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You're not going to just convince the average consumer to not buy the $1.55 burger in front of them by telling them to think about the upstream. You need to provide them with a straightforward alternative. Right now a $5 meatless burger might be able to compete with a $5 beef burger, but it's still going to lose in the $1.55 weight class.

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If people had to pay the true cost rather than the often subsidized one, it would be a more equal choice. I wouldn't propose to market "meaty" vs "meatless" on the basis of these hidden costs.

The irony to me is that the $1.55 burger is truly the "impossible" one. Without massive subsidies for feed corn, water, farm labor, etc the value meal burger would not exist.

There is no "true cost". It always boils down to an whether or not any given side effect should be covered and that always boils down to subjective and opinionated arguments.

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