producer makes healthy food.
Now I'm not denying industrial players have a different set of incentives than people cooking for themselves, but it's not all evil either. They also care about appeasing regulators in countries where food regulations exist, and they may care a bit personally since they themselves and/or their family is eating that too, so I wouldn't necessarily paint them as completely disconnected from the rest of society.
Now, on the other hand, the industrial producers have a few more things going in their favor, such as they actually have quality control metrics, and they are in actual position to make good on caring about food. Home kitchens are not, regular people have neither knowledge nor appreciation of the complex chemistry involved, and even if they did, the equipment used in home kitchens is too crude to allow for consistent quality (not that we can hope for any with no supply chain control either).
(The slightly-fancy restaurants are arguably the worst - they combine all the bad incentives of a high-volume, low-margin commercial operation, with equipment and setup inadequate to guarantee any kind of process quality control. Contrast that with e.g. McDonald's - they may be serving mediocre food at best, but they do it with engineering precision, and you can be sure they aren't just microwaving you an old chicken breast and adding burn marks with an electric grill to make it look like you'd expect for a $50 menu item with a name written in French.)
So the irony is, the industrial producers may have misaligned incentives, but they're also the only ones in position to deliver actually healthy and quality food. Regular people have neither knowledge nor equipment for that, and all the "healthy eating" fads abusing real scientific terms and imbuing them with quasi-religious meaning is not helping. In reality, people just eat stuff and make up stories they don't even verify to feel good with their choices. Which, like with other such belief systems, is fine, until they believe their own stories so much they try to force others to believe in them too.
Even when such food products are intended to resemble food that I used to eat at home, based on traditional recipes, the modern industrial recipes are very different, with all expensive ingredients substituted completely or partially with worse but cheaper alternatives, and with many extra additives that do not provide any nutritional benefit, but they just improve the texture and taste to resemble that of products made with more expensive ingredients or with ingredients that cause a shorter shelf life.
So in practice, the food producers could, but they don't.
If you're not you should, colon cancer is becoming a leading cause of death in people under 40...
https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awaren...
https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/0...
-
The chart you linked only talks about incidence ratio, and is more than adequately explained by improvements in access to tests, quality of tests, as well as improvements in healthcare in general, as people don't suffer and die today from what they did up to few decades ago - or anything else, really, since the world has been steadily improving across the board in every dimension.
In fact, non-linear effects of population growth alone could explain that chart: people talk more, including about colon cancer, so over time, more people in the population with access to testing would go test themselves after being made aware of the potential problem, biasing the sample.
Or, more fundamentally, the fact that medicine graduated from voodoo to proper science only around 100 years ago, would explain it too, because we're less than a century into doing proper studies about anything at all.
It's extremely specific actually: obesity, smoked meat, red meat, alcohol, cigarettes, high sugar, low fibers, nitrites and a shit loads of additives that are banned in the EU but not in the US.
> Diet/exercise are the ultimate "fuck off" advice.
No, it's a every simple and actionable advice actually, you can reduce your chances of cancer by 50-75% by "diet and exercise"
> if reality disagrees with your hypothesis
It does not disagree with "my" hypothesis (which is the universal consensus btw)
> you can claim the victim didn't hold their lifestyle or diet right
It's your life, do as you please, you're a big boy, you'll be the only one paying the price ultimately. I don't exercise and eat clean because it makes me invincible, I do it because it makes me feel better, improve my odds at pretty much everything in life and increase my health span dramatically, even if I die of cancer next month I am already benefiting from my actions every single day.
> tobacco, diet, infection, obesity, and other factors contribute approximately 25–30%, 30–35%, 15–20%, 10–20%, and 10–15%, respectively, to the incidence of all cancer deaths in the USA
researchgate.net/publication/5225070_Cancer_is_a_Preventable_Disease_that_Requires_Major_Lifestyle_Changes?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6Il9kaXJlY3QiLCJwYWdlIjoiX2RpcmVjdCJ9fQ
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Cancers-that-have-been-l...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-role-of-genes-and-en...
Yeah, you should probably eat more low-processed foods like veggies, but the Beyond Burger is used as a replacement for beef, not for carrots.
I would say veganism is more trendy at the moment. That doesnt discredit anything about the vegan diet.
Something is only unhealthy or healthy in light of everything else you eat. It's reductive to say otherwise.
Nowadays it’s all fake meat products which I would never put in my body, and there’s this weird social pressure where I’m being silly by “refusing to eat vegan foods”.
Fruits and vegetables and legumes are delicious, I will eat all of them.
Bring back bean burgers!
Looks like agree that it's not great but you compensate elsewhere. If you chose the "hard way" of limiting your menu to vegan why not pick the options with less compromises? Even paper can be food as long as you compensate elsewhere.
> Something is only unhealthy or healthy in light of everything else you eat. It's reductive to say otherwise.
Are you maybe conflating "unhealthy" with "not explicitly healthy"? Plenty of foods are unequivocally unhealthy, anything else you eat will not compensate. You don't "compensate" for eating a lot of ultraprocessed food because some of the contents of that food should not be in your body at all. You can't always "subtract" by eating other food. Not saying this is the case for you and these burgers.
And if I make the effort of eating vegan also for health reasons, why would I go for the ultraprocessed vegan option? To be clear, I wasn't talking about this particular burger, just the general logic that "this food is fine because I can get what I actually need elsewhere" and that "healthy/unhealthy is relative to what else you eat". It's not, some things are objectively unhealthy and there's no option to eat something else to "balance" it.
If I eat perfectly clean for 90% of my diet and then I consume poison for the remaining 10%, that's still doing some damage.
You can, however, be happy with the fact that 10% is better than 50%.
Yes, some harms aren't linear no-threshold in their nature. Doesn't change the fact that the unhealthy doesn't become healthy because you eat a salad for lunch.
Beyond meat doesn't have nitrates, filler, stabilizers or "85% meat" hence it's way more healthy than most meat-based patties or meat products.
Again, agrolobby by its full-page ads in newspapers successfully turned plant-based food which is objectively, scientifically proven to be healthy, to something unnatural, "chemical" and unhealthy.
And to extract pure protein from a pea is exactly what I would consider ultra-processed. The checmicals used to separate the protein from the pea are included in the final product. At its purest, you’re at least drenching it in HCl. At its worst, it’s being soaked with who knows what.
Sure maybe it’s cleaned well enough to “not matter” but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to find that a concern and not want to consume it.
And that’s just pea protein, I don’t even want to know the aggregate of all the ingredients and manufacturing process of the “patties”.
I see the same argument very often these days: that only single-ingredient, "traditional" food is good.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat processed foods because of marketing or advertising or lobbying they’ve been exposed to. There is a solid rational to eat whole foods, and anyone I know who does not eat processed foods does it because they’d rather eat whole foods.
There is a ton of research to suggest processed foods are safe to eat. One could also make the argument these are all funded by their own lobbying groups. The truth of the matter is nutrition is complicated, there is likely more than one answer, and we definitely do not know them.
Not everyone who disagreed has been swindled by some corporation.
HCl is toxic when ingested btw. The fact it is in your body does not mean it’s safe to consume.
/s
I have friend who was vegan for 20 years, and when we went to good restaurant and he wanted to choose between vegan patty burger and real one, he chose real one due to all chemical industrial crap they put in those veggie patties and chose a good Swiss beef instead of questionable worse-tasting content. Yes, he literally stopped being vegan at that point, although he still is on most days since then.
Its subpar product, with way too much questionable chemistry, worse taste (or more like structure&taste) and impact on environment is... questionable too, maybe less than real beef but probably not massively. What could be acceptable for environmental impact is lab grown real meat but even that seems to not go the direction one would expect.
So, he wasn't vegan then?
Why? Carbs and processed oils bound together by stodge isn’t healthier than fried ground beef.
Regardless of what you think about phytooestrogens (which has very little evidence to have negative effects in normal quantities)
(It is also an Asian crop, originally, maybe that has something to do with Western people, especially men, not being very well tolerant to it)
I don't know man. I'm a health conscious person and I could just as easily choose normal chicken meat, or a beef steak that's not a hamburger, or fatty fish (omega-3!!). Why would I choose a hamburger substitute? I don't even particularly crave hamburgers.
I took a look at the ingredients list of the Dutch version, and it seems to be okay when it comes to amount of industrial fillers. It seems the preservative (potassium lactate) is the only problem, everything else seems acceptable. So I guess it's not that bad, but I still don't still really have a reason to choose it.
On days when I don't particularly want to eat a lot of meat, I just eat more rice, vegetables and beans. It's not that hard?
I think the OP is right: their niche seemed to be people who crave something like a hamburger or at least real meat while having an ideological opposition against meat and enough money.
a beyond burger has 310mg https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
They are lower in fat and total calories but they are obviously more processed = salt. Even a mcdonalds burger patty (without the bun) has less salt.
bubba burgers are real meat, not bean burgers
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-...
Basic burger without any other ingredients has 90 calories and 160mg sodium.
The quarter pounder patty alone has 220 calories and 210mg of sodium.
Big mac patty (includes "flavoring") has 190 calories and 310mg sodium.
Beyond patty is 230 calories with 310mg sodium.
Not sure what health-conscious people you know, but I'd hazard to guess that most would choose the patty made from a single natural ingredient that's been a staple of the human diet since the dawn of man over the ultra-processed slurry of starches and oils.
For example:
"single natural ingredient"
not every cow is only fed with grass, and what about that grass, has it been treated, etc...
also
Neu5Gc
Mammal meat contains it, Humans have lost the enzyme (perhaps over that time since "the dawn of man"), it causes inflammation.
Looking at chimpanzee diets, I don't think our common ancestor was regularly eating burgers. More likely insects and leaves...which do not contain Neu5Gc.
As a self-proclaimed "healthy person", I'm not regularly eating either of these, but unless I know where the meat comes from, I'm likely sticking to the non-inflammatory burger.
Chimpanzees eat plenty of meat. They particularly enjoy hunting and eating monkeys, for example.
the (low) possibility of mad cow always lurks in my mind when discussing things like this. I have a deep fear of prions.
The much more common scenario is the use of growth hormones in cows - to the point that pro athletes traveling/competing in Central and South America are instructed to avoid beef altogether as they later test positive in their drug tests for anabolic steroids.
I personally opt for meat over vegetarian options when given the choice to make sure I get sufficient protein (I do track and I struggle to get enough when eating vegetarian) but I still would vastly prefer more meat alternatives. I'm always very impressed by the Beyond options and I'm glad it's very slowly becoming more mainstream. I remember the first time I'd had an Impossible Burger was in San francisco about 10 years ago - a group of friends and I were talking about this "crazy meatless burger that still feels/tastes like meat" and we searched out a restaurant that offered it. The fact that national fast food chains are offering it now is indicative of the progress being made in society and normalizing the meatless alternatives.
Chimps literally eat other monkeys and even cannibalize other troops... They definitely eat meat.
Something that feels and tastes like a reasonable substitute for meat but doesn't jack up my cholesterol is very much appreciated.
Eating cholesterol doesn't translate to cholesterol in the blood.
At the end of the day, red meat is bad for you. Processed red meat is in the same category as carcinogen as Alcohol and Tobacco. To put into perspective, diet coke is two categories lower. And it doesn't get much more artificial than that. Bacon is basically cigarettes in meat form, and hamburgers are just heart disease in a bun.
Believe it or not, starches and oils are genuinely healthier than meat. Meat is basically just bad for you, or at least most of it.
And before I hear more "dawn of man" stuff - uh, no. For most of human history, humans ate very little meat. It was mostly plants.
And, of the meat they did eat, it was nothing like the meat we have today. We eat extremely fatty farmed meat, they ate lean game meat. Farmed meat is a very new invention.
There is still lean meat today! Hamburgers are not it, though.
Hamburger patties are not very lean at all. 15% saturated fat is not lean. Lean is chicken breast or game deer.
For many processes ingredients, like aspartame, we don't know. We're pretty sure it doesn't cause cancer. But from the way people talk about aspartame versus pastrami, you wouldn't know that.
And I stand by what I said about bacon. It's health detriments are much much worse than just colorectal risk - it heightens your risk of almost all cancers, similar to tobacco, due to inflammation and free radicals. And that's not even touching on heart disease, which is the more realistic concern.
This is because bacon is more like cigarettes than most people assume, even if far less dangerous in practice.
Like another example is "sugar is poison." which is also structured as a factual equivalence and also gesturing at something real and also designed to land as a stronger claim than the evidence warrants.
So yes, cattle (and their ancestors, and their relatives) have been human food since the dawn of man.
This is simply not true. As soon as we were able, we ate almost all megafauna to extinction. Once we mastered pastoralism, peoples who engaged in it continued eating high-meat diets. Even for more settled peoples, going up to medieval or colonial times, beef or other meat was often present in a daily stew in some form.
Unfortunately, it’s barely natural and there’s definitely more than one ingredient int he patty at McDonald…
I agree beyond is ultra processed. I disagree on the fact that it’s worse than most patty. Sure you have 100% organic beef patty, but in most burger places I got to, beyond still sounds like like the better choice, from a health point of view.
And let’s not forget the quantity of meat we consume, it’s too much anyway, yet another reason why a batons burger is probably better.
And finally, environmentally, also better than classic burger.
But it is true one could take a salad at McDonalds, that would be even better.
If you want to simply go by societal resilience from biorisks then switching to more easily controllable substances like plant based meat for protein would be an absolute win.
The fact that meat comes from a single source doesn’t make it automatically healthier, so is ricin, cyanide and polonium yet I wouldn’t include any of them in my diet. Plant based protein is healthier than its animal counterpart and this is proven by proper scientific studies, not by Tik-tok stars or nutrition “experts”.
OTOH, plenty do attempt to source that single natural ingredient from somewhere that produces it as it was produced at the dawn of man. Unfortunately you'll find most such product claims are scams.
I stopped eating premium beef when I was old enough (5) to understand the meat packers' auction paid about the same for a dead cow we collected from the field as a live one. And ours were 100% field raised never barned, with few enough cattle rotating through fields that every field was primarily used to farm hay we sold to the mass producers.
IOW, can't get more natural, and can't get healthier cattle. If you wanted to eat one, you'd eat one of ours. And still, the packers didn't care if the carcass was alive or inexplicably dead.
You can agree with this sentiment (ideology?) and not be vegan, if you aren't willing to give up meat. giving up meat is what defines this demographic.
Relative to a population of people willing to give up meat, would you assume there is no difference in "liking how plants taste" versus the general population? I'd assume it correlates directly with "willingness to give up meat".
> Health conscious folks would definitely choose these over hamburgers.
Maybe, but in context its a false dichotomy, why wouldn't they pick better substitutes e.g. non-average meat?
The only people i ever hear say anything positive about beyond burger (after the novelty wore off) was meat eaters. Vegeterians, for whatever reason, tended not to like it. But meat eaters were always going to choose meat anyways, so it seems like nobody actually bought it.
Do some people occasionally eat fake meat? Sure. Enough to build a sustainable business? Less clear.
I'm a vegetarian. I have never _not_ paid at least $2 premium to sub in an Impossible or Beyond patty. I've had tons of them, there are some in my freezer.
I never understood this argument: what's the problem with consuming proportionately more to make up for the reduction?
I'm not rushing to demand IV tylenol because its oral bioavailability is only 80%-90%, which is around the "loss" we're talking for plant vs animal protein on average. And the ultraprocessing should improve plant's profile here.
Because the macros suck. If you’re trying to hit certain protein / carb / fat ratios, eating more of the “protein” means eating a lot more carbs and fat too, which often isn’t the goal.
Your analogy is not accurate, it would be more like waking up in pain in the middle of the night after a bad injury, and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine.
> and taking t3s with codeine+ caffeine, and wanting more codeine without wanting the added caffeine.
that's what tylenol #4s are for, double the codeine, none the caffeine. Take half a t#4 and half of a regular standard tylenol = T#3 without the codeine.
I feel like it'll take another 5 years for this "bio-availability" myth to die out.
I’ve personally never met another vegan who chose this lifestyle for “diet” reasons. They’ll be out there for sure, but for the folks I know It’s always been about the animals.
Just because I choose not to eat animals doesn’t mean I’m choosing to be healthy :) I should focus more on the food that I eat but alas, it’s just not how I roll at the moment.
You do get some unintentional health benefits here and there (lower cholesterol in my case) but other trade-offs too for those like me that aren’t as diligent as they should be (lower b-12, iron etc).
This is completely unrelated to the question of “can you be healthy as a vegan”. To that I would say absolutely. Is it the reason most people choose to be vegan - my gut would say no (but I’m not claiming this as fact).
Goddamn I love me some Oreos.
Plus, it’s easier to sit atop a high horse when you’re not eating it ;)
what a weird form of gatekeeping. at least they're using some form of ethics and trying to change the world in a way they're able to.
coming from a non-vegan, btw, even though this shouldn't even be a requirement.
1. non-vegans eating with vegans at a vegan restaurant, where eating there wasn't their choice (they were craving a burger), and so, being forced to order off this menu, will choose the most burger-like thing on the menu.
2. non-vegans eating with vegans at a non-vegan restaurant, where for whatever reason they feel the need to impress / not-offend the vegan by eating vegan food as well. (Think "first date" or "client meeting.")
Do people genuinely think that 'ethical' vegans and vegetarians are doing it because they don't like meat? Or genuinely not comprehend the idea of taking an ethical stance even if you actually like something?
For illustration, human baby could be the best tasting barbecue on the planet, but even if it was I would still think that murdering children for my dinner would be wrong and wouldn't do it. Ethical vegans and vegetarians feel similarly about eating meat, that it's (often) delicious but killing animals for food is wrong. Offering them a "meat without any of the suffering" option, in theory, has quite a large audience.
Plus as a meat-eater who had a vegetarian partner for a few years, things like impossible mince also made it easier for me to cook things we could both enjoy, and things like beyond/impossible made eating out a little easier in burger joints etc.
Just because Beyond as a company is doing bad doesn't mean the whole category of products is doing bad.
That's true for many products across the board, not only vegan ones though.
I never thought the notion of "let's make the veggie burger taste like meat" made any sense.
I’ma regular guy who likes burgers but is very worried about the effects cattle farming has on the planet. I don’t love killing animals so I can have a tastier meal either.
The demographic that Beyond and Impossible claimed to be chasing was the like 85% of Americans that answered polls about wanting to eat less meat (back in the early 201Xs). "Meatless Monday", weeknight vegetarian... Whatever. Thats who they pitched investors on.
It's also a market that never materialized, whether because it was always a mirage of push polling or because an ascendant fascist GOP has made meat eating a cornerstone of their identity or COVID or whatever.
Yes it was generally more expensive, for the worst quality meat but otherwise I think it was at a reasonable medium price point.
Still, I don't really have a reason to buy it. I don't avoid meat. I specifically eat beef for, for example, creatine and iron. But I guess it is good for people who crave beef yet have an ideological resistance against meat, a niche which I'm not sure how big it is.
Perhaps a tangent, but they're not required to list "chlorine" as an ingredient if the slaughterhouse washes the beef with bleach to kill bacteria.
I don't see why this follows. There are a lot of ethical vegans and vegetarians who like junk food. And these patties have higher protein than less processed plant based alternatives, which is important to a lot of people. It's just that vegetarians and vegans are a small portion of the overall "burger" market.
I suspect the "meat" branding helped early on, because it got some people to give it a try who otherwise never would have. There were other plant-based burgers on the market already but Beyond really exploded quickly.
It's just that it didn't really live up to the hype enough for meat eaters to go back for a second helping after the novelty wore off. So at this point the "meat" in the brand name isn't doing anything.
And it’s not really about the taste, it’s more about form factor of a “protein fried patty” in a sandwich. Could easily be falafel.
Normal daily food is of course actual vegan/vegetarian food that doesn’t need to pretend to be meat.
If animal agriculture was not subsidized, I expect plant based "meats" would be on par or cheaper than real meat.
Beyond sausage links are damn good.
The fact that the Beyond Burger sells in mainstream grocery stores tells you all that you need to know: it's popular (enough). There are muliple products in this niche in my not-very-large grocery store.
Grocery stores don't stock products that don't sell. No matter how you personally think it doesn't have a niche.
I think the part that’s accurate is that it’s hard to get past the highly processed hurdle for the kind of people that think critically about food.
But vegans aren’t the target market.
I'm a strict vegetarian myself and have been for about ten years. But as much as I love plant foods, I absolutely miss meat — I was never a big meat eater, but I would enjoy burgers, salami, pepperoni, bacon, Italian meatballs, prosciutto, things like that.
I dislike Beyond products, which taste a bit weird and metallic to me. The only imitation meat product I've remotely enjoyed is Impossible Burger. Nobody has managed to make anything else — if someone would nail plant-based pepperoni or bacon I would be all over it.
I had really hoped that people would say, "Well, if it tastes close enough, then how about I go for the cruelty-free version." And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
Perhaps the cognitive dissonance is just too much. The world would be a better place if we ate less meat, even if we don't eliminate it entirely. But to acknowledge the cruelty by avoiding it sometimes means facing it when you do choose animal protein.
The fact that it doesn't taste close to the original and that it commands a price premium is why I ultimately gave up on it. Where I might use beyond, I can usually get a healthier option using ground turkey instead with a much more agreeable flavor and price.
But really, I've just focused on making more meatless dishes in general. Highlighting the flavor of legumes and mushrooms beats trying to fake the flavor of beef.
I think it actually is "Beyond" meat, in that sense.
IMO, this is a much better tasting burger that doesn't try to fake beef flavor (Not vegan) [1]
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-black-bean-burger-recip...
But at a much higher price? The value is not really there IMO.
From their performance it seems like the intersection of (cares about animals | methane emissions) & doesn't mind health effects & less price sensitive & must eat hamburger-likes is too small.
Interesting point on cognitive dissonance though. I think it's possible to draw a rational tradeoff between acceptable amount of (externalised) cruelty and personal benefits of eating meat - no cognitive dissonance needed.
It's not, though. Vegans that I know always proselytize about how "you can't even tell the difference" but I can tell the difference.
I don't understand the weird vegan obsession with eating fake food. Edible oil product "vegan cheese" and other junk.
If you want to eat meat, eat it. If you don't, don't. You do you, but don't try to sell me on disgusting fake food.
It tastes like imitation meat, the same way artificial vanilla tastes like imitation vanilla.
People are just deceiving themselves.
I agree and also find it unpleasant, but I wouldn't claim to be incredulous that someone would deliberately want to deceive themselves. We deceive ourselves all the time for all sorts of stupid and less stupid reasons. If you need money but hate your job, you have to convince yourself that somehow getting up every day grinding it out is worth it. If you don't need money but are addicted to it, or don't have any other hobbies, you deceive yourself into making your number higher.
If you're a bodybuilder you might have convinced yourself that a certain repulsive aesthetic is attractive, or if you have weight issues, you might intentionally deceive yourself into hating the consumption addictions that are your weakness.
Many people who are vegans do happen to convince themselves of remarkably implausible nonsense that I haven't really seen in others as much, but it's usually due to what I'd suspect are other underlying mental health issues—the two groups I've observed the most mistrust in medicine from are 30+ men and vegans.
The act of self-deception itself isn't rare though
They should just use that as a label: https://xkcd.com/641/
Would you like the cruel or cruelty-free patty?
A cow takes about 10x as much corn per serving of meat, so that's 10x as many critters killed, and then you have to kill the cow.
The creatures that are killed in the field, or on the road or whatever, they are living their little lives eating and screwing and doing all the fun stuff creatures do until they get brained by a tilling disk or whatever.
A cow on the other hand, in a U.S. cafo? I mean if you like wading through your own shit, nose to asshole with all your compatriots, eating food that your GI tract doesn't even like that much so that you can get overweight? No stimulus, no sex, no variance in diet, then you'd love to be a cow.
For me, I just don't want to eat that.
When there's an up-slope winter breeze I can smell it.
I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to point out that vegans are selective in their complaints.
> Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.
But I do wonder what you mean when you say “cruelty” in the context of cattle.
Having lived in/around rural livestock production most of my life, I can tell you that most cattle operations I am familiar with take excellent care of the their animals. Minimizing stress is absolutely a top goal for them.
Pork, on the other hand, is almost always produced in a horrifying, cruel way. Confinement barns are terrible in every sense of the word. Pigs are treated without respect from cradle to grave.
I tell myself that in the long-term the pros outweigh the con, if you value being on the right side of morality
Furthermore, it’s a bad argument to imply vastly reduced complicity with a system is the same as full complicity.
Where did I say "full complicity"? But yes, animals who are farms for milk and eggs are treated just as badly, sometimes worse, than animals that are farmed for meat.
What’s your source for that claim? I know plenty of vegetarians and there’s not a single one where I could assume they eat both dairy and eggs. I don’t think any of them drink milk (oat drinks and the like are common), only some eat cheese, in very varying quantities (from regularly to almost never), same with eggs.
You are assuming what your parent commenter does.
> animals who are farms for milk and eggs are treated just as badly
Again, you have no idea what your parent commenter does. With eggs in particular, there are different tiers related to the animals’ conditions. It is possible to make more ethical choices.
The person you are replying to is consciously trying to make the world a better place, and probably succeeding in a small way. Are they perfect? No. But they are literally sacrificing something for the good of someone (or something) else. This is the definition of altruism.
For some reason, you felt the need to criticize them for not being more altruistic?
Finally, if you really want to live cruelty free and 100% sustainably, the only option is to throw yourself off of a bridge because any time you interact with modern society you are producing CO2 indirectly and potentially harming animals, no matter how careful you are.
A lot of the meat i consume is from restaurants and fast food, it isn't easy to get a meat alternative, that isn't part of a "veggie" item that has different ingredients (if available at all). For example, a "beyond cheeseburger" that uses the same sauce,buns,prep as a regular cheeseburger would be nice, but usually it's under a "veggie burger" with vegetable centric things with it.
Tangentially, indian food is awesome for avoiding meat, but restaurant ordered indian food isn't healthy if you eat all the time (a couple of times a month is ok, if you're fit).
If Beyond Meat had grown organically, instead of raising hundreds of millions of dollars, it would be a great company doing great things today. Instead, it has failed to live up to the unrealistic expectations that were set for it. Beyond Meat is no different than any of the other zirpicorns.
Here's a comparison - Tyson Foods, best known for their frozen meat, had a revenue of $54.44 billion last year. Their current market cap is $21.77 billion.
Beyond Meat reported an annual revenue of $87.9 million in their 2018 S-1, and post-IPO reached a peak market cap of $14.1 billion.
See the issue with these numbers?
And it’s perfectly safe out there. There’s nothing out there but mission statements and TAM slides and pea-protein slurry.
And $1.8 billion of burned cash.
Hope this doesn't kill them.
Also, price is always going to be an issue. The US spends billions and billions of dollars supporting the meat industry. The fact meat is cheap is a political choice, which makes direct plant based substitutes a tough financial proposition.
It's not as good as the meat it's comparing itself against, and it's not as good as the vegetarian options also available in the store, and it's more expensive than either.
Anytime can "be the moment" for plant-based meat if the product technology was there, but it's not.
I've tried the beyond burgers, they were alright taste wise, but yeah there's many other options for a protein source.
Beyond Meat was never going to convince people to eat less meat by substituting it for fake burgers and steaks. For people that already eat vegetarian there already tastier sources of protein. Lentils, beans, quinoa, chickpeas, mushrooms, nuts & seeds, etc. All of those have much more flexibility with how you can incorporate them into dishes than a fake slab of "meat."
> more expensive than either.
This is a political problem. In the US animal agriculture receives far more funding than plant-based protein. Without government subsidies, a pound of ground beef would cost closer to $30-$40. We've historically defined food security int he US as "meat and dairy," two of the things we really need to consume less of because of environmental impacts.
But yeah, Beyond Meat wasn't going to get us there. We need real political changes, not fake meat.
I’m ~97% vegetarian but there are a few foods for which traditional vegetarian alternatives are rubbish. One of these is the burger: you either get some odd veg/potato base pattie, a large grilled mushroom, or halloumi. The meat substitute burgers aren’t close to real beef burgers, but they’re far tastier than other vegetarian options.
They're a lot better than a crappy low quality beef burger even, like a McDonald's patty. Not quite as good as a real steakhouse burger, but kinda in between. There's another brand that's about as good, impossible burger. Probably a bit better even but I've never tried them side by side.
The soy and potato varieties yes they're way worse than even McDonald's. They're not even trying to simulate a real burger, just the idea of 'some fried gunk on a bun'. But yeah no.
I really want to know why restaurants keep thinking this is a good alternative. I've never had one that wasn't just a mess to eat, and it's weirdly common to have people think it contains a significant amount of protein. However, I'm very happy with most veg patties, and would love halloumi as an option over Beyond any day.
I first noticed this years ago when eating out with a (my first?) vegetarian friend in a variety of (omnivorous) restaurants and gastropubs. The number of times he'd have to choose the goats' cheese tart became a running joke.
Bean burgers are actually delicious depending on the brand and how you dress them up. It doesn't taste like a smash burger, but if you get a brand that grills up nice and crispy and pair it with a nice spicy mayo, it's legitimately a good burger.
Also, don't sleep on the humble Boca burger which has existed for decades. It's not as good looking as Beyond Beef but I would argue it's better tasting.
With that flexibility comes inconvenience. With fake meat burgers or sausages I just have to whack the oven on and boil some veg to go alongside. That's family dinner. With lentils I have to s think more about how to make it tasty for everyone.
This is absolute nonsense, but I’m curious why you believe this to be the case?
I'm sure that's due to depressing subsidies or economies of scale, but regardless of the reason it's kind of hard for me to justify buying something that will taste like a "not-quite-as-good-as-the-thing-half-the-price" burger.
They are pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's just something that I have trouble purchasing.
Based on what data do you make such unsubstantiatable statements?
I was just parroting what I heard but doing a search I found a bunch of posts claiming that subsidies don’t actually affect the price that much, and I cannot find a primary source for the $30/pound figure I have always heard.
Then you factor in the costs and it's Beyond insanity.
And frankly I don't know if Beyond was doing anything legitimately novel. Impossible was over-engineering their burger to the extent that I wouldn't eat one from any restaurant because I couldn't tell whether it was be'f or beef. Beyond just seemed to be nu-gardein which I'll grant you—it's a Monsanto subsidiary—but the product is palettable, consistent, and available almost universally and has been as long as I've been on the diet, 12 years.
This of course was completely false, but far too many people let themselves get caught up in hype instead of reason.
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I remember having an excellent veggie burger at a bar, and then when I went back a year later, it was replaced by Beyond or Impossible, and the bar tender was pretty open about how it was gross but their distributor pushed it on them. That of course pissed off the vegetarians who didn't like meat and had no desire for a meat-like substitute.
I think you are overstating Tofu.
But honestly I'm mostly eating for nutrition rather than taste. Tofu doesnt hit the numbers I need.
Plus, all the other nice things about it (high in fiber, doesn't incur the bodily damage associated with red meat and saturated fat, is complete protein, lasts for over a month in the fridge, can be produced shelf-table, etc.) And it's not like you have to choose one or the other.
Meat is subsidized in the US, so while tofu is usually cheap, it's not by as much as those numbers would suggest. (About 3x, for those just tracking protein. At my Costco, it's about $30 for 4lb of 85% ground beef or $7 for 4lb of tofu. That works out to $0.10 per gram protein for the beef, or $0.03 per gram of protein for the tofu.)
I used common English words using simple grammatical structures in short paragraphs. My comment was short and easy to read. I articulated the nutritive qualities clearly and succinctly. Tofu compares favorably to beef and chicken in terms of nutrition as well. (And that's even if we're ignoring how commonly meats have added table and curing salts).
Further, we're discussing beef in this thread, and anyone who was reading this thread would have that context. You're implying that tofu to beef was intentionally done to disfavor the meat industry, which is either bad-faith rhetoric, or you are someone who is commenting without having the context that beef is discussed pretty centrally throughout this thread.
Your reply does not seem like good-faith participation from a human. You are clearly not even reading the comments you are replying to.
It absolutely is the time for plant-based meat. It has never been more crucial. It's just that their business model was easily replicable.
Sure if we are cherry picking the "premium" brand this comparison works. Store brand soy or oat milk are 0,95€[0] and 0,90€[1] per liter respectively, so about what cow milk costs. For milk and milk alternatives there hasn't been a financial differentiator between them for about 5 years now.
With meat replacement patties there is still a significant price difference, though there Beyond Meat is also one of the more expensive ones (which is bold, as they've also been lapped by the competition in taste and variety of products).
[0]: https://www.rewe.de/shop/p/rewe-bio-vegan-soja-drink-1l/5852... - Links may not work depending on what postcode you enter. Should work with 10115
[1]: https://www.rewe.de/shop/p/rewe-bio-vegan-hafer-drink-ohne-z...
That is the plan?
As a result, the entire packaged food industry is pumping up protein numbers and marketing it as the primary attribute of the food (where they might have previously marketed low fat or low sugar or whatever else in the past).
So, saturated market... but certainly one people are investing in now.
The whole time they are telling me this I can't help but wonder what the hell is the point of the glp1 here? You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow. So its like there is no point. Might as well just rip the bandaid off, diet and exercise, get there 6 months slower, while not taking the glp. Like wouldn't you want to actually increase muscle mass while burning fat?
I have a very good support system. Not to brag, but my parents are amazing, my family have a small amounts of doctors who helped me getting through it at first. My siblings are great too, and my SO support me despite my quirks. I love sailing, which is a great way to loose weight. And I'm a SWE, the easiest job there is when you're not bad at it, that makes good money without real responsibilities or stress. It was still fucking hard. If glp1 can help people less lucky than me, let them have it.
Ive also done it the right way, and it was literally easier, by far, to get a masters degree while working 40 hours a week than it was to drop from 250 to 175. Incomparable. The constant mental pressure to eat, to eat more, to search the cabinets, to stop at x on the way home, etc.
I’ve heard “wow sounds like a severe addiction” yeah no shit. It’s an addiction to a substance you MUST have 2-3x a day. Imagine if you needed alcohol twice a day to live.
Cigarette addiction is even more perplexing for me. I've had nicotine addiction before in college, quit, got the headaches and nausea and all that but IMO having the flu is worse, I just rode it out then it was done. I don't understand what goes on for someone who say wants to quit cigarettes, is trying to quit, is aware of the health issues, but still makes the very conscious dozen plus decisions that have to take place in sequence to get that next pack of cigarettes. I think deep down there is a side of them that is maybe extremely depressed, and self loathing, and maybe wants them to fail to quit because that would satisfy their own internal working model of themselves being a failure, too weak to ever quit. Something that goes beyond any one vice and is a general phenomenon, but unfortunately might never be appreciated with so many targeted vice-specific efforts vs understanding the wider whole.
I was like that earlier in life. It didn't last forever.
> For me I can easily skip an entire day of meals.
You mentioned fasting during Ramadan. I had to look it up, it apparently allows a predawn meal and another meal after sunset, which can include meat and a dessert. Hardly skipping an entire day of meals! (and also rather less rigorous than the fasting rituals of some other faiths as well, although perhaps Islamic different sects have different takes on this)
It's an honourable goal but the evidence isn't great for that
> You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow
You don't have to. Should though.
When the drugs are working as intended, you'll lose weight without 'trying' to improve your diet, exercise will speed up the weight loss, but isn't strictly necessary for it to "work". Encouraged, sure, but you'll get weight loss from the appetite suppression alone.
The 'high protein' advice is because a lot of glp1 consumers had poor diets to begin with, and they're catabolic drugs. Combine that with reduced appetite and you're at risk of insufficient protein consumption to maintain whatever muscle mass you started with.
Yes, CICO, blah blah, but overcoming food addiction by asking people to eat less is like forcing a smoker who wants to quit to work at a cigar bar or something. You can't just not buy food, especially if you have a family you have to feed.
But that being said everyone I know on GLP (only like 3 people admittedly) isn't close to obese. Maybe at most 40-60lbs overweight. And again all getting the recommendations for diet and exercise interventions, which they are all starting up, but begs the question whether they could have just lost those couple dozen pounds starting up diet and exercise without having to go on the drug. Especially as the drug isn't actually "doing" anything like raising resting metabolic rate to physically burn more calories, but instead slowing digestion and making you feel as though you are more full to trick you into taking in less calories.
Very fun. The only war on protein I have been a part of is personally removing hundreds of pounds of protein from circulation. By eating it. I think I'm winning.
The industry has successfully marketed and packaged meat as "that thing you buy", hiding the immense and unconscionable cruelty which sentient beings are subjected to.
Some are so much into meat the vegetarian evangelism has about as much chance as trying to convince them cannibalism is the solution to all world problems.
If you sell them something cheap that tastes great and tell them it has meat in it there is no need for all that tiresome talking about saving the world on an empty stomach. They become easy to catch and kill.
If they would do a 55/45 beef/plant-based meat blend and burgers, I think adoption rate would pick up significantly. Anybody who questions the taste is going to see that beef is the main ingredient. If the product comes in significantly cheaper than beef alone, more consumers will try it and look to it as an affordable way of eating beef.
For the bigger picture, 65 cows will stretch as far as 100 cows previously did, lowering suffering, environmental damage, inputs, etc.
For the people who like the 55/45 blend, it would open the door to an 80/20 blend plant vs. beef, and a 100% plant-based product.
Also really hard to cook with imo compared to meat. Meat is nice to cook with from all the fat in there. It just renders out perfectly and also separates it from the pan. You get some nice carmelization, maillard reactions, all the nice stuff going on.
The fake meat is like a sponge for grease on the other hand. Nothing renders out. Stuff gets sucked in. It is like being on the opposite side of the osmosis reaction going on here. And boy do you need grease to cook with this stuff. Otherwise it just fuses to the pan like nothing, and again crumbles apart getting it off. It pretty much needs to be pan fried and soaks up a ton of grease after. You therefore can't trust nutrition guidelines because of the grease requirement to get anything out of this stuff. I bet if you air fried it, it would be absurdly dry.
Nothing against mixing beef with plants and the like, but there are far easier ways to improve the welfare of cattle that only costs pennies.
The protein bar could work. I personally don't like them, because most of them are just candy bars with added protein.
Meat substitutes (e.g. fake turkey made of tofu) are generally an inferior good, in both the economic sense and the sense of taste. It's not surprising to me that they don't work. Maybe if they're made much cheaper.
Folks can not like meat for ethical issues but it is a good source of protein and our bodies are designed to eat it. If you don’t want to eat meat there are other good sources of nutrients from a carefully designed vegetarian diet. The whole “fake meat” thing was always just a silly gimmick.
More broadly, as others have highlighted, the result is mostly over-processed lab goo that most health conscious people would avoid. There are plenty of good sources of protein without the need for magic shakes either.
Net here is a business trying to solve problems that aren’t really problems. The stock being down 98.9% is a reflection of that cold reality.
Beyond, Impossible, and the like have suffered from misinformation and an industry-funded, influencer-laden social media smear campaign to paint these alternative products as highly-processed franken-foods.
They are a good alternative for health and environmentally-conscious folks, solve real sustainability challenges, and aren't terrible for you in moderation.
Even if that were true, our bodies were designed in a different era. Long before factory farming and antibiotics, long before curing and flavorings. Yes, high quality meat can be healthy but how many people are eating high quality meat?
If you want to criticize Beyond Meat for being processed goop, you must compare it to the meat regular people are eating every day… which is also processed goop but with added antibiotics and disease. The average American consumer would be much healthier if they immediately swapped all of their meat consumption with plant-based alternatives.
the Company requires additional time to complete a review and analysis related to its inventory balances, including amounts recorded for the provision of excess and obsolete inventory
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1655210/000165521026...
I think this is an example of an idea which looks great in the hype phase, but doesnt translate to real world traction.
Likewise, not all processing is bad. Cooking food is a form of processing and just makes the nutrients much more easy to digest.
Or, in other words, why would you eat mediocre fake meat when good vegan food that doesn't pretend to be meat exists, if your goal is to eat vegan.
What's to not understand?
The reason is for a lot of them is that they become repulsed by the smell of meat after not eating it for a long time. So they would very much not want something that tastes like meat. They just want the function of the burger really. And to be fair there isn't a lot of good options otherwise for vegetarians that are truly comperable to a burger in terms of it as a product. Veggie lunch meat is even sadder state of affairs than the burger meat so sandwiches are out. Then you have bean burritos I guess, falafel wrap. All stuff that tends to be found solely in ethnic specific restaurants than democratized across the entire globe like the burger is, which you can probably find anywhere you find reliable electricity in 2026.
The plant meats are healthier than the animal meats.
People don't eat burgers for health reasons.
> There's already healthy and delicious cuisines that have developed over thousands of years (Indian, Nepalese, I'm sure many others).
Why eat ice cream when chicken is healthier?
You're comparing apples and oranges. Yes, there are plenty of delicious vegetarian foods, but you can't just substitute one for the other. If you're craving eggplants, replacing it with lentils will not satisfy you.
Furthermore it's nice that no animal got killed and there were fewer emissions.
Reminds me of folks who said "Avoid gluten-free because it's less healthy."
And high level athletes don't eat a lot of burger patties. They eat chicken (likely breast). When you're consuming a lot of meat, you have to make sure it's of good quality.
Also, just to point out:
> but the fake meat is simply not healthy.
I never said it's healthy. I can equally say:
> Beef patties are not healthy
It will never be the right moment for plant-based meat. It is ultra processed unhealthy garbage.
The length of the ingredient list tells you everything you need to know. The longer it is, the more processed and unhealthy the "food" is.
And also one where animal agriculture is heavily subsidized.
I also am disappointed there was no iteration or improvement of the product over time. There was clearly room to innovate or make it taste better - it feels like the product hit, there was some excitement about the novelty... and then they didn't capitalize on it by pushing new variations and updates.
If I were vegan, I'd cook my own meals because then I'd really know what's in the food I eat.
> All protein on the planet, was made from sunlight and photosynthesis
How big is the market for non-ideological vegans/vegetarians that are shopping for meat alternatives?
Most people are not ideological with their food. Most people will only stop eating meat when it becomes too expensive to afford. Simple as that.
What is the status you gain for being seen eating a beyond burger in 2026?
At something like 6% of the world the market the population of ideological vegetarians and vegans is huge. With another handful of percent who are ideologically opposed to eating meat on certain days but not entirely vegetarian.
PS. Your claim that "most people are not ideologic with their food"... Not all food ideology is related to vegetarianism so it's not terribly relevant but I think this claim is just wrong. Islam + Hinduisim + Buddhism make up nearly half the world and all have pretty strong religious ideological beliefs about food, and a non-trivial fraction of the quarter of the world that is christian has at least a few scruples like avoiding meat during lent. And that's just people preaching religious beliefs not less documented ideologies like believing real men eat their steak raw or whatever.
I must be in bubble or have a very different definition of "idiological": of the dozens of vegans/vegetarians I know none would actively seek the "taste" of industrialized "ready-made" "meat replacement". They may put up with it if must be, but seek it? Desire it?
Now, this relies on considering people "ideological vegans/vegetarians" if their only motivation for not eating meat is ideology. This means that the huge amount of Hindu Indians who are ideologically opposed to eating meat don't count, since even without this ideological motivation, they would still have traditional and social and supply reasons to not eat meat.
If you were to make fake plant-based products that were (a) noticeably healthier than meat, and (b) indistinguishable from meat taste-wise (or better-tasting), I'm quite confident a lot of people would pay a premium for that.
The problem is the current products just don't deliver that. All they deliver is eco-friendliness at a premium, at which point they're basically offering something more akin to the optional climate fee on flight tickets.
You can already eat healthy, better and more sustainably but doing what humans have done for millions of years. You dont need an industrialized, packaged, convenient and standardized flavour.
Honestly, i have come to see beyond and impossible as a variation of soylent. Its for a very specific and narrow market of people that I'd rather not describe
We can? What are you suggesting I order at a restaurant that's both healthier than meat and also indistinguishable from it taste-wise?
I like em but I think the idea of them being somehow premium doesn’t translate.
I wasn't vegan or vegetarian at the time and I thought they were just a complete improvement over beef burgers. But I think that thick congealing beef fat is gross and that it's just better mixed with mushroom juice, and I also already liked mushrooms.
Just seemed like just another weird Silicon Valley money bubble built on hype and vc cash instead of any kind of meaningful product differentiation.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s our genuine experience.
Proprietary food, that you can only buy from one company?
Of course it was doomed to fail. It’s not even about veganism, it’s a cancerous idea.
I was going to offer the twinkie but I guess hostess declared bankruptcy, so maybe you're right.
Where it sits as a "premium" good doesn't really work as a value proposition.
Huh? Isn't that most of it, except for basic grocery ingredients?
Only if you live in the us.
Its like when I go to a pizza place I can get the same pizzas regardless where I go even though they are all independent, the recipe for most things people eat in the world are not secrets, its stuff anyone can make and sell.
Again, only if you live in the US i guess. Here in europe each producer is legally required to disclose all the ingredients (along with their percentage) in the item description.
I usually pick packs of burgers and i can discard the ones with potato flakes in them. I can even go to a butcher and have meat ground before my eyes.
Can't do that with beyond burgers... Proprietary food.
This line is a good candidate to be crowned the dumbest thing i'll be reading this year.
They're both doing fine.
And Huel.
Likewise beyond just substitutes, all specific sodas, sweets, biscuits*, most breakfast cereals, etc.
* I'm British by birth, I don't mean those scones Americans have with "gravy".
now they are publicly listed, and their cynical premise has not born fruit
time to pivot!