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Comment by cwbrandsma | Hacker News Reader

Where I live, range cattle are everywhere. You go to the mountains and desert, just everywhere. Actually, we could raise a lot more here. What we can't raise easily is crops. There is too much rock in the ground, you can't plow without dynamite. Plus there is little water (that desert part). Pretty much every field with crops is irrigated -- constantly.

Yet, somehow, cows and sheep do just fine. Sometimes you have to bring in water, but that is NOTHING compared to what it takes to grow crops here.

I will also add one other item to the mix...don't call it burger. I will eat a vegetarian meal, it does not bother me at all. Just don't call it chicken or beef. In fact, don't try to be those things, just make good food without meat and I will eat it. But if you tell me it is beaf and it isn't, I WILL notice, and I won't be happy.

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>But if you tell me it is beaf and it isn't, I WILL notice, and I won't be happy.

Seconding that. Also, I'm allergic to legumes but not real beef. So you could be putting me in danger by calling a legume patty a "burger" or "beaf".

Isn't "Beaf" supposed to be mash upbetween "Beef" and "Leaf" so you shouldn't expect "Beaf" to be "beef"

But a burger can be anything. Chicken burger, hamburger, pork burger, etc. So I wouldn't have a problem having a vegetarian burger. Since "burger" describes the delivery mechanism and not the contents.

But I do have a problem with things like "Chikin", "Beaf" and the like. Not because they are misleading, but because it is tacky. Just don't try to imitate real meat or at the very least make up a better description of the contents. "Legume burger" vs "Beaf burger". The deliberate misspellings of real food just make it "mystery meat". I've been looking at "veggie patties" on menus for years and still don't even know what the primary ingredient is. And that makes it harder for people to "trust".

People seem to blindly eat these patties and what not but it just seems really weird to me that you are eating unidentified goop of vegetables that they are trying to pass off as meat. I guess you could spend time looking it up, but eh.

We already have a problem where the majority of kids can't even connect that a chicken nugget comes out of a chicken. Calling it a "Legume burger" will seem kind of alien but in a few years it would help make the word "Legume" mainstream and familiar and everyone would be better off. I want to easily identify what is in my food if we switch off of meat.

>Isn't "Beaf" supposed to be mash upbetween "Beef" and "Leaf" so you shouldn't expect "Beaf" to be "beef"

You can tell if you're reading the name, but not verbally. If I was at dinner party and someone asked me if I had tried the "Beaf," there's no way to know. Same with "Chik'n" or whatever it's called.

Naming products that way seems fairly irresponsible.

I'm sure in the context of the dinner party you would know ("hey did you try the beaf, hard to tell its vegetarian", or its a vegetarian dinner party, or usually at dinner parties there is ample notification for allergens if its catered or if it is home prepared, the host usually proudly tells everyone what he made).

Or in the context of giving an order you would know. No one is trying to pull a fast one on you. Granted non-english speakers would probably have a harder time figuring it out. Its a problem but not as big of one as you make out.

Rarely do you go into something completely blind and oblivious except for the punctuation of one word.

In my own personal experience with food sensitivities, it'll be the last thing that crosses their minds. It's not necessarily that the hosts in this case are intending to "pull a fast one" on a potentially allergic guest as much as they simply don't think of it. Most people don't have food allergies, and unless you mention your own issues, it's not likely to come up in conversation because it's the absolute last thing on their minds. This is especially true for rare and very uncommon allergies and sensitivities.

Now, granted, if you have such an allergy, it's important to make sure anyone preparing food for you is made aware--but in the context of this hypothetical dinner party, if someone is introducing a meat substitute, there's always the possibility that they're going to remain silent in order to gauge their guests' reactions. That's where the real danger is: Guest assumes meat is, in fact, meat; host wishes to see guest's reaction to meat substitute. In such circumstances, the guest isn't going to ask if it's made of a legume because he or she has already made the assumption that it's meat.

Alas, this illustrates that food sensitivities require those of us who suffer from them to remain vigilant.

"Nice menu. They have Quorn."

"What corn?"

"Right there. It's like Chick'n."

"What's in it?"

"Mushrooms."

"Maybe I should try something else."

"They also have Beaf, Porque, Mutt'n, Baquen, Brisk't, and Humane Fleisch."

"What? No vegetarian entrees?"

Do people really speak this way? I would never refer to "Chik'n" verbally. But when seen on the box it does hint at what kind of texture/flavour one might expect. I wish there was an easy alternative as to not be reminded of the animal versions.

Idk man, I know several vegetarians who would serve "Chicken Salad" without thinking to mention it's actually seitan (or whatever)

Not maliciously, of course, but long-term vegetarians get used to saying "chicken," "beef," etc. for fake meats.

> Idk man, I know several vegetarians who would serve "Chicken Salad" without thinking to mention it's actually seitan

Celiacs watch out.

(Seitan is gluten. It's literally just gluten. It is pure gluten from wheat. Feeding it to someone with a gluten allergy or sensitivity would be a great way to cause them serious problems. OTOH, if the Gluten-Free person in your life eats it, you now know something about them as a human being.)

If we didn't feed 70% of the grain grown elsewhere to the cattle being raised in your area, you could live on that grain and other produce that comes from elsewhere.

I don't know where your 70% came from, but I know for a fact cattle can live quite well without any grain (they love grain, but it is kind of like feeding your kids an all sugar diet. You can only do it for a little while). Start going to your butcher and ask for grass-fed beef. The more demand there is, the more you will see it.

One part of grain that is used for cattle is the grain shaft, which is used for bedding. Not sure if you have a better use for it, but you sure don't want to eat it...even the cows don't eat that (well, they don't each much of it anyway).

Also, make sure you aren't confusing dairy cattle with beef cattle.

Dairy cattle will often eat small amount of grain over longer periods (they live longer), but often consume a larger portion of hog corn and alfalfa. You can read up on "Total Mix Ration" if you want.

Beef cattle, when brought in for finishing will sometimes eat large amounts of grain for a short period.

Do you also want to eat hog corn and alfalfa? You can each hog corn, but the cooking time is pretty high.

There are no regulatory standards on "grass fed beef". Egen if they eat a little grass, you can still market with that label and markup the price.

This is incorrect, in the U.S., at least, grass fed marketing claims can only be used when the steer is exclusively fed on grass: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?tem...

You can plant something else in those fields that aren't feeding cows anymore.

Otherwise, there isn't enough grasslands to feed all the cattle that we're raising out there. And the calorie consumed by cows to calories consumed by humans ratio is somewhere like 7 to 1. If we didn't eat meat, we'd have a lot more food available on our hands, not to mention the drastically reduced methane production that threatens our climate as much as all transportation sources put together.

'burger' is generic. But I agree not to call it the name of meat from a specific animal.

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