That being said, I think it's only fair to compare that to all the antibiotics, hormones, and fertilizers that your average low-grade ground beef has been exposed to or fed.
Weird, how?
Weird, because they have funny names that are hard to pronounce, and are therefore magically "unnatural" and bad for you?
Or weird, because their effects on nutrition, digestion, and human health hasn't been widely studied yet?
And the decisions are sometimes odd. Like beet juice being added not for flavor but so it looks like the patty is bleeding. Meat eaters aren't sold because the veggie burger looks rare.
The truth is meat eaters aren't, en massé, abandoning meat for a plant based alternative that provides little to no health benefit and costs just as much or more.
Will we get there? Probably. But we're in a weird limbo area that is barely appealing to either side of the fence other than as a novelty.
Those 'odd ingredients' don't seem so odd to me. Go through the list of a meat alternative one by one, you'll be surprised how mundane they are
[ citation needed ]
I'm a long-time vegetarian but this kind of specious pseudo science doesn't sit right with me.
Your turn. Basically all cardiovascular diseases are caused by meat, right?
I've spent most of my life as a vegetation but dishonest histrionics like this do a disservice to the aim of convincing meat eaters to eat less meat.
Its not that complicated, I fail to see how this qualifies as histrionics.
Again, citation needed.
I’m not suggesting these new meat substitutes have that effect but it’s reasonable for people to be cautious. Yeah heart disease and global emissions but... also soiling yourself without warning in public.
The best thing proponents of these new foods could do is genuinely and honestly recognize and address those worries.
Caution not needed. Nothing new here
As in any other case, to persuade another person is to assert a claim. It doesn’t matter that you already have done the requisite learning to understand what you’re certain is the baseline set of facts. What matters is you want to change someone else’s beliefs.
As an example:
It would be preposterous for me to say “I am certain that biological sex is a spectrum, and binary sex is a simplification useful as a tool for some applications but inadequate for others” and just expect anyone who doesn’t know that to crack open a book or start googling my hypothesis credulously. Even though I’m certain it’s true.
I understand that while there’s sound scientific basis for the claim, it’s not a shared understanding of reality.
I also understand that it’s a claim that may be questioned, even though I’m certain it’s correct, and it’s my choice whether to give it more weight when challenged (attempt to persuade someone who doesn’t accept the claim l) or to carry on certain I’m right. But if I take the latter path, I have to accept that it’s really very unlikely the other party will learn what I’ve learned, unless they become curious and open to the possibility.
In other words, you can be right until the end of time and it wouldn’t ever matter to some people unless you give them a reason to want to be right too.
Here's the ingredients list for the impossible burger:
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, thiamine (vitamin B1), zinc, niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin (vitamin B2), and vitamin B12.
The only thing unusual is leghemoglobin, which is fermented soy protein.
"textured wheat protein" - no idea what it, but it sounds disgusting, and very highly processed. I'd presume it also contains gluten?
"potato protein" - again, it sounds like something highly processed.
"natural flavors" - it doesn't specify exactly what they are, so I don't even know what I'm eating - I don't like it.
"leghemoglobin" - you mentioned what this is, but otherwise it sounds like a lab-produced chemical.
"yeast extract" - makes me think of marmite, which is one of the most revolting substances on earth! Aside from that, I think of the smell of yeast; I... don't think I want to eat that.
"konjac gum" - never heard of it.
"xanthan gum" - I think it's some kind of thickening agent?
"soy protein isolate" - no idea what this is. The wheat and potato proteins don't have "isolate" in their names, so I assume this is even more highly processed. For some reason it makes me think of processes like "hydrogenation" - ways we mess around with foods to make them as cheap as possible, sometimes with negative health consequences.
"vitamin E..." - makes me think the raw ingredients on their own are so unhealthy that they had to add a few crushed multivitamins.
Overall: it sounds highly processed and devoid of nutrition. blech!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konjac
And if you find yeast "revolting", I take it you don't like bread or beer either?
I know it wasn't your point, but as an aside: isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed from most commercially produced beer? (depending on the style, obv)
Each of the ingredients bar "natural flavors" (which usually means a proprietary spice blend or msg) can be found with a simple Google search - as someone else said, konjac is an Asian vegetable, textured wheat protein has been a staple of vegan cooking for decades and can be bought in any health food shop, and so on.
> isn't the "used" yeast slurry removed
From beer, partially. From bread, no.
You may be familiar with these ingredients, but that doesn't mean anyone who isn't used to highly processed food is "wrong" for not knowing what they even are.