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Comment by srean | Hacker News Reader

Yes I don't get it why milk is considered more ethically sound than eggs in my country. Milk is stolen baby food extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.

Precision-Fermented (animal-Free) milk does exist but it is not easily available.

Unfertilized eggs are products that come out anyway and cannot become a chick till it is successfully fertilized outside of the hen. Granted that these two are extracted industrially under not so nice conditions.

Waiting for good lab grown meat to become cheap.

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Just to note, eggs are not as ethical as you may assume... We have bred chickens so that they lay an unhealthy amount of eggs, which is likely a pretty stressful life experience. The original breed of bird (Red junglefowl) laid roughly a dozen eggs a year, where as modern layer hens will lay 300+. So it's not really "comes out anyway".

They often get medical conditions like Keel bone fractures and reproductive tract disease and they're also culled at around 18 months when output drops (tiny fraction of their lifespan). Oh and the male chicks don't lay, so roughly one per hen gets killed on day one.

I still think overall milk is probably worse, but plant-based is biggest win to reduce suffering overall!

I agree. Their 'living quarters' can be pretty bad too. I was describing their situation as compared to milk.

Your italicised text is /exactly/ wrong. Hen eggs are fertilised inside the hen’s oviduct. I mean, eggs are somewhat porous after laying, but they’re not that porous.

(I don’t know about you. I’m just a programmer holding strong opinions about avian physiology. Maybe there’s an actual biologist on the plane who can correct me)

Oh! Thanks for correcting me. Now I learned that the egg is fertilized (if at all) before the shell is formed. The hen would lay the egg anyway fertilization or no fertilization.

Simplified egg laying are the chicken analogue to human female menstruation. It is technically quite different (chickens don’t have a uterus, for one), but it is still analogous.

> Waiting for good lab grown meat to become cheap.

This is a cop out. There are plenty of excellent plant-based meat alternatives that I'm sure you couldn't tell the difference in a blind test.

For sure I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but I don't know anything screaming more "processed food" than the meat alternatives. The component list is longer than this thread, sorry I wouldn't touch that with a hundred feet pole (hyperbole mine).

This just proves you don't have a lot of knowledge about food.

First of all, there are many studies that show that plant-based meat alternatives are healthier than their meat counterparts. Just because a food is processed doesn't mean it's unhealthy. Or are you under the impresssion your sausage and burger patty are health foods?

Second, just like with non-vegan foods, there is a variety of plant-based meat alternatives: Some companies include much healthier ingredients than others.

Finally, even if it weren't for my two first points, the main goal of replacing animal meat with plant-based meat is not health, but ethics and environmental concerns (but again, it's not unhealthier).

Tried some local brand today.

Am quiet satisfied with the kebabs. It's easier to fool in a kebab. Thanks to you I have updated my outdated prior. Things have certainly improved.

Thanks for the comment, means a lot and speaks for you to be open minded and try out new things and update your assumptions <3.

Certainly, the offering of plant-based meat and cheese alternatives have improved significantly in the past 5 years, and they keep improving.

> First of all, there are many studies that show that plant-based meat alternatives are healthier than their meat counterparts

Define healthier, and link the studies.

I eat vegetarian more often than not these days (although I don't usually use plant-based meat), and I'm not disagreeing with you. But cite your sources rather than making vague health claims.

> Define healthier, and link the studies.

Well, why are people who are afraid of a long ingredient lists (without understanding what the ingredients actually are) and just blurt out that vegan meats are unhealthier not asked the same?

In any case, the sister comment linked to some studies. Have a look.

Also, a simple web search will show you that many animal-based meats (such as red meat) are linked to many cancers, this is not even disputed.

Fair point, there's a lot of nutritional bunk going about. I'm not an expert either, but the Wikipedia article seems to cover the big studies that I've heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_alternative#Health

Could you point a few out ? I would be eager to try them out if they are available here in India.

I'm only familar with the brands in Germany unfortunately. You might have Beyond Burger available in India — not my favorite vegan burger patty, but I think it's good enough.

Thanks, will check.

Oh they are in fact available in India. Will definitely try them out.

The beyond burger is decent, but there's no way it's fooling someone in a blind taste test.

Is 100% taste match more important than not supporting an industry that kills Billions of animals a year and on top of that causing a huge amount of greenhouse gases and biosphere destruction?

What if it's 85% taste match, wouldn't that be enough to make the jump to plant based alternatives?

Male chicks for example get thrown in a wood chipper.

Inert gassing prior to the chipper shouldn't have been that expensive. That's the way capitalism works unfortunately.

And luckily we can vote with our wallet.

Hmm not sure. Depends on how well it is prepared. But yes, I said, there are much better brands. But the question was specifically about what's availabe in India, which I have no cllue about.

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