Agreed. So many non vegetarian/vegan people say stuff like this and it’s just wrong. Or they’ll say “why have a fake burger, can’t you just enjoy vegetarian food, why does it have to be a burger? If you want burger just eat one and stop trying to copy meat, innovate on your own”.

It’s just people completely missing the point. If you get fake meat close enough in taste/texture/price you’ll move a large amount of product. The high high majority of meat consumption is not high quality product, but the absolutely lowest quality possible. It’s so easy to swap out they meh hamburger patty you have at a bbq with a plant based one, be healthier, and have less impact on the environment.

> Or they’ll say “why have a fake burger, can’t you just enjoy vegetarian food, why does it have to be a burger? If you want burger just eat one and stop trying to copy meat, innovate on your own”.

It's hilarious, because there's one comment just like that below yours now.

> The high high majority of meat consumption is not high quality product, but the absolutely lowest quality possible.

Yes, this. A lot of people, myself included, eat a lot of meat dishes simply out of habit. Switching those dishes to vegetarian dishes is simply not going to happen, because the force of habit is so strong. If I want a spaghetti bolognese, a spaghetti marinara isn't the same thing! But if I can make my bolognese with a plant-based meat alternative so that it gets the same taste and texture as the real thing, that's a win, and that's something I, and a lot of people, will be willing to do.

I suspect that all the people arguing for vegetarian dishes are people who would always choose the marinara over the bolognese, and therefore don't see the big deal.

> It’s so easy to swap out they meh hamburger patty you have at a bbq with a plant based one, be healthier, and have less impact on the environment.

Even better, have McDonalds and Burger King and every other fast food joint swap out their meat! The Impossible Whopper is almost there now. It just needs to get a couple of notches better, and be the same price as a meat Whopper and there'd zero reason to choose the meat Whopper anymore. And if you can get the Impossible one cheaper than the meat one, it will be the default choice, and you'd have eliminated an absolutely massive amount of habitual meat consumption. Win-win-win.

I agree with you generally, but not with your comparison between bolognese and marinara.

One has the protein I need and one doesn't.

I did, however, discover falafel balls recently, and they're definitely something that I can imagine eating regularily.

> The Impossible Whopper is almost there now. It just needs to get a couple of notches better, and be the same price as a meat Whopper and there'd zero reason to choose the meat Whopper anymore. And if you can get the Impossible one cheaper than the meat one, it will be the default choice,

I'm not sure about cheaper, I think that might have some of effects - perceived inferiority, etc.

So much of the population have to eat the cheapest thing possible it'll certainly have an effect. Make it $1 extra for meat, some will take it but many will save the dollar for something else.

I feel it’s not “cheapest” but “easiest” - though the two are inextricably linked: easy leads to cheap.

I wonder if a hole-in-the-wall franchise based on serving Soylent-based food might work - like a Boba Tea or Pho place, but serving insulated mugs of hot Soylent?

I would buy that for sure, as long as the shop was painted green.

If it means more people are able to eat more nutritiously I say do both. They can pump some more oil into a higher priced version or something.

I would argue that being cheaper would be a positive selling point, rather than a negative one.

Consumers know that producing meat takes a lot of time and effort, and is therefore expensive. They also know that vegetables are much cheaper than meat.

Personally, I'm not going to try an Impossible Whopper if it costs more than a normal, meat-based one, because in my mind it should be cheaper, and I'd feel like I was getting ripped off by excessive margins.

I enjoy eating meat... the texture, the savory nature of its flavor.

Back when I lived in the bay, my brother and I found a vegan restaurant - Golden Era. He had taken me to other vegetarian restaurants and they always felt lacking for something. Golden Era... the 'chicken' drumsticks - ok, they were on a wooden stick, but the texture of whatever it was was right. Then Mongolian 'chicken' had a texture to it too and the sauce provided a nice savory to it.

Since then, some others suggested that the texture may have been from jackfruit (some day I'll hunt up some around here and see if I can make a reasonable BBQ Jackfruit sandwich.

But yea - the thing that had me not pass on my brother asking if I wanted to head to Golden Era was that it felt right when it was being chewed.

Golden Era are (were? I do hope they are still around) doing something with tofu and wheat gluten.

The preparation is more involved than your basic 'throw it in a blender' seitan steak, but the result is totally worth it. You can get really fulfilling textures and flavours, and quite a variety, to boot.

Are. They're accepting takeout only and have a few recommended delivery companies. https://www.goldeneravegan.com

The pot stickers are still there as are the drumsticks.

The drumsticks now say 'soy "chicken"' (the menu that I remember didn't have that - http://d2by9dx2k0n1tg.cloudfront.net/menus/1/1829/public.jpg... ) and ghads... the price has gone from 4 @ $5.95 to 3 @ $8.00

Likewise, the "Spicy Mongolian Delight" is now listed as "slices of soy protein, bell peppers, & onion in a spicy sweet sauce" (which has gone from $7.95 to $12.50)

---

In other vegan... the Fisch Stix and "Chicken" Fingers from https://cheezefactoryrestaurant.com/menu are good (though I'm a bit wary of trying to get the fish flavor and texture right).

My "it might have been jackfruit" - look at https://www.loveandlemons.com/bbq-jackfruit-recipes/ and the way that its nearly indistinguishable from pulled pork in appearance and apparently unripe jackfruit has a pork like savory taste when cooked.

Same with veggie grill in southern california

Plant-based food aimed at replacing meat is often a too-many ingredient, industrialised nightmare.

...unlike the animal industry which is just full of fluffy, happy, loved cows who proudly line themselves up to be turned into tasty beef for your pleasure...

Have you seen the animal industry? It's absolutely disgusting. Getting rid of that would be an enormous net win, both ethical and environmental.

Ethics aside, I think the parent comment was referring to weird additives and oils in things like the Impossible Burger.

That being said, I think it's only fair to compare that to all the antibiotics, hormones, and fertilizers that your average low-grade ground beef has been exposed to or fed.

> I think the parent comment was referring to weird additives and oils

Weird, how?

Weird, because they have funny names that are hard to pronounce, and are therefore magically "unnatural" and bad for you?

Or weird, because their effects on nutrition, digestion, and human health hasn't been widely studied yet?

Both. This pursuit of tasting "kinda like meat" has incurred a lot of odd ingredients most people would normally eschew if they knew the extent of study in human consumption. Plain meat has a much better track record. I don't blame any meat eater for rolling their eyes at this stuff.

And the decisions are sometimes odd. Like beet juice being added not for flavor but so it looks like the patty is bleeding. Meat eaters aren't sold because the veggie burger looks rare.

The truth is meat eaters aren't, en massé, abandoning meat for a plant based alternative that provides little to no health benefit and costs just as much or more.

Will we get there? Probably. But we're in a weird limbo area that is barely appealing to either side of the fence other than as a novelty.

Meat has a better track record huh? Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by animal products.

Those 'odd ingredients' don't seem so odd to me. Go through the list of a meat alternative one by one, you'll be surprised how mundane they are

> Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by animal products.

[ citation needed ]

I'm a long-time vegetarian but this kind of specious pseudo science doesn't sit right with me.

Calling it pseudo science is more in need of a citation than the original statement.

That's not how it works. If you're going to make a claim, support it.

The original claim was that meat has a good track record. Citation needed. NIH is brimming with publications to the contrary

Sure. Humans have been eating meat for tens of thousands of years. That's a track record. The idea that something that's been consumed by humans since there have been himself having a better track record than something that historically hasn't isn't even controversial.

Your turn. Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by meat, right?

I've spent most of my life as a vegetation but dishonest histrionics like this do a disservice to the aim of convincing meat eaters to eat less meat.

It's about the amount of meat and dairy we ate... Next to nothing compared to today. Today's rates of cardiovascular diseases don't exist in mostly plant eating cohorts, nor do they in other largely plant based apes.

Its not that complicated, I fail to see how this qualifies as histrionics.

Well you've drawn a correlation, for sure. As one could do for obesity rates, processed and fast food consumption, alcohol consumption per capita.

Again, citation needed.

Please recognize that the caution around new food science advances is based in experience. I’m sure most of us are old enough to remember when most crunchy fried snacks were on the shelf with oils that had no known health risk but turned out to produce widespread uncontrollable diarrhea because the oils were indigestible.

I’m not suggesting these new meat substitutes have that effect but it’s reasonable for people to be cautious. Yeah heart disease and global emissions but... also soiling yourself without warning in public.

The best thing proponents of these new foods could do is genuinely and honestly recognize and address those worries.

people should be cautious and imho more importantly, people should be informed and adding processed soy, oils, sodium etc to meat alternatives in hope of reducing price is a horrible solution. If that's the only way we're going to get people offsetting meat consumption its a sad state of affair.

Go. Through. The. Ingredients.

Caution not needed. Nothing new here

If you want to convince someone to trust something they’re likely not seeking out, giving them homework won’t be very persuasive.

Fair point. I do feel the responsibility is on the shoulders of those making claims of the dangers of meat alternatives though. Its easy to paint it as frankenfood, but if you look at the ingredients they are boringly normal

This is actually a pretty simple burden of proof question. The burden of proof is on whoever wishes to persuade the other.

As in any other case, to persuade another person is to assert a claim. It doesn’t matter that you already have done the requisite learning to understand what you’re certain is the baseline set of facts. What matters is you want to change someone else’s beliefs.

As an example:

It would be preposterous for me to say “I am certain that biological sex is a spectrum, and binary sex is a simplification useful as a tool for some applications but inadequate for others” and just expect anyone who doesn’t know that to crack open a book or start googling my hypothesis credulously. Even though I’m certain it’s true.

I understand that while there’s sound scientific basis for the claim, it’s not a shared understanding of reality.

I also understand that it’s a claim that may be questioned, even though I’m certain it’s correct, and it’s my choice whether to give it more weight when challenged (attempt to persuade someone who doesn’t accept the claim l) or to carry on certain I’m right. But if I take the latter path, I have to accept that it’s really very unlikely the other party will learn what I’ve learned, unless they become curious and open to the possibility.

In other words, you can be right until the end of time and it wouldn’t ever matter to some people unless you give them a reason to want to be right too.

Well put, I concur

That is not accurate at all. There are small links with increased cardiac issues but salt is a much much bigger culprit

> weird additives and oils in things like the Impossible Burger.

Here's the ingredients list for the impossible burger:

Water, textured wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein, natural flavors, 2% or less of leghemoglobin (soy), yeast extract, salt, konjac gum, xanthan gum, soy protein isolate, vitamin E, vitamin C, thiamine (vitamin B1), zinc, niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin (vitamin B2), and vitamin B12.

The only thing unusual is leghemoglobin, which is fermented soy protein.

Maybe if you are used to eating processed food, but as someone who almost always cooks meals from scratch, this list of ingredients doesn't look appealing. If I was buying a chicken breast, there wouldn't even be a list of ingredients.

"textured wheat protein" - no idea what it, but it sounds disgusting, and very highly processed. I'd presume it also contains gluten?

"potato protein" - again, it sounds like something highly processed.

"natural flavors" - it doesn't specify exactly what they are, so I don't even know what I'm eating - I don't like it.

"leghemoglobin" - you mentioned what this is, but otherwise it sounds like a lab-produced chemical.

"yeast extract" - makes me think of marmite, which is one of the most revolting substances on earth! Aside from that, I think of the smell of yeast; I... don't think I want to eat that.

"konjac gum" - never heard of it.

"xanthan gum" - I think it's some kind of thickening agent?

"soy protein isolate" - no idea what this is. The wheat and potato proteins don't have "isolate" in their names, so I assume this is even more highly processed. For some reason it makes me think of processes like "hydrogenation" - ways we mess around with foods to make them as cheap as possible, sometimes with negative health consequences.

"vitamin E..." - makes me think the raw ingredients on their own are so unhealthy that they had to add a few crushed multivitamins.

Overall: it sounds highly processed and devoid of nutrition. blech!

Konjac is a plant that has been eaten in East Asia for thousands of years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjac

And if you find yeast "revolting", I take it you don't like bread or beer either?

Of course not (tho when baking bread I do find the smell of the yeast on it's own to be quite unpalatable). My point is that I don't expect to find yeast in the ingredients list for "meat", and that was simply my initial reaction.

I know it wasn't your point, but as an aside: isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed from most commercially produced beer? (depending on the style, obv)

Your comments read as contrarian and determined to find fault with this product. If your instinct is to dislike it so much, the answer is simple: don't eat it.

Each of the ingredients bar "natural flavors" (which usually means a proprietary spice blend or msg) can be found with a simple Google search - as someone else said, konjac is an Asian vegetable, textured wheat protein has been a staple of vegan cooking for decades and can be bought in any health food shop, and so on.

> isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed

From beer, partially. From bread, no.

This is a really unkind interpretation of my comments - I am certainly not trying to find fault, merely sharing my initial reaction to a list of seemingly strange ingredients.

You may be familiar with these ingredients, but that doesn't mean anyone who isn't used to highly processed food is "wrong" for not knowing what they even are.

I can buy organic, grass-fed, no-GMO, sustainably pasture-raised beef. Can I buy a higher-quality vurger? AFAIK not (right now).

> I can buy organic, grass-fed, no-GMO, sustainably pasture-raised beef.

No, actually you probably can't [1]:

> Is there such a thing as a climatically-guilt-free steak? Are grazing livestock climate villains or climate saviours? A new report by an international research collaboration led by the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), part of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, provides an authoritative answer to these questions.

> The new report Grazed and confused? helps add clarity to the debate around livestock farming and meat and dairy consumption.

> 14.5% of all human made greenhouse gas emissions come from the livestock sector as a whole. There is however some confusion and disagreement in the debate about the climate impacts of grazing livestock (and particularly grass-fed beef).

> Some commentators have argued that well-managed grazing can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it in soils, and that these removals can substantially compensate for, or even exceed, all other emissions from the livestock that are doing the grazing. In this way, grass-fed beef has been offered by some as a climate solution, rather than a problem.

> Written by FCRN’s Dr Tara Garnett in collaboration with Cécile Godde of CSIRO and a team of international experts, this report dissects claims made by different stakeholders in the debate, and evaluates them against the best available science. This report finds that better management of grass-fed livestock do not hold a solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate. Dr Garnett explains the key takeaways from this report:

> “This report concludes that grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. Grazing livestock are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. Rising animal production and consumption, whatever the farming system and animal type, is causing damaging greenhouse gas release and contributing to changes in land use. Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. Eating less meat, of all types, is.”

[1]: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-news-grazed-and-...

Any food transported to your plate by a car has an environmental cost. As does modern life in general. I believe we will eventually solve the problem (via carbon-capture & sustainable energy production) but I see that mostly orthogonal to eating meat.

There's orders of magnitude of difference: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

>Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.

I’d be fine with that and then plant-based pub burgers for the rest.

>Have you seen the animal industry? It's absolutely disgusting.

Yes I have. My job as an electrician brought me to farms, slaughterhouses, and food factories. Denmark has rigorously enforced standards for ethical treatment of animals, as well as strict hygiene standards for industrial food preparation. Not disgusting at all.

Fix that then. Replacing garbage meat with garbage ersatz meat isn’t a win.

It’s a win for the food industry, because fake meat can be made extremely cheaply, but the price is still anchored to the cost of actual meat.

That’s what’s so gross about it. We take a governance problem (bad practices in meat and dairy industry), hijack fringe movements like veganism, and turn it into way to undermine sustainable agriculture. The MBAs running big companies don’t care if burgers are from beef or ground up sawdust. It’s just cash.

Along the way, we’re tricking people into thinking that some palm oil smoothie is healthier than meat, and that sugared water filtered through oats is better than dairy.

The worst thing is that consumers fall for it, every single time.

I'm not sure that tracks.

Impossible burger: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12).

These are common ingredients?

For the vast majority of those ingredients, the answer sure looks like "yes." A few are literally standard home cooking ingredients, and nearly all the rest (dextrose, yeast extract, vitamin mixes, etc.) are pretty common in any processed food, which -- let's be honest here -- a lot of us buy pretty regularly. I'm not sure there's anything there that's unique to the Impossible Burger other than the "soy leghemoglobin".

Yeast extract is Marmite! And dextrose is a derivative of corn syrup. And enriched flour is characterized by having vitamins added to it. So they’re not that uncommon either.

D'oh! Being an American with little Marmite exposure, I'd totally forgotten it was yeast extract. :)

I don't know what on earth you cook at home, but "salt" and maybe "sunflower oil" are about the only things on that long list that sound like a "standard home cooking ingredient".

Yes and no. All of these are common ingredients in commercial food production. You’ll see these in all sorts of stuff at your local grocery store. Not so common in your kitchen though.

So is the animal industry in the USA, with ammonia-washed meat, wide-scale deployment of antibiotics (which has the knock-on effect of helping create antibiotic resistance), and the use of growth hormones in cattle to increase production.

I'm not defending the plant-based industry here, but the way meat is produced in the USA is also a nightmare.

I basically avoid American meat for these reasons, and typically source my beef from Australia , Japan or other countries ( which is easier since I live in Taiwan ).

But honestly I’m not 100% sure how much better aussy and Japanese meats are.

Not to mention they still don't taste like meat. The Impossible Burger comes closest and i think it's fine for getting a meat eater to give it a shot but I'd rather eat a black bean burger with just a few ingredients at a fraction of the cost.

I tried the A&W fake meat burger (I think theirs is Beyond brand) and I have to say in the context of a burger with toppings, it was quite good. Probably 95% as enjoyable as an A&W beef burger.

Is that kinda like how mass produced meat is literally an industrialized nightmare? Or are you just saying that having more than a handful of ingredients is bad?

I agree. I've been eating vegan a while, and I've hated certain foods such as onions for my whole life. A ton of fake meat is pre-seasoned with onions and other stuff. Hard to find things I even want to try among it. Typically a beef hotdog would come unseasoned, so it's a bit unfortunate.

There's still plenty good food to eat, but the fake meat is not the most exciting stuff to me.

I think that’s why fake meat is so popular in the US, where all food is very processed, and the concept of natural food is something only the rich care about. The average person already eats ultra processed low industrial food, so the switch is easy, and since it will make a few companies a ton of money, it’s being heavily promoted everywhere.

There's totally a place for both. If your plant-based product is trying directly to ape meat, then yeah definitely call it meat.

I for one eat a mix of real meat, plant-based meat, and non-meat protein options— tofu stirfry, falafel burger, etc.

> If you get fake meat close enough in taste/texture/price you’ll move a large amount of product.

But you are not getting them close enough for that. They taste different. They also have different nutritional composition, so if you will just replace meat by then brainlessly you are setting yourself up to failure.

Vegetarians who did not eate meat for years claim the taste is similar, but nobody else. And these could be good, if someone did not raised expectations up to "like meet" to sell it and then failed to execute.

> But you are not getting them close enough for that. They taste different. They also have different nutritional composition, so if you will just replace meat by then brainlessly you are setting yourself up to failure.

Have you actually tried Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger? If you haven't please do. Just go to your nearest Burger King and order an Impossible Whopper and a regular Whopper and compare them.

They're very close to the taste and texture of real ground beef now, and I think they'll get even better with time, and that they can become as tasty as the real deal, as nutritious as the real deal, and cheaper.

> People eat meat because they like the taste and the texture, but at the same time everyone knows that meat is produced by killing animals, and that it's much less sustainable than vegetarian food.

I think this is too generous. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but the implicit message here is that people actually care about the animals and sustainability of meat farming.

My spouse is vegetarian and I'm whatever. I don't buy meat but if it finds itself in front of me I'll eat it. I have had the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody changed their habits. Yes, this is anecdotal, and I'm willing to read a source and change my opinion if there is some evidence that people actually give a shit about the animals. As far as I can tell, it is all just virtue signaling at best.

I agree with OP. I think we would be better served in the long run creating good consumables that have the caloric density and amino acid profiles found in meats and encourage people to eat those instead of trying to replicate something we should be horrified about.

> I have had the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody changed their habits.

This doesn't mean that people don't care about the horrors of the animal industry. It just means that they don't care enough to change their habits. Huge difference.

Which is why meat alternatives are so important, because they allow people to stop eating meat without changing their habits!

Neither you nor the GP really eat meat, which means that neither of you belong to the target group for this product! You are not the consumer! You clearly do not understand the whole point of these plant-based meat alternatives! Your thoughts and opinions on the product development and marketing of these are 100% irrelevant, because they're not competing for your dollars! This product is not for you.

This product is for people who want meat, who love meat, people who wants to eat greasy, tasty, juicy, meaty burgers, and who don't want to substitute that for a "delicious" salad.

> and encourage people to eat those instead

No!

First you need to develop meat alternatives so that everyone can replace most of the meat in their diets without hassle, without sacrificing anything, without changing their diet. Then you can encourage people to branch out into other vegetarian dishes, since they're actually already practically vegetarians.

Your "they care but don't care enough to change habits" take is highly entlightening. This is going to help my perspective on a range of issues where binary thinking invites itselve. Thanks!

Yeah, I personally openly admit that eating factory farmed meat is highly immoral, but it's too easy and tasty so I'm not going to stop doing it.

As an avid meat-eater (because nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things and humans evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons), my answer to the animal cruelty argument is just to buy the top-shelf, pasture-raised meats. It's better for my health and much better for the animals. Obviously I have no control over where restaurants source their food from, but I try to preference those who claim ethical/sustainable practices.

As for sustainability, the answer to that is to develop systems that price in environmental externalities. The issue isn't going to be solved through a meat boycott. Farm raised fish is also quite sustainable.

I'm personally looking forward to economically viable lab-grown meat. Once perfected it'll likely be the most sustainable option with none of the nutritional deficits and none of the ethical concerns. Plus we'll be able to engineer meat with tastes that don't exist in nature, endless variety!

> because nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things and humans evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons

This is such a non-argument, and I'm saying this as a(n occasional) meat-eater.

> nature almost by definition is living things eating other living things

The default state for most living beings is scarcity. I think we all intuitively judge the morality of people's actions depending on scarcity. If two people were on an uninhabited island with no chance to escape, and the island only produces enough food to sustain one person, then I don't think it's immoral for them to fight to the death over the scarce resources, neither of them has the duty to sacrifice their life for the other. But if the island produces enough for two people, then killing the other so you can have more food is clearly murder.

Humans evolved the ability to eat meat because it increased their chances of survival in a hostile environment with scarce resources. In this dog eat dog world, I don't think eating meat was immoral. But the scarcity that justified it has disappeared for many (but sadly not nearly all) of us.

> humans evolved to be omnivorous for various nutritional reasons

There is no evidence that vegetarian diets are less healthy than those that incorporate meat. Again, eating meat no doubt increased the chances of survival for ancient hunter-gatherers living in harsh conditions, but that's no longer our environment, so it is irrelevant.

To be clear, I'm not offended by the fact that you eat meat; I am irritated by the weak justification though, which is worse than no justification at all. Just have the honesty to admit that you are merely putting your comfort above the well-being of the animals you eat. Comfort is the only reason why healthy people eat meat.

>I am irritated by the weak justification though

Pot, kettle.

>Humans evolved the ability to eat meat because it increased their chances of survival in a hostile environment with scarce resources.

It doesn't stop there. Humans have subsequently evolved to thrive on fatty foods. Our understanding of nutritional evolution is incredibly weak. Despite agriculture predominantly giving us access to carbohydrates, human brains are mostly fat-adapted. Many of today's health epidemics are linked to a lack of fat and an excess of carbohydrates. Try finding fatty fruits and veggies: they were incredibly scarce for most the human population until the last 100 years. Several people have noticed significant improvements going predominantly meat. There's more going on here than just the scarcity argument, the scarcity argument is a gross simplification.

>Comfort is the only reason why healthy people eat meat

No. Plenty of people are eating meat to be healthy. People are, in fact, getting frustrated by listening to the advice of the average western diet, listening to dietitians when they get fat, and unable to get in shape despite putting in an insane amount of effort listening to their dietitians putting their hormones out of whack, making them hungry and agitated 24/7, while they keep saying "just keep going". We don't process meat-based products the same way we do plant-based products.

This is not to moralize meat. Rather, this is to indicate people jump on the "meat is bad / lazy / immoral" bandwagon way too quickly, being spoonfed the common narrative without doing an ounce of research and frequently without experience. Just like the average person doesn't eat meat for any other reason than their own comfort, so does the average person stop eating meat because everyone and their mother claims eating plants will save the world. It's becoming a story of "my propaganda is better than yours".

>Many of today's health epidemics are linked to a lack of fat and an excess of carbohydrates.

I'm genuinely curious as to what you're getting at. When you say "excess of carbohydrates", are you referring specifically to processed foods or refined sugars?

>Try finding fatty fruits and veggies: they were incredibly scarce for most the human population until the last 100 years.

Maybe fatty fruits and veggies were scarce for most humans 100+ years ago, but I highly doubt nuts and seeds were. But that doesn't really matter if we're talking about what we can do today. Things like avocados, olives, coconuts, and the above-mentioned large categories of nuts and seeds, are readily available for most people making these sorts of arguments. Plus, if you're vegetarian and not vegan, then you have access to cheese, yogurt, milk, and eggs. It's easy to eat high fat and low carb while avoiding meat, so the argument for eating meat to be healthy on these grounds seems quite weak to me.

> I'm genuinely curious as to what you're getting at. When you say "excess of carbohydrates", are you referring specifically to processed foods or refined sugars?

Long story short: many diseases are insulin linked. Insulin spikes highest by repeatedly eating carbohydrates throughout the day. Fiber decreases those spikes somewhat, but still doesn't compare at all to a fat-based diet or protein-based diet. There are ways to cope with an excess in carbohydrates (heavy exercise is one, fasting is another), but there is no way to cope with a lack of fat. Additionally, mitigation strategies can cause their own problems (many joggers, especially vegetarian and vegan ones, start developing iron deficiencies). The whole "it is just processed sugar" thing is just the tip of the iceberg.

>I highly doubt nuts and seeds were.

Put in perspective: foraging for nuts and seeds is a lot more difficult and intensive than hunting a giant mammal. Plus, the former is a lot more seasonal than the latter.

>But that doesn't really matter if we're talking about what we can do today.

It does. Human evolution and mutation is slow. By looking at what our primary diet was up until recently, we can understand the macronutritional and micronutritional needs of our body and how a vegetarian/vegan diet may or may not influence that.

>Things like avocados, olives, coconuts, and the above-mentioned large categories of nuts and seeds, are readily available for most people making these sorts of arguments. Plus, if you're vegetarian and not vegan, then you have access to cheese, yogurt, milk. It's easy to eat high fat and low carb while avoiding meat, so the argument for eating meat to be healthy on these grounds seems quite weak to me.

The main thing currently under scrutiny is the bioavailability and toxins (for lack of better term) of plant-based foods compared to meat. Turns out a lot of plants don't want to be eaten, and when you can't move, you start developing ways to protect yourself without requiring locomotion. Not only are various of these toxins decreasing bioavailability (zinc is a big one, eating beans with oysters is a terrible way to decrease bioavaialability of zinc), these toxins are actively causing harm and inflammation, whereas a meat-based diet is seen as the "ultimate restriction diet". Avocados, coconuts, olives and nuts stand out here, being more fat heavy, but as most of the population does not have a history with these compared to animal products, it is difficult to say its all good. Beyond that, it is very difficult to get all your minerals and vitamins just on those alone, which isn't the case for meat and seafood, which results in either tapping into the remainder of the veggies and fruit, or tapping into animal products.

Obviously, the argument is more than macros. If macros were all that mattered, you could just stuff your face with whey protein and vegetable oil and call it a day. The argument in favor of meat is a lot more nuanced and without that nuance, will be ruthlessly picked apart by the pro-vegan gang who tend to be a lot more zealous than their carnivorous counterparts (the carnivores have nothing to lose if vegan diets prove to be better, they are already on the moral low). To explain this in its entirety would take far more than a HN comment.

What's concerning is just how much meat-eaters have to play the defense. We don't know that much about vegan and vegetarian diets compared to an ancestry and entire tribes of carnivores. We put forward theoretical models devoid of animal products, using obscure plants to fill in some deficiency, but never test whether it will work on the larger scale. The ecology argument is thrown about as if people don't understand how carbon cycles work. It's humans going vegetarian and vegan which deviates from the status quo, not the other way around. We should be questioning the long term (multi-generational) effects of it as long as we haven't put hoards of people on a vegan or vegetarian diet that didn't include some shady 10 ingredient meat-replacement containing added sugar. We should also be questioning our current understanding of the "cows bad beans good" narrative, and what truly is the cause of the problem (human greed).

Thanks for the response. I won't respond to every point because (1) that would be long and (2) I don't disagree with everything.

> Human evolution and mutation is slow. By looking at what our primary diet was up until recently, we can understand the macronutritional and micronutritional needs of our body and how a vegetarian/vegan diet may or may not influence that.

What was "our" primary diet though? Depending on where a group of humans lived, presumably the diet varied greatly. It seems to me that humans can successfully adapt to a wide variety of foods. I'm sure early humans ate meat, but vegetarianism and pescetarianism date back at least to antiquity. And just because a diet kept us alive doesn't mean it's "good" for us in the modern sense. Say, hypothetically, that a meat-heavy diet increases the risk of early death. That would be irrelevant in the context of natural selection if that age is much older than that of typical reproduction. Our "goals" are different now, too. Does a person sitting at a desk all day require the same nutritional profile as a hunter?

> The main thing currently under scrutiny is the bioavailability and toxins (for lack of better term) of plant-based foods compared to meat.

This is interesting to me and something I've been researching too. It does seem that a lot of the "toxins" can be mitigated by using very old cooking techniques: soaking beans/lentils, cooking vegetables (rather than eating raw), sprouting, fermenting. These techniques can weaken the plants' defense systems, so to speak.

> Avocados, coconuts, olives and nuts stand out here, being more fat heavy, but as most of the population does not have a history with these compared to animal products, it is difficult to say its all good. Beyond that, it is very difficult to get all your minerals and vitamins just on those alone, which isn't the case for meat and seafood, which results in either tapping into the remainder of the veggies and fruit, or tapping into animal products.

To be pedantic: meat doesn't really have a lot of vitamins, right? If you want a complete mix of vitamins and minerals, you would need to eat the kidney, liver, brain, heart, etc, which for whatever reason we don't really do anymore (in the US at least). For the average person (again in the US), this means you will need to step into non-meat sources for e.g. vitamin A or vitamin C. I only bring this up because the topic at hand is specifically about meat, not necessarily eschewing all animal products, so they are presumably allowed in this context.

Sure, you can find subsets of the population whose health depends on incorporating meat in their diet (that's what I meant with "healthy people", although I misworded it; people who need meat in their diet aren't necessarily unhealthy, their health is conditional on consuming meat). I accept that much.

This argument is not very powerful though. For one, it only justifies eating meat for those who have tried to cut meat from their diet and noticed adverse health effects (which should be safe for most people who don't already suffer from some risk factor, like anemia, to try); in my anecdotal experience a tiny minority of the people who make health-based arguments. And secondly, it only justifies the minimal meat consumption necessary to be healthy, and no more.

From a strict evidence-based medicine standpoint we don't have clear evidence for or against vegetarian diets. But if you look at elite athletes whose livelihoods depend on keeping their bodies in peak condition the vast majority consume at least some animal products. So empirically that should tell us something.

There could be a lot of reasons for that. I doubt the reason is that meat is the healthiest option for them; meat contains a lot of saturated fat, which athletes try to avoid too much of. It's more likely that meat is healthy enough for athletes who enjoy eating meat. This wouldn't mean they need meat, and they most certainly don't as there are a lot of successful vegan bodybuilders.

There is no evidence that saturated fat inhibits athletic performance. Vegan bodybuilders are a small fraction of the total, and that's just one sport. What percentage of elite athletes across all sports are vegan?

The overall portion of athletes are vegetarian or vegan is low, but the ones who are can still perform very well. This suggests that the difference is based, at least in part, on preference.

There have also been many athletes who tried vegan diets and found that their performance declined, or they had more difficulty recovering from injuries. So preference is only one factor.

After doing some more research, I've found meat isn't as cruel as most think it is, and even vegetable farming isn't as animal injury / cruelty free as people would think.

Often many, many small animals get basically wood chipped by agricultural machinery or poisoned by pest traps and pesticides. If you go by pure numbers of "non-insect brains" made to feel pain or die in horrible ways from human agricultural activity, vegetable farming would actually far outpace meat farming.

Also a lot of meat ranching can use land that is plain unusable for vegetables, but cows, chickens, sheep and pigs can use just fine. That will not go away. Also meat such as cows especially are not subject to the 'cows living in shit up to their knees' type of reality everyone thinks most cheap cow meat lives in, which is actually a small minority of badly run farms. All cow meat lives in a pasture for at least %70 of their lives. That last %30 is the difference between 'grass fed' and conventional beef.

All food has blood on its hands, and in the end, that is the way of life in human and non-human reality. I think a big part of the push to be vegetarian or vegan comes from a disconnect on how food is made. Societies used to be +%90 agricultural workers and processed their food in far more raw forms than the typical "abstract shapes of meat" that we typically deal with today, so a lot of the rhetoric did not connect, because it conflicted with their lived experience.

> my answer to the animal cruelty argument is just to buy the top-shelf, pasture-raised meats. It's better for my health and much better for the animals.

No it isn't. [1]

It really isn't. [2]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtnlwqEii2I

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

> my answer to the animal cruelty argument is just to buy the top-shelf, pasture-raised meats.

So the solution is to pay more. Got it.

Sample size of one, but I eventually changed my habits because I care about trying to reduce unnecessary suffering.

For years I knew I was inconsistent - I thought it was wrong to eat meat, but I did so anyway because I like hamburgers and chicken (and was focusing will power on other things). The pandemic gave me the opportunity to make the change.

The impossible burger is perfect for me because it’s close enough to satisfy the fix. I hope more meat substitutes trend in this direction (or even more so with lab grown meat).

Most people believe crazy things and hold wildly inconsistent views so it’s not a surprise that people don’t change their behavior. Having consistent views that are tied to reality is hard. Changing behavior is hard too.

In the extreme cases (particularly with true unknowns) perfect consistency isn’t even necessarily achievable or desirable. That said, trying to understand the world as it truly is and be pragmatic is still good. In the animal case, I think trying to reduce unnecessary suffering is a worthwhile goal.

Related: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

One person's model:

People's tastes are largely driven by the foods they ate when they were young, which with notable exceptions, will prominently feature meat dishes. People on sites like this are likely to underestimate this effect, we are likely to be embedded in subcultures that are unusually high in openness to experience.

All else being equal, many people prefer doing the more ethical thing (or if you want to be cynical about it, the thing that makes them feel more ethical). Many people believe that plant based meat is more ethical.

Currently, all else isn't equal. Plant-based meat is more expensive to the consumer, and most find it to be less enjoyable to eat. Recent trends have been closing those gaps, producing more enjoyable plant-based meats at high but dropping prices.

As plant-based meat's quality/price ratio improves it will be increasingly common, and will displace a large amount of meat consumption that would be difficult to displace by other vegetarian dishes.

FWIW, I enjoy eating meats, and do not feel very concerned about the moral aspects. However, I still tried some Impossible foods just because of the novelty, and found that it would be a fine substitute in many cases.

Many people who drive electric cars now do so because they are “cool.” A large part of that is thanks to Tesla, making electric cars that are comparable and maybe even simply superior to gas cars, depending on how you look at it. The hype behind impossible foods may be largely unwarranted, as great plant-based foods are already available. However, the thing that is great about impossible foods and similar ventures is that it doesn’t ask you to compromise, and it’s cool and trendy. Someone may not care about the moral side of things and yet will probably still feel enticed to try it just to see, and if it’s good enough they could legitimately switch on a whim. This is not the same as asking someone who has eaten a diet involving one thing for decades and asking them to replace it with totally different things.

Many people have more strongly held convictions about having to change their diet in ways that impact their eating experience than they have convictions against the actual concept of plant-based diets. These meat alternatives could be very useful if a plant-based diet is to be the future (perhaps alongside lab grown meats?)

> have had the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody changed their habits.

You’re conclusion is faulty. There can be many reasons for these people to keep eating meet, from they don’t believe you, they don’t like your argument, they still think it worth the animals pain, they don’t think they have a choice, or they’ve always done it.

For someone to conclude from their own argument at a dinner table anything substantive is very strange.

> I have had the conversation of the horrors of meat production many times at the dinner table with a spectrum of people, and nobody changed their habits.

For what it's worth. I had a conversation at the dinner table about the ethics of eating meat with another meat eater. We both decided there and then stop, this was almost a decade ago and neither of us have eaten meat since. It does happen.

> Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but the implicit message here is that people actually care about the animals and sustainability of meat farming.

Given what I see people saying and doing - in person and online - seems that too many people don't even care about other people. People don't want to raise minimum wage because a burger would cost a few cents more. I have a hard time imagining them giving up their burgers because of the animals.

I think you and OP are talking about different things.

For most products, and virtually all that aren't particularly modern, they suffer from being set up as direct replacements for meat. Take fake deli meats, for example. There are options that make a good sandwich. But they don't make a good $specific-meat sandwich. If they found a way to position themselves more in the vein of ham vs turkey vs plant-based sandwich they would do far, far better. Instead they position themselves as fake-ham or something, and then some unsuspecting person trying out plant-based alternatives goes in expecting a ham sandwich and ends up with their expectations rather violated. People don't like that, particularly with food. But they went in just expecting some kind of sandwich, I think they very well might enjoy it.

I've been vegetarian-tending-towards-vegan for over a decade and I still occasionally fall into that trap if I'm not careful.

Products like Impossible are the exception. They are so notable because they are getting into the realm where a direct comparison with meat actually works in their favor. I think that's great. I think you are right that this is the key for convincing many people to move away from meat. It's so much easier to market something as another version of meat, rather than a whole new thing. But I also think it's worth keeping in mind that they are exceptional products, and what works for them may not be the best for others.

I agree with you. I know more than one person who would turn up their nose at a 'veggie meat' sandwich, but would happily tuck in to a falafel wrap. Marketing matters!

Yes, but those people are usually already vegetarians. ”Fake meat” is meant for people who still do it meat, not for someone who has completely banished it from their lives.

That's not true. I know very few meat eaters who don't like falafel (and many of those who don't are picky eaters and hate anything that isn't mac and cheese). I get falafel and meat about equally; falafel doesn't leave me with that "I just ate 3/4 of a pound of greasy meat" feeling that shawarma can.

I will honestly say that I typically prefer vegetarian food that isn't fake meat. Indian food with paneer is really good, black bean burgers are fantastic, pad thai with tofu is really good.

I am somewhat partial to the vegetarian spiced meats, though. Vegetarian chorizo is remarkably close. I think because the spices are an overwhelming part of the flavor, all it's really missing is a little more chewiness.

>Yes, but those people are usually already vegetarians.

I realize I didn't clarify this with my original statement, but I meant 'folks I know who are avowed meat-eaters, and not vegetarians'.

To be honest, this surprised me a little, too. But I've come to realize a lot of 'meat>*' people really love the veggie dishes I share with them, as long as it's an upfront, honest vegetable dish, and not trying to pretend it's something else.

Is it? I find it hard to believe that. If that was true, the market for these products would be vanishingly small. Every potential customer would be merely in the process of transitioning out of the market.

I'm certainly a counter-example, and know a few others. Though I also do know one person that has no desire for them, but they also tend to avoid more prepared or processed foods entirely.

This. In conversations about vegetarianism, it's pretty common for people to give their distaste of fake meat as their primary reason for not reducing their meat consumption. I really wish that wasn't the default counter-argument, but there seem to be a lot of people who truly believe vegetarians need soymeat to survive.

I've noticed the vegan foods I enjoy most are the ones that aren't trying to be something else. They just use tasty vegan ingredients like potatoes or avocados. I think more people would consider reductarian diets if they were aware of this.

I agree. The marketing innovation that has made plant meat successful (at least where I am) has been marketing it to meat eaters in the meat aisle, stripping away the vegetarian identity association

Not OP, but as someone who is not vegetarian/vegan and is from a country with a cuisine that revolves heavily around meat (Mexican) I have to agree with OP.

> If you want to get people to switch to meat alternatives, you have to keep everything that's great about meat (taste, texture, proteins), while removing everything that's bad about meat (slaughter, livestock industry).

I think one thing is making sure it's great, and another thing is making sure it's the same, and you can have something that's great and heavily impacts the market without having it be the same.

Just thinking of a random example where this worked; MDF is very much not wood, but it's pretty great for most things. People still buy a lot of wooden furniture, surfaces, etc but for a lot of use-cases MDF does just fine. MDF isn't trying to have the same weight, the exact same texture, or be as solid as wood. It's another material and it's marketed as another material, not as "replacement wood" or something along those lines.

Thinking of an example where this hasn't worked; Stadia. Google is very much trying to replace consoles and is focusing on AAA games, but the thing is, as it stands today, Stadia is not a console replacement. The way google is positioning Stadia though puts it in the eyes of hardcore gamers who care about the details: the latency, the streaming resolution, etc. Perhaps if they weren't trying to sell it as your next AAA-game console, they would attract a section of the population that just wants to play games easily, and don't care so much about the specifics.

The goal here is to not fully replace the market, but shrink it.

Another point worth making is that it's hard to imagine we can reverse the trend in global warming keeping excessive consumer habits— people need to change too. Sure, electric cars will consume less CO2 and they are an easy short-term solution in a car-centric society, but cities need to be planned better so car use in general decreases. Sure, recycled plastics can reduce or plastic waste, but we shouldn't be producing so many water bottles in the first place. Plant-based "meat" are likewise a step in the right direction, but it's also the case meant consumption is just very high. Trying to offer solutions that don't tackle the underlying problem make hard to guarantee long-term sustainability.

> Trying to offer solutions that don't tackle the underlying problem make hard to guarantee long-term sustainability.

Maybe, but solutions that go against human nature are doomed to fail in the first place. Asceticism doesn't work. Asking people to do the right thing only has a tiny marginal effect.

The only solution to get long-term sustainability is to offer people a better, greener, more sustainable alternative, that doesn't inconvenience people. To overcome the force of habit, your alternative has to be both better and cheaper if you want to see mass adoption. Otherwise you'll just get niche adoption, which is pretty much useless on the grand scale of things.

Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature? AFAIK this level of meat eating is limited a minority population in a very short period of the history of our species.

What you say might be true of the wolf nature—hence you shouldn’t feed your dog with vegetarian diet. But humans are not dogs, and only insular population of us living in harsh climates such as the arctic have historically eaten meat as our primary diet. And even then, plant based food is brought to these populations, people there very much consume it. If there is any human nature that rules our eating habits it is the fact that we are omnivores and eat what is available.

>Since when was eating meat in almost every meal in the human nature?

All the nomadic tribes, people living in mountainous areas, hunter gatherer societies in temperate climates,...

Though the question itself is pretty meaningless or misleading, since on average people today do not eat meat in almost every meal at all.

Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”.

I doubt that hunter gatherers in temperate climate ate 100 kg of meat per year. This kind of meat consumption only existed were plant based diet wasn’t available at all. To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal.

>Like I said “only insular population of us living in harsh climates”.

Which is almost everywhere on the planet beside tropics and subtropics before agriculture came to existence. It was natural for humans to live on a predominantly meat diet for a lot longer than it became fashionable to live from plants only.

>To contextualize, 100 kg (average yearly USA meat consumption per person) is around 2 kg per week, that is around 150 grams per meal (given 14 meals per week). I would say that qualifies as meat in almost every meal.

The population of the USA is only 4% of world population and Americans probably eat more than 2 two meals a day. So no, on average we do not eat meat almost every meal.

Are you an expert in this field? I’m not so honestly you don’t have to know a lot to know more then me, but here are my guesses:

a) You underestimate how forested the temperate regions were before humans started significantly altering them well after the agricultural revolution.

b) You underestimate how well humans can gather and store non meat foods without agriculture. I bet an average group of humans knew where there were fruitful nut trees, know when they were ripe, know how to store the nuts, and know how to sprout and grow knew once in a favorable location. I bet roots have the same story. See you don’t need agriculture to grow things, and I bet humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years.

c) You underestimate how hard it is to hunt with stone and bone tools. Apart from fishing, game is mostly seasonal in the temperate regions, so there would always be seasons where meat was scarce. It takes a ton of effort and coordination to hunt a single animal, you are not always succesful, and when you are, then storing the meat becomes an issue. So your best bet is to share the meat with the whole group, and probably leave some for other scavengers.

As I said, I’m not an expert, but realistically I don’t see how pre neolithic humans could have eaten even close to 100 kg a meat per year.

A quote from an article[1] about the latest research about a "vegetarian gene":

"Furthermore, before the advent of farming, pre-Neolithic hunter–gatherers throughout Europe had been subsisting on animal-based diets with a substantial aquatic contribution, in contrast to the plant-heavy diets of recent European farmers."

Temperate climate means 4 distinct seasons and plants rest from autumn to spring. Which makes it impossible find and eat fruits of plants for 6 months. Sure you could store some nuts, but that will not cover you dietary needs for long.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0167.epdf?author_...

I don’t know if upper paleolithic Europe had temperate climate. Given that there was a pretty deep ice age at the time I would definitely consider that insular population in a harsh climate. Also like I said above game is seasonal, and winter is exactly when hunting becomes easier as game is more vulnerable in the absence of foliage and takes greater risks as their own food source is scarce. If I were to guess, winter is when most pre-neolithic societies did most of their hunting in temperate regions, and consequently ate most of their meat. I would also guess that in late summer and early autumn months went by without any meat what so ever (except fish, some birds, and scavenged meat) as roots and nuts are plentiful and game is the hardest to hunt.

EDIT: I would also like to add, that the original claim was that it is in human nature to eat meat. If that were true, people wouldn’t have stopped doing it after the neolithic revolution as farming spread and plant based food became even easier. I mean we kept feeding meat to our dogs as it is definitely in the wolfs nature to eat meat.

> Maybe, but solutions that go against human nature are doomed to fail in the first place.

I disagree on two fundamental points. Firstly, current levels of meat consumption, I'd argue, are very much not "human nature". It's more to do with advertisement, and cultural trends which are artificial. Secondly, I'd argue "human nature" has been _modified_ or _overcome_ plenty of times before.

In short-term thinking, yeah, finding a replacement is the straightforward solution. In the long term, the only certain and the most sustainable solution is to address the consumption problem.

I think it's a function of the quality of the imitation by vegetarian options. Years back I said the same think as the person you're responding to, because the "meat" was in no way a reasonable substitute. It wasn't at all similar to actual meat, so why bother calling it "meat"?

Now that they're getting close, I agree with you and it makes more sense to call it "meat" because it's very close to being indistinguishable.

I love a good hamburger or steak, but I'll happily give it up when there's something not-animal-based that's as good.

I eat meat because I like the taste, but I don't give a hoot about the slaughter/animals. I don't want a replacement for my steak that is a bad steak, and I don't want to ruin great vegetables by making them into something that is not.

Well you could also just promote delicious vegetarian dishes. There are entire cultures that mostly eat vegetarian. Fake meat is such a silly concept.

Tofu and wheat gluten have been used for centuries as meat analogues in many cultures (especially those that mostly eat vegetarian). It’s not a silly concept at all, and opens up a world of delicious culinary options to those of us who don’t eat animal flesh.

Tofu is nothing like meat in neither taste nor texture, and I’m pretty sure it has never been seen as a meat substitute traditionally.

I don’t think parent was ever saying that tofu was (nor should) be similar to meat in taste nor texture. That is not the point.

You can still prepare and spice tofu just like you would do with meat, and get a complete meal that replaces meat with something else that adds to the quality of the meal just like meat would, regardless of whether the substitute replicates the texture or taste at all.

That is much closer to my standpoint then. I think it’s silly to imitate meat, when there are plenty of delicious vegetarian dishes. For example tofu dishes.

How is that different from saying: "It's silly to eat Indian food [prepared by Americans] when there are plenty delicious American dishes"? No one is forced to eat fake meat, but as vegetarian who likes burgers, how am I silly for eating fake meat burgers? I also eat tofu, vegetables, Indian, Italian, and Vietnamese food, and I think variety is a nice thing to have. Silly me.

I honestly think that meat eaters are missing out when they eat these fake meat burgers (or beef burgers for that matter). You can put so many things between these buns some of these are really delicious. The variety of the veggie patties is amazing. When I order a veggie burger at a new restaurant, experiencing a new kind of patty is part of what makes burgers such a great food.

Yes, I bet meat eaters say the same about beef burgers, there is difference in texture and flavor of each patty. Difference in quality of the meat, the coarseness of the ground, etc. But knowing that, makes me thing that meat eaters don’t actually like the meat part in their diet, and trying to replicate the meat part of a beef burger when making veggie patties just seems like a lack of imagination and an unnecessary limitation.

> I honestly think that meat eaters are missing out when they eat these fake meat burgers

Have you considered the possibility that it is you who are missing out on experiences by refusing to eat these vegetarian alternatives that taste like meat?

"Oh, but real vegetarian food is so much better bla bla bla"

Ignoring your knee-jerk reaction, have you actually tried the Impossible Burger or the Beyond Meat burger?

But nobody claims the experience the of eating ultra processed fake meat is BETTER than the real thing, do they? So how could us haters be “missing out”?

> So how could us haters be “missing out”?

Because it has the taste and texture of meat, which you don't eat. So eating these would be a way for you to experience this taste and this texture, and that should at least have some novelty value for you.

Backing up to the meta discussion, I love how these meat alternatives, and near-future things like cultured meat or synthetic milk test everyone's convictions and prejudices. Why do we eat the things we eat? Habit? Ethics? Preference? Virtue signaling? It's a good way to examine your principles.

You seem to have landed in that these meat alternatives are bad because they're "processed", and everything "processed" is bad. Alright. But would you eat clean cultured meat? Muscle tissue that has never been inside a living animal, and yet is indistinguishable from meat that's been cut out of a slaughtered animal?

And going further out, would you eat cultured human meat?

Food for thought.

Since I eat normal meat, I’m not missing out by not eating fake meat.

I’m generally against fake and highly processed things, I don’t want them in my life, and definitely not on my plate. That would definitely include lab meat. So I’ll keep eating regular meat until the fake meat industrial complex gets it outlawed, and then I can just eat vegetarian food.

Indian food with real, low processed ingredients is of course better than ultra processed fake meat.

During my life as a vegetarian/vegan I regularly consume “fake meat” products because they are simple to prepare and allow me to use recipes that are not vegetarian. For example, it’s extremely hard to find a good vegetarian burger — the beyond burger was a revelation the first time I tried it. I still like burgers, even though there are many wonderful vegetarian dishes. I didn’t stop eating meat because I don’t like the taste of meat.

Imagine that many of your favourite dishes, those you grew up with, were suddenly unavailable to you because some ingredient no longer existed. If a new ingredient hit the market that was not quite the same but was a convincing substitute in taste and texture, would you consider it silly and avoid it?

Maybe in that dystopian future where bacon doesn’t exist and I get very nostalgic for the carbonara of my childhood, sure.

But that’s not quite what we’re discussing. Meat exists but some people want to go vegetarian without sacrificing anything. I suppose it’s pretty similar to the logic of people who want to lose weight without giving up sweets or soda, so they switch to aspartame versions.

> Meat exists but some people want to go vegetarian without sacrificing anything.

Yes, how dare they?!? How can you call yourself a vegetarian without sacrificing anything? If anyone could be a vegetarian, there wouldn't be any moral superiority for the real vegetarians! Oh the horror!

I’m not vegetarian and it’s not about feeling superior.

I just happen to think fake meat and fake sweeteners are some of the most absurd things in modern society. I prefer food to be natural and unprocessed.

> > Meat exists but some people want to go vegetarian without sacrificing anything.

> I’m not vegetarian and it’s not about feeling superior.

Well, clearly you have some martyr complex issues around it.

I’m not even a vegetarian, in what sense would I be a martyr?

I just think people should eat authentic and low processed food.

...and another person who completely misses the point, and don't understand why people eat meat.

Which delicious vegetarian dishes offer the same taste and texture as meat dishes?

My point is that you shouldn’t expect the taste pr texture of meat if you’re not eating meat. Find vegetarian dishes you like instead.

That’s what I did when I was a vegetarian. There is enough delicious vegetarian food to last you a lifetime.

> My point is that you shouldn’t expect the taste pr texture of meat if you’re not eating meat.

This is completely ridiculous.

From your comments, and from other obvious vegetarians/vegans in this thread, there's a weird sense of "sour grapes" combined with some sort of martyr complex.

You're angry, because you've sacrificed to be vegetarian, and now terrible horrible meat-eating people like me can just swoop in, eat stuff that tastes like meat, and be vegetarian without any sacrifice! Without any hassle! Without any virtue signaling possibilities whatsoever! THE HORROR!

Look at this subthread. It's full of people who like meat and eat meat who are singing the praises of these new meat alternatives. And then there's you, and people like you, contrarians who complain that people "shouldn't" like these meat alternatives because "we're missing out on real delicious vegetarian food".

I'm not going to stop you from eating and enjoying your little salads, so why the hell do you have an opinion on what I should and should not eat? Other than the fact that you're losing your moral superiority that you're currently enjoying?

Why else would you encourage people who like meat to eat more meat? Because you want to keep feeling superior. That's what this is really about.

I’m not a vegetarian, I don’t think it’s wrong to eat meat. I think animal welfare in meat plants is horrendous but I don’t have the slightest issue with eating game.

I’m not encouraging people to eat more meat, in fact I think people eat way more meat than is healthy or reasonable.

The thing I have against fake meat is that it’s fake. And of course that it’s ultra processed. I prefer authentic, natural things, especially food.

I've spent a fair bit of time in India, mostly with work, over the past 15 years or so.

Despite being a meat eater at home, any time I'm in India, I don't eat meat - none at all, for up to 4 weeks at a time. And I don't miss it one bit! Fact is that India veg food is much more common, but also IMO much more tasty.

> People eat meat because they like the taste and the texture

AFAIK people usually don’t like the flavor nor texture of meat. If that was the case, you would see more people boiling the meat and not spice it. But AFAIK meat eaters tend to spice their meat a lot, to an extent where there it is the spice is the primary taste. They then oil the meat and prefer it fried or grilled which alters the texture as well.

With plant based food you have all these options and more.

> AFAIK people usually don’t like the flavor nor texture of meat. If that was the case, you would see more people boiling the meat and not spice it.

If that was true, steaks would not be a thing. A good steak has some coarse salt and pepper for seasoning, but not much else.

Boiling meat is pretty much the worst way to prepare any cut of meat, and will ensure that it has a tough and unpleasant texture, strip all of the fats making it dry, and overall ruin a perfectly good cut of meat.

> But AFAIK meat eaters tend to spice their meat a lot, to an extent where there it is the spice is the primary taste.

That's just like saying "if people liked the taste of vegetables they wouldn't put salt or pepper on them."

Most people wouldn't eat plain tofu either, but it doesn't mean that it's bad, just means that it needs to be prepared as part of a dish, just like any other ingredient.

> Boiling meat is pretty much the worst way to prepare any cut of meat, and will ensure that it has a tough and unpleasant texture, strip all of the fats making it dry, and overall ruin a perfectly good cut of meat.

However, sous vide is an absolutely marvelous way to prepare meat. It keeps it tender and juicy and then you can just sear it in a skillet or with a kitchen torch to get that nice Maillard reaction taste.

That it is. It's also pretty awesome with salmon [0], 43°C for an hour then take it out, pat the skin dry, and crisp the skin in a cast iron skillet with some oil, serve immediately. Crispy skin and buttery soft salmon makes for a great texture contrast and tastes absolutely delicious.

[0] https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/08/sous-vide-salmon...

> Boiling meat is pretty much the worst way to prepare any cut of meat

Pulled chicken and pork would like to have a word. The trick is to let the meat cool down in the water after boiling so that it reabsorbs the fluid it lost. You get wonderfully tender and juicy pulled meat, plus a good stock. And the world of braising is a deep and delicious one. Not to mention meat-based stews, soups, and chowders. I’d suggest that if you hate meat that’s been boiled, it’s been from someone who doesn’t know how to do it. Which I mean not as a dig, but as a way of saying that there’s a lot of good cooking out there waiting to be discovered!

You are just reiterating my point exactly. People like to alter the taste and texture of the food we eat. We do it with our plant based food, and—to a much greater extent—we do it to our meat based food.

Also, salt is a very powerful spice.

So what you mean is that people don't like the taste and texture of raw meat, and they're only pretending to like it because it's cooked? If you like steak cooked with some salt on it, that doesn't mean that you don't like steak.

I honestly don't get the point you're even trying to make here... because people do less to prepare vegetables they're somehow superior?

No, sorry I must not have made my point clear enough (this is what I get for trying to be snarky):

GP is saying that people like the taste and texture of meat. I’m saying that they only do after they have altered the taste and the texture of if. My point is that there is nothing inherent about meat that people like.

This is relevant to OP as the above claim is that there is no need to replicate the texture and taste of meat as you you have infinitely many ways to structure the taste and structure of plant based food, including ways that are superior in both taste and texture to how people prepare meat.

> GP is saying that people like the taste and texture of meat.

Why are you interpreting what I wrote as if I claimed that people like the taste and texture of *raw* meat? That's probably the most uncharitable possible interpretation of my argument. Stop being ridiculous.

> there is no need to replicate the texture and taste of meat as you have infinitely many ways to structure the taste and structure of plant based food, including ways that are superior in both taste and texture to how people prepare meat.

This is so absurd I don't even know where to start.

The whole point of the article and the plant-based meat alternatives it talks about is that finally there's something that's close enough to ground beef in taste and texture that it can be substituted, but it still needs to come down in price to be a viable everyday alternative. Every alternative that came before simply wasn't good enough, and only really appealed to people who were already vegetarian. And the success of Beyond and Impossible shows that there is clearly a market for products that replicate meat, because a lot of people want to buy stuff that tastes like meat.

When it comes to actual beef, there's absolutely nothing like it yet, in neither taste nor texture, and texture is the part that is hardest to get right. If there was something even remotely comparable, we wouldn't be having this discussion, because everyone would already be happily eating that alternative.

I'm sure you're happy eating your little salads, thinking they're superior to every other dish in existence. But you clearly don't understand why people like meat, and what they like about it, which is why you appear bewildered by these products and claim that there is "no need" for them.

These products will be a cornerstone of future environmental policy and ensure we can meet our sustainability goals for the entire planet.

> Why are you interpreting what I wrote as if I claimed that people like the taste and texture of raw meat? That's probably the most uncharitable possible interpretation of my argument. Stop being ridiculous.

Sorry, you—and GPs—are putting words in my mouth. I never stated such a thing. People think they like meat, but they don’t. They only like meat after the taste and texture has been altered. Even then they probably mostly like it from force of habit.

> When it comes to actual beef, there's absolutely nothing like it yet, in neither taste nor texture, and texture is the part that is hardest to get right

This is actually the point of the debate, and it is highly opinionated so I don’t think we can see each others point of view here. But in Europe there is a trademark soy based alternative called Oumph! which is not trying to replicate meat in any way, but it is simply delicious. In my opinion the impossible meat we have here in America is simply disgusting next to it. There are so many ways to make good food with plant based food and trying to mimic one type of food that people only like after it has been prepared and spiced, just seems a little short sighted.

> My point is that there is nothing inherent about meat that people like.

There is actually, otherwise people wouldn't try to make a plant based version of it. It's savory (as in umami), has a higher fat content than plants, and also can have a variety of textures depending on the cut and cooking method, among other things.

Steak tartare is delicious, and it's only cooked for the bare minimum to reduce the risk of food born illness. It turns out that raw meat is a delicacy. Also there's this thing called sashimi you may have heard of.

This is obviously wrong. He clearly means people want to replicate the taste and texture of the cooked meat they enjoy, not raw meat.

> We do it with our plant based food, and—to a much greater extent—we do it to our meat based food.

I'd disagree with that, I don't think plant based foods are seasoned or prepared that differently. Maybe you're thinking of barbecue where meat can be rubbed, smoked, then slathered in barbecue sauce, but most people don't eat that on a daily basis. Besides, it's not as if vegetarian and vegan dishes don't have any spices, a curry or a chili will have just as many spices as a rack of ribs or a brisket, if not more.

A plant based burger is prepped just as a meat based one, fried chicken isn't that far removed from tempura vegetables, cream of celery isn't that different from cream of chicken, and so on. Honestly, I can't think of a plant based dish that wouldn't have a meat based equivalent, other than salad.

> Also, salt is a very powerful spice.

Depends on how you want to look at it. It's not really a spice in the sense that it's not aromatic or pungent, it's in the category of ingredients that enhance taste, like monosodium glutamate.

I address this in a sibling comment.

In short: There is nothing inherent about meat that people like. People only like meat after they have altered the taste and texture of it. People can do the same (and more) with plant based food. In conclusion: Striving for the taste and texture of meat in particular is a poor goal for plant based food, as superior options exist.

Even if you only count the taste of a spiced meat, it’s still something you can’t get with vegetarian food. The taste and texture of meat, spiced or not, is something you can’t (so far) achieve with plant-based alternatives.

> AFAIK

I don't think your knowledge on this subject goes very far, because you seem to have very weird views of how and why meat is best prepared.

> With plant based food you have all these options and more.

A perfectly seared medium rare centercut piece of beef tenderloin is such a great experience that my mouth starts watering just thinking about it.

It is also currently completely impossible to recreate this experience using vegetarian options.

This is such a silly subject, I wonder what I said in the above comment that started this. I can just as easily say that it is completely impossible to recreate the experience of chocolate brownie with meat.

But that is not the point. I bet you only love seared medium rare centercut piece of beef tenderloin because you have learned to appreciate it. I on the other hand haven’t. The mere thought of eating beef gives bad taste in my mouth.

I bet there are million things that exists that you could learn to love even more then seared medium rare centercut beef tenderloin and I bet more then 95% of these are plant or mushroom based. Things like seared medium rare centercut matsutake mushrooms, or lightly baked eggplant paste, or raw kelp, or whatever.

> I wonder what I said in the above comment that started this.

You don't like meat, eating meat disgusts you, you don't understand how people can like meat, and yet you butted into this discussion with your completely unfounded opinion on whether or not other people actually like meat or not.

You also seem to think that people liking cooked meat somehow means they actually don't like meat, as if liking raw meat is the only thing that counts, for some weird made-up reason?

Are you so bad at understanding other people that you can't fathom that they actually, genuinely, like things you don't like?

...and to tie this back to the article we're discussing: If you don't eat meat or don't like meat, then Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are not products for you! You are not the target group! And that also means that the marketing of those products won't be appealing to you. That's fine! They're not trying to get you as a customer anyway! They're trying to get me as a customer!

> I bet you only love seared medium rare centercut piece of beef tenderloin because you have learned to appreciate it.

Nope, it's just fantastic, no taste acquiring needed.

To get back on track here:

I am trying to debunk the idea that “[p]eople eat meat because they like the taste and the texture” which you commented after a parent said that “calling plant-based things "meat" [is] a terrible idea”. To quite:

> We can have all kinds of flavors for these products, instead of "meat" flavor, not having to "live up to" the meat taste, and mouth feel. We can live up to great flavors vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

You started this debate by stating as a matter of fact that people “like the taste and the texture [of meat]”. I am trying—albeit really poorly—to say that that simply isn’t true. My choice of attack was perhaps poor, since I cannot seem to get my point across, but I chose to use that fact the people alter the both the taste and texture of meat a lot before they consume it. And for some reason people seem to think what I mean here is that they shouldn’t. As if I’m trying to invoke a No True Scotsman in favor raw meat.

> If you don't eat meat or don't like meat, then Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger are not products for you!

Sure, they are not. But I really doubt that the people who these are for like it because of the meat part. I honestly don’t know why they like it (I bet there are a million reasons), but I doubt that more than a few of these is because it reminds of meat actually. Because—as I’m trying (poorly) to convey—there is nothing inherent about the meat part they like.

I won’t be eating the Beyond or Impossible products because, honestly, they suck compared to the alternatives. Although I haven’t found anything that comes close to a good Oumph! here in America (if this is this how a meat eater feels when they can’t access meat, then I honestly don’t see the big deal here, just eat something else).

> You started this debate by stating as a matter of fact that people “like the taste and the texture [of meat]”. I am trying—albeit really poorly—to say that that simply isn’t true.

The popularity of these products, compared to the multitudes of veggie patties that came before, proves you wrong.

The market for these meat-tasting meat-textured vegetarian alternatives is much bigger than the market for veggie-tasting bean patties, because there are a lot more people who like the taste and texture of meat than people who like the taste and texture of bean patties.

If it were not so, these new products would have failed as horribly as the ones that came before. But they're not, because the closer they get to the taste and texture of meat, the more popular they become! Why? Because people like the taste and texture of meat!

I understand that you are sad and angry and upset that people like the wrong food, and that people should like the right food, just like you do! But you're in the minority opinion on this one, so suck it up, buttercup.

> I won’t be eating the Beyond or Impossible products because, honestly, they suck compared to the alternatives.

The one thing that comes through in this discussion, which I also laid out in another subtree, is your intense food snobbery.

These new meat alternatives technically make people vegetarian, but they're doing it "wrong", so they're not "real" vegetarians, they're not yet enlightened to the glorious "infinite" tastes and textures of real vegetarian food. So if these horrible lowbrow troglodytes could just go back to eating real dead cow meat, people like you can go back to feeling smug and morally superior again, and then everything is right in the world and you don't have to descend from your ivory tower to scold the masses again.

Get outta here.

>I think you are completely wrong.

Not completely wrong, You mentioned earlier attemps failing and as a person who opened their mind and wallet, I ate at a vegan restaurant in the 90s and can say it ruined tofu and taro root for me.

Also the livestock industry is not all bad, many industrial livestock operations could be considered "bad" but there are still ethical people that raise animals for food just like I'm sure there are unethical vegans out there...some sell drugs. Some commit crime. Some are rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.