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Comment by baxtr | Hacker News Reader

I personally don't buy into the fake meat trend. Fake meat is highly processed, you have to add a lot of stuff to make it look, feel and taste like meat. So it's far away from being a "natural food". After spending a bit of time in the space, I've come to the following conclusion: Live mostly (!) vegan, eat fish 1-2x a week, eat chicken once in a while (both have very good feed to food conversion ratios [1]). Try to avoid beef as much as possible - I do eat it when I crave really badly (every 2-3 months?)

[1] http://ib.bioninja.com.au/options/option-c-ecology-and-conse...

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I understand it's not there yet ... but in your experience were you able to live through a couple cycles to the point wherein you feel it might get there someday in terms of nutritional value and taste?

Also, should add ... I think most people don't care that much about the nutritional value of fake meat. A lot of fast-food meat is already processed and crap.

Anyone who can make something that's 'not steak' simply taste like 'steak' will do really well - it's going to be a cost consideration before anything. Consider the 'meat' in Taco Bell is 75% 'filler/chickenfeed' already.

I think huge chunks of people wouldn't mind eating vegan so long as they could eat stuff that tasted like meat, even if there were some extra processing.

That's why I think it will be a fast-food chain that will make it mainstream: they are cost conscious (as their consumers are), they have the reach and marketing power to change consumer behaviour, and their consumers don't have high-nutritional 'real food' expectations.

So a 'McNotBeef' would do really really well even among regular folks, even traditional meat eaters.

I agree. If the cost is low enough and it tastes, looks, smells the same, the fast-food giants will push it through. People who don't care too much that their meat is highly processed already today, probably won't care tomorrow either

Meat is a very nutritional source of protein & fat and generally very low carb. This is usually not the case with meat alternatives, which is very unfortunate because it makes them a poor substitute no matter how good they taste. Ice cream tastes good also, but in order to be a meat replacement it should at least have a similar macro profile.

I think this is one of the goals of the meat replacement companies. That’s why it’s very complcciated to replace meat: it needs to taste, smell, look like meat AND have similar nutritional value. And, lastly, have the same or lower price point, at least to become a mass market product

> eat chicken once in a while (both have very good feed to food conversion ratios [1]).

Depending on your animal welfare ethics, I'm not sure that's the best metric to optimise for. To get a good ratio, the animals' movement needs to be restricted and they need to be killed young. Hence, battery hens do very well.

From a health perspective I can see eating fish 1-2x a week, but from a sustainability perspective with the decline of our fish stocks, I've chosen to rarely eat fish at all.

It's a tradeoff I guess. There are organic fish farms that do a good job, e.g. the European ones. They won't thrive without demand. So I try to buy organic fish, it's expensive though.

This is where I wish I could actually buy the land-raised salmon.

http://www.kuterra.com

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