I am mostly vegetarian, and I quite like Impossible Burgers. Sadly they're not really available in Europe.
They might be an idea with a small market. But in my mind this is a lot like if Silicon Valley got really pumped up about, like, unpasteurized cheeses or nutritional shakes. (Oh, wait, that last one happened.) The problem isn't with unpasteurized cheeses--there is a small but reasonable market for such things--but with Silicon Valley.
I like it, I'm a meat eater with a vegetarian partner, it works great as a compromise for us.
Some vegetarians (my partner included) sometimes want food that tastes and has texture like dishes they used to eat as a meat eater. So it works great for them. For her it's bolognese-style pasta sauces, bacon, sandwich meats like pastrami and a few other things.
Artificial meat has a niche.
Was it going to change the whole world and revolutionise fucking everything? Well, no, that was overblown hype.
Are you just projecting your own preference on others maybe? Both me and my wife are meat eaters and we happily get "meat-like" burger patties and sausages at least once a week - it makes for a nice break from having meat all the time, even though we both like meat. And the options nowadays are pretty good, so why not eat them?
Also - "nobody" doesn't mean "most people don't". It literally means 0 people.
>It literally means 0 people.
Not everything is literal.
I’m a vegan of nearly 25 years. My reasons are my own. I don’t care what others eat. Eat a pig, a horse, a dog, cotton candy, pomegranate. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. But I’m doubtful there are other vegans out there who want carnivores to switch to eating processed foods like this. For my family and most vegans I know, these artificial meats are useful primarily in social situations where vegans and omnivores gather.
I like the convenience of a protein substitute on the rare occasion that I eat outside my home and am sorry to see these businesses floundering. But if they went away tomorrow, I wouldn’t rue the failure of a grand conspiracy to force alternative food choices on the unsuspecting masses.
> stupid idea
Economically unsustainable, maybe, but stupid?
I mean sure if you are comparing a chop from grass fed sheep from somewhere like wales (or good quality horse meat) to something like a vegan burger, then yeah.
but comparing a mystery meat burger to fake meat, no.
Fake meat's best outcome would be for it to be enjoyed as much as meat, but it couldn't replace it. It would just be another thing to experience.
We're used to eating meat and most have been eating it their entire lives. It's unrealistic to think that most would switch in a few years.
Swapping to fake meats, even meat grown in a lab will probably takes decades at the minimum.
We’ll, no shit, it was sold as the answer to everything and it turns out that it’s just another addition to the food market with some appeal to some people.
I hope that it doesn’t disappear, basically because it make my life easier. But the takeaway from this should probably be along the lines of being skeptic all of the hype, always.
My own response would be: Is it possible that if every version of schadenfreude and psychopathic antipathy toward other humans is deeply embedded in the fake-meat-making process and it still can be commercially successful and serve several purposes ethically/environmentally/economically if it's popularized, do the impure individual motives outweigh the greater good?
Because the poor will eat it if it's cheaper; the rich will eat it if it's more ethical or if it's dolled up more expensively; the outcomes touted by the environmentalists will be the same whether they do it out of love for cows or hatred for mankind, won't they?
We often choose to eat meat substitutes. We like the texture and the taste.
Since the supermarkets in the UK are full of meat substitutes from the likes of Quorn, What The Cluck, etc. and have been for years, we can't be the only family of omnivores to enjoy it.
Meat alternatives don't have to 100% replicate meat to be enjoyable, they just have to be tasty.
aye, so I really like the fake kebab meat that's full of spice. I like it because unlike real kebab meat, its not going to give me TB, Scrapie or monstershits.
slap it in a microwave, dump it in a pita bread, add hot sauce, done. 4 mins tops.
The chicken burger is still superiors though.
However I'm not threatened by food, so if people want to eat it, I'm not going to slighted, I don't have enough energy to project politics into food.
That said, I've cooked myself some decent fast food with fake meat instead of cheap €1 burgers. The cheapest, shittiest meat is just a protein source drenched in fat, plants can easily substitute that.
If you're going vegetarian, fake meat isn't the way to go. There are great dishes built around vegetables, mushrooms, and all other kinds of non-meat products that you can eat instead. You won't ever find an artificial steak that's any good, but you may find something even better if you try exploring other meals instead.
I don't care what anyone else eats, as long as you let me know of your dietary restrictions if we're planning on eating together.
I do find it disturbing that Vegans are doing the same thing though. When I eat a heavily processed bleeding vegan burger I feel like I've been poisoned. Consuming industrial seed oil and Omega6 at the level seen in these vegan foods cannot be good.
Meat eaters want vegans to eat this thing instead of soy meat.
Vegans wants meat eaters to eat this thing to prevent animal harm.
Rich people want poor people to eat this to save earth.
And poor people want rich people to eat this as a punishment.
Artificial meat is stupid idea.