Beyond Meat: Fake Meat So Good It Will Freak You Out

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/beyond_meat_fake_chicken_that_tastes_so_real_it_will_freak_you_out_.html

by krschultz • 14 years ago

88 178 14 years ago

slate.com

mberning8• 14 years ago

I don't get it. You want all the benefits of eating meat without actually eating meat? I understand people have moral objections to the meat industry, but if you are doing it for health reasons you might as well just eat real meat. Research has shown quite conclusively that pre-historic humans survived on a diet rich in animal products, particularly animal fat.

mintplant• 14 years ago

Out of curiosity, what was the average life expectancy of said humans?

maw• 14 years ago

That's a good point. You really cut to the heart of the matter—no oversimplification here!—and I applaud you. None of our distant ancestors suffered from poor hygiene. Not was there ever famine, and they never fought among themselves. Life was pretty much perfect back then, if we disregard that fatty and meaty diet.

altrego99• 14 years ago

18 years. Obviously then they did not die of old age. I wonder then, how did the mechanism of dieing of senility evolve?

eslachance3• 14 years ago

I really wish people would stop comparing our current 100-year lifespan with pre-historic humans where someone my age (31 years old) would have been considered an elder (if even still alive!).

"Fake" meat tastes and looks like the real thing, but it has none of its downsides (look up "Forks over Knives" for some decent documentary on that. take with a grain of salt).

mberning8• 14 years ago

Wrong. You are simply misinformed. Infant mortality skews the average lifespan severely. Take out infant mortality and people lived long and robust lives, without the help of modern medicine.

yayadarsh• 14 years ago

I don't think that maximum human lifespan has increased as significantly as it seems, but rather infant mortality rates have shrunk so much that our 'average life expectancy' has increased dramatically.

uptown2• 14 years ago

The article spells it out pretty clearly:

"Brown’s long-term goal is to offer a product that can satisfy the world’s growing, and largely unsustainable, demand for meat, especially in ballooning markets like India and China."

"Meat is environmentally toxic and colossally inefficient, ethically dubious (even if you’re OK with killing animals, raising and slaughtering animals in factory farms is hard to defend), and it’s unhealthy (that’s even true if you don’t eat it—there’s good evidence that the rampant use of antibiotics in livestock production has given rise to drug-resistant infections)."

The amount of resources required to raise an animal to the age at which it can be slaughtered for use as food is a very real problem as the natural resources of the world are strained by population growth.

mberning8• 14 years ago

Ok, so rather than feeding people the genuine article let's feed them some laboratory created faux-meat. That sounds like a great way to be healthy.

I don't disagree that we need to find more sustainable ways to feed ourselves, but we also need to be feeding ourselves quality food that matches our biological needs. Not whatever is most conveniently and cheaply produced.

jonknee• 14 years ago

> The amount of resources required to raise an animal to the age at which it can be slaughtered for use as food is a very real problem as the natural resources of the world are strained by population growth.

For beef, sure. But chickens are very quick to produce (2 months).

gbog• 14 years ago

I couldn't read the article because the font size is too small and the left "share bar" gets over the text when magnified.

Anyway, to reply to the "statisfy China" thing, let me tell to the author of this "invention" that he is solving a solved problem: China has a long track record of feeding its numerous populace with doufu (tofu) instead of meat. I was very impressed the first time I saw a countryside market. They were selling big doufu pieces in different street shops, and only one butcher was selling a few pieces of hanging meat.

The trick is to actually use little pieces of pork in a doufu-based dish, and many spices, like the delicious Mapo doufu.

Even when eating meat-based Chinese dishes, like Huiguorou, you will eat much less meat than in a classic Western course.

So, in fact, the solution to the possible future problem of Chinese people eating too much meat is not to feed them with that chicken ersatz, it is to avoid Westernization to go that far.

I have a few proposals in this direction that should be common sense:

- Stop using hamburgers as the logo for food in games, apps and other places. Only a very tiny part of the world regularly eat these nocive things.

- Stop displaying actors eating snacks in movies. (We already stopped showing them smoking, except for the villains). Going at any time to the fridge and eating something out of it is a very recent and nocive habit that should not be shown as the normal "American Dream" life in successful mainstream movies.

- Stop this cliché about disgusting intestine-based dishes or other "un-noble" parts. I am no vegetarian, but I think animal we kill for food should be eaten to the last piece of eatable tissue. In China, we (yes, me too) eat tendon, kidneys, fish tripes and heads, duck tongues, pig feet, everything, and cooked in hundres of different manners. It is healthy: eating meat or fish becomes a pleasure by its diversity, not by its volume.

bunderbunder3• 14 years ago

I can't say I know if vegetarianism is more or less healthy than being an omnivore, but I feel pretty confident in saying that we won't find the key to health in slavishly attempting to copy the habits of people who weren't anywhere near as healthy as we are.

Pre-historic humans, for example, had a life expectancy of about 30.

Spearchucker• 14 years ago

That number (30) was mostly due to infant mortality rates. It's a very misleading metric.

pitt1980• 14 years ago

One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.

Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A. D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 per cent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a theefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor. "Life expectancy at birth in the pre-agricultural community was bout twenty-six years," says Armelagos, "but in the post-agricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive."

http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...

SideburnsOfDoom• 14 years ago

There are some life expectancy-related habits of pre-historic humans that no-one is aiming to copy - e.g. attacks from wild animals, frequent warfare with neighbouring tribes, lack of sanitation and lack of modern medicine including antibiotics, anaesthetics, midwifery and general understanding of germ theory.

Sodaware• 14 years ago

Aside from moral reasons, it will be interesting to see if creating fake meat is more energy efficient than existing farming methods.

amalag6• 14 years ago

According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef in California. In contrast, only 25 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of wheat.

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

Beef produces 130 kilocalories/square metre/year.

Chicken produces 190 kilocalories/square metre/year.

Rice produces 1250 kilocalories/square metre/year. I assume soy is similar.

There are many other similar calculations to be made regarding demands placed on the land. With 7 billion people and counting, they're important numbers.

Source: http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/bi/1991/land.html

geogra4• 14 years ago

Exactly. Vegetarian diets are the most efficient use of natural resources.

wklauss2• 14 years ago

If you only take into account caloric production yes, meat is not very efficient. But there is a reason humans started to eat and domesticate animals. They provide us with fur, an other byproducts (fertilizer, etc...)

I understand the need to find some substitute with 7 billion people in the planet, but i think grown-in-a-lab meat will probably be a better alternative in the near future.

mildavw• 14 years ago

It seems like collectively changing our diet is just rearranging chairs on the Titanic. Our population will continue to grow exponentially as it has for the last several million years no matter what we eat. If somehow we avoid a massive die-off as has happened with other species due to, say, rapid climate change, a meteor, or a super virus, and actually survive to the point where the acreage of food producing land has a significant effect, then our population will be so large that one or two generations of growth will overwhelm the efficiency gains we make due to diet.

Put another way, if food producing acreage is the limiting factor for humans then as omnivores we may grow for 150,000 generations, as herbivores we may make it to 150,005 generations. Either way, growth will have to stop and we will have wiped out massive numbers of other species.

cleary• 14 years ago

I've also gathered some conclusive evidence: I don't eat meats, and I haven't died (not even once!).

But seriously, the fact that 10,000 years ago human-type creatures ate a lot of meat should be like number 76 on your list of arguments in the sustainability of diets debate.

mberning8• 14 years ago

Sorry, I'm greedy when it comes to my own wellbeing. Do I really care how sustainable my diet is if I have to suffer for 20-30 years with ailments the can be chalked up due to the deficiency of the diet itself?

SwellJoe2• 14 years ago

"Research has shown quite conclusively that pre-historic humans survived on a diet rich in animal products, particularly animal fat."

No, it really hasn't. It just hasn't. This is one of those crazy truisms that becomes difficult to even debunk because it has no science behind it...but the people pushing it do so with such gusto and such complete confidence that people simply believe their unfounded assertions. It's a tiny sect of science deniers that selectively choose evidence and ignore everything that conflicts with their particular preference. The "paleo diet" is based entirely on a fictional retelling of human history, and it's about time it stopped being promoted as "research" or "conclusive".

Just the most recent article on the subject, but there have been dozens or hundreds of others: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/hu...

mberning8• 14 years ago

Yes, it has, and a blog post linking to a paper about neanderthals does not count as proof of your assertion. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any neanderthals walking around lately, so the fact that they may have subsisted on plants doesn't say much about homo sapiens.

eslachance3• 14 years ago

This sounds very promising. As a vegan, it's pretty hard to find decent alternatives to meat, which I still crave once in a while - I went vegan for health reasons, not ideological ones.

This has been getting better with time, but unfortunately a lot of fake vegetarian and vegan meats tend to be unhealthy. In order to get some decent taste and texture, some odd ingredients are often used. Vegan does not equal healthy in all cases. This one sounds pretty good, hope they find their way to Canada and branch out to different meats, too!

recycleme2• 14 years ago

I've tried a couple of beef and chicken alternatives that were splendid. The trick was to cook it to my liking. Crispy, wet, etc.

I imagine these kinds of foods are ok for transitioning into a vegan. However, I was vegan once, and I took it as an opportunity to discover all kinds of new vegetables and fruits. It was interesting learning to cook with no meat. I had discovered a whole new world of food.

Eating fake meat seems a bit nostalgic tbh.

bstewartnyc• 14 years ago

Great more fake stuff, just what we need.

ebbv• 14 years ago

I love how every time something like this comes out they ask someone who hasn't had meat in 10 years if it's just like meat. Yeah, because they would know.

My biggest problem, though, is if I'm having ingredients that aren't meat, I'd like to have them be good. I've never had fake meat that I would call appetizing.

I've had lots of vegetarian dishes that were delightful, but not one included fake meat.

I am not vegetarian.

bunderbunder3• 14 years ago

I think an inescapable problem is that it's hard to get past the framing. A product might actually be a very good food that easily stands up on its own merits. But if it's being carefully processed in a way that attempts to mimic all the cosmetic characteristics of chicken, being labeled as "chikkin", and being served lightly breaded with honey mustard on the side, then it's perpetually doomed to just be an imperfect imitation of chicken.

uvTwitch• 14 years ago

I'm an omnivore, and if this stuff was equivalently expensive, and sufficiently chicken-like, I'd buy it instead. Real Chicken isn't exactly some holy grail of food, it just tastes good.

mberning8• 14 years ago

I believe that regulations exist to prevent the food industry from marketing non-genuine food items as the real thing. I have heard that chicken wing shaped chicken products cannot be sold as 'wings' but must rather be labeled 'wyngz'.

lreeves• 14 years ago

From the article - "New York Times food writer Mark Bittman mistook the fake stuff for the real stuff". So it seems like it really does taste like chicken.

JackC• 14 years ago

For those who aren't familiar, Mark Bittman is kind of a foodie god; I'm pretty sure organic wheat springs up under his feet when he walks around. Here's the part of Bittman's article about the fake chicken, from back in March (linked from the Slate article):

... at least one new product is a better-than-adequate substitute for chicken in things like wraps, salads and sauces. I know this because Ethan Brown, an owner of Savage River Farms, came to my house and fooled me badly in a blind tasting. (A pan-European “LikeMeat” project appears to be making progress on a similar product, and others are in the works.)

On its own, Brown’s “chicken” — produced to mimic boneless, skinless breast — looks like a decent imitation, and the way it shreds is amazing. It doesn’t taste much like chicken, but since most white meat chicken doesn’t taste like much anyway, that’s hardly a problem; both are about texture, chew and the ingredients you put on them or combine with them. When you take Brown’s product, cut it up and combine it with, say, chopped tomato and lettuce and mayonnaise with some seasoning in it, and wrap it in a burrito, you won’t know the difference between that and chicken. I didn’t, at least, and this is the kind of thing I do for a living. Brown does not see his product as a trendy meat replacement for vegans but one with more widespread use. (His production is at an early stage, but Whole Foods is planning to start using his products in prepared food soon. Retail sales of his “chicken,” which does not yet have a trademarked name, are expected to begin this summer.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/finally-fak...

So it sounds like this is a complete substitute in dishes where you chop up the chicken and add strong flavors, and not really intended to be a substitute otherwise. It's not 90% of the way there in all dishes -- it's 100% of the way there in 75% of dishes. And it's cheaper and takes probably a quarter of the resources to produce. Given the size of the total market, that's a huge deal.

ahage16• 14 years ago

"I’m not a vegetarian, and I love real meat, but for various health and ethical reasons, I’ve long tried to cut down on eating animals."

He eats meat, just not as often as your average person.

codegeek• 14 years ago

Hong Kong has restaurants where they have items that are clones of chicken, shrimp,fish etc. but are not actual meat. I tried and it was great.

EDIT: Funny thing is that the menu has item names such as "vegetarian chicken" and I am not kidding.

kitcar• 14 years ago

Yup- the secret sauce in most of those clones is something call TVP - textured vegetable protein - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein

reubensutton3• 14 years ago

In the UK, I've never found an imitation of fish or prawns, let alone a great one.

justincormack• 14 years ago

There are crabsticks, an old Uk favourite. They are pretty horrible though....

stuff4ben2• 14 years ago

As a voracious meat eater, I am actually intrigued by the idea of a healthier chicken meat that takes the environment into consideration. If it tastes like chicken, even looks like chicken, is healthier than chicken, and has less of an impact on the environment/climate/conscience, why wouldn't you eat it? Now beef on the other hand...I still am on the fence there. What can I say, I like a nice medium rare, well-marbled, ribeye slightly charred on the outside. I don't think you can ever replace that.

aerique• 14 years ago

In that case, the second best thing would be cutting down on beef consumption and treating it as the luxury it is. So eating that nice medium rare once every two months instead of once a week.

(I don't know anything about your consumption, just making a point.)

djKianoosh2• 14 years ago

once a week?! whaaat? I want real beef, every day. No fake stuff please. Yes, be nice to the animals, raise them cage free yadda yadda. But I want the real thing.

stuff4ben2• 14 years ago

Yeah with the health concerns over eating a lot of red meat (my side of the family has a history of colon cancer) and the fact that it keeps getting more expensive, we've relegated ribeyes to birthdays and our anniversary. So we get a package of ribeyes from Costco maybe 3-4 times a year (we celebrate as many birthdays and anniversaries as we can). Other than that we eat a lot of chicken and pork. We do consume a fair bit of ground beef for hamburgers and spaghetti however. In that case, I probably wouldn't notice the difference between fake beef and the real thing.

sprocket2• 14 years ago

My wife and I run a small farm and one of our products is organic, pasture raised chicken. All of our birds spend the majority of their lives out on fresh grass in the sunshine and our never exposed to any antibiotics, pesticides and herbicides.

The difference that a bit of exposure to green forage in an outdoor environment makes, both to the flavour and texture of the chicken, is AMAZING. Industrial broiler barn chicken pales in comparison.

I'd encourage anyone seeking to buy a more environmentally friendly chicken to try to make contact with a local organic farmer who's able to raise his birds outside and in a humane fashion.

MattSayar2• 14 years ago

How would you say your pure chicken would compare to a USDA Organic chicken I can buy at the store?

xutopia• 14 years ago

This man has it right. Once you taste what chicken is meant to taste like you realize that 99% of the chicken you eat doesn't even taste like chicken!

truebosko3• 14 years ago

Ingredients in Chicken (that isn't factory farmed): Chicken

Ingredients in this: Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Pea Protein Isolate, Amaranth, Natural Vegan Chicken Flavor (Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavoring), Soy Fiber, Carrot Fiber, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Dipotassium Phosphate, Titanium Dioxide, White Vinegar

So, it's not terrible but it's just more fake pseudo-meat. What's so hard about buying a soy protein (firm tofu, tempeh, etc.), and just cooking it with spices and herbs like you would a regular piece of meat? Fake food sucks.

bluekite20002• 14 years ago

Have you been to any Buddhist country (Vietnam,Thailand India,etc) and tried any of the faux-chicken/beef/pork/fish dish? It isn't as real as Beyond Meat probably (since it is not made by scientists but thousands of years of practicing vegetarian) but is quite delicious.

smackfu3• 14 years ago

We went to a Chinese restaurant the other day that is known for having vegetarian versions of almost every regular American Chinese restaurant dish. They used some kind of fibrous fake meat for the General Tsaos chicken that was very convincing. Maybe seaweed based?

truebosko3• 14 years ago

I don't doubt it. They are probably just taking simple soy proteins and cooking them with whatever, just like we would cook meat. Not produced in some lab. I have nothing against this and appreciate it.

_delirium• 14 years ago

It seems the goal is in part to replace the animal-sourced sort-of-fake meat that's already a significant part of the world's diet, with a non-animal source that may be more environmentally friendly to produce.

A roasted chicken or a steak is one thing, but a lot of uses of "meat" really only call for some kind of processed product that has a certain taste and texture. Chicken patties at McDonald's, for example, are not actual cuts of chicken meat, but mechanically separated meat that's reformed into a patty that attempts to mimic a certain meat-ish texture. If you can mimic that same chicken-patty texture with a non-animal sourced set of ingredients as the input, I don't see it really as any less natural.

(Alas, it does me no good personally, because I'm allergic to soy protein.)

AznHisoka4• 14 years ago

it's a worthwhile goal, but feel if we're in the business of making fake food, why not make it as nutritious as possible too? Environmentally friendly should be secondary.

shawnz• 14 years ago

This is a crappy argument. Chicken inherently has thousands of "ingredients". I think this product actually seems quite simple, considering the complexity of what they're trying to replicate.

EDIT: Although I agree -- I'd always prefer foods taken for what they are rather than substitutes. Then again, I'm not vegetarian.

nsns4• 14 years ago

Industrial chicken meat has lots of junk in it (e.g., http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/over...)

To counter Botulinum toxins, frozen meat contains Sodium nitrate, a known carcinogen(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_nitrate#Health_concerns).

truebosko3• 14 years ago

I never said factory meat was good :)

vidarh7• 14 years ago

"Just buying a soy protein" and cooking it that way tastes nothing like chicken. That is what is wrong with it.

If you like it, great. In some dishes I find tofu nice. For the most part, though, I dislike the consistency and find that outside a few types of dishes it can't compete on taste at all. I love chicken in a wide range of forms. I have no qualms about eating chicken. That it's the result of murdering animals does not disgust me the least.

In that context, it would have to offer something other than not being chicken as a benefit before I'd consider buying it. That is where there's a huge opportunity: Competing on price, taste or health factors with the actual animal products in the segment of the market that want something that tastes at least pretty much like the animal products.

Whether or not it is "fake" is irrelevant. Nature does not have a monopoly on making things good. What matters is how it stacks up with what it replaces in your diet. For most of us what it would replace is presumably chicken.

amalag6• 14 years ago

Their target audience is not tofu eaters, it's chicken eaters. They put that stuff in to make it close to meat, that was the whole point of the article.

nsns4• 14 years ago

The problem with these alternatives is they are highly processed, the exact opposite of a healthy meal of vegetables, lentils, nuts...

That said, the modern industrial slaughter of animals is an ongoing atrocity on an unbelievable scale, worst than anything humans ever did to each other (and can only be deemed acceptable if you vouch for biblical notions of human supremacism). If this helps any, all the best to them.

ryeguy5• 14 years ago

There is nothing inherently wrong with processed food. Processed foods could only be considered "bad" if you're actually replacing healthy foods with them.

For example, a can of coke isn't actually bad for me per se, it's just nutritionally useless, and it's taking up 100something calories out of my calorie budget for the day that could be used by something with a higher amount of micronutrients in it.

I don't think any vegetarian or vegan is going to throw out all their veggies and start eating nothing but meat alternatives as soon as a viable replacement comes out.

arethuza2• 14 years ago

I wonder what would happen if you tried to survive just on coke and micronutrient supplements?

crescentfresh• 14 years ago

My wife has not eaten meat or poultry for over 25 years. I do. Once, we were out at a restaurant and she sampled my pasta+chicken dish and got a piece of chicken into her mouth by accident. She did not like the texture and the flavour, at all. As in, the innateness of both in chicken was not appetizing to her anymore.

She will be sticking to her nut and bean burgers no matter how good a fake beef burger tastes (to me).

nsns4• 14 years ago

The excessive amount of sugar in your coke kills your liver and pancreas, it's hardly harmless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...

analog4• 14 years ago

Trans fats are a typical ingredient of processed foods that are actively harmful. [1]

[1] http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/FatsAndOils/Fat...

AznHisoka4• 14 years ago

"a can of coke isn't actually bad for me per se"

You're kidding right? There's a ton wrong with processed foods. We humans love to outsmart ourselves. Ooh, let's make our own food, screw mother nature and home-grown veggies, fruits, and animals! And then wonder why cancer and obesity rates are increasing.

And hunting and gathering? Screw that! We're gonna create higher abstract levels of work where u stare at a computer screen for 8 hours a day! Woohoo! Why expend so much energy running and walking for food when you can sit all day?!.. Then we wonder again why obesity rates keep going up.

amalag6• 14 years ago

I have to agree with both of these points. Modern society is so insulated to the ethical costs and environmental costs of meat eating. We have no problem taking our children to go strawberry picking to get their food, but how about taking them to a slaughterhouse to get their McNuggets? And then environmental costs of using 10x-50x the amount of water to produce 1lb of meat compared to 1lb of grains is staggering.

rimantas2• 14 years ago

  > ethical costs

That's manufactured problem. And I'd say extremely stupid. Cannot wait till activists will go on a mission to stop other animals from eating meat. We are humans. We eat meat. How complicated is that?

And yes, I had an opportunity to witness how pig becomes bacon and tasty sausages when I was kid.

nandemo• 14 years ago

So by eating meat I'm an accomplice in crimes worse than the Holocaust, the atomic bombs, the Soviet gulags, the Rwandan genocide, 9/11 and so on?

lprubin• 14 years ago

I wouldn't say you're an accomplice in that most likely you were raised to eat meat. From the time you were a small child you've been conditioned to be OK or maybe even to love eating meat. You've also had the terrible conditions of the factory farming industry hidden from you. Because of this I don't think anybody can be blamed for eating meat. But I do think that once those conditions and factors are brought to your attention that people should have a long think about the situation and really spend some time deciding if they want to continue to support such practices.

amalag6• 14 years ago

Visit a slaughterhouse and make up your mind. Cruelty to humans is bad, but cruelty to animals is ok?

Shouldn't we respect consciousness and the living force even in less developed creatures?

analog4• 14 years ago

Also, unless you/re eating organic most modern meats could be considered highly processed. Chicken for example used to be a healthy meat, but now most of the chicken you'll find in supermarkets is a high fat food.

rimantas2• 14 years ago

And turns out, that "evil fat" is a myth too.

mseebach• 14 years ago

1: Being processed doesn't in and off itself make it the "exact opposite" of vegetables, lentils and nuts.

2: The ethical justification for humans eating animals has exactly nothing to do with the bible.

For the record, I'm no fan at all of battery chicken, and if that market can be displaced by a cheap non-meat substitute, that's clearly a big win.

DannoHung2• 14 years ago

I think I read about this stuff in an earlier article and I'm still wondering: How does it actually chemically respond to heat, water, oil, etc etc. I mean, I suppose its alright if it just works like chicken in a single context (grilled maybe?), but it's not really a meat replacement unless you can rely on it to behave the same as meat for the purpose of recipes.

Don't take that as criticism of the product, I'm just curious what it's properties are and if you'd need to revamp your recipes if you wanted to use this stuff.

autarch• 14 years ago

I've tried this at home. I made chicken noodle soup with it and it worked really well. I sauteed it in olive oil in a pan first, then added it to the broth later.

It withstood both form of cooking fairly well. It browned in the pan and absorbed some liquid in the broth, but it didn't break down.

However, I don't know if this stuff would be grillable. It's not a big chunk like a real chicken breast. It comes out of the package in small chunks. So it'd work great for some recipes but not for things like chicken piccata.

However, I highly recommend Gardein for recipes like those. It comes in the form just like chicken breasts, and works great for recipes that require a large flat piece.

DannoHung2• 14 years ago

Interesting. I wonder if any molecular gastronomist chefs have figured out what its parameters are.

Anyone wanna try ice cream with frozen chick-a-like chunks?

smackfu3• 14 years ago

Practically, different meat substitutes are good at mimicking different prepared forms. So instead of trying to find one that substitutes for chicken in all its forms, it's much easier to find one that substitutes for stewed meat in all its forms and that can be textured / flavored like chicken, beef, etc.

zavulon• 14 years ago

I've been a vegetarian for 4 years and stopped about a year ago. This sounds great, but it still consists of soy protein, which is not good for men due to estrogen.

http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects

Not too reliable of a source, I know, but there's a bunch of reputable books that I've read back in the day on this subject that said the same thing.

powertower6• 14 years ago

Soy (unfermented) is a terrible idea.

http://www.jacn.org/content/19/2/242.full

"Results: Poor cognitive test performance, enlargement of ventricles and low brain weight were each significantly and independently associated with higher midlife tofu consumption."

"We hypothesize that regular dietary exposure to soy isoflavones over many years during middle life may be associated with the appearance of accelerated brain aging in later life attributable to chronically sub-optimal neural plasticity."

illumin8• 14 years ago

This study seems to be counteracted by millions of Asian people that are living well into their 80s, 90s, and 100s, and eat a diet that has quite a bit of unfermented (and fermented) soy in it.

mistercow6• 14 years ago

>We hypothesize

That's key right there, and it's all you'll ever get from a longitudinal study. You want to make strong claims about the effects of soy like "soy is a terrible idea", you're going to need a controlled trial, not a cohort study.

harshreality4• 14 years ago

I would like to see a study like that controlled for cardiovascular exercise.

I am also concerned about the validity of the theory because of the trend stall in figure 2 at ages 80-89 and the stark reversal in the 90-93 age group, where high-high was at almost low-low levels.

It looks to me like there is a good chance of some unaccounted confounding variable, even beyond the possible effects of exercise (which would not explain the 90-93 group).

nsns4• 14 years ago

There are many medical articles published on peer reviewed journals to counter this myth, it has no basis in reality, and has never been proved. One of those xenophobic-anti-Asian myths from the 60s (similar to the one about MSG).

If you can't find them yourself (the Wikipedia entry is a good start), let me know and I'll provide citations.

powertower6• 14 years ago

Papers and studies sponsored by the soy industry to debunk "myths" published from reputable centers aren't really that great even if someone updated a wikipedia entry to reference one of them.

Personally, I don't touch the stuff.

JPKab3• 14 years ago

I was a vegetarian for 9 years (vegan for 4). My personal, anecdotal and completely unscientific experience: when i switched from soy protein shakes to whey protein shakes, I immediately noticed an improvement in recovery times, not to mention less gas.

Soy is not going to be a complete substitute for meat's nutritional components. Supplemented with lots of liquid aminos, etc? Probably will work well. But the worst part for me about a vegan diet is the difficulty in getting enough fat intake. Too little fat in the diet causes depression.

harshreality4• 14 years ago

Out of curiosity, why'd you stop? Difficulty maintaining healthy diet?

graue• 14 years ago

Do you have a good citation for "Too little fat in the diet causes depression"?

I did a quick search, and turned up a study in PLoS ONE[1] which found trans fatty acids correlate with increased depression, while there is a weak inverse relation to mono- and polyunsaturated fat intake. But a blog reviewing the study[2] points out some limitations. And some research mentioned at [3] apparently concluded there is a link between depression and DHA specifically, but if that's true it wouldn't affect only vegetarians: "Most people in the Western world do not get enough omega-3 fatty acids [such as DHA] in their diet."[4]

Your claim is new to me, and as someone on a low-fat vegan diet, if you have a more conclusive reference I'd be curious to see it.

[1] http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...

[2] http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2011/01/dietary-f...

[3] http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/fats.html

[4] http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/docosahexaenoic-acid-0003...

Shorel• 14 years ago

You can eat coconut and palm oil.

vidarh7• 14 years ago

Irrespective of the concerns about the soy, the wider question is the dietary profile after their processing.

Whey protein can be used to produce biodegradable packaging material. Doesn't mean I'd be automatically willing to replace my whey protein shakes with eating boxes. Not even if they taste nice.

mistercow6• 14 years ago

There is very, very little evidence that soy products are harmful to men because of phytoestrogens. The evidence is basically this:

1. Phytoestrogens found in soy are chemically related to human estrogen

2. Phytoestrogens are readily absorbed by humans when consumed

So it was a reasonable hypothesis that soy might be harmful to men due to phytoestrogens. This hypothesis has been tested, and falsified, by numerous studies.

powertower6• 14 years ago

If you can, please reference the studies were it was falisified and the studies that debunked those falsifications.

So far all the "pro soy" people have posted exactly zero references.

I would just like to check for myself.

drharris• 14 years ago

Well, from the perspective of an omnivore, soy would be a huge improvement over chicken in the estrogen department. The hormones added to make chicken breasts plump up tend to result in fulfilling the prophecy "you are what you eat".

hollerith• 14 years ago

What is your evidence that chicken contains more estrogen-like compounds than soy?

That hormones given to chickens cause chicken breasts to "plump up"?

syedkarim3• 14 years ago

"but the company says it will focus on other non-soy options in the future" http://www.thekitchn.com/twitter-co-founders-betting-big-on-...

rabidsnail2• 14 years ago

"I forgot I was eating something that didn’t come from a living creature": Does fungus not live?

shakesbeard• 14 years ago

Are you trying to imply that consumption of animals and plants/fungi is the same? What's the point of that argument? I mean, come on, I'm vegetarian and I kill mosquitoes ...

krschultz• 14 years ago

Never undersestimate HN's penchant for being pendantic

rabidsnail2• 14 years ago

I think it's the same, but then again I'm not a vegetarian. What I'm really trying to imply is that what people decide they're allowed to eat is based on (mostly arbitrary) social norms. Is there anything morally different between being vegetarian and keeping kosher?

Aside: Anyone who figures out how to make salmon produce pork will have a license to print money (kosher pork!).

nessus42• 14 years ago

Beyond Meat is people! It's people!

yread• 14 years ago

There is also Šmakoun, it's basically just pressed egg white. Here is the inventor describing it

The slice is made of pure egg white, that is albumin, which is a source of the most valuable proteins, necessary in metabolism of organs of living organisms. New modern technology of processing of the hen egg white has been developed in the Czech Republic and patented. This technology turns the white into a porous material further processed in pressurised steam chamber. That produces a compact belt of thin layer of material, composed of microscopic fibres. The belt is then rolled into the shape of cylinder, cut into smaller pieces. These are then pressed into the final form of 100-gram slices. Finished slices are vacuum packaged in plastic bags. As final treatment, each bag is re-sterilised in special equipment.

from http://www.iufost.org/publications/newsline/Newsline55.html

gfunk911• 14 years ago

Maybe it's orthogonal, but this article doesn't discuss at all the nutritional advantages and disadvantages of eating meat. It may taste like meat, but the nutritional profile is nothing like meat.

Scriptor2• 14 years ago

Also, I'm curious what the actual impact of it is. One of the main arguments against meat is that it takes a great deal more energy and work to create 1 pound of plant food than 1 pound of meat. From what I've seen, beyond meat uses some sort of manufacturing process to create it. How much energy does it take to ship all those materials and run that factory?

backprojection3• 14 years ago

Maybe you can view it as an intermediate step, the next being in vitro meat.

jfoutz• 14 years ago

It's about 6 times more energy intensive to order chemicals from new jersey and stir them in a vat than it is to ship live cattle to a slaughter house and butcher them.

Essentially all the cost of feeding and cleaning the cattle is very low, and storage of raw meat after slaughter is very cheap.

Alternatively storing the raw products for fake chicken are incredibly complicated. Furthermore, once the product is produced there is a ton of regulation about its care and handling. What's perhaps most troubling is the risk to workers while producing the product. They require fairly risky industrial tools, and not every manufacturer is really dillagent about providing good guards for people's hands.

syedkarim3• 14 years ago

"One of the main arguments against meat" is not the energy that is required in the production process; it is the way in which the meat is produced.

jmileham• 14 years ago

Not defending the article's glossing over the subject, but the nutrition facts don't look completely different from one randomly selected meaty equivalent. Both have protein, fat, sodium, iron and carbs in similar proportions, plus or minus a brick.

http://beyondmeat.com/products/

http://www.perdue.com/products/details.asp?id=535

vidarh7• 14 years ago

"Protein" and "carbs" and "fat" are useful as high level indications of what you're eating, but e.g. the different compositions of amino acids making up the protein can be drastically different and is known to have substantially different impacts on your diet in various ways. It may or may not be different enough to matter, but it'd need a lot more detail to be able to tell (to the extent we even known enough about how to compose the "right" diet).

backprojection3• 14 years ago

Is there any real evidence to suggest that real meat is bad?

These guys have me pretty convinced there isn't: http://goo.gl/eoDaF

> The problem with observational studies like those run by Willett and his colleagues is that they do none of this [test their hypotheses with real randomized controlled experiments]. That’s why it’s so frustrating. The hard part of science is left out and they skip straight to the endpoint, insisting that their interpretation of the association is the correct one and we should all change our diets accordingly.

> Moreover, this meat-eating association with disease is a tiny association. Tiny. It’s not the 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer that pack-a-day smokers have compared to non-smokers. It’s a 0.2-fold increased risk — 1/100th the size.

namdnay3• 14 years ago

I think the main argument in favour of vegetarianism is neither nutritional nor ethical, but environmental.

harshreality4• 14 years ago

20% increased risk of death or disease over the span of a generation is not worth getting excited about? For someone who's healthy, it may seem insignificant when the baseline risk is low, but for someone who develops a chronic disease, in hindsight a 20% reduction may be very appealing. Minimizing regret is important.

As for scientific validity of those studies, doing proper scientific studies of diet is so difficult it might as well be impossible. What kind of person is going to volunteer to have someone else dictate their diet? What kind of person is going to comply with that diet long-term? If you want to do a blind study, you have to turn all food into unidentifiable mush. You can't have people seeing broccoli florets or pork chops.

There is a proposed theory for why red meat has those effects: Neu5gc consumption causing persistent low-level immune response. Less conclusive dietary studies have noted a difference, but without doing a scientific study giving one group Neu5gc supplements and another placebo, how can we know? Ethics boards might have a problem with that, since Neu5gc can be demonstrated in vitro to trigger an immune response.

Perhaps the most general and plausible theory is that it has nothing to do with inherent unhealthiness of red meat or meat in general. Rather, more meat consumption means less dietary fiber, fewer fruits and vegetables, assuming the same total caloric consumption. Meat consumption probably also correlates to excess calorie intake, which is a risk factor for a variety of chronic diseases.

mistercow6• 14 years ago

The plan to have it sold at the meat counter is cute in terms of confidence, but suicidal if they want to market to vegetarians. Once you stop associating raw meat with food, it starts looking, well, gross and violent, and the smell is off-putting. Most vegetarians I've known, myself included, try to avoid that section of the grocery store entirely.

So while I applaud them trying to compete with meat directly and potentially sniping some carnivorous business, I hope they will also keep a few boxes for me in the hippie section.

vidarh7• 14 years ago

I'd think that the market for "I can't believe it's not dead chicken" for vegetarians would be a tiny trickle compared to if they can sell it as "good conscience, and healthier too" to the section of us meat eaters who also find the meat counter off putting.

mistercow6• 14 years ago

It's a bold move, to be sure. Nobody has ever had a fake meat product they were confident enough in to market to meat eaters, and as an ethical vegetarian, I certainly hope it works.

dhughes• 14 years ago

Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat? I find it odd a person who is a vegans who finds even vegetarianism too relaxed would even want to eat fake meat.

I wonder if the opposite could be done to create a fake carrot made entirely out of meat?

Beyond Meat's website has "without the bad stuff (no saturated or trans fat, no cholesterol, no gluten, no antibiotics, no GMOs...and no meat)". How is gluten "bad stuff" unless you have celiac disease?

recycleme2• 14 years ago

> Why would a person who is vegan want to eat fake meat?

I understand what you're saying, but the short answer is because fake meat is not meat. I don't think it's about not eating what tastes good but it's about not eating meat (or any animal by-products).

smackfu3• 14 years ago

I've had seitan "beef" tips at a good veggie restaurant that would convince almost anyone. Yes, heavily sauced, but the right color and a nice char on them. (And I'm just dating a vegetarian, so I have a good point of reference for real meat.)

wklauss2• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if I'm the only one that feels a little cheated with this article. It reads like PR for the product and Manjoo buries that Stone's Obvious Corp is an investor in BM in the the middle of the text even when he uses Stone's quotes at the beggining.

raldi• 14 years ago

Why aim to make something indistinguishable from real meat? Instead of stopping when you hit "100% as good as meat" you can keep going, and make something 120% as good, and beyond.

ajb• 14 years ago

This could be because we have such low expectations of what actually counts as meat. For example, Jamie Oliver on how chicken nuggets are made (in the US) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs

bluekite20002• 14 years ago

In Asia, there is a delicacy called dog meat. To maximize profit, cooks use pork instead (sometimes from sick or dead pigs) Then they fake it by adding fermented rice, ginger, shrimp paste to make it look feel and taste like real dog meat. For more info (in Vietnamese) http://goo.gl/g07yF

Beyond Meat: Fake Meat So Good It Will Freak You Out

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