This “Beyond Meat” stuff must be booming if it’s showing up on grocery store shelves even in remote, barren backwaters like rural Minnesota.
But OK, I’ll give it a try this evening, despite the fact that marketing something as just like meat isn’t exactly a great way to reach vegetarians.
Hey, kind of like how Joe Biden is a fake progressive who’ll appeal more to neo-liberals and centrists, but not so much to people who want real change in the system.
It’s good reach for me. I’m a picky eater who wants to reduce my meat intake (for several reasons), but am not inclined to go vegetarian/vegan at this point. If this helps me achieve that goal, that’s great.
I’ve tried both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger. The Beyond Burger was definitely less meat like and was a lot more like what I’d expect a “veggie burger” to taste like. It had a decent texture, a bit softer than meat, and overall, a decent taste, especially when seasoned well.
The Impossible Burger was much more beef like. I tried it, of all places, at The CheeseCake Factory. Initially, it tasted a lot like a beef patty, but it did develop a kind of strange, slightly bitter, after taste. I was mostly interested in trying the Impossible Burger because of their use of leghemoglobin from soy to try and provide a “meaty” taste. I guess it does have ecological benefits over consuming meat, but as far as I can tell, it still has lots of saturated fat in it.
There are people who like the taste of meat but prefer not to eat it because of ethical reasons (namely, they don’t want any animals to suffer for their dining pleasure). The marketing is just fine for such target audience.
I had a veggie burger (frozen not “fresh”) with my eggs for breakfast this morning in place of turkey sausage links. Edible.
Some veggie burgers are high in sodium. Check the label if you are sensitive to sodium.
More I learn about Biden the less appealing he is. Let’s hope he isn’t the anointed one. I didn’t realize the significance of his being from usurious Delaware until yesterday. OMG!
Maybe the right will destroy his chances before potential of a nomination or hold it in reserve upon nomination.
I do find this part distasteful:
“After graduating from Yale Law School, Hunter Biden took on a number of roles that intersected with his father’s political career, including working with a Delaware-based credit card issuer, working at the Commerce Department under President Bill Clinton and working as a lobbyist on behalf of various universities, associations and companies.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html
And let’s be honest about Biden: He’d be marketed as a veggie burger that upon testing actually contained 85% beef, with the remaining 15% still somehow being all animal byproducts. Upon questioning this, the justification would be that since the cows ate nothing but plants, that means the “veggie burger” is still vegan.
Meat replacements have come a long way, and hopefully this is only the beginning.
I’ve reduced significantly the amount of animal flesh I consume (now it’s mostly fish every now and then) but struggle to replace most diary products.
Coconut yogurt costs 5 times dairy yogurt, and most cheese is simply not there, so I just try to eat less of it.
I’m also trying to reduce the amount of trash I produce, but unless I find a shop that sells non-packaged stuff it’s going to be hard.
@ck
Biden would prefer you buy a crapload of Biden burgers using a Delaware based credit card. And if you go too far into debt all the better.
“The bill, which was signed in to law by George W. Bush two months after Biden and Warren tangled, made it harder for Americans to discharge the debts they accrue from things like credit cards and medical bills. According to one study, the law “benefited credit card companies and hurt their customers.” Delaware was home to one of the nation’s biggest credit card issuers at the time, and advocates on both sides of the debate saw Biden as trying to represent his state’s interests in Congress.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/12/biden-vs-warren-2020-democratic-primaries-bankruptcy-bill-225728
Buy Biden Burgers! Buy them now!
And: “As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, the Biden-supported legislation prioritized credit card debt repayment over child support repayment, forcing women who are owed back support to negotiate with credit card companies over the debts owed by their exes.”
https://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/joe_bidens_greatest_betrayal_the_one_senate_vote_that_makes_it_hard_to_support_a_biden_run/
Following on Andreas Avester above, I think the opportunity is to market vegetarian options to meat eaters.
That’s certainly the route A&W is taking here in Canada with their ad campaigns for Beyond Meat-based burger and breakfast sandwich options. And thus it can appeal to both the animal welfare and carbon footprint ethical arguments.
Actually child support payments are prioritized over other creditors, so I don’t know what the Salon quote I used meant by saying the opposite.
https://bankruptcy.findlaw.com/chapter-7/checklist-of-key-changes.html
“New Priority for Unpaid Child Support and Alimony
Bankruptcy laws provide a system of re-payment priority for people and companies that are owed money (called “creditors”). Under the new bankruptcy law, among the changes in creditor priority is that people who are owed unpaid child support and alimony (i.e. the bankruptcy filer’s family members) take priority over any other creditor.”
That depends entirely on the reason for their vegetarianism, no? For instance, while I’m no vegetarian, I relatively rarely eat meat and I like the taste of burgers and sausages. But if I can have that without animals getting harmed and killed or lots of resources being wasted on growing these animals over years on ground that could be used to grow crops to feed a lot more people more energy-efficiently, all the better. It’s why I look forward to the market-readiness of lab-meat: Real meat but grown without a brain, without the capacity for suffering, without the wastefulness of animal farming? I’m all for it. Similarly, I’d assume there is at least a subset of vegetarians who would enjoy the taste and texture of meat, but don’t eat it because of such ethical and economic concerns, not because they don’t like eating meat, period.
Would there be ethical objections to eating laboratory human meat? Dog? Cat?
lucifersbike:
It depends. What kind of impact does it have compared to the alternatives? Does it use a bunch of energy, land, water, etc.? Would it mean a bunch of pollution or greenhouse gases?
It also matters how it affects human health. If the lab makes it a more or less ideal food, not just a copy of hamburgers (a covfefe of hamberders?), that would be a point in its favor. But if it were very unhealthy, then of course that’s objectionable too.
hemidactylus wrote:
This was one of the criticisms Elizabeth Warren had about the proposed law as it was being considered:
Perhaps it was amended in the wake of this criticism, but perhaps it was simply the fact that by making credit card debt non-dischargable and forcing more people into Chapter 13 instead of 7, it meant that child support debt, despite being non-dischargable and technically having priority, was nonetheless forced to compete with the payback plan for Chapter 13-applicable debt. In other words, if you’re forced to pay back credit card debt that would’ve been discharged under the other bankruptcy type, you now have less money to pay off child support debt.
The 1A on NPR had a good chin wag this week about:
Mmmmm…(Meatless) Burger
https://the1a.org/shows/2019-05-01/burger-meat-impossible
Apparently the idea of eating something that even tastes like flesh makes some people gag.
Personally I’m slowly losing my taste for beef, but then I’ve killed off most of my tastebuds anyway, so whatev…
…although I must admit, I do sometimes wake up at night with a tearful start, the fading image of a fat pastrami sandwich slipping from my grasp.
But fake meat offers so many new options:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/meat-26527453
bcwebb:
Baby steps. People will eventually get used to the boring stuff and become more adventurous. Fake vegan Ryan Gosling/giraffe-hybrid meat substitutes are probably still a few years away. But they have top men working on it right now.
I’m not sure about the branding…. If something is a fake vegan meat substitute, isn’t that different from a real vegan meat substitute? Does it substitute for a thing that isn’t vegan meat or isn’t fake? Is it a fake version of what would have been a vegan meat substitute?
If somebody sees what they believe is a fake vegan meat substitute in the kitchen, and it’s true that there is a fake vegan meat substitute in the kitchen, but it’s not the thing they believe is the fake vegan meat substitute, because (little do they know) the real fake vegan meat substitute is somewhere else in kitchen hidden from view, then do they really know that there’s a fake vegan meat substitute in the kitchen?
Personally, can’t stand beef, it’s fatty and nearly tasteless, save for what spices are added. Might as well have tofu (which I use in place of ricotta cheese in lasagna), which when properly prepared, absorbs other flavors present anyway.
Lamb and duck, definitely! Flavorful, if the lamb is a bit older, it’d get muttony, but an acid would neutralize it and I tend to use tomato sauce to do so, if a piece looks suspiciously larger than normal.
That said, I’d dispose of animal meat altogether, but for one problem, I can’t make my own vitamin B-12 and frankly, there are only so many pills that I’m willing to take in a day!
But, when asked by soldiers who were going onto weight control, for dietary suggestions, I pulled out my pocket knife of “street legal length” (trust me, it’s around 3″ long) (or when in the field, my field knife was of a rather anemic 6″ in length, enough for a utility knife, but not so damned long as to bruise me if I sat down suddenly), “Eat as much meat as you can catch with this”.
I did have some modest issues in glycemic depletion after a salad for lunch, but some complex carbs helped smooth that out.
Carb load modestly in the morning, a bit more in the evening, the rest, veggies mostly, about half of a lamb chop equivalent or a chicken leg quarter for dinner. Breakfast, a couple of eggs, maybe a sausage or scrapple, some hash browns, off to the races!
As for veggie burgers, I enjoy them from time to time. Alas, one commercially available type, I managed to lose the source for. Temple University Hospital cafeteria served them, didn’t taste much like beef, which tastes much like fat and cardboard to me, but has soy and some other ingredient that I’ve been unable to identify and hence duplicate.
Saw what looked like a fine meatless meatloaf commercially available, alas, that HD crashed before I could get a first order in and the automatics would’ve backed up the URL and company name, looked largely lentil based.
Soy and lentils being my favorite legumes, followed by broad bean. The latter, one has to watch, as some guests could end up in the hospital, due to an enzyme deficiency. Favism isn’t fun.
Other than preferred flavor, environmental is also quite important, avoiding taking a B-12 pill or injection is important logistically, expanding my flavor choices equally important, but I have to remember one important thing.
I’m an obligate omnivore. ;)
@12, human flavor, pork flavor, six of one, half dozen of the other, per cannibalistic groups from the past and I do enjoy pork. I’d just as soon avoid species specific pathogens while working with my meat. If I can avoid the environmental impact of large herds of animals, especially mammals, cultured might fit that bill, although, I doubt at our current technological state, we could make such a thing viable, temperature control and feeding and oxygenating and removing waste gas and metabolites would be an energy expensive set of processes, just a step ahead. Compared to nuclear fusion to generate energy, which remains a pipedream, eternally promised “in another 20 years”, every 20 years.
Cat or dog, never tried either, wouldn’t turn it down if I was a guest and it was served to me. It’s already dead, it’s served as food and I don’t want to alienate my host.
Although, pigeon flavor cultured meat would be wonderful, just stick a different label, “cultured squab” comes to mind.
For who wants an uncultured squab? :P
We ate it. It was OK. Texture was good, flavor was, well, mild.
My big problem with it is the huge amount of packaging. It’s in a big plastic tray with deep indents for two burgers, nestled in some absorbent paper, wrapped snugly in plastic, then wrapped in cardboard. They’re throwing away the efficiency of plant-based foods on stuff that will just end up in the garbage.
Second daughter, who’s been veggie (well, pescatarian, off and on– you can have her sushi when you pry it from her tiny, tightly gipped hands) for three years loved Beyond Burgers even more than she loves Quorn’s fake chicken patties, which is to say, a whole dang lot. The distinctly meat like texture was not exactly off-putting for her the first time she tried them, but definitely on the strange, I can’t believe it’s not a real burger side of that equation. I’m still partial to Dr. Praeger’s California burgers when I want a veg option, myself, as I do prefer my veggie dishes to scream “vegetarian!” at me rather than pose as meat-but-not-meat.
I want the t-shirt “covfefe of hamberders”.
@20
Glycemic depletion after a salad for lunch. Same here, but a little more than modest. Complex carbs with peanut butter helps. Hummus on Wasa alone not sufficient.
Eggs… hard boiled for me with the yolks knocked out. (I’m so lazy.)
Two words: No cholesterol. A good substitute if you’re craving a fast-food type burger, especially if you can cook it yourself and add your favorite toppings. I’ve had worse “real” burgers.
Bonus is not feeling like you just clogged up your blood stream with grease.
I think the analogy is flawed: impossible burgers / beyond burgers are vegetarian inside but appear to be like meat. Although JB appears to be “centrist” (whatever that means), he’s not, say, AOC inside and people know it.
I think the impossible / beyond burger approach may work by actually letting people reduce their carbon footprint, even not consciously. I don’t know how that is possible in politics today, though. Or maybe the veggie burgers are doing fine just because the meat industry is not strong and/or dirty-handed enough to launch extensive smearing campaigns?
Tried these tonight for the first time as well, as they just showed up in our grocery store this week.
Taste-wise we all quite liked it, pleased with the nutritional content, have to agree that the packaging is badly designed. Price point of $4 per patty makes it a non-starter for us, though, as we can get the same exact thing cooked for us and served up in a bun with the requisite toppings for nearly as cheap right next door to the grocery, and then we don’t have to wash our own dishes. And I have to at least hope that the fast food supply chain isn’t quite as profligate with plastic packaging per burger.
wzrd1@20,
There is absolutely no need to eat meat to get B-12, as it’s readily available in dairy products and eggs. Vegans do need to eat fortified foods or take supplements.
Am I the only one that got a Soylent Green-vibe from that name?
I learned a few years ago that if you’re going vegetarian, transitioning by eating fake meat is the absolute worst.
In my fourth year of veganism. Originally it was the environmental aspect that caught my attention. Animal cruelty was part of the issue, but that part took awhile to fully develop. Eventually I was able to come around to animal welfare being my top reason for maintaining a vegan ethos. It is a more solid ethical/philosophical footing.
As part of this process, I have developed an extreme aversion to the sights and smells of animals as food. Therefore meat substitutes do not appeal to me either. Most of my vegan acquaintances feel the same, so these companies aren’t targeting us. And I’m fine with that. If the U.S. ends up being one big meat-substitute market at least animal suffering and killing will be greatly reduced.
This is why I’m firmly in favor of these companies and hope they succeed. It’s all about the end-goal.
Happily the Beyond Meat sausages don’t have garlic or onion. They taste great and easy on the digestive system.
That is, they are tasteless…
</snark>Here in France there was a beef-du-boeuf about products of this nature being sold with the label including “meat” or similar, despite the stuff being clearly marked as vegan / vegetarian. Seemed a bit silly as there’s no attempt at fraud, albeit this being France — home of one of the world’s famous cuisines — some might consider it a crime against taste , food, cheese, and MUSHROOMS!
Locally, I haven’t seen much of this sort of product, not even in the local organic shop. I suspect this is for three reasons: A seaside village (not a major city), not all that many vegans / vegetarians (3% is the figure commonly quoted), and — this being the South coast — an extensive year-round supply of plants and seafood. (In France, many vegans apparently do eat seafood.) So I’m guessing there isn’t much demand, or possibly the local retailers don’t think there is…
#26: Or maybe they’re just complacent. Most people don’t eat burgers every day, after all.
One would assume it would take quite awhile to create a decent substitute for a steak.