Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal | Hacker News Reader

Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

engadget.com

390 pointsalangpierce525 comments

Congrats to that team for building a great product. I hope they see a lot of success. Long term, I hope plant based meat alternatives become commoditized. If there are a bunch of alternatives that taste just as good and importantly are cheaper than meat, most people will switch. That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights), and I can't wait to see it happen.

When compared to meat there is almost no doubt that Impossible is better for the environment.

Impossible has an environmental mission first.

Checkout the sustainability report from 2017 http://www.ift.org/~/media/Food%20Technology/Weekly/IF_Susta...

Or the update from 2018 https://impossiblefoods.com/if-pr/2018-Impact-Update/

At least mention that you work for the company.

Your right I should have included the disclaimer that I previously worked there.

> I should have included the disclaimer that I previously worked there

Or perhaps a disclosure. A disclaimer is sort of the opposite:

"I believe X about company Y. Disclosure: I work(ed) there, so could be biased."

"I believe X about company Y. Disclaimer: I have never worked there, so could be completely wrong."

Why is it his right?

Why "no doubt"? What's your basis for that?

I'm no expert, but I expect land is different in different places. There are different sources of feed. Someone changes a supplier or a farming practice, and it changes a number in a spreadsheet, and you'll get a different answer.

Accounting gets complicated enough with money. When you're doing science it's much more difficult.

This sounds like the sort of thing that scientists and economists can debate for decades. I'm certainly not going to trust some unsourced numbers in a press release.

The burger is made primarily from Soy. Soy accounts for 2/3 of global protein feed. Humans eating directly from livestock's primary food source is likely to be much more efficient at a global scale.

Where did you get soy is the primary food source for cattle?

This article recommends no more than 20% soy in cattle’s diet. The article is from last year. [1]

>Researchers have found that when the oil content of the ration exceeds 7 percent, it can be toxic to the microbes in the cattle’s rumen and decrease digestibility. Too much oil in cattle rations will lead to scours (diarrhea), cessation of rumen fermentation and, eventually, death.

“Because of these limitations, the recommended upper limit of feeding would be about 20 percent of the ration,” Hoppe says. “Practical feeding levels are probably more like 2 to 3 pounds per head per day. At this low rate of supplementation, soybeans provide an excellent source of protein and energy.”

[1]https://www.drovers.com/article/soybeans-may-be-viable-cattl...

It takes energy to process soya into an edible patty. It does for meat patties as well, so I am curious about the comparison (eg. a soy patty takes x Kw to make, a beef one takes y Kw).

Where I think meat has an advantage is that "we" don't need to use energy to make the patty taste good, the cow does that naturally using the feed. But a soy patty needs all sorts of things added to it and we need to use energy and water to actively process it into something edible.

If we were just eating the soya beans as we pulled them out of the ground, it would be far more sustainable. But beef tastes great right off the cow! Soya is quite bland.

Your parent is employed by Impossible Foods based on their post history.

> Soy accounts for 2/3 of global protein feed.

This may be the current case, but it doesn't, indeed shouldn't, be so. It just happens that in the US, CAFO's are the best (financially) way to raise beef cattle.

In any case, livestock's primary food source should never have been soy beans.

Soy contains phytoestrogens which certain populations (e.g. women pregnant with male fetuses) may be advised to reduce intake of or avoid. Something to keep in mind as meat replacements become more popular - that it may not be a one-size-fits-all solution.

It sounds like you didn't read the report or check the references on page 26.

I recommend reading this paper and coming to your own conclusion about "almost no doubt". Within sustainability science, there is little debate about the lack of efficiency to produce protein via cows.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

That's more impressive, and yet, as a non-expert, I still don't know how to evaluate whether the calculation is bug-free. Do you? I guess I'd have to track down all the references and build my own spreadsheet? There are some spreadsheets listed in the references, but it seems like a complicated task.

Just to nit-pick one little detail, it seems to treat all land the same: "Significant decreases in land occupation also follow from a shift away from animal-based foodstuffs. The VEG and VGN occupy 70% and 79% less land than the MUD, respectively (VEG = -63% and VGN = -74% for isocaloric diet comparison)."

But, prime farmland and grazing for grass-fed beef aren't the same, so adding them up and taking a percentage seems dubious. (I'm also skeptical of estimates with no margin of error.)

Given that no single scientific paper is definitive (you need to read the literature) I don't see how to come to a conclusion on any of this without a whole lot more work than I'm going to put into it for an online discussion.

Sure it's less efficient when compared to high protein crops, but there are vaste acres of land that can't be farmed and can only sustain grazing animals (and then some of those are more feed efficient than others, say, cows vs sheep)

Does this mean the company will sell it for as cheap as possible regardless of profit? And release all IP of course?

If not, the purpose is to make money and the "mission" is just marketing BS.

That’s not really true.

They would need change their model to meat based burgers after they gain market share for their mission to be BS. Profit has nothing to do with it.

What you are proposing would prevent them from building a healthy company that can maximize market share and have the largest possible beneficial impact on the environment. I want them to drive all the meat based competitors out of business.

Why does it have to be this company maximizing market share? Releasing the IP would allow others to do that as well, likely increasing the overall meatless share.

I agree. They "conveniently" forget to state their primary mission: make a bundle for the proprietors (founders, investors, etc). Either in profit or at exits.

While doing that they have some additional missions, which is cool, but in absence of that first point I do agree it comes off as marketing BS.

At the very least, they have investors[0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Foods#Financing

There's a really handy way to estimate the amount of resources that go into (and thus, the environmental impact of) making a product:

Its price.

When these are significantly cheaper than beef, then it'll be safe to state categorically that they are better for the environment. Until then, it's mostly a game of "pay attention to these metrics that favor my product and ignore the metrics which favor the competition".

That is false. Almost always, cheaper != environmental. Environmental practices often cost more, and this gets passed on to the consumer.

Case in point, soy gets 8% the share of agricultural government subsidies while feed for animals gets 34%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...

Price only reflects what consumers are willing to pay and the effects of subsidies, NOT the environmental impact...

but environmental impact is often an externality that isn't included in the price.

If you ignore that, you get all kinds of obviously wrong things: a cheap gas guzzling car is cleaner than a tesla; natgas for electricity is cleaner than nuclear. etc. And worse, when you start talking about tech that hasn't scaled up yet.. if you go back 10 years, you would get: solar panels are worse than burning coal.

The price is not an indicator of environmental impact.

The price of beef does not include the environmental impact so I'm not sure this is a good indicator of the impact of making a product. Beef/Milk in the USA is also subsidized...

Beef is expensive though! I don't think people are reading the grandparent post carefully enough. I think the point is correct.

Obviously at the margins there are costs to environmental impact that may or may not be realized in consumer pricing and there's lots to argue about on the regulatory side.

But in general, if you have to "equivalent" products shipped and produced in bulk, and one costs 4x as much as another (roughly where "beef vs. soy protein" lands for the consumer), it's a really good bet that the cheaper one involved less energy to produce.

This is only true if there are no significant externalities.

I love meat but I've always struggled to reconcile my love of eating it with my love of animals. I would be happy to pay a premium if it meant I could get meat-like taste without the guilt

I'm more excited about where they go after they get passed the "uncanny valley of meat". If they can nail it, they'll get bored and move on to new and weirder flavors and textures.

Hook it up to Watson and you don't just get new recipes, but they're combined with new meat! (https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/ar...)

I wonder if they can somehow replicate the flavor in bones. I'd love to make stock or a stew, but so much of the "meaty" flavor comes from bones

With a combination of porcini powder (ground dried porcini mushrooms), nutritional yeast, MSG, miso, kombu, and something with hydrolyzed vegetable protein, you can make some almost-meaty tasting stocks that have as much richness/flavor/oomph as any bone broth. I'm not vegetarian, but I have friends and business partners who are, and I like a challenge. Any four of those six (careful with the yeast -- it gets overpowering quickly) can combine for a pretty powerful stock or sauce. I use most of them in my regular cooking, too.

I eat plant-based and don't know what bone broth tastes like, but I assume very savory from the others descriptions

When I want to cook savory foods, there's certain things you can look to:

1. Miso pastes. There's several kinds but in a regular American grocery with international sections you'll usually find a mild white miso and a slightly more pungent red one. Both are usually savory. I am sure Chinese and Japanese groceries will have more options.

2. Seaweed

3. Certain vegetable broth brands - "Better than Bouillan" vegetable stock, with the green label, is extremely savory

4. Less of an impact, but certain foods, like lentils and tempeh can impart an earthy, savory flavor

You'd be surprised how many flavors you can get mixing these in various quantities, along with other seasonings such as liquid aminos, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, roasted tomatoes, and soy sauce.

I originally learned to cook by going through the entire "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (it took me 3 years). Later in life I was completely broke and had to give up either meat or beer. I chose to give up meat :-) Even later in life I figured I might as well go whole hog (hmm???) and become vegan. I learned how to cook again.

My biggest piece of advice for anyone wanting to learn how to cook really good vegetable based meals (and who doesn't want to adopt an already established ethnic vegan diet) is to forget ingredients and instead focus on techniques. Cooking is applied chemistry. You need to understand why certain foods and certain preparations give certain results. You can then replicate similar results.

It's not so much that you want to imitate the "meaty" flavour of beef bones, but rather that you want to create a similarly satisfying broth. If you try to imitate an existing food, you will always end up with a pale shadow of that food. Instead make something that has the same value, but with a different ingredient. It will be different just like chicken stock is different from beef stock which is different than lamb stock which is different than pork stock. But it will be just as good.

For stocks, it's complicated because vegetables are sweet. You want umami for stocks. As much as possible keep the sweetness out of the stock (because it will get in there no matter what you do). Fermented proteins (miso as others have said -- but make sure to get the oldest you can find), beans/lentils, rice, etc. Stay away from things like a mirepoix because it will add too much sweetness. You can add onions, but caramelise them down to being black, etc, etc. To be honest, there is too much to making a good stock to explain here. You just need to practice and adjust until you get what you are looking for. Learning an ethnic cuisine that is already traditionally vegan will help a lot if you pay attention to the techniques they are using. At the same time consider what a bone stock is doing in a stock pot. What is meat? What is connective tissue? What is skin? What is marrow? What happens when you simmer that for 5 hours?

You can make great vegan stocks and it is fun to learn how to do it, but it takes an inventive spirit.

One trick I learned from one of Heston Blumenthal's videos is slowly caramellising onion together with star anise, it can add a lot of meaty flavour.

at what point is it good enough to change to an alternative consistently? for the most part we enjoy foods that we are used to eating, if you change your habits to a non-bone based stew in a matter of time you will begin to favor those flavors instead.

Consider that killing a living thing to eat its body is not unique to "meat", nor is raising it in a controlled environment for the purpose of consumption. Fish (as is sometimes classified separately) and vegetables are living things raised and killed for consumption of their bodies as well.

I believe reconciling all of these as ethically equal (including raising the ethical weight of killing a plant as equal to an animal) is important for sanely dealing with our natural ecosystem of food. The "aliveness" of plants is continually researched and shown in a positive light, and it's hard to draw a clear and reasonable line between "life that is acceptable to eat" and "life that is not acceptable to eat".

When you look at the spectrum of life and how ethically impactful killing it for food is, it tends to follow anthropomorphism and social compatibility with humans, which doesn't seem objective enough to be pursued for widely-accepted ethics, but merely for local cultural acceptability.

Suggesting that there's enough ambiguity for it to be reasonable to assume ferns exist on the same level of consciousness or understanding of the world around them as cows is a bit of a weak argument. There's a pretty obvious difference between the two, and even if you believe plants can experience pain or distress in a meaningful way, it still makes way more sense to kill a carrot over a pig if you have the choice, making the two very clearly not morally equivalent.

The parent has specifically mentioned that they love animals, and it's pretty easily to see why: animals are much easier to relate to, can show pain easily, and are much more similar to us than plants are.

Animals, or at least cows, pigs, and chicken, clearly show a level of consciousness that plants do not

There are no indications that plants feel pain.

> it's hard to draw a clear and reasonable line between "life that is acceptable to eat" and "life that is not acceptable to eat".

How about the line between "life that will likely suffer when prepared for us to eat" and "life that will likely not suffer when prepared for us to eat"?

You don't have to feel guilty. It is the disconnection between humans and animals that causes many of those feelings and if you shift your thinking, you can have a much better experience. When you participate in the process of raising, killing, butchering, and eating the animals which are your food you will appreciate them – love them – and the life they had and gave for you to live. Food encased in plastic from a grocery store really prevents this connection.

Life both begins and ands and you don't have to run away from the end of things or think that making life as long as possible is necessarily better.

Unless you can argue that the cows don't mind anything about the way they're treated (including slaughter), then there's reason to feel guilty. If you can live without that (and you can, vegetarians exist), then there's reason to feel guilty about not doing so.

That idea doesn't work for me because I know for a fact that I don't really need meat to live a healthy life. My wife is vegetarian, as are my parents, and they're all healthy and happy. All my nutritional needs can be met with vegetarian alternatives.

I eat meat solely for the taste, which, when I get down to thinking about it, is a shallow and selfish reason

I disagree. Once you shift your thinking in the other direction and cherish their life and only eat them if its the only option for survival you will feel greater love and appreciation for animals. I've eaten meat only once in the last 2 years and when I did I actually wept.

> Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends. --George Bernard Shaw

https://gist.github.com/samueleaton/cccfd86dcca72bc33f72bdfa...

> I've eaten meat only once in the last 2 years and when I did I actually wept.

Sorry to bring this up, but I'm curious as to the circumstances around this. Did you not know you were eating meat? Or did you eat, and realize later that it was incompatible with your ethics?

I take a lot of inspiration from Native Americans on this topic. Eating is a part of existing for any organism and without life, there is no energy to transfer. This applies to plants and animals.

Appreciation for the life that was given for my nourishment is important to me and I really take it seriously. I make an effort to not waste any meat I buy and I've definitely shifted to eating less than I used to.

Yes eating is necessary for everything, but keep in mind that we humans can meet our needs solely with plants.

>is important to me and I really take it seriously

sounds like "we take security very seriously"

Do you usually kill all that you love for some fleeting pleasure, when pretty healthy alternatives are available?

Please don’t love me then

I'm not sure if I'd eat this burger, but if lab-grown meat was available and as good as the natural alternative, I think I would definitely switch.

Sadly if everyone did this it would probably mean we would only see cows, sheep etc in zoos, rather than grazing in fields.

The industrial meat/ag complex loves that you think of their products as coming from the sort of happy pasture-grazing farms you see on the side of the highway.

Most of them do. Chickens are the main exception, and I would agree that their conditions are pretty bad.

Downvoters - I live in the Midwest. I grew up on a farm. Much of my family still farms and raises livestock. Factory farming of livestock is not the norm for non-poultry.

I live in semi-rural England in Kent. In the collection of fields around my house are pigs, sheep and beef cattle. I'm lucky enough that I can buy meat from happy pasture-grazing animals.

On the flip side, I also get to interact with the animals - stroke them, feed them apples etc. It makes me happier that they have a good life, and also sadder as I can see that they're actual creatures with a life.

"Sadly if everyone did this it would probably mean we would only see cows, sheep etc in zoos, rather than grazing in fields."

Eh, not really, as cows and sheep and goats still provide valuable resources. Milk and wools, for example. I'm guessing lots of other things can be taken as they die naturally - leathers and stuff from bones and pet foods and whatnot. Sure, we could eventually engineer ourselves out of needing farm animals, but it is going to take some time.

Granted, I am excited for this meat/burger to be available to the public even if you shy away from eating it. I don't eat meats outside of fish anyway and I'm always excited to get tastier edible stuff.

I assume virtually everyone knows but I'll be pedantic anyway: if one wants to reduce the number of animals killed, the milk industry not immune. A cow's natural lifespan is 18-22 years (according to google). The average lifespan of a dairy cow is 4-6 years. A dairy cow has between 2-4 calves in that time. Only 1 is needed for replacement, meaning that for each dairy cow in the herd, you kill a calf every second year. Unfortunately it is not economically viable to slaughter dairy cows for meat (the meat is distributed in a non-efficient fashion on dairy cows). A cow produces about 8,800 litres of milk in a year (which is unbelievable to me), though only when calving. So the number of litres of milk per dead calf is about 5-7,000 (give or take -- it's the middle of the night so someone should better check my math ;-) ). It's surprisingly efficient, but not free.

there's nut milks and faux leather. nearly everything has a plant-based alternative and if something doesn't, it will have one soon.

You should really give them a shot before entirely dismissing them out of hand. Admittedly my opinion is less informed, being a vegetarian, but I love them. My wife loves them too though, and her favorite food is steak.

See how happy they are: https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko

I am not getting this. Highly processed foods are the source of all problems and people cheer up for synthetic food!

I can't speak for all, but most vegan/vegetarians I know, myself included, don't view processed meat substitutes like this as a staple. They are expensive and seen as less healthy compared to less processed plant protein.

Meals more often revolve around beans, legumes, tofu, tempeh, seitan. I think since many meat eaters are less familiar with cooking meals around these, they assume vegs are just subbing meat 1-to-1 with foods like Impossible Burger, Tofurkey, Quorn.

More often they are a food for convenience, special occasions like cookouts, specific recipes, or they happen to be the only option at a restaurant. Some I've known have used them as sort of an aid to transition to a plant based diet, if they happen to have cravings for meat.

However it's great to have more choices, and seeing brands like these in store gives more visibility to veg diets. (It's weird to me that this is the case, when the whole produce isle is vegan, but that's the way it is in a meat-by-default culture).

I agree. But I don't think this is targeted at established vegetarians though. Maybe those who want to eat less meat, or stop but don't know how?

Are you really not getting this, or just making straw men? "That's a huge win for the environment (and also animal rights)". The comment seems pretty clear to me.

If it's just straw men... nothing is black and white - the same people who say boo to "synthetic foods" (which is obviously a massive scale too) are not the same people who say "meat production is bad for long-term human survival". The issues are complex and overlap in weird ways.

Because it's better for the environment and health compared to what it's replacing(95% less land and 74% less water, plusmore humane). If people eating whole plant foods start eating this, it's not good, but if meat eaters do it's a win. And it's much more likely that way more meat eaters will use this as replacement.

This sounds like clean food concepts. There isn't science behind clean/unclean.

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

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-...

The more processing a food stuff undergoes the more opportunity there is for it to be adulterated and/or contaminated.

Oftentimes it's not even intentional. e.g. An ingredient supplier from China delivers whey tainted with Cadmium, this gets mixed into a protein shake powder. Nowhere on the ingredients is Cadmium and the company producing protein shake powder had no intention whatever of producing Cadmium-laced shakes.

This type of thing has occurred multiple times quite publicly in pet foods. Contaminated cat food made from contaminated Chinese ingredients killed an ex coworker's cats years ago, if memory serves the contaminant was Melamine.

An effective means of protecting ourselves from these industrial errors is to avoid eating industrially manufactured foods altogether.

There was a case back in I believe it was the 80s where a red food dye was being derived from Coal tar. When the process worked flawlessly, there was no problem. But the dye was found to be carcinogenic, because the process, as one would expect, had a non-zero error rate. The public reaction to this news is what led to red M&Ms being deprecated for years, even though they supposedly didn't use the red dye in question. Which is the only reason I even know the story. I presume there are many instances of this kind of thing occurring that manage to fly under the radar.

Soylent was in the news fairly early on with contaminated China-sourced ingredients as well.

An even more recent incident has been chopped romaine lettuce as supplied to fast-food chains like Chipotle. Some supplier had contaminated heads with e.coli, the processor then spread the contamination to a much larger scale as they consolidated supplies from multiple farms, chopped it all up, then shipped it out.

By simply avoiding consumption of chopped lettuce, a minimal amount of processing, one significantly reduced the probability they would be exposed to the e.coli.

The devil's in the details. Because some processed food is bad doesn't mean it all it.

In this case it certainly looses from straight up beans or lentils. It will straight up win from a regular burger though.

Talking health here. Nothing to back it up, just common sense about cholesterol and different fats.

Highly processed foods are problematic when they’re unhealthy, which they usually are. The impossible burger seems to be healthy, relatively speaking - it’s not loaded with fats, sugar, and salt, unlike a lot of processed food.

Saying that food is 'processed' is meaningless.

What matters is how it is processed.

People cheer while it's novel (like television, social media) but our children will hate it and feel cheated out of real nutrition by 'manufactured food'.

Or, quite possibly, since humanity's progress can't be stopped, our children will hate us once they open their eyes and realize who their favorite hot dogs and burgers were made out of and how we spoon fed them with corpses since their very first moments.

Edit: I believe that there's definitely a potential version of the future where corpse eating will be looked at the same way we look at cannibalism now.

Most of the meat they eat now comes from factory farms, you can't get much closer yo manufactured food than that.

I agree it is really positive outcome. It suffers patent risk like a number of technologies that were slowed significantly in their early life (like encryption and digital cash).

This is about the only kind of vegan proselytizing that I can stomach. If you can make food that tastes as good as meat, with nutrition similar to meat, and sell it at a lower price than meat, I will switch overnight, and never look back.

And it would be nice if it came in bulk forms, rather than just as pre-formed patties. I eat ground beef a lot more often than I eat burgers.

Until then, good luck with the test kitchen research. The results so far indicate that the developers understand the problem they need to solve.

So you are basically saying "if I had to make no effort at all and I could also save some money, I would switch". Yes, that's obvious, everyone would, it's redundant to state it.

But what those 'vegan proselytizers' are asking you for, is to not be so selfish and make a bit of a sacrifice to spare the lives of others. But of course, you 'can't stomach' to be asked to not be selfish, and they are the ones to blame.

Just a tip, of sorts: I don't wholly disagree with your argument, but you might do well to soften the tone. As written, your post comes across as accusatory.

Maybe that's your intention, but it's a really bad way to persuade people of anything.

Respectfully, I agree with the tone of the parent comment. I think there are circumstances when a little bite in a comment is appropriate. I'm not sure of wvlia5's original intent, but logfromblammo's position seemed a bit shockingly selfish to me, and a shocked/accusatory response seemed to echo my feeling as well.

My values are not yours. I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights. This is a fundamental disagreement, the only possible peaceful solution is agree to disagree (I hope we don't come down to the non-peaceful ones)

There are also important environmental issues that come with the production of meat and other animal products.

>I do not consider animal lives worth valuing or deserving of rights

So you're against animal anti-cruelty laws? Are you okay with animals like dogs and cats being torture for human entertainment?

> I do not consider animal lives worth valuing

For the sake of discussion, do you have a pet? Or have loved ones that have a pet?

If you were to torture that pet would you feel anything? Would your loved ones object for any reason?

I guess this depends on where we consider the line for "peaceful" to be. If the culture shifted enough where your views were in the minority, there's legislative action that can be taken criminalizing raising and harvesting of animals for food (in the US they just did this with dog and cats for example, with the latest farm bill).

Whether you agree or not, if your behavior is criminalized, the matter is settled (as a point of law at least).

To be fair, I don't know that violence against you (or others) would really convince you that these lives are valuable or not, just that you might value not being violently punished for acting on your beliefs.

> This is a fundamental disagreement, the only possible peaceful solution is agree to disagree (I hope we don't come down to the non-peaceful ones)

So here is the kicker, exactly because vegan people see these animal lives as worth valuing, they don't consider your "agree to disagree" stance as a "peaceful solution", as it implies the death and suffering of these entities.

It's one of those subjects where you can't have an "agree to disagree" or a "live and let live", or a "to each their own" type of deal, because one side is considering that a third party is involved and hurt, while the other side doesn't consider that a third party is involved at all. i.e: sentient being vs food.

Interesting, judging by the other replies, that the opponents in your debate have not agreed to disagree, despite the fact that the underlying differences are deep-rooted enough that any action on their part, especially on an internet forum, is unlikely to make a change.

> Yes, that's obvious, everyone would, it's redundant to state it.

No, it's not. Do you truly think that there would be no self-proclaimed "meat purists"? Many would still enjoy real meat and would be prepared to pay a premium for it. Heck, even now, there are people who pay attention to the grade of their meat.

Yeah - you would have “all-natural” meat that would sell for a premium over the “processed, artificial” meat.

I dunno, I'd probably still pay extra for the real deal.

Yes. Exactly so. If I had to make no effort at all, and I could also save some money, I would switch. But it is not obvious that everyone would. Perhaps all of your acquaintances would, but perhaps you just don't know someone of the sort who wouldn't.

Pre-framing the debate in (hostile) terms of just how selfish I am gives me the inkling that you are not looking for an honest, factual, and productive discussion, and that my participation might be seen as an invitation to browbeat me with guilt and propaganda. Instead of wasting your words on convincing me that you're so prejudiced in this matter that the outcome of any discussion we might have is already predetermined, go buy an Impossible Burger--or a thousand--and let them do all the arguing for you, because their actions speak louder than your words. They'll win over my stomach with a $2.00-off coupon, while you're still trying to recover from implicitly devaluing every sacrifice I have ever made for the sake of someone else.

Your post is an exemplar of exactly the sort of vector that I can't stomach--unnecessarily hostile and loaded with assumptions.

What if the 'proselytizing' was environmental instead? Switching away from meat would lessen your footprint considerably, and likely improve your health[1] even if you don't care about the moral arguments.

1: http://time.com/4266874/vegetarian-diet-climate-change/

You can reduce your carbon footprint by orders of magnitude more by not having children, or having fewer children, but I don't see as many people advocating for voluntary sterilization (or even just abstaining from childbearing). Most people believe it's their deity-given right (and often imperative) to keep reproducing, even if our environment suffers as a result.

I point this out to suggest that at the end of the day all of this is emotional and is largely driven by how we were socialized and raised from a very young age. It's often difficult to get people to agree with rational arguments when those arguments contradict a lifetime of programming.

Having said all that, I've found that the environmental argument is the only one that gives me pause around my meat consumption.

By the environmental footprint argument, I could do far greater good for it by murdering the person with the largest footprint, and altering the remainder of my lifestyle not at all.

To ask those with the smallest prints to wear smaller shoes is ridiculous while some still wear a different yacht on each foot. You ask the man with the ha'penny to give a farthing, while the man on the gold throne is unmolested.

If I save the whole Earth, will I get to keep some of it, or will title to the vast majority of the habitable area remain with those who made my interventions necessary?

It's a matter of incentives. Why should I bust my ass to live green on a rented 1/8 of an acre, while my neighbor that owns the 400 sqmi ranch is buying pipes and pumps specialized to move liquefied manure by the cubic meter, and blowing cigar smoke in my face when I complain about the smell? Go annoy the asshats that can actually make a difference by changing their behavior, or save your arguments for a political campaign. My only stake in the environment is my own survival. If it down comes to that, I already know I'm expendable. I won't just lay down and die, though; I'm going to at least try to eat the rich, instead of my vegetables.

This is really the most compelling argument to me and has me reducing (specifcally red) meat consumption.

IRT meat substitutes coming in bulk forms as opposed to pre-formed patties, I've had "Beyond Meat" before which comes as a ground beef substitute as well as patties. The prices for Beyond Meat weren't much higher than the leanest ground beef at the grocery store.

https://www.beyondmeat.com/

It is currently selling at around $30 /kg for Patties. Retails for Ground Beef goes around $10 / Kg.

I would certainly not call that cheap or even affordable.

> This is about the only kind of vegan proselytizing that I can stomach. If you can make food that tastes as good as meat, with nutrition similar to meat, and sell it at a lower price than meat, I will switch overnight, and never look back.

I'm wanting to try it out someday, and am willing to pay the price for a "restaurant burger" made using the product - but the cost is too great currently for the home market. If they can reduce this, while making the product better, then I'm all for it.

That said - before I would be willing to switch fully, they'd have to be able to replicate a few kinds of cuts that are currently - well - impossible:

1. Well marbled aged rib-eye - steak and roast form, bone in

2. Pork shoulder

3. Full-size beef brisket, fat cap and all, plus tip

One day, perhaps...

This. I want my tacos and burgers to taste like tacos and burgers. I don't care whether it's "real" beef or not. If someone's selling 80/20 that's blended with some plant product (or even just 100% plant product) and it's substantially cheaper than 80/20 and tastes about the same then that's what I'm gonna buy.

So far no option like that exists on the shelf. All the fake meat options cater to the people who shop at whole foods and I'll take value priced 80/20 over that any day.

Most of the meat you get from the ‘easy’ places like supermarkets tastes terrible anyway, compared to quality meat from a specialist store. I’ve long ago stopped eating chicken almost completely because of this, in the end you just taste whatever you serve with the chicken, and you get a certain bite from it that is easily imitated using ‘fake meat’.

I’m pretty sure I will never be a strict vegetarian, but I honestly don’t see the point of eating cheap mass-produced meat over some more environmental- and/or animal-friendly produced alternative anymore. Quality over quantity please. I cannot understand how so many people disagree, especially those who claim to love meat.

I did see an impossible meatloaf in a grocery store, and it looks like their website is showing ground beef. So it looks like they are slowly branching out into other products.

Impossible is not currently available directly to consumers. They do not make a meatloaf - it is possible the grocery store bought the raw product and is selling their own meatloaf.

Until the people currently destroying forests to grow cattle, start destroying forests to grow ingredients for these burgers. Soil depletion is also a thing. I still remember the argument for biofuel and where it ended up.

More options in the mix is always good, but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

Plant-based foods are almost always significantly more efficient to produce than meat since you no longer need to grow all of the food to feed an animal for its entire life.

From another article ( https://www.cnet.com/news/impossible-burger-2-0-tastes-like-... ):

> But Impossible Foods can produce a burger using a fourth of the water and less than 4 percent of the land -- and emit one-tenth of the greenhouse gases -- than a conventional burger, Brown said.

So yeah, we might still destroy forests to make veggie burgers, but it'll be 1/25th of the forest destruction (if you believe the numbers).

We're so far from that being even close to a problem that I feel it's a bit disingenuous to see it repeated so often when vegetarianism comes up. There's a whole lot of meat we can cut out of our diets without any of that becoming a problem.

(And of course, if the soy that is currently fed to cattle is fed to humans directly, we can feed quite a few more humans from that than that cattle currently can, without needing to use more resources. That's not to say it does not come with its own problems, but they're unlikely to be as severe as the ones we get with meat anytime soon.)

The cattle need to be fed too, and they don't turn their food into meat very efficiently. That's why replacing meat with plant based alternatives is (almost) always a huge gain in efficiency, in terms of resource use.

I've been under the impression that plant-based proteins take up less land than does animal-derived protein[0][1][2]. I could go on with the citations. So yes, replacing everything with plant-based protein would be vastly better.

Edit: Vastly better than Beef*

[0]https://www.wri.org/resources/charts-graphs/animal-based-foo...

[1]https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899434/

Generally, most of that forest destruction is to grow soy beans for animal feed. Feeding the soy beans directly to humans is far more efficient, so, if more people adopt TVP instead of meat, you'd expect a drop in land requirements.

"but trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run."

But we have to eat... what do you recommend we replace our protein intake with?

Unless the Impossible Burger is exceptionally inefficient to produce, that's still a huge win. An acre of land can produce about twenty times as much edible protein from soy as from beef.

> trying to replace everything with vegetable stuff is not going to work in the long run.

I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. People need to eat.

These burgers are not a suitable nutritional replacement for beef. Beef contains cholesterol, zero carbs, and has a different vitamin/mineral profile.

This stuff has no cholesterol and (a small amount of) carbs while also containing way more salt, thiamine (vitamin B1), and folate (vitamin B9): https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/6205/2

http://livablefutureblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/impo...

FYI, both folate and thiamine over-consumption may be linked to cancer:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29529163

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4178204/

So while it is fine for people to eat it for "pleasure", it may be dangerous to trick the mind into thinking it is consuming a real burger.

>MAY be linked to cancer (emphasis mine)

Yeah but processed meat IS linked to cancer.

https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/multimedia/multimedia_pub/mul...

And last I checked, most Americans have a problem with high cholesterol, not low cholesterol. Americans eat too much meat.

By "may", I meant "is" according to your definition. I am just skeptical of the standard process medical researchers use to determine this stuff (NHST), so used the term "may" as I would regarding anything else.

Is ground beef considered processed meat?

No it isn't [1]. But both processed meat and excessive consumption red meats have been linked to cancer in some studies [2]. This has also been refuted. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processed_meat [2] https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/red_meat [3] http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/

Google "meat cancer" for alternative sources.

That is interesting but I don't think that it would be healthy for people to eat beef burgers as their primary source of nutrition either. What annoys me about the fake meat is that in the dystopian future soymeat was supposed to be everywhere and cheaper where real meat was a sought after expensive delicacy but due to government subsidies and hding the costs of environmental externalities real meat remains much cheaper than the fake meats in general. Just saying.

If humans were forced to start eating "dystopian future soymeat" and stop eating meat, I'm sure it would become far cheaper as it becomes more readily available. As it stands currently, most humans do eat meat so it is cheaper than a heavily researched niche alternative which has taken years to become remotely comparable to real meat.

The economics/politics of it is a different issue. I am concerned about the danger of tricking people's minds into thinking the body has consumed something with nutritional value other than it really has. Humans have been consuming beef for a long time.

> I am concerned about the danger of tricking people's minds into thinking the body has consumed something with nutritional value other than it really has.

I think you're overreacting here. Impossible Burgers are slightly different, nutritionally speaking, from regular burgers, but it's not like one is 100% carbohydrates and the other is pure protein. They're relatively similar.

Nobody's saying that beef burgers are a good primary source of nutrition, but this product can't replace beef.

Why do you make it sound like people need to eat beef to have healthy diet?

Who said that? If beef is part of your healthy diet though, you shouldn't assume you can just swap out a normal burger for an impossible burger.

But my main concern is the aspect of "tricking" the brain into thinking it is consuming beef by mimicking the texture and taste (which is their goal) but instead consuming something with different nutritional value. Just seems like it could be dangerous is all.

> But my main concern is the aspect of "tricking" the brain into thinking it is consuming beef by mimicking the texture and taste (which is their goal) but instead consuming something with different nutritional value.

Does the "brain" (which I am specifically using in a biological sense, because it seems like that's what you meant instead of "people in general") actually care about texture and taste when consuming food? I don't see how this could be dangerous, except if people somehow eat a dozen of these and nothing else and somehow the brain "thinks" it's gotten nutrients that it hasn't.

Maybe they're from Texas and are legally mandated to defend the good name of beef?

That's really cool. Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors. Imitation can only be playing catch-up. The best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing.

I used to feel this way until I tried an impossible burger (1.0, I presume). I thought the only way to allow the more carnivorous of us to have a satisfying meal while eliminating animal suffering was to grow petri dish meat.

Impossible burgers seriously nail the taste and texture and nutritional proportions. It also seems like it will be much more cost effective to create them than the aforementioned petri dish burgers. When I tried an impossible burger it seriously made me excited for the future. The imitation meats from before had some serious problems, but just trust me, you need to try this one if you haven't already.

For context: I am a red blooded American meat eater.

I find this interesting. I tried an Impossible Burger a while ago and I didn't find it to taste like meat at all.

I've always found the impossible burger to taste 'too much' of umami to taste like a burger. This might actually be a good thing (this means it tastes delicious and meaty).

Out of curiosity, what eats more animals, humans or the rest of the animal kingdom?

Being born in India, I've had the privilege to eat vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal.

While I welcome 'impossible' meat replacements, it is funny that the meat reduction movement is looking at such impractical and immature products instead of simpler solutions such as bringing veg friendly cuisines to the fore.

I am opposed to advocating for cold-turkey veganism though. Milk products and eggs are great meat substitutes, and the lack of both makes entire cuisines inaccessible.

Being of Indian descent, I might be biased. But Indian cuisine is the only cuisine I'm aware of where being vegetarian isn't a compromise in the creativity, quality, and sheer flavors available to you.

For other cuisines, where centuries of culinary creativity mostly went towards making meat, this is the only viable approach to weaning us off growing animals for meaty foods.

Food is a cultural and emotional issue. As much as some people like to try new dishes, others prefer to stick to what they know and love, give or take a few variations. What you eat may be part of your identity and culture, and giving that up for something foreign that's supposedly better isn't easy. Seemingly small steps are an easier sell.

For me as a vegetarian, getting into Indian food was a dietary breakthrough. Vegetarian Indian food has already been developed for thousands of years to be tasty and meet dietary requirements.

I grew up on typical American cuisine and then became vegetarian, and I was disappointed by a lot of vegetarian recipes that were designed to make sense to people with my culinary background. However, I recognize that switching someone's cuisine is a big thing to ask for; reducing meat consumption will go a lot smoother if it doesn't mean switching to a new culinary tradition - which is why cookbooks featuring those recipes that I didn't like are so popular.

> vegetarian meals that can rival even the best meat based meal

I like a few Indian dishes, so I can appreciate what can be done in the vegetarian space.

Even so, I'd find it difficult to believe that any of them could match a properly cooked smoked BBQ beef brisket in flavor or texture.

Though I'm sure more than a few would make good side dishes, or work well with the brisket as an ingredient.

It’s astounding to me that you mock efforts to replicate meat when the “simpler solutions” is to just tell people to eat veg cuisines and this give up the meat-based cuisines they’ve lived with. And then in the next sentence, you oppose veganism because it’s apparently wrong to give up cuisines you’ve lived with.

In my opinion Indian cuisine is the way to go for vegetarians. There are a ton of great dishes that make vegetables and beans shine without trying to imitate meat. I like veggie burgers from time to time but I don't think meat imitation products are good long term path.

The one big problem for me is that nearly every "veggie" dish I've ever known would be IMPROVED with meat in my very personal opinion. Is there any meal/food that tastes worse with a dead animal added?

> instead of simpler solutions such as bringing veg friendly cuisines to the fore.

To me, transforming people's food preference requires obviously much more complex solutions than replicating meat.

I say whatever sells more non-meat burgers is good. Telling a die-hard meat eater to just eat a mushroom or some eggplant is not going to be effective.

I'm a die-hard meat eater and I'd eat a lot of a tasty veggie sandwich patty. I need more veggies in my diet but it's hard to get enough without cooking.

It doesn't have to be a fake burger. Just something tasty for a healthy daily dose of vegetables.

For me, soy doesn't qualify. It's one of the most common crops in the world and there's already enough of it in other things I eat.

I'm just a sample size of one, but I'm willing to eat it if it tastes good. I think the biggest problem is habit (or I guess that overlaps with culture). People are hungry and see a burger for a decent price and know it will be acceptable. A lot of foods you can just add chicken or ground beef to.

I've had some fantastic vegan food, but the only vegan food that's a commodity for me is Indian food or faux-meat products. So convincingly good faux-meat is probably the easiest way to move people.

My big problem is that most meals without meat I'm not satiated. This also happens when the main protein is fish. For salads I hear a bunch of people joke that you get tired of eating before you get full. I also think this is habit for me. I'm not sure if meat alternatives address this.

It's generally difficult to dissuade someone of their core beliefs. That's why political discourse often gets dirty and bloody. Language, too, oddly enough.

There was this one girl I was dating for a short while. She was vegan, for her own reasons, and so she'd eat her own meals. I asked if I could try some one time.

The tastes of the various kinds of meatballs she was have were interesting, at the very least. I'd never had anything like it. One particular kind – can't remember the name of the veggie it was made of – was so good I made my own later. A unique taste with its own unique texture: soft, dry, crumbly, yet condensing nicely after chewing.

I'm looking forward to meat imitations. I'd try one eagerly if I had the chance. I like the taste of meat, and it would let me have meat without the massive animal husbandry ecosystem required to support it. What's not to like?

In the meantime, I'm sure there are tons of things I'd enjoy, that I haven't tried yet, which are also completely vegan.

As a vegetarian that is a fairly picky eater, and (a decade ago) a big meat eater, I have a different perspective. When you don't enjoy, say, bell peppers, it is really nice to have some meat-like textures and tastes. As we get closer to having textures that do more than taste/feel like highly processed meat, it gets better.

Which doesnt contradict your point that veg/vegan options have taste and experiences that are worthwhile in their own right, but I shall forever be glad of the time I had pakora thatd recaptured the taste of KFC, as well as other chewy options to round out the relatively small set of options my tastebuds find palatable.

I certainly wish it was different, but from my perspective veggies are out there for anyone to find. Meat tastes/textures are not out there for the vegs/vegans yet.

Plus, the easiest way to reduce meat consumption is to provide drop-in replacements for those that are seeking that taste/texture in ways that done make them regret the choice.

I agree that the best vegan and vegetarian food does its own thing, but for me, a pescatarian, the idea of not having the delicious taste and texture of salmon slowly baked in a cast iron pan for four hours whilst being basted with oil every half an hour … my tongue just disallows it. It's not yet a sacrifice I'm willing to make until I encounter a viable alternative, and so efforts like these are a step further not just for people like me but for the general population.

Fortunately, fish is fairly easy to imitate with soy, but nothing quite beats that melt-in-your-mouth quality of slowly baked salmon. That's about the only meat I eat anymore, though I still experiment with substitutions. Usually some kind of tofu and a thick-but-viscous sauce of some kind, but even then it's flavoured with dashi.

Your viable alternative is on the way

https://www.fastcompany.com/40559474/this-salmon-burger-tast...

https://primeroots.com/

Disclaimer: I am a cofounder of this company, we have recently rebranded to Prime Roots from Terramino

Tell me more about this delicious salmon you cook.

Hear hear! These kinds of foods I think are handy for people transitioning to a more vegetarian/vegan diet, when they still crave "traditional" foods like hamburgers and hotdogs. But I think they also goof up public perceptions of what good veg* food is.

As a non vegetarian (yet?), I must a agree.

So, I'm a die-hard meat eater, and I categorically refuse to ever give up meat, but there is some seriously fantastic vegetarian food out there based on this exact principle.

There's a Beijing-style street food place in a suburb of Dallas. If you're ever in the area and want to check it out, it's called Fatni BBQ. My absolute favorite items on the menu are both vegetarian, and I would gladly go there and get only non-meat items because they're _that damn good_.

Item one is what the menu calls "hibachi tofu". It's a basket of tofu that's all been seared on the grill. It has all the wonderful tastes and textures I associate with fried cheese, except it's not quite as gooey. I'm lucky it comes in a giant basket, because I will devour that so fast.

Item two is what the menu calls "hibachi gluten", which is a skewer containing several pieces of fried wheat gluten. Most of the pieces are cut in a spiral pattern, but there's usually one end piece on each skewer that's shaped kind of like an arrowhead. I seriously feel sorry for the celiacs of the world, because this stuff is genuinely addictive. It tastes like it's made of both meat and fried dough at the same time. Each skewer is about $1, and I never order less than five. And I still leave wanting more but having to cut myself off because I can spend way too much there if I'm not careful.

Oh, and every single item on their menu is dipped in a cumin-forward mix of spices that's just amazing.

They're actually not a vegetarian place. They have lots of meat items on their menu, but honestly they're just not nearly as good as the tofu or the gluten.

> I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors.

Isn't that most vegan food already? I.e. vegetables

There are so many hyper-processed vegan items available marketed as "Milks", "Cheeses","Burgers" and "Sausages" etc. It's a huge business.

As someone mentioned above, food is a part of your culture. And there are many aspects of people's food cultures that they'd prefer not to get rid of. Someone may hate animals dying, but love the social gathering of a back yard party with burgers on the grill. These people may want to replicate this experience with a bean burger. Someone else has fond memories of their grandma's spaghetti and meatballs, and needs to figure out some way to replicate it.

When I cook, I cook around my choice of meat. If I'm making something vegetarian I have a completely different mindset.

Compare the use of vegetables in American cuisine versus vegetarian Indian cuisine.

What kind of vegan food are you thinking of? I mean, things like nuts, beans, etc. already exist. What requirements should "new" food fulfil? Providing the right nutrients?

Snack food. I'd love a snack food producer that only makes really healthy products that taste amazing, but which doesn't actually market anything as being healthy. They don't have to mimic existing snacks and probably shouldn't - nobody wants a "fake" snack when they're feeling gluttonous. I'm not ideologically vegan, but I do think vegan food science could lead the way here.

Think of the difference between Indian vegetarian food vs. tofurkey, imitation bacon, etc.

There are vegetarian cultures that have refined their cuisine over thousands of years to be nutritionally adequate and delicious. Western vegan food tends to just be imitations of non-vegan Western food and it's unfortunate.

I think this type of thing is more important to get non-vegan people to eat less animals than to provide options to vegans. Anyone who has been eating vegan or vegetarian for some time is already going to appreciate the nuances in foods, while a great meat substitute is important for the meat eaters who think they can't have a meal without some "protein" on the plate.

Just out of curiosity, are you vegan/veg? I hear this point of view a lot online but I’ve rarely heard it within the vegan community where people are usually pretty honest about craving junk food/burgers etc every now and again. Not trying to call you out, genuinely curious.

I'm neither but I have been vegetarian for extended periods of time. When I've lapsed out of vegetarianism it's been because it's easier for me to throw together a satisfying meal with meat. If I take about twice as long I can make an equally satisfying vegetarian meal. When I try going vegetarian again I'll be sure to get better at throwing together meals first.

Then you will just create a new market, not directly replace an existing market.

The creater of the Impossible Burger said he could create new types of meat. I think of it as meat of animals that have never evolved. However that's not their focus.

Well in this case it allows you to eat a burger if you like burgers. Me personally I eat vegan, vegetarian and non-vegan / non-vegetarian foods so it doesn't bother me as much.

I eat meat but my girlfriend is vegetarian, so I end up eating a lot of vegetarian meals. For some reason, the vast majority of fake meats turn me off. To me, it feels like I am eating spoiled meat. I much prefer vegetarian meals that don't attempt to seem like the real thing.

But if this leads to less total meat consumption for the population, I'm all for it.

Are you really limited in vegan options that don't try to replicate non vegan textures and flavors? Where do you shop and eat? Do they not have a section for fruits and veggies? Do they not have dry goods like rice and beans?

Those are ingredients you listed. I'm talking about prepared meals. Most vegan restaurants that aren't Indian around here use such ingredients to imitate non vegan dishes.

Southern Indian vegetarian cuisine is outstanding in this regard.

I used to think that, but the thing is "non-vegan textures" is by definition a superset of "vegan textures" anyway. At the moment it's a strict superset so why not make the sets equal?

> Although I wish there were more vegan food that didn't try to replicate non-vegan textures and flavors

There are. They're called vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and grains.

I agree. The original statement was kind of silly. Vegans basically say "You don't need to eat meat" to which a population of meat-eaters say "But I like the way it tastes and feels" so vegans create this burger, and then a population of meat-eaters says "I wish you didn't just try to copy meat."

UK/EU citizen here (also having written this with a bottle of wine inside me :))

You know, I'm not a vegan, nor even a vegetarian. But as I've gotten older (I'm knocking on 52 - and god damn used to love a nicely cooked fillet steak!) I've found my eating habits tending more towards vegetarian. The last red meat I ate was a year ago...not through health reasons, but because I've kinda gone off it. I still eat some chicken, but even then it's a dwindling part of my diet.

I'm not an extremist, but as I've gotten older, I've begun to find the idea of eating another living being more than slightly repugnant. It's not that I've succumbed to vegan ideology, but I kinda got here by myself. I'm lucky to live in a rural area and bump into cows and sheep all the time. This may sound a bit odd, but I see them and interact with them and one day thought what nice affectionate(?)/curious animals and then, boom! would I kill and eat my cats?

I even recently realised that most of the clothes that I wear are mostly synthetic or cotton based, even the boots I wear. The thought of walking around in another being's slaughtered and dead skin kinda irked me for a few years so I try to buy "man-made" foot wear now.

I think the trick with becoming vegetarian (a starting point) and onto becoming vegan (though I still love eggs; if we treat egg layers nice, and if we treat cows nice can't we still have eggs and milk for a while?) we need to learn how to season and spice our meals to make them appealing.

I'm about 85% of the way there were it not for some dairy products, and in a rural area having better availability to a wider range of vegetables - which believe it or not doesn't happen. And also where I can buy individual carrots, onions, sweet potato by weight....etc (I'm single - don't need a bag of 20 carrots!).

I'm also not sure, philosophically, about the idea of creating synthetic meats to remind us of what it was like to eat a factory slaughtered animal - it seems like creating a video game to satisfy some needs to be 18th century slave owners.

If we had better knowledge about how to make vegetables more inviting, and more available, we wouldn't need this. I ate a vegetarian lasagne the other day, it was glorious. Sure some dairy products were involved but no cows died upside down in a factory being bolted through their skulls...but yes I am aware of the factory farming of milk cows to the tremendous detriment of their health and comfort.

Becoming vegan is a hard thing. I still crave Gressingham "chinese duck", pancakes and hoisin (I use my own, their's is shit).....but I am striving towards this. I genuinely don't think synthetic meats aid this cause.

I am also trying to become a better human and not exploit other living beings for my tastebud sensory gratification.

> if we treat egg layers nice, and if we treat cows nice can't we still have eggs and milk for a while?

Not (really) trying to ruin your life here, but this idea was crushed for me when I realised that only female chickens can lay eggs, and that roosters end up in the shredder as soon as their sex is identified. I guess that's still less suffering than those that are raised for slaughter in industrial farming, but it's still not great...

I'm really curious about the "fake meat" products that exist in other countries. In the Netherlands, there's been enormous growth both in the number of vegetarians and in the number of "fake meat" products that have become widely available, and the quality of the latter has improved dramatically. Before, these products were mostly useful for the non-vegetarians wanting to prepare a meal for vegetarians without having to relearn how to do it (with actual vegetarians preferably preparing vegetarian-first meals, e.g. with nuts and beans rather than fake meat). However, nowadays these products have become so good that they're actually of added value to a meal in terms of taste.

Interestingly, they do not appear to place as much focus on matching actual meat as much as the foreign products that are usually the subject of articles like these. Instead, they merely have to taste good and have good texture - it doesn't matter if it's still somewhat different from actual meat (sometimes they even taste better).

At the forefront of this has been the Vegetarian Butcher (that's a brand name). They've recently been acquired by Unilever and will likely expand internationally more aggressively. I have the feeling that the Netherlands is friendlier to vegetarians, on average, than other Western countries, and if that will give them an advantage. Time will tell!

In France I have seen a clear growth in the variety of products commonly available (which is great). Regarding taste it is still not clearly better than actual meat but I have tasted good supermarket-bought vegetarian burgers.

In Germany's supermarket, I found the kind of food I find in France's shops that specialize in healthy food.

There's been kind of a boom in vegetarian ready-made foods in Finland. I think it started with Pulled Oats (https://goldandgreenfoods.com ), but soon after that appeared in stores, several of the major food producers came out with their own vegetarian meat-substitutes, with varying degrees of emphasis on replacing meat and veganness etc. There's even a "healthier" ground pork that has carrots mixed in.

I'm not a huge fan of the new batch of products personally, although I see people buy them quite a lot. The products are usually roughly comparable to organic ground beef in price. Personally, I find cooking vegan from scratch is cheaper and tastier, but I guess it's not really a fair comparison - I also think homecooked meat is better than storebought patties.

Cool, that sounds rather similar to the situation in the Netherlands! It'll be interesting once all these local companies start going international which win out. With a few mergers and acquisitions, at a certain point the best products of each will probably be available in many countries, which would make this even more accessible. Good prospects!

Yves is really popular here in Canada. You can get it in just about every grocery store and some corner stores: http://yvesveggie.com/en/

That said, it's more traditional "fake meat", and probably not a close synthesis.

I'm actually more curious about the lab grown meat as an alternative. It almost seems like that could catch up by the time anyone gets a veggie burger actually tasting like meat.

Judging by just the packaging and product range, that looks to be a year or two behind what's available in the Netherlands - though I guess it's just different as well, since we don't have that many things that resemble the deli slices. Still, I'd love to give them a try.

And absolutely, I'm looking forward to see what lab-grown meats will become available, although I guess that taste will not be that surprising. If it's anything like regular chicken, then I'd still prefer the Vegetarian Butcher's chicken - it tastes differently, but better.

We have a few available in the US, my favorite is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn#Production which is not vegan as it contains some amount of egg. But the majority of the product is made from soil mold protein, which is what makes it unique among the options I have available.

Ah, you have Quorn as well? Back when there was not that much choice in the Netherlands, Quorn was one of the few brands that was available. It doesn't taste as good as most others in my opinion, though, and also has the disadvantage of not having added some nutrients that vegans and vegetarians often miss out on.

In the US, based on personal experience, I'd recommend Morningstar Farms for their variety, Beyond Meat if you can find it, and Field Roast Grain Meat.

A lot of hawker centers in Singapore have vegetarian stall which makes meat dishes with "mock meat" products, usually some sort of soy based thing.

One of the smaller Asian grocers in New York City has made the best fake meat I've had by far, and I wouldn't be surprised if it sources for many of the vegetarian Asian restaurants in the city. http://www.maywahnyc.com/ I wonder how many other places exist in the world like it, and how much a little bit of marketing would do for them.

The tradition of "mock meats" in Buddhist culture is one of the oldest. I've found some of their veggie meats to taste really close to real meats, and they tackle things like fish and tuna, which hasn't been addressed much in the west. https://www.tastecooking.com/buddhist-mock-meats-paradox/

I'm disappointed they switched away from seitan / gluten protein to soy protein. I just like wheat protein better, it feels better to me. But there's tremendous--and unfounded--pressure to eliminate gluten. Sad.

It's not unfounded ... for whatever reason, it seems very few people are allergic to soy, whereas more than 1% of population (Americans ? not sure) have 'allergies' to gluten.

My daughter has diagnosed celiac disease, so I'm glad for any pressure to eliminate gluten :) I'm also amazed at how many things you wouldn't imagine have gluten :(

"Celiac disease" is not an allergy. It's an autoimmune response.

https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/celiac-disease

Soy is actually one of the the top 8 food allergies, which is why it's required to be listed on labels.

I unironically can't wait to read release notes about newer versions of my food

Not only this, but we should have continuous integration testing.

Each batch of every product should be run through a litany of health and safety tests, and such a thing could be crowdsourced.

Would be cool if first X% of every batch got a discount, provided they submit a simple QA report.

Crowdsourced? Like what we did when we tried to feed cows to cows?

Soylent has proper release notes: https://soylent.com/pages/release-notes

Whether accurate or not, lots of opinion swirls around the effects that eating soy has on testosterone levels in men. Even if these plant based "meats" are indistinguishable in flavor and texture, they might end up losing to lab grown meat in the long run because of concerns like that.

That sounds like concern trolling, but I'll bite: a meta analysis of controlled trials is unequivocal https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224

Having looked at a few of these studies I found the following problems

1. Industry sponsorship. Which has been shown to produce wildly biased results.

2. Small, short term studies which can only find a "significant" (i.e. statistically significant) effect if the effect is large and immediate.

In some of the studies an effect showed up close to statistical significance but the headline was "no effect found"

3. I don't know about this one, but some analyses have found that a majority of review papers were ghost written by industry PR hacks who them paid professors to put their names on them.

I suggest read the papers closely and looking hard at sponsorship issues before believing them.

Also note that these studies were on adult men. There is every reason to suspect that the developing male fetus is orders of magnitude more vulnerable to environmental hormone disruptors of all kinds.

I wonder if they balanced the amino acid profile correctly, if this is not a complete protein then it wold detract from the main reason I eat meat, for simple exercise recovery. One of the problems I have with grain protein sources is they are rarely formulated in a way that allows for slow absorption and it forces me to look up what amino acids I need to supplement with.

Sort of interesting seeing this at the Consumer Electronics Show. Most food startups I've seen would never think of trying to exhibit at that kind of venue, but clearly it's an effective way for them to reach their target demographic with coverage like this. They're probably also exhibiting at food industry conferences, to get the restaurant & supermarket distribution deals, but CES gets them TechCrunch & HN readers.

BTW, the vegetarian products manufactured by Rügenwalder Mühle (available in most of EU) taste incredibly like their meat-based counterparts.

This vegetarian salami fooled many friends of mine in various double blind experiments: https://www.ruegenwalder.de/en/products/vegetarian-salami-cl...

I've tried Impossible burger a couple of times in the last few months. Both were in New York - one in Soho House and one in Lucky's in Chelsea. The former cost about $25, and the latter about $13 (a burger in Lucky's runs about $8 so this is hugely expensive).

The Soho House on was just about the most disappointing thing I'v ever eaten. It tasted like a bad veggie burger. The Lucky's one was fantastic, but whilst meatier, again didn't taste like meat. I think if you served me the patty by itself I'd be able to identify it as not being meat.

My extremely limited sample has led me to conclude that the cooking skill is critical, and that you can go a long way towards persuading someone of a patty's 'meatiness' by dressing it in burger sauce, cheese, etc.

I'm not quite sure that the mission here is something indistinguishable from a real burger, but if it is then it's not there yet. But a great mission and I'll continue to fork out absurd money for them whenever the urge for a beef burger strikes me.

Had one of these recently. I was shocked. The texture isn't 100% but very, very close and the taste was amazing. It was much flatter than photo; looked and tasted like Shake Shack.

IMO the texture of the 2.0 Impossible burger is spot on. And the flavors are improved too. I would say its a huge improvement. Plus this one is grill-able. It honestly hits all of the targets for what I want in a burger. Super impressed.

They said 1.0 was "indistinguishable from meat" and yet when i was erroneously served it, i distinguished it quite easily. It had the texture of wet bread and the taste of stale wet bread soaked in rotting pig blood. Bring on the blind taste tests before claiming it tastes like meat.

Glad this version is made without gluten, unlike the current Impossible Burger. In the mean time, Beyond Meat has been my goto burger for a few months.

I think Impossible (even v1.0) is more meat-like, but I actually like Beyond better. I like the ever so slightly stiffer chew and legume undertone. When I go to my favorite Seattle burger place (Lunchbox Lab) I go for the Beyond version and it's awesome.

It's great that there are meatless options almost indistinguishable from real meat. It's also great that there are tasty options which resemble meat only slightly. And everything in between. The more the merrier.

I'm not even vegan and go for the Beyond Meat burger whenever I'm at A&W because it taste better than regular fast food burgers ... and I got to A&W instead of other chains because the burger is there.

I would love it if someone could figure out how to make meat substitutes that don't contain ingredients from the nightshade family, for those of us with nightshade sensitivity. They all seem to contain potato.

I'm curious if anyone else has stomach issues after eating the Impossible Burger, the Beyond Meat burger, etc.? Something about the protein isolate or who knows what else doesn't sit well with me. I've talked to others anecdotally about the same thing, but is this a widespread occurrence?

It reminds me a bit of when Frito-Lay tried to introduce Olean into their potato chips and it gave everyone the 3's...

My girlfriend and I tend to get them about once a month at a local restaurant and have no problem with them.

Could it be something else in the meal? For instance, our restaurant serves it with vegan Bun, Cheese, and 1000 Island dressing; all sourced from other local businesses. Maybe it's one of those toppings?

Yes I have the same problem, also the fake meat products are often loaded with ridiculous amounts of salt.

The produce spiel claims reduced salt so it looks like this has been an issue with this product in the past.

The other thing I am not seeing in the comments is that most store bought meat from big chains like Vons, Krogers, Walmart, etc- doesn't really taste that good. When cooked, likely chewy, dry and tasting "off". When we think of the "good burger" bite, we arnet thinking of discount ground meat from the market, we are thinking of a good burger from some restaurant.

Here's one. I buy grocery store ground chuck, and I've never had a restaurant burger that surpasses my own. Now fries are another thing, since I don't have a deep fryer.

Well,

I like the taste of existing meat substitutes to be honest.

The problem I have is that I find meat substitutes hard to digest and meat seems to help my digestion regardless of taste.

As far as restaurants go, I'm not if the meat used by restaurants actually is better quality that supermarket ground beef. In my shallow exposure to restaurant food prep, I get the impression that restaurants in, say, the $8-12 burger range use the cheapest acceptable supplies and make it taste good with good equipment, sweat/salty/spicy recipes, and professional preparation. I think you need to go to Chez Panisse type restaurants before you get dishes where "the ingredients stand on their own" and there's a reason for that.

Does anyone know what the retail pricing is likely to be? A restaurant owner I talked to says he pays $11/lb for the stuff. If they ramp up production then they may be able to lower the price a bit. Or they could just spend VC $ to subsidize the price and gain market share. Either way, I'm excited to try it out when it's available!

I have no particular insight, but I would guess the price will be a dollar or two per pound more than you would pay at Whole Foods for an organic ground beef with roughly comparable fat percentage. Any more than that and I would think they would have trouble moving enough product to make it worth it.

In restaurants, the price of the food is a relatively small proportion of the total cost, so having slightly expensive ingredients doesn't make a proportional difference in price. At the grocery store, however, you see exactly what you're paying for the meat itself, and I would think if it's vastly more than a comparable product, they'd have trouble moving much quantity.

I'd love to use this as a meat-replacement but can ordinary consumers buy it yet?

I just want to make chili. Please let me give you money!

Their website states that they are going to start shipping to grocery store chains in March of this year.

In the early 70s, my dad worked at a place that (as a side business I think) made a meat substitute called KESP. He used to bring samples home and mum would make pies from it. Tasted awful if I remember correctly but I'm surprised it's taken this long to get to a viable meat alternative.

As a person who was born in a family with tradition of vegetarianism, I find this "veggie meat" obsession fascinating and fear a future where I cannot even eat the one veggie burger on the menu.. because it tastes like a hamburger.

Why wouldn't you be able to eat the Impossible Burger? Does your family have a tradition of vegetarianism because you don't like the taste of beef?

Some people who are vegetarians have or develop a strong aversion to meat smell, let alone flavor.

I've had the Impossible Burger at a restaurant as well as the Beyond Burger at Epic Burger. I'm not sure which tastes more like meat, but the Beyond Burger is far tastier. I sometimes daydream about that sandwich.

I agree. I'd heard the hype about Impossible so I was excited to try it when I finally saw it available at a restaurant near me, but found that it tasted pretty similar to a Morningstar Farms Griller's Prime patty. Since it cost me as much to sub an Impossible patty as to buy a whole bag of Griller's Prime, I wasn't impressed.

The Beyond Burger though, man that's good. I haven't had real beef in years, but people tell me it looks and smells pretty similar when cooking and I think the taste and texture are really close too. I love 'em.

I really wish the Beyond Sausage shortage would end.

I recently noticed that the Beyond Burger was being sold at Safeway in my area (Phoenix), the only downside was price:

About $12.00 for two 1/4 lb patties...

...for that amount, there are plenty of other cuts far cheaper and much more tasty.

I wish they would release this into the supermarkets sooner than the end of the year though. I would love to include this in my weekly dinner options at home. I am not a vegetarian but I do like to mix things up and this will help to make one more dinner at home a veggie version.

The price is the key part right now. Hopefully they can scale this fast and reduce the prices. My guess is that they are doing a controlled release to ensure a better chance of success for the product. Early feedbacks should help to correct issues.

You can find the Beyond Burger pretty easily now, especially in Whole Foods, but the taste can be off putting to people.

Do vegan/vegetarians really want something that reminds them of meat products? Why not just make a good meat-free sandwich that doesn't imitate another product?

I'm not a vegan/vegetarian but I want this product. I'm concerned about the environmental cost of raising beef cattle and I'd like a better option. My family has already cut down our red meat consumption. We use ground turkey and chicken quite a bit. I still want the ability to grill a good steak once a month, but I'd love to use some of this ground meat in pasta sauces, taco's etc.

That depends on the person, but most of the vegans/vegetarians I know are not vegan/vegetarian because they are disgusted by the product, but because they have ethical concerns about the process that created it. If they can get the same taste experience without the ethical concerns, that's a net win.

It depends a lot on the person. I know vegetarians who are disgusted by anything like meat and hate the Impossible Burger because it's too close to meat. For me, though, I've been vegetarian for a few years and I have fond memories of tasty beef burgers. I've been hoping to get that experience back (without sacrificing the ethical and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet), so an excellent meat-like veggie burger creates nostalgia, not just a good meal.

I've been vegan for 8+ years and am a fan of the Impossible Burger. I'm vegan for ethical reasons but certainly remember how good burgers/cheese/etc. tasted, so the closer vegan alternatives can get, the better!

The Impossible Burger is designed to replace meat. Selling to vegans is the opposite of what they want, their goal is to sell to meat eaters. That's quite literally why the guy started the company.

Do vegan/vegetarians really want something that reminds them of meat products?

Eh? I'm MidWest American, I was raised eating meat. It grew in our backyard. I know what bacon tastes like, I know what a burger tastes like: it tastes good. But for a whole list of reasons, I don't eat meat anymore. I would very much like to be reminded of a fat, juicy patty of ground animal muscle.

Because it isn't just for vegan/vegetarians. I love meat, but as I have become more aware of the implications of a meat based diet, its hard for me to justify my food choices. I would love a plant based product that tastes like meat without the health, environmental, and ethical problems associated with the real thing.

I'm a vegetarian, but I don't like bell peppers, kale, quinoa, raw tomato, mustard, dill, vinegar, and mayo (vegan or not). I like apples and spinach but they do not like me.

This still leaves plenty of options for a sandwich, but then I have to worry about buying produce and keeping it fresh. The more variety in what I buy, the bigger the hassle.

Augmentmenting a smaller amount of fresh produce with (freezable) fake meats gives me a lot more options, not to mention the benefits when I eat out (take away bell peppers and most veggie options on the menu vanish)

Plenty of vegetarians/vegans agree with you. Plenty of us do not.

While there are a lot of really delicious meals that can be made without any meat or attempting to imitate meat (Indian cuisine is really good at it), there's a lot of culture in food. I'm from Wisconsin and summer grill outs just don't feel right without beer and bratwursts (or some fair approximation), for instance.

A product like this is primarily for people who already eat beef, who may be wanting to cut back on their meat consumption. Most vegetarians/vegans I know would never bother trying a product like this.

The product isn't for vegetarians.

I'm not personally a vegetarian but my partner is.

I like the meat substitutes because it gives me that nice umami and chewiness I do not get out of a lot of vegetarian dishes.

Meat sets off pleasant, primal signals in the brain. Having a vegan dish that can replace that is good in my opinion.

I'm not vegetarian and love these types of products.

Does anyone know the latest findings from studies that linked soy consumption to estrogen increase in men?

The impossible burger being non soy based was a huge selling point for me...

Examine has a good writeup, jump to "Men’s health and testosterone"

tl;dr: "Reasonable intakes of soy foods and soy isoflavones do not affect men’s testosterone levels, estrogen levels, or fertility, although case reports have documented adverse effects from incredibly high daily intakes of soy for 6–12 months. Men who are at risk of developing prostate cancer might reduce their risk by eating soy foods, but soy foods do not appear to benefit men who already have prostate cancer."

The case studies regarding feminization seem to have been cases of people ingesting 300+g of soy protein a day for 6+ months. That amount of protein would require nearly 100% of your calorie RDA if eaten in soybeans, so it seems likely these two people had quite odd diets that could confound drawing conclusions these cases. If they were taking a soy protein extract, I would want to study if questionable supplement purity/contamination issues had any effect - solvents and heat could transform some of the isoflavones or solvents could remain in final product.

https://examine.com/nutrition/is-soy-good-or-bad/

The soy-estrogen link is totally bunk/false IIRC

Haven't seen the classic video on it yet, so here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTSvLKY7HEk

Nobody ever seems to question what's in these burgers. Just focusing on taste is not good enough. Any independent research/investigation (besides Impossible Food's own marketing materials) on the healthiness of the ingredients? Even if the ingredients aren't inherently unhealthy on their own, if I'm just eating a bunch of filler without much nutrition compared to real meat, that's still a problem.

A list of ingredients from the company's website:

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, Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Zinc, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.

source: https://impossiblefoods.com/faq

Seems like a regular old veggie burger, with some more slightly exotic additives. I had not heard of Leghemoglobin, which appears to be some sort of hemoglobin-like protein found in legume plant roots.

The best fake meat patties I've ever had were the veggie patties ("Soul burger") at Hero burger in Canada. My wife (who is vegetarian) thought it was real at first and was upset they had made a mistake and had me try, and I also thought it was real. But it was actually vegetarian!

So how did you make sure they weren't meat?

That's a problem I would see for vegetarian. That mostly involves trust. A similar scenario already happens with halal and kosher food though.

Well, I've had them many times since and just as good... So either this burger chain is fraudulently selling meat patties as tofu veggie, or they're legit.

Is it also legume free? I'm allergic. Also, is the protein/amino profile complete and balanced? Also, I tend to believe (based on dieting research and other experiments) that protein sources should generally be consumed with 1:2 1g fat per 2g protein roughly speaking.

And probably still not a great choice for diabetics... Unless it's made only of fat & protein....

Per the article:

>It has as much bioavailable iron and protein as the same size serving of ground beef, with 14 grams of fat and 240 calories per quarter-pound patty.

Also, per Impossible's site, changes to nutrition for the new recipe are:

>The new Impossible Burger features 30% less sodium and 40% less saturated fat than the current recipe and just as much protein as 80/20 ground beef from cows

The original recipe only has 5g of carbohydrates per serving, so assuming that remains constant, this doesn't seem terribly problematic for those on a low-to-moderate carbohydrate diet.

Protein affects blood sugar too. General rule for type 1's is to bolus insulin 50% of the listed protein as carbs.

I don't agree with the parent poster's assertion either though.

>It has as much bioavailable iron and protein as the same size serving of ground beef

Which ofc it's nothing but marketing nonsense considering that the most bioavailable form of iron Heme-iron is found only in meats.

Speaking as someone who will likely be diabetic in a decade, that's just too bad. You can't solve every problem with a product like this.

As a parent of a T1D, statements like these are mildly infuriating. I'm sure you're joking, of course, but being resigned to some idea that you are going to develop type 2 at some point is lazy and lame.

They designed this to be almost identical to meat. Its primary fat & protein. It was a design goal to match a normal burger specially for low carb people.

i tried at rubis diner the 1.0 version and i was surprised how good it was but was way too salty and krispy like some alternative meat but still meat. they are on the right track so am expecting greatness for 2.0.

I love the idea, but the saturated fat seems a bit high for a plant based food?

Yeah, plant-based and healthy are not necessarily the same. This at least free of cholesterol vs meat, but I think the main draw is the plant-based aspect rather than healthy.

Most saturated fat is pretty healthy. It's probably coconut or palm oil. I would worry more if it had hydrogenated oils/trans fats.

I love a veggie burger but they are always so expensive at the supermarket. Maybe things have changed since I started eating meat again but being a vegetarian was really expensive.

I tried the Impossible Burger 1.0 at Stanford, and it tasted really good! Not a 100% like meat, but good as an alternative. Looking forward to trying the new one.

If this does indeed taste like real meat, then they may move in the direction of making healthier products. That is, they've said from the beginning that their goal with the Impossible Burger is to mimic the taste and health profile of ground beef. But there's a lot of fat in there, and many people (like me) don't really ever cook with ground beef for that reason.

But if they've nailed the taste, then perhaps they can start making something leaner, akin to ground turkey? For me, that would have a larger impact on my regular diet.

The only thing worth eating there from keto diet perspective is the fat but it better be good fat! (No cheap vegetable oils or hydrogenated fats)

The 1.0 version was not very good, at least to this meat-lover. I tried it at White Castle several months ago and I'd never order another one. Here's hoping the 2.0 version is good enough to move me further in the vegetarian direction.

I wonder how much the purveyor makes a difference in the quality of the product (I'm hoping not much). I had the opposite experience as you, but I bought my Impossible from an Umami Burger and it was seriously a surreal experience for me and my gf. I was so pleasantly surprised by how good it was that we went back the next day to get another.

Same here, fiancée and I had one at Umami Burger and were very impressed, had several since then (and we do eat meat), and always introduce friends to it when they are in town. Also tried it at some non-chain (I believe) SF restaurant and they nailed it, too, though in both cases I can imagine they know how to prepare it.

Next time you go to Umami, you might consider asking for a portobello mushroom patty (it's not on the menu if I recall correctly). In my experience, it's better than the Impossible Burger at Umami. However, both are great.

I don't eat any kind of meat. I've eaten the Impossible on a few places, and while I find it great in most, I went to this vegan restaurant in Florida and asked for it and almost couldn't deal with. It just tasted like real meat I almost threw it away a few times before deciding to give it a chance (and mostly just because it was expensive).

i've had the chance to try it at multiple restaurants, and the experience varied quite wildly. i think that, in the early days, the hype buildup was strong mostly because the limited release allowed the company to provide one-on-one training to chefs. now that they've opened up their availability significantly, i imagine that much of the training has gone out the window.

I really can’t wait for these to show up in Canada

Why do some vegans and vegetarians want to eat something that looks like meat?

This is not to say vegans and vegetarians are the only market for plant-based "meat" or "burgers".

That's a great question.

I asked this to a vegan some years ago. She explained that there is an entire culture of food surrounding meat. Meat-based foods are described in terms that sound wonderful, and people often describe how much they love those foods. She doesn't get to engage in that part of our culture because she doesn't eat those foods. It disconnects you from the people around you, and you feel left out.

In Philadelphia, eating a cheesesteak sandwich is an experience that connects you to the people and history of the city. Besides just being a tasty food, it's an iconic part of the local culture. People like engaging with their culture. And for another reason, as this article[1] explains, one restauranteur wanted to create a casual place where a non-vegan could order a cheesesteak and decide, hey, this is pretty good even without meat.

[1] http://www.philly.com/philly/food/20140320_And_the_best_vega...

> Why do some vegans and vegetarians want to eat something that looks like meat?

Why wouldn't they? Most humans are hardwired to enjoy meat, whether or not they choose to indulge. Vegetarianism/veganism as an ethical stance is about humane treatment of animals. Enjoying the taste and texture of meat is completely orthogonal.

I've spoken to several people who think that veganism is just about personal taste, including a couple of actual vegans, and I don't understand where this idea comes from.

>Vegetarianism/veganism as an ethical stance is about humane treatment of animals.

No doubt, but there are health-related reasons to do it as well; I'm not as concerned about a plant-based meat substitute triggering my diverticulitis, for instance. I actively avoid eating burgers because too much red meat definitely does.

Why don't animal eaters want to eat something that looks like an animal? Meat does not get a monopoly on being a blob of brown stuff

Would it kill them to provide some decent nutritional information? Like how much salt is in the product?

I found in the past that all the palatable meat substitutes were loaded with salt.

From their FAQ: 430 mg sodium in 3 oz

https://images.ctfassets.net/hhv516v5f7sj/5p1YQzJxduEoC2gIWa...

https://impossiblefoods.com/faq/

Isn't it just this? https://impossiblefoods.com/faq/

430mg per patty which is about the same sodium as like canned tuna

I'm happy to see continued growth in this area, but I'm disappointed to see them shifting more toward soy. I'll be sticking with the Beyond Burger for now.

I'd like to see more non-soy veggie convenience products myself. I'd like to eat a more varied diet full of fruits and vegetables, rather than simply replacing meat+dairy+grains with soy+soymilk+grains, but it's really hard to find non-soy veggie products without cooking everything from scratch.

The concept of meat alternatives is interesting, but there are of course some possible issues.

First, with soy: the jury is still on the effects on men. Maybe it's fine, maybe it's not. Until the full effects are known, I'm not comfortable risking growing breasts. It might not even effect most people, but if it does for some, I want to make sure I'm not one.[0] Also, it's possible that some chemicals in it cause cancer.[1] Though with that said, I've started to wonder if everything causes cancer in one way or another.

Second, we don't know if some people are better/worse equipped to process soy. I'd analogize this to japanese having special gut bacteria to process sushi and seaweed.[2][3] Maybe those races which have eaten more can process better? Who knows. Maybe it could cause injuries to liver or kidney in people not as well equipped to process it? Large quantities of many things can do this.[4] Again, if we want to tell everyone to replace meat, further research is undoubtedly necessary.

Lastly, thinking you ate something can make your body do certain things it normally does, even if you didn't. This is called the cephalic response.[5] If you've ever heard that looking at pictures of dessert can raise your blood sugar, this is the explanation. This is down to total guesswork, but who knows what could happen? Cephalic response means more hcl is secreted. Let's say we're calibrated to release 10 arbitrary units for meat, but 4 for veggie (meat takes more to break down). So you smell and taste meat, and release 10 units. But you eat veggie, so where does the rest go? What if it contributed to an ulcer or heartburn? And could this extend to the delicate balance of enzymes in the rest of the body?

Sustainability is a laudable goal, but we shouldn't try to radically alter people's diets without being really, really sure that we're correct. I view anything less as irresponsible. Go back to when people thought fat was evil and sugar was fine, and so people got fat and diabetic. Let's all try to be more responsible this time.

[0] https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/england-man-grows-breasts-a...

[1] https://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/soy-may-turn-on-g...

[2] https://www.wired.com/2010/04/sushi-guts/

[3] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/04/japanese-guts-are-mad...

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435388/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalic_phase

Ew.

Does anyone else get indigestion after eating one of these modern meat substitutes?

Very unspecific. Things that get tagged 'meat substitutes' are a large amount of different things with totally different stuff in them, there is nothing to generalize here.

Ok, I just mean beyond beef and impossible burgers.

I tried 1.0 it was horrible. even a macdonald hamburger was more edible. I doubt that heavily process soybeans (known for developing breast in men) are the way to go. but who knows im not a marketing manager.

Is the Impossible Burger much better than Beyond Meat? Because I've had the Beyond Meat patty (from a vegan chain called Lord of the Fries, their standard beef substitute is great) and it was awful - very obvious that it was made from plants (tasted like root vegetables with a weird chemical/metallic tang to me) and the texture was way off. It could have been prepared poorly though.

I do think that the Impossible Burger is much better than Beyond Burger. It's a lot of subtle things that Impossible gets right. (The fact that it "bleeds" is fascinating and interesting part of its appeal to old carnivore instincts.)

That said there is room for both at the table and right now they both have different strengths (Impossible handles "medium rare" much better; Beyond hits greasy spoon / fast food "medium" or "medium well" better).

I had it at the counter and was pretty disappointed.

I was excited to try it since I saw a lot of people talk about how similar it was to to meat and how you couldn't tell the difference.

Maybe if you've been a vegetarian for ten years you can't tell the difference, but I thought it was pretty obvious. The outside was strangely crispy and the texture was off.

I've only had beyond meat sausage but impossible burger at Umami Burger in Oakland is far and away the best meat substitute I've ever had. I'm looking forward to seeing impossible meat in supermarkets because it blows beyond meant out of the water.

My partner had an Impossible Burger a while back and I found just the smell across the table to be rather off putting. She enjoyed it.

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