The meatless Impossible Burger bleeds and sears, but wasn’t a crowd pleaser
34 replies, posted
[url]https://arstechnica.com/?p=1265181[/url]
i'm confused who these are aimed at
vegetarians/vegans who want to eat beef burgers (which sounds like an oxymoron)
or beef eaters who don't want to eat beef
I've tried it and it was pretty damn good.
It's definitely a move in the right direction for the future of food and it's a great environmentally friendly alternative to a beef burger.
[QUOTE=PyroCF;53159207]I've tried it and it was pretty damn good.
It's definitely a move in the right direction for the future of food and it's a great [B]environmentally friendly alternative[/B] to a beef burger.[/QUOTE]
What? I don't understand this.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;53159210]What? I don't understand this.[/QUOTE]
You do understand the massive environmental impact meat, especially beef, has right? It's a massive footprint and it's why a lot more people are going veggie.
I never knew that cultivating Cows for Beef had such an impact on the environment.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;53159219]I never knew that cultivating Cows for Beef had such an impact on the environment.[/QUOTE]
Cows have a markedly higher carbon footprint than basically any other meat.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;53159219]I never knew that cultivating Cows for Beef had such an impact on the environment.[/QUOTE]
They do and it's unsustainable. Cows themselves produce a shit ton) hue) of methane, they consume a lot of food that could feed something silly like 1+ billion people could eat, and other things.
This is a decent short video I'd recommend watching if you have the time:
[video]https://youtu.be/nUnJQWO4YJY[/video]
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;53159219]I never knew that cultivating Cows for Beef had such an impact on the environment.[/QUOTE]
The environmental impact of everyone ditching meat would arguably be worse though, the massive expansion of the agricultural industry you would need would basically mean we would have to mow down entire forests just to make space for the fields, you need more vegetables, wheat/corn and beans to meet the same protein intake that you get from meat in smaller portions. Vegetarians and vegans following these lifestyles from environmental motives are following these for the wrong reasons.
Then there are very limited minority of people who are allergic to everything but meat and need all their nutrient intake from only meat, I am not sure what those "environmentalist" vegetarians are going to do about that.
Edit: Unfinished sentence, still stand my point no matter how much misinformed clickbait and propaganda you have bought into.
Whenever people talk about the carbon print of cattle farming it makes me think of that horrifying Chicken Matrix idea that was proposed a few years back to just have vats of (literally) brainless chickens that could be harvested.
yeah i have no real interest in saving the animals or whatever but the environmental impact that beef has on our atmosphere is a very real threat and it's completely unsustainable
as much as i love steak and burgers more than anything else on this earth, beef production must be significantly reduced or better yet stopped completely if we want to not literally destroy our planet.
[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;53159232]The environmental impact of everyone ditching meat would arguably be worse though, the massive expansion of the agricultural industry you would need would basically mean we would have to mow down entire forests just to make space for the fields, you need more vegetables, wheat/corn and beans to meet the same protein intake that you get from meat in smaller portions. Vegetarians and vegans following these lifestyles from environmental motives.
Then there are very limited minority of people who are allergic to everything but meat and need all their nutrient intake from only meat, I am not sure what those "environmentalist" vegetarians are going to do about that.[/QUOTE]
Eh, we already grow quite a lot of stuff that we just feed to animals which we then eat. Also the protein thing is a non issue since you have things like quorn and even foods like in the OP which is packed full of the stuff, even with B12 which is what some vegans struggle to get normally.
The big big target imo is to get vat grown meat down to a T and more development of foods like the impossible burger.
When I went to London with some friends recently, I went to a place in Hackney called "The Temple of Seitan" that served Chicken-less fried chicken. Its just seitan with a bunch of herbs and spices but it tasted fucking amazing.
My friends are vegan/vegetarian, so I ate nothing but vegie stuff with them and I've gotta say I had some of the tastiest food I've had in my life with them.
[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;53159232]The environmental impact of everyone ditching meat would arguably be worse though, the massive expansion of the agricultural industry you would need would basically mean we would have to mow down entire forests just to make space for the fields, you need more vegetables, wheat/corn and beans to meet the same protein intake that you get from meat in smaller portions. Vegetarians and vegans following these lifestyles from environmental motives.[/QUOTE]
Source on this? It sounds sketchy because at every level of the food chain you lose about 90% of the food you put into it (because of inefficiencies in metabolism). It requires about 10 calories of cow food to produce 1 calorie of cow mass and 10 calories of cow mass to produce 1 calorie of human mass. So it takes of 100 calories of crops to get 1 calorie of food for humans if you eat meat, whereas it would only take 10 calories of crops to get one calorie if you eat plants. It's hard to imagine this 90% reduction in cropland being offset by whatever space inefficiencies you get cultivating beans.
[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;53159232]The environmental impact of everyone ditching meat would arguably be worse though, the massive expansion of the agricultural industry you would need would basically mean we would have to mow down entire forests just to make space for the fields, you need more vegetables, wheat/corn and beans to meet the same protein intake that you get from meat in smaller portions. [/QUOTE]
Ensuring sufficient protein intake is a problem, of course, but the bigger-picture problem with consumption of meat is that it's basically a waste of energy/nutrition. To produce one pound of beef you need around 6 pounds of animal feed. This "feed conversion ratio" vary depending on animal type and other conditions, but it essentially means we're losing food when attempting to turn it into another kind of food. If we ditched meat and consumed the grain used to fatten cattle directly instead, there'd be more food to go around.
[QUOTE=GentlemanLexi;53159202]vegans who want to eat beef burgers (which sounds like an oxymoron)[/QUOTE]
Yeah and based on what I've seen out eating, some of these don't even have 'oxy' in front of their suffix.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;53159219]I never knew that cultivating Cows for Beef had such an impact on the environment.[/QUOTE]
Look into cow farts and methane
[QUOTE=sh4d0w;53159286]Yeah and based on what I've seen out eating, some of these don't even have 'oxy' in front of their suffix.[/QUOTE]
I see more people go out of their way to make fun of vegans than those who complain about others not being vegans, or any of that "BTW IM A VEGAN" meme.
And by that I mean that I've never seen it despite hanging out in social circles with vegans, vegetarians, or others looking to minimize their meat consumption.
We just groan and roll our eyes at this edgy shit.
[editline]you've caught me and my fake editline to prevent post-addition ninja affliction[/editline]
As to the topic, I've always found these close-imitator products to really miss the point. Unless they start growing real commercial meat in labs, the imitations will just be silly; there are plenty of actually good things to put in a burger besides meat or pretend-meat.
The exception are those Quorn "chicken" patties. I can't tell the difference and it's a nice burger filler, but then again I'm talking about the super-processed fast-food kind of chicken patty, which was never "fine dining".
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;53159330]I wish I had the time/energy/money to eat more environmentally friendly.
Cooking a burger is so much less prep time, less money, and easier than making a vegan dish.[/QUOTE]
A ton of supermarkets (at least in the UK) are rapidly expanding their veggie and vegan ranges and there's always good brands like Linda McCartney that make it pretty easy.
Even easier thing to do is swap out the beef burger for a chicken burger.
[QUOTE=PyroCF;53159228]They do and it's unsustainable. Cows themselves produce a shit ton) hue) of methane, they consume a lot of food that could feed something silly like 1+ billion people could eat, and other things.
This is a decent short video I'd recommend watching if you have the time:
[video]https://youtu.be/nUnJQWO4YJY[/video][/QUOTE]
Some of this is somewhat misleading, intentionally or unintentionally. "It takes a billion tons of grain to feed all that livestock; We could feed 3.5 billion people with that grain."
Except not really. Not all that grain is fit for human consumption, and is only fit for animal consumption. A lot of this land for growing those grains is only suitable for growing this sub-par grain, and a lot of the livestock lands aren't suitable for plant farming at all. So these are huge swaths of land that are only really suitable for producing meat, we can't simply just take all that cattle feed and have people eat it instead.
To take advantage of our resources effectively to continue producing food, we can't really stop animal farming (though maybe cutting back on animal farming or inventing new technologies to mitigate their impact is still something worth looking at.)
[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;53159377]Some of this is somewhat misleading, intentionally or unintentionally. "It takes a billion tons of grain to feed all that livestock; We could feed 3.5 billion people with that grain."
Except not really. Not all that grain is fit for human consumption, and is only fit for animal consumption. A lot of this land for growing those grains is only suitable for growing this sub-par grain, and a lot of the livestock lands aren't suitable for plant farming at all. So these are huge swaths of land that are only really suitable for producing meat, we can't simply just take all that cattle feed and have people eat it instead.
To take advantage of our resources effectively to continue producing food, we can't really stop animal farming (though maybe cutting back on animal farming or inventing new technologies to mitigate their impact is still something worth looking at.)[/QUOTE]
I think you're going to need sources on that. What grains are suitable for animal consumption but not humans? What land can grow animal feed but not human feed? And the land where you can only breed cattle, well, you need arable land to feed them anyway, so it may very well be preferable to leave it bare and keep arable land for human consumption.
[QUOTE=GentlemanLexi;53159202]i'm confused who these are aimed at
vegetarians/vegans who want to eat beef burgers (which sounds like an oxymoron)
or beef eaters who don't want to eat beef[/QUOTE]
It's not hard to see the market in this. Cows taste good. But you could have a plethora of reasons for not eating beef, being an immune response, wish to reduce animal cruelty, wanting more efficient energy etc etc
So if you could get the taste and texture of cow without the problems of raising and eating meat, a lot of people would be all over that.
[QUOTE=_Axel;53159403]I think you're going to need sources on that. What grains are suitable for animal consumption but not humans? What land can grow animal feed but not human feed? And the land where you can only breed cattle, well, you need arable land to feed them anyway, so it may very well be preferable to leave it bare and keep arable land for human consumption.[/QUOTE]
I don't have them right now so take that with a grain of salt, pun not intended.
[QUOTE=NeverGoWest;53159232]Then there are very limited minority of people who are allergic to everything but meat and need all their nutrient intake from only meat, I am not sure what those "environmentalist" vegetarians are going to do about that.[/QUOTE]
i don't think any environment vegetarian would deprive people who needed to eat meat, of meat
sort of like how people saying we shouldn't drive cars as often aren't about the rip the steering wheels out of the hands of the disabled
at least, i wouldn't, so i think that's a bit of a straw man
If you can replace all meat with something that emulates it just as well and is both tasty and healthy
I'm not going to complain at all, more power to that honestly
In fact I encourage it because creating meat would be more effective than growing slaughter
i'd rather eat bugs than only vegetable proteins.
If someone with completely fucked taste buds like Jeremy Clarkson can tell the difference, it's because it doesn't taste like beef burger. It tastes pretty good, but it doesn't taste like a hamburger.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;53159826]i'd rather eat bugs than only vegetable proteins.[/QUOTE]
Bugs could go a long way towards solving hunger tbh, if it wasn't for the ick factor.
Missed the chance at making the Impossi-burger
[QUOTE=27X;53159947]If someone with completely fucked taste buds like Jeremy Clarkson can tell the difference, it because it doesn't taste like beef burger. It tastes pretty good, but it doesn't taste like a hamburger.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't trust any of these taste tests people have done since they all seem to be intentionally, knowingly getting an impossible burger, and that knowledge will influence them.
Someone should go do a blind or preferably even double blind taste test comparing the impossible to a regular beef burger prepared the same way.
[editline]26th February 2018[/editline]
Nevermind, the Clarkson video did have him try both the impossible and a regular beef burger without knowing which was which, that's pretty definitive. If only the rest of the press about this was as good.
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