Just noting that "unicorns" are private companies valued at >=$1B. So, Impossible Foods is already a unicorn (still private, looks like valued around $7B a couple years ago) but Beyond Meat is public and has a market cap <$1B.
I think Impossible burgers are too close to beef for me- I feel ill after eating them and no longer do.
Much prefer the classic veggie/bean patties
Anyway - there is a great comment that I saved (https://www.facebook.com/david.zilber/posts/pfbid02CkCY53qDd...)
"Here’s a pesky little chemical called hexanal. If you’ve ever eaten a beyond burger, or any of these plant based products 2.0 (though to be honest, it’s more like they’re on V.46.6.2) and burped 10 or 15 minutes afterwards, and thought to yourself, “Hmmm, wow, ok I definitely just had a meat alternative” you were probably regurgitating this aerosol. Some people think it’s fruity, like green apple, others like mulched grass. At the lab, we had to walk outside to get wafts of it in its pure form, but the minute I opened the cap I knew exactly what this flavour was…. “OLD FRYER OIL, 100%”. It’s metabolized in all manners of organisms through the oxidation of fatty acids, and is… kind of unpleasant?! The point is that while this molecule exists in fava beans, peas, and soy, (the three kings of texturized vegetable protein) when you have a WHOLE FOOD, its there in harmony among all sorts of other volatile compounds, while also being locked away deep inside the beans fibres. It’s the act of processing that concentrated and heightens the presence of off-flavours like these, making the processed foods made from them taste, well, processed. Good with the bad. You can’t concentrate for protein without concentrating other aspects of a plant. There’s always a cost. Now, I will always be a huge proponent for whole foods, made with care, prepared simply. But the realities of grocery store shelves dictate a different truth. People opt for convenience, and sometimes, you’ve got to meet them where they are. My current work at CH has me doggedly hunting down an effect of fermentation I’ve long known intuitively through practice. Certain lactic acid bacteria fermenting their way through legumes don’t just mask, but dismantle this and other problematic molecules. I’m still after the mode of action, but it’s also enough for me to know that age old techniques of fermentation (like soaking ones legumes or grains days in advance of their cooking) can still put to shame the greatest technological “advances” of food science of the past 40 years. Nature is, after all, cleverer than you are. "
Yes, assuming you had a source.
Just two days ago I had a bit of "ill feeling", and was passing gas more than usual. Why? I ate a Chipotle burrito and I haven't had beans in a while. Not having had beans in a while almost always gives me a bit of gas. But if I keep it up and eat beans more routinely, my gut flora adapts and I get a lot less upset and gas.
I have a hard time calling "beans" a dangerous food. Yeah, some people might quibble about phytotoxins or something, but in general it's a food that has been eaten by a lot of humans for a long time and as such how bad it is is bounded; it can't be that bad. But if you use the "does it make me feel a bit ill" stick on it, you can easily get a false positive.
It is not unreasonable to expect to need a bit of adaptation to a new food. If I pay attention, I can notice a similar reaction, albeit on a smaller scale, to a number of cuisines if I haven't eaten them in a while. But it doesn't mean I can judge those entire cuisines as unsafe.
I actually don't post this in defense of the impossible burgers, which I expect are probably a bad idea for other reasons. I just don't think this is a good or reliable measure of that, because it visibly breaks in many other cases where there clearly isn't a fundamental problem.
(Now, if you eat them consistently for a while and it's still a problem, then you do have a problem. And I'm not asking you to do that, because there is no particular need to be able to eat such things.)
Other vegetarian protein patty substitutes have done just fine for decades selling to customers who want it. Why does Impossible have to eliminate meat altogether in order to succeed? Why can't they just make money providing an option to a growing customer base?
If they continue to sell and continue to grow the customer base, profits will go up.
What I have found is that "profits is not enough", you must be making more profit than the competition.
Burger meat isn't cured, though.
There are products that are extremely niche that serve very specific purposes that are considered very successful, and there are products that serve very broad appeal across a wide subsection of the population that by all metrics would be considered "failed" (e.g. loss leaders).
The mere fact that you can walk into most restaurants or grocery stores and see an explosion of plant-based alternatives, and that the meat industry itself has been one of the main investors in this space should provide all of the evidence that is contrary to the point you're making.
This article is, quite frankly, an author in search of a specific narrative.
Seems kind of absurd. Presumably a 1:1 meat substitute would be chemically identical to "real" meat and the allergies and health effects associated with it would be identical.
Also while looking around found that for casein, it is still used in some glues [1] on bottle packaging. Likely not the source since it wasn't ingested more of an interesting factoid.
I think of this stuff as none of these things. It's nicotine gum.
Nicotine gum won't ever replace cigarettes, nor will people who don't smoke start chewing it.
This is a product for people trying to transition away from a meat-heavy diet. It's never going to be 100% the same, but it's close enough to reduce the cravings. Eventually they'll graduate to healthier, cheaper, and (arguably) better tasting vegetarian products that don't resemble meat at all.
The motivations for cutting back on meat don't matter. Just like there's a market for nicotine gum, there's a market for this.
Eg. Burger joints without veg options are losing sales when a group including a vegetarian slips the meal instead of getting an impossible burger.
There are non-smokers who use nicotine gum; I'm one of them. Similar effect to caffeine with a lower half-life, so it's suitable to have later in the day. I'm sure that we're a small group, but if nicotine didn't have the specter of cigarettes hanging behind it, I'd imagine it could be quite a large market.
Plant-based meat is sort of the opposite. Real meat has the specter behind it, so there's a good funnel of people into the product. Furthermore, any kind of taste that's above "edible" eventually gets people acclimated; they expect and learn to enjoy it. I can't prove that on an individual basis, but the plant-based meat market is growing at a healthy clip and has been around for several years, which suggests a lot of repeat buyers. You'd have to provide some kind of evidence to say "eventually they'll graduate", as there's no indication of that so far.
It drives me a little bit crazy that people think nicotine itself is what's harmful about cigarettes. The myth is slowly eroding but the common knowledge about nicotine — aside from the reality that it is addictive — remains directionally wrong (as common knowledge often is).
Nicotine could be considered bad because its addictive qualities make smoking happen more frequently, but rising blood pressure is a small piece.
For a new product to replace an existing one, it has to be at least two of cheaper, better, and/or more convenient.
More convenient is out, and plant-based meat substitutes are neither cheaper nor better than meat. They need to be both.
(Better is a complex of attributes. Taste, texture, variety, tolerance of varied cooking and consumption patterns, keeping duration, side-effects of consumption (like nausea, feeling full, or fibres sticking in teeth), and in the long term, health effects, among them.)
Some people want fake meat to be a 1:1 meat substitute because they love meat but can't eat it (allergies, cardiovascular, etc). Some people want cheaper meat because quality meat you can trust has grown too expensive. Some people want more vegan/vegetarian options because they object to killing animals or economic externalities that cattle grazing causes. Some people want meat-based substitutes because the companies are public and they are looking for the next unicorn to invest in.
The problem is, those looking for meat substitute think it isn't close enough, those who want cheaper meat think it's too expensive, vegans/vegetarians have actually vegetable based options and aren't necessarily looking for fake meat at all, and investors fell for hype.
Every one of these entities has a different metric, and several of them are at odds with each other. In my opinion, if plant-based meat turns out to be a flop, it will be because its core market is too many different groups and it'll never satiate all of them.
Case in point - read the comments on this article. Everyone has a different reason for wanting or not wanting this stuff.