Monday, 27 May 2019

Impossible Foods’ rising empire of almost-meat

quote [ To be the future of meat, Impossible needs to change the definition of “meat.” ]

I don't want an ordinary burger
[SFW] [food & drink] [+2 Underrated]
[by ScoobySnacks@5:06amGMT]

Comments

snowfox said @ 9:07pm GMT on 27th May [Score:3 Underrated]
Legally speaking, I want milk to be the lactation of a mammal. It can be a cow, goat, sheep, camel, whatever the hell people milk. Almond milk should not legally be allowed to call itself milk.

Meat needs to go the same way. If it is not an animal product, it is not meat. I find the entire "impossible" marketing campaign to be deceitful. Unless you are specifically looking for a meat substitute and know what they all are, you might have no idea what "impossible burger" means. It gives no indication as to what is in it. Soy burger tells me exactly what is in it. Things with actual meat also tell me what animals they contain. In the case of pepperoni, all three major livestocks.

Does anyone remember the shit burger? The "meat" made from harvesting undigested protein from human feces? Do you want someone to call that an "unbelievable" burger and obfuscate what it actually is?

We go through cycles of this. Candy-makers got put it to them strictly that they had to reach the minimum percentage of cocoa solids or their product was "chocolate flavored candy" and not "chocolate". There is a certain amount of cream that makes a legal distinction between "ice cream" and "frozen dairy desert".

Truth in advertising. I have no problem with people having their plant-based burger, but it should be obvious what it is and it should not be called meat in any packaging or marketing.
Hugh E. said @ 11:58pm GMT on 27th May
But "Impossible Burger" does not contain the word "meat".

Meanwhile, milk stout and liver cheese are running around willy-nilly like some kind of "shitburger".
snowfox said @ 5:39am GMT on 28th May
It does not, but it certainly implies that it is meat. If I didn't know it was a meat alternative I might think it was the next step beyond kobe beef and they'd found a way to massage the cows to a happy ending.

In a more practical sense, let's say someone has food allergies (so many people do). It is just helpful if the product is very clear in its labeling about what it is. I see impossible substitutes grouped with all the meat options rather than explicitly grouped with vegetarian options, and that introduces confusion to the market. Impossible burger, from a consumer standpoint, could mean anything, but the implication is that it is a burger (traditionally made from beef) that is somehow way more awesome than normal.

I like clarity.

Also thanks for linking to my reference so people would know it was a real thing. I think it got posted on SE and it was conjectured that only the poor would be forced to eat that... sadly, I think that is correct. Next come the Cloud Atlas nutrient pouches. Though really, I think the next step is insect-based protein. In terms of ecological friendliness, insectivorism is more efficient than vegetarianism. And while I would have a hard time eating bugs, if the protein in my protein shakes came from bugs but it still tasted sort of like terrible chocolate the way it does now... I could probably accept that. I already know where red dye comes from so it's no more gross than that.
mechanical contrivance said @ 7:01pm GMT on 28th May
There's already a way to give a cow a happy ending.
Hugh E. said @ 7:14pm GMT on 28th May
The article I linked to specifically points out that the "shit burger" story was a hoax.
Once [journalist Justin] Elliot presented his findings, a number of news sites sheepishly admitted that they might have been duped. Some, like The Guardian, just took down the articles without explanation. The final word is that the story is almost certainly a hoax.
It's just weird to misrepresent it as you have.
snowfox said @ 9:50pm GMT on 28th May
I had no idea it was a hoax. Didn't stay with the story that long.
arrowhen said @ 2:48pm GMT on 29th May
This is why we need better labeling standards for hoaxes.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:33pm GMT on 28th May
I don't care if almond milk is called almond milk. I can easily tell it's not dairy milk because it's called almond milk, not milk.
snowfox said @ 6:02pm GMT on 28th May
A lot of children have truly no idea that milk comes from a cow. You know the difference, but we can easily use marketing to create a generation that doesn't know the difference.

Women didn't use to shave their legs or use deodorant. Then what happened? Marketing! We all grew up thinking it was totally normal and having no idea that a generation or two before us, it was a marketing campaign.
mechanical contrivance said @ 6:21pm GMT on 28th May
Personally, I think everyone using deodorant is a good thing.

As for marketing tricking an entire generation into thinking that milk comes from almonds instead of cows: if the almond farmers can do it, so can the dairy farmers.
Hugh E. said @ 7:18pm GMT on 28th May
If only there were some sort of way to communicate with children, to tell them things they should know. But, alas ....
mechanical contrivance said @ 7:45pm GMT on 28th May
There is. It's called Youtube.
snowfox said @ 9:48pm GMT on 28th May
People really frown on running a "re-education camp" for kids, especially when they're not yours and their parents didn't even sign a permission slip before you herded them all into the van.
milkman666 said @ 11:29am GMT on 30th May
After the Omega Plague wipes out a good chunk of the fortnite generation I figure you can open a school that accepts the unvaccinated kids who are no longer allowed to live above ground. The teachers will wear hazmat suits. You'll also be targetting the most at risk. They can learn about milk, vaccines, and Qanon/Fox news.
dolemite said[1] @ 3:00pm GMT on 28th May
Agreed. Clarity is becoming increasingly crucial in all things. The fewer tools that lobbyists and marketers have to mislead consumers with, the better for all of us.

Having said that, I have tried the Beyond Meat burger at A&W. It is surprisingly good. I wish they (and other restaurants) would offer these patties as a substitution option across their whole burger menu. Hearing that other fast food chains (particulalrly McD's) are rolling out similar non-meat products is encouraging. If these products also prove to have a lower carbon footprint than meat then I will probably transition to veggie burgers across the board.
Headlessfriar said @ 7:30pm GMT on 28th May
The one bit of labeling that really gets me upset is sucralose. Back when tons of stuff had aspartame in it, it was always easy to tell. The word "diet" in a big font, and often a different color scheme. But now lots of things just throw in sucralose, along with regular sugar or corn syrup. So people who react badly to it, ie myself, my wife, my oldest kid, really have to scan ingredients on things we never had to before. Instant hot cocoa all had it for a few years, they're starting to remove it again. It's aggravating that products I'm used to buy i now have to check in case they changed the recipe to include something my body has a strong negative reaction to.
ethanos said @ 6:08pm GMT on 31st May
non-fart milk.
ComposerNate said[1] @ 6:59am GMT on 27th May [Score:1 Interesting]
"I don't eat animals" feels truer than "I don't eat meat" because "meat" is bits of dead animals someone considers food. I regularly see food that someone put dead animal into.
snowfox said @ 9:08pm GMT on 27th May
Do you count insects in that? What constitutes an animal to you? What are the minimum qualifications for something to be an animal? You split some hairs while I split some hares.
Jack Blue said @ 9:36am GMT on 28th May
How does that matter?
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:17pm GMT on 28th May
I much prefer the taste of wild bacteria to farmed bacteria.
snowfox said @ 6:05pm GMT on 28th May
It matters because he's trying to make it sound gross by replacing the terminology so that we will adopt his disgust hiding behind the guise of a true ideology. But if he can't clearly define what the cutoff is for an animal and why that is the cutoff, his moral crusade has no solid foundation.

In veterinary medicine, it is now considered that arthropods do feel pain despite the long-standing belief that they can't. So which animals are worthy of being animals and having sacred lives and which aren't?
mechanical contrivance said @ 6:29pm GMT on 28th May
I say we genetically engineer animals that want to be eaten. That way, the morality of meat eating is no longer an issue.
snowfox said @ 7:20pm GMT on 29th May
Couldn't we just engineer them to have no appreciable consciousness nor capacity for pain? That seems a lot easier to do.

Also, nice reference to Douglas Adams. I see what you did there.
mechanical contrivance said @ 7:35pm GMT on 29th May [Score:1 Good]
It was an unconscious reference. I've read most of his books, but I don't remember that in any of them. I guess his writing must have had a significant impact on my mental development.
snowfox said @ 9:29pm GMT on 29th May
This dude. He was really cheerful about the whole thing, eagerly recommending which of his parts would be best to order and that it was ok because he was engineered to be happy to do it. The protagonist was... weirded out? I mean, I would be too. I'd eat another human in a survival scenario, but less sure I'd want to eat a cheerfully suicidal one. What if that's contagious? ;D
Jack Blue said @ 6:11am GMT on 29th May
So, I can't be both pro abortion and anti murder? And disgust is not a basis for what you choose to eat?
snowfox said[1] @ 7:18pm GMT on 29th May
Disgust is a personal preference rather than a reasoned ethical stance or even a sincerely held moral one. I think it's gross to eat silk worm pupae but I don't think it's WRONG and I'm not trying to convince the many people who do eat them that they should not or that they are lesser than me for doing so.

After 14 years of Nate's crusade against eating meat, I'm just quite tired of it. He can stop pretending he's better than the rest of us. He can't tell me what we do with all our cats if we stop keeping meat animals. He can't tell me if our domesticated livestock species have a right to exist as well as the right to live; meaning we would have to continue breeding them even if we did not eat them. He can't or won't tell me what he even considers an animal and why.

I either want him to think it through thoroughly and come up with logically consistent answers or admit that it's just his personal preference and not some form of moral or ethical superiority.

Perhaps you are vegetarian. I wouldn't know because you don't take every opportunity to beat us all over the head with it. I have no problem with vegetarians. I do have a problem with people on a high horse about whether I'd like to get high and eat a horse.

As for your example about pro abortion and anti murder... I do not even understand how that follows. It starts with the base presumption that the two are at all equal. One is an act committed on a clump of nonsapient, parasitic cells that cannot exist on its own, and the other is an act committed against a sapient being. Even if we were to presume a fetus is a person (it is not), it is still not murder to remove it because I am not obliged to let someone use my body to live even if they need it. If I had a child and they needed my kidney to live, or simply needed me as a living dialysis machine for 10 months, I would not be legally obligated to do so and it would not be considered murder not to. Abortion and murder are issues that have absolutely nothing to do with eachother.
Jack Blue said @ 8:48pm GMT on 29th May [Score:1 Insightful]
Alright. You got some sore history going on here. I'll leave.

And I agree with you on abortion and murder. But I don't require you to draw the exact line, and if you don't discredit your entire viewpoint.

Anyways. I'll leave you two to this.
snowfox said @ 9:13pm GMT on 29th May
I believe I did just draw the exact line. Until it can survive outside the womb on its own, not a person! See? Clear answer to the question.
Jack Blue said[3] @ 4:32am GMT on 30th May
I did not ask you for any line, and made a point in not doing so. I'm off!
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:20pm GMT on 30th May
Say a baby is born prematurely and has to stay in an incubator for two months before it can go home. Is the baby a person? Is it ok to kill babies that are born prematurely?
snowfox said @ 2:58pm GMT on 30th May
I don't consider it a person, though I know society generally does. As we advance the window of viability for premies, we're going to be expending a lot of resources to make more people we don't even need. I assume there's a breaking point but I think we're willing to let a lot of existing children die preventable deaths for the sake of the few because we tend to do that.

I also don't consider those in persistent vegetative states people. They may be human, but being human does not inherently qualify one for personhood.
mechanical contrivance said[1] @ 3:02pm GMT on 30th May
Should people in comas count as three fifths of a person?
snowfox said @ 3:29pm GMT on 30th May
Zero fifths. If it is a persistent vegetative state, they have lost personhood. It seems you think you will ask some sort of gotcha question.

I think sign language apes have more sapience and thus more claim to a right to live than a human vegetable. Why shouldn't they?
mechanical contrivance said @ 3:38pm GMT on 30th May
By people in comas, I meant people who might wake up. And I'm not trying to gotcha. Just having an intellectual conversation.
snowfox said @ 3:41pm GMT on 30th May
I wouldn't see pulling life support as murder, no, particularly given that we already ration healthcare and they use a disproportionately large amount of the resources. We all do devil's arithmetic, but those of us who refuse to recognize it are destined to do a shitty job of it. When you consider how many people you could help with the same resources who are otherwise being neglected and how much more they could contribute to society, it's the most sensible option.

There's a reason I don't have children. This isn't it, but it sounds much better than the fact that I like to party ;)
mechanical contrivance said @ 3:52pm GMT on 30th May
This isn't the same in every country, but if we freed up a lot of resources by pulling the plug on everyone in a coma, we would not then spend those resources on people who need help but currently aren't getting it. Those people would be getting help now if they could pay for it, at least when it comes to medical care.

I don't have kids either, but it has nothing to do with resources.
snowfox said @ 4:04pm GMT on 30th May
We probably wouldn't, because are a nation of bastards. I just freely admit to being a bastard. At least we would no longer be able to make the argument that those resources just aren't there to give people medication that would prevent more expensive health care and keep them in the workforce.

It irks me that the people who spoke most about healthcare rationing were actually the ones receiving the bulk of the rations. We're paying for end of life healthcare for the elderly, whose productive days are long since over, at the expense of the health of young people old enough to work whose contributions would be greater than the resource cost of their healthcare.

"I don't want no government healthcare and you keep your paws off my Medicare!" XD
mechanical contrivance said @ 4:40pm GMT on 30th May
Of course we would make the argument that those resources just aren't there. The people in charge wouldn't spend the freed up resources helping those who weren't getting help before. They would move the freed up resources to somewhere else. Somewhere that would make the rich richer or help the people in charge stay in charge.
Hugh E. said @ 8:17pm GMT on 29th May
X: And disgust is not a basis for what you choose to eat?

S: I think it's gross to eat silk worm pupae

S: admit that it's just his personal preference and not some form of moral or ethical superiority.

X: I regularly see food that someone put dead animal into.

S: It starts with the base presumption that the two are at all equal.

Also S: You split some hairs
The arguments here are so scattershot, I'm beginning to think it's parody. Or maybe you just got home from your freshman year in college. Which is great. Congratulations! Keep going. Please, keep going.
snowfox said @ 9:21pm GMT on 29th May
... what?

No, really, I can't even begin to parse this and I edit other people's nonsense for a living.

Yes, I would find eating pupae gross. I don't make that as a moral or ethical judgment and do not think others should stop. I also think brussels sprouts are gross. That is a personal preference and I openly admit that. There is no compelling reason behind it so I do not pretend there is one. Whether disgust determines what I eat is not the issue, it is whether I pretend the reason is anything other than personal disgust and then judge people as being morally or ethically my lesser for not sharing my disgust.

Nate used to replace meat with flesh, now he's moved on to dead animal. Are all of these the same thing? Technically, yes. But do they have the same connotations? No. Not at all. Saying that someone put dead animal in this is the equivalent of me saying that someone put rat shit in this. The goal is to use language to disgust and to imply that the food is contaminated.

And splitting hairs thing? Hairs/hares? Did you not get the joke? I was asking for refinement of the argument in a punny way. Have you truly lost your sense of humor or did you never have one?

But, really, I think my true question is... we know what my problem is with Nate. What is your problem with me? Why are you deriding me? Does it give you pleasure? Do you share Nate's views? Or did you really think talking down to me would make you sound more intelligent rather than less?

Congratulations! Keep going. Please, keep going.
Hugh E. said @ 11:50pm GMT on 29th May [Score:-1 Troll]
filtered comment under your threshold
arrowhen said @ 8:41am GMT on 31st May [Score:-1]
filtered comment under your threshold
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:56pm GMT on 31st May [Score:0 Good]
So you're saying grocery stores should have hookers. Interesting...
ComposerNate said @ 8:43pm GMT on 30th May [Score:-3 Bad]
filtered comment under your threshold
arrowhen said @ 9:02am GMT on 31st May [Score:-2]
filtered comment under your threshold
ComposerNate said @ 9:49am GMT on 31st May [Score:-2]
filtered comment under your threshold
ComposerNate said @ 9:51am GMT on 31st May [Score:-2]
filtered comment under your threshold
ComposerNate said @ 8:37pm GMT on 30th May
I rarely see food that someone put insects into. People are usually put off if they find insects in their food, refuse to eat further. I don't have insects in my food.
5th Earth said @ 11:40pm GMT on 27th May [Score:1 Informative]
On a non-political note, they are pretty tasty but personally I'm happy with a burger that tastes less like meat but is also cheaper.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:23pm GMT on 28th May
I'd love to try an Impossible burger to see what it's like, but if it's expensive, I'd probably only have it once.
milkman666 said @ 11:55am GMT on 30th May [Score:1 Good]
We should start cutting meat and dairy subsidies and putting money into ecologicaly beneficial alternatives.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:30pm GMT on 30th May
The meat and dairy industries would never allow it.
5th Earth said[1] @ 7:17pm GMT on 28th May
Well, expensive is a relative term. I've had regular burgers that tasted worse and cost more, and my "impossible" experience was at a restaurant that tends towards highish prices anyway (IIRC it was like $13 for a burger and fries). Google says BK charges $4 extra for an impossible burger, while most places charge maybe a dollar or two, if anything, for a boca or black bean burger. I'll pay for the impossible burger if that's what they have, but I'd rather get the Boca for less money.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:34pm GMT on 28th May [Score:1 Interesting]
I would love to know why Impossible burgers contain 2350% of the recommended daily allowance of thiamin.
cb361 said @ 5:08pm GMT on 29th May
Thiamin just tastes really really good.
ethanos said @ 10:02pm GMT on 29th May
gee. burger is more controversial than trump-mueller...
mechanical contrivance said @ 12:55pm GMT on 30th May [Score:1 Funny]
A ghee burger would be too greasy.
ComposerNate said @ 12:40pm GMT on 31st May
ComposerNate said[1] @ 4:34pm GMT on 31st May
ComposerNate said[1] @ 12:27pm GMT on 11th Jun

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