That's too bad. I don't expect fake-meats to be healthy, or cheap, but I like that they can be made without killing animals and without raising them in inhumane conditions.
I had really hoped that people would say, "Well, if it tastes close enough, then how about I go for the cruelty-free version." And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
Perhaps the cognitive dissonance is just too much. The world would be a better place if we ate less meat, even if we don't eliminate it entirely. But to acknowledge the cruelty by avoiding it sometimes means facing it when you do choose animal protein.
Maybe it's just me, but beyond has never tasted close to the original. Impossible does.
The fact that it doesn't taste close to the original and that it commands a price premium is why I ultimately gave up on it. Where I might use beyond, I can usually get a healthier option using ground turkey instead with a much more agreeable flavor and price.
But really, I've just focused on making more meatless dishes in general. Highlighting the flavor of legumes and mushrooms beats trying to fake the flavor of beef.
Impossible definitely has more of a "dead cow funk" taste to it. Which is why I actually prefer Beyond Meat, because it tastes better without "that taste".
I think it actually is "Beyond" meat, in that sense.
The issue I have is I can definitely taste ingredients and they don't really jive with me. Like, the pea and beat flavors come out pretty strongly to me and gives the patties a sort of funky smell.
IMO, this is a much better tasting burger that doesn't try to fake beef flavor (Not vegan) [1]
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-black-bean-burger-recip...
I don't think beyond tastes that crazy, but I have to jump in to support this bean burger. These guys are the real deal.
I'm definitely looking forward to making this been burger, thanks to you both!
Not just you. To me Beyond tastes barely better than the classic fake meat products. Whereas I find impossible actually tastes good.
Beyond is not a convincing substitute. I think it’s delicious for processed food and I prefer it to beef by a lot, but it is definitely beany tasting.
I never found it close enough, and it's expensive, and it's bad for you. So no thanks.
> as good as a fast-food hamburger
But at a much higher price? The value is not really there IMO.
From their performance it seems like the intersection of (cares about animals | methane emissions) & doesn't mind health effects & less price sensitive & must eat hamburger-likes is too small.
Interesting point on cognitive dissonance though. I think it's possible to draw a rational tradeoff between acceptable amount of (externalised) cruelty and personal benefits of eating meat - no cognitive dissonance needed.
I’m completely against factory farming, confinement barns, etc and always avoid meat produced this way.
But I do wonder what you mean when you say “cruelty” in the context of cattle.
Having lived in/around rural livestock production most of my life, I can tell you that most cattle operations I am familiar with take excellent care of the their animals. Minimizing stress is absolutely a top goal for them.
Pork, on the other hand, is almost always produced in a horrifying, cruel way. Confinement barns are terrible in every sense of the word. Pigs are treated without respect from cradle to grave.
It depends on the laws of your country, but here in Canada, you can't slaughter cows on your farm. They have to be transported, often long distances, to a slaughterhouse. Slaughterhouses, and the metal box that brings them there, aren't very nice places for a cow.
Personally, when I want to eat less meat, I just eat something else, because they are enough vegetarian/vegan alternatives out there that I don't really see the point of a poor imitation that's even more expensive than the real thing.
>And it is close-enough -- it's at least as good as a fast-food hamburger.
It's not, though. Vegans that I know always proselytize about how "you can't even tell the difference" but I can tell the difference.
I don't understand the weird vegan obsession with eating fake food. Edible oil product "vegan cheese" and other junk.
If you want to eat meat, eat it. If you don't, don't. You do you, but don't try to sell me on disgusting fake food.
It’s petty straightforward. They want to taste meat but don’t want to eat animals.
My point is they're not tasting meat. Even the Impossible one doesn't taste like meat.
It tastes like imitation meat, the same way artificial vanilla tastes like imitation vanilla.
People are just deceiving themselves.
> People are just deceiving themselves.
I agree and also find it unpleasant, but I wouldn't claim to be incredulous that someone would deliberately want to deceive themselves. We deceive ourselves all the time for all sorts of stupid and less stupid reasons. If you need money but hate your job, you have to convince yourself that somehow getting up every day grinding it out is worth it. If you don't need money but are addicted to it, or don't have any other hobbies, you deceive yourself into making your number higher.
If you're a bodybuilder you might have convinced yourself that a certain repulsive aesthetic is attractive, or if you have weight issues, you might intentionally deceive yourself into hating the consumption addictions that are your weakness.
Many people who are vegans do happen to convince themselves of remarkably implausible nonsense that I haven't really seen in others as much, but it's usually due to what I'd suspect are other underlying mental health issues—the two groups I've observed the most mistrust in medicine from are 30+ men and vegans.
The act of self-deception itself isn't rare though
lol Way to jump to a conclusion and then use it as your basis for your entire comment. Most people don't want some expensive fake ass meat that is so packed with chemicals and additives that they would rather just buy meat instead and eat it, even if it isnt as healthy as it could be if it were raised more sustainably and naturally than most of it is nowadays.
It was close enough for me and I do acknowledge the cruelty and abstain from many kinds of meat. I was super excited when I tried it first. But after about a year of being part of my regular diet it started being disgusting unfortunately. Now I can only eat it once a in a while.
> how about I go for the cruelty-free version.
They should just use that as a label: https://xkcd.com/641/
Would you like the cruel or cruelty-free patty?
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Are you saying that opting for a beyond burger patty instead of a beef patty is going to "poison and destroy" your health? That's a bit of a stretch no? Are they really any worse for you than a regular burger from a fast food joint or something?
There are no studies I’m aware of where focusing on a plant-based diet makes you “very ill” and gives you “chronic diseases”. On the contrary, it’s not that hard to be healthier.
Meat, on the other hand, is linked to diseases. Especially red meat and cancer.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc...
So your scenario is more like “imagine telling a parent ‘Give meat to your kid. They will get sick, unnecessarily kill animals (as we all know, kids hate animals, right?), and accelerate destroying the environment (who needs to live in a good environment, anyway, as long as there are burgers?)’”.
"Linked to" in the sense that someone guessed that red meat might cause cancer, devised a bunch of experiments to prove it, and ended up after incredible amounts of effort with a result that shows just on the very limits of statistical significance that perhaps one person in a population the size of the UK might have a slightly elevated risk of cancer, maybe going from one in 15 to one in 14.
So, yes, "linked to".
You're going to die of heart disease, not bowel cancer caused by eating meat, even if you are a vegan. In fact, especially if you are a vegan, as it turns out, if you believe another ever-so-slightly-sketchy set of statistics. I personally don't, but I have noticed a lot of the people I know who eat a vegan diet don't eat particularly healthy stuff.
> I have noticed a lot of the people I know who eat a vegan diet don't eat particularly healthy stuff.
Neither do people who don’t eat vegan, so that’s irrelevant to the point. I couldn’t help notice you skipped over the points of killing animals and accelerating destroying the environment.
You need livestock farming to have arable farming. Growing only plants is phenomenally destructive to the soil.
Every time you eat a "Beyond Meat" burger, you have permanently destroyed a patch of what used to be rain forest and is now crappy farmland about the size of a car parking space.
You need far far far more land for raising livestock for eating than for vegetables. Furthermore, we’re discussing vegan diets in general. No one is vegan and survives solely on Beyond Burgers.
Yes, but you don't use land you could use for arable crops for raising animals all the time.
Also, if you don't turn some of the land you use for arable crops for pasture every few years and chuck some ruminants (cows, preferably, sheep will work too but you need to add lime afterwards) then the soil dies.
Do you know how to grow food?
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How can you grow plants without killing animals?
I think it's a question of degree. For instance, if you grow an acre of corn you kill a few animals right? And you have an acre of corn which would feed a few people for a year.
A cow takes about 10x as much corn per serving of meat, so that's 10x as many critters killed, and then you have to kill the cow.
The creatures that are killed in the field, or on the road or whatever, they are living their little lives eating and screwing and doing all the fun stuff creatures do until they get brained by a tilling disk or whatever.
A cow on the other hand, in a U.S. cafo? I mean if you like wading through your own shit, nose to asshole with all your compatriots, eating food that your GI tract doesn't even like that much so that you can get overweight? No stimulus, no sex, no variance in diet, then you'd love to be a cow.
For me, I just don't want to eat that.
I live around thousands of cows grazing and they seem just as natural as your critters. I'm glad some folks are aware that producing food kills animals. And graziers are consuming grass. I have friends primarily eating Deer & Graziers, so their animal impact is similar to your happy critters.
Cool I live 40 miles downwind from this: https://www.greeleytribune.com/2013/10/31/greeley-based-ag-g...
When there's an up-slope winter breeze I can smell it.
fertilizer smells. it also pollutes water ways.
I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to point out that vegans are selective in their complaints.
You're strawmaning here. You can take any cause and point the selectiveness of the "people that care of that cause" by putting them in a bag and choosing the bag arguments to argument with.
Was the conversation above an exception to the rule?
It’s not indeed, however while you’re not trying to be negative, what you say sounds like so: "I’m trying to point X are Y" where Y is a characteristic of most humans and not just X. “pointing” X sounds like that group is more Y than the rest of humans. I don’t know if that’s you’re intent (probably not as you said you’re not trying to be negative), but the pointing sounds like it is. Your previous message pointing that growing plant kill animals sounds the same as most activities kill animals (walking in the woods, driving, probably watching Netflix in some extend…). I know you’re responding to someone coming first with the killing topic but I think that’s not a good faith interpretation of their post: they said much more, and also “even if we don't eliminate it entirely". The "natural" grazers around your place where probably the kind of farming that they propose to not eliminate. Don’t feel attacked, it’s not on you or your friends.
> Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.