
Beyond Meat: Scaling ethical consumerism - latc
https://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/beyond-meat-scaling-ethical-consumerism/
======
mc32
I would hesitate to call food consumption “consumerism” —save perhaps gluttony
and fancy restaurants.

Now, perhaps they mean that they productize something which is unachievable by
most people at home (few would attempt to make homemade beyondmeat protein for
food) and so they are facilitating the consumption of something that otherwise
would not get consumed...

Ethical excess clothes, unneeded cosmetics, frivolous throwaway home items,
etc., yes sure, I’m sure there are ethical alternatives just as there are
“organic” poisons too.

A possible key alternative source of proteins I don’t think merits the
label/adjective “consumerist”

~~~
dvtrn
Hey HN: I’d like to read a compelling counter to the above versus seeing it
turn grey without any meaningful discussion via drive by downvoting.

That said, mc32, with regards to food and consumption as you’ve put it, and in
this specific context-I wonder if “post-consumerism” is a turn of phrase that
you would consider apt? Rather than being against the machinations of excess
known to be associated with industrial meat production, it seems to be moved
beyond, and dispassionate towards “fixing” these machinations in favor of
entirely different ethical choices.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

~~~
mc32
Post-consumer(ist) would reframe it such that we evaluate it as something
existing after transcending consumerism. We may get there, some day.

I’m against calling something that’s basic to human sustenance “consumerist”.
We might disagree with peoples choices of food or the source of those foods or
whether it’s a small farmer or BigAg.

I remain opposed to calling basic foods (contrasted with luxury foods) part of
consumerism. Meats and such have been part of human nutrition for quite some
time. Unlike clothing (and other things) you don’t typically buy unnecessary
excess for the sake of it or to fulfill some non essential need that’s already
been met.

As I admit we can reproach people for unwise choices in food but I can’t
consider it consumerism (I would allow some narrow exceptions).

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CivBase
I am very happy that plant-based meat substitutes have come so far and are
able to provide competition to the meat industry. Many parts of the meat
industry have cited high demand as justification for unethical practices and
this new competition should help do away with that.

However, I think the "meat is bad" sentiment bandied about by this article and
Beyond Meat is painfully reductive. It's great for their marketing... for now,
at least... but it is also a very divisive statement that will probably end up
creating as much opposition as support.

Can't we just let _both_ options exist? Margarine doesn't need a "butter is
bad" campaign to stay relevant.

~~~
theabsurdman
If we can eat foods that don't cause the death and suffering of other
creatures, then that is objectively better than eating foods that DO cause the
death and suffering of others. Death and suffering are bad, although meat
eaters will tie themselves in knots to try and pretend it isn't.

~~~
CivBase
The meat industry does not _inherently_ cause suffering, but the death part is
certainly unavoidable. It's not a question of whether or not death is "bad".
It is a question of whether or not death is "worth it".

In my experience, most people put a relatively high value on life (especially
human), but not an infinite one. Most societies agree that human life must be
highly valued; however, I think you will find that many people do not value
the lives of livestock so highly. For many, even human life can be traded for
something of great enough value. Ultimately, the value of a life is a matter
of opinion.

I'm not trying to challenge _your_ opinion here. I just want to remind you
that not everyone shares that opinion, and you'll have to convince them before
you can use it as justification for declaring "meat is bad".

~~~
theabsurdman
you have proven my point

~~~
CivBase
Did I say anything in particular that you disagree with?

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WhompingWindows
Forget ethics, think of taste vs value vs health: can they make meatless
burgers taste as good as regular burgers, while being cheaper or healthier? Or
can they taste BETTER than regular burgers, while being equally expensive or
equally unhealthy?

~~~
Balgair
Long term (10+ years?), I think these plant-based meats are the future. These
early/middle stages are important, just like any product, and they'll find
their fit in a crowded grocery store.

They are likely to be much healthier than meat (barring some real fun CRISPR
gymnastics).

They can taste however you'd want them to taste. Think, _Captain America 5_
burgers, exclusively at Burger King. It'll taste like the best beefiest burger
more so than real beef can. Sauces can help, but the underlying burger still
has to hold up.

They're likely to be much cheaper as patents expire and 'store brand' burgers
get out there. The competition will drive the price to near the cost of the
ingredients, which I think are much cheaper than feeding the animal the
ingredients for a few years and then eating the animal.

They're more resilient to shocks in the supply chain compared to animals (mad
cow, hurricanes, climate change, etc).

They have a much broader market base than animals due to ethical and religious
restrictions.

Barring some medical report that says they give you super-cancer, I think the
product is just better suited to the marketplace.

------
Mengkudulangsat
Beyond Meat just arrived in our market a few months ago and while the product
is fine, its price is absurdly expensive.

To produce it's purported benefits, Beyond Meat needs to adopt the Coca-Cola /
Mcdonalds approach - license the tech / brand to local franchisees for local
expansion and utilize the local agri sector for raw materials.

~~~
chickenpotpie
Or if we started paying the actual price for real beef beyond beef would be
the cheaper option. Removed the subsidies and include a carbon and water tax
on food.

~~~
siculars
>include a carbon and water tax on food.

Um ok. People who subscribe to this theory can calculate the proper offset and
donate to their cause of choice or, you know, moderate their food consumption
to adequately reflect their opinions on food production.

~~~
cochne
The point is that these taxes help offset costs that you pay for other people,
not yourself. If there was a car factory spewing toxic waste into the local
water supply, would you say to your neighbors just don't buy the car if you
don't like it?

~~~
deathgrips
Clearly the solution is to make it more expensive because it's ok to buy from
that factory if you're rich :)

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rch
I've enjoyed the run up in stock price, but IIRC their products still aren't
'organic' or otherwise designated as being specifically environmentally
conscious (e.g. 'regenerative'). Isn't the value prop mostly about offering
vegetarians, whatever their personal motivations might be, something new on
the menu?

~~~
dashundchen
I am a vegetarian who eats almost entire vegan. I know a lot of other veg/an
and plant based diet people.

My experience for veg/ans matches the article. Substitutes like Beyond Meat
and Impossible Burger are almost always a novelty or treat - something you
would order out at an omni restaurant, or maybe bring to a cookout where meat
eaters were also grilling. It's nice to have as an option but we're used to
building our meals around staples like tofu, beans, tempeh, seitan etc.

I hear way more about these newer processed products from meat eaters who
think this is what we would eat regularly, or are excited to try them out
themselves. After the recent meat shortages and the million pandemic articles
about "how to cook beans" I am convinced the actual target market is meat
eaters who are looking to build meals around something as close to meat as
possible, rather than people who are plant based.

~~~
Animats
Impossible Burger is not aimed at vegans. It is aimed at carnivores. It's not
particularly "organic" or healthy. It just tastes like a Burger King Whopper.
It's selling fine, and it has to be very profitable, given the ingredients and
the reasonably simple manufacturing process.

~~~
tiziniano
Now now, that is a very charitable comment about its taste. As usual in food,
more processing -> cheaper and lower quality. Sure, it might have similar
macronutrients but real health is in getting enough micros.

~~~
ip26
Are you suggesting a Burger King Whopper holds the key to real health?

~~~
Animats
Burger King sells a meat-based Whopper burger and an Impossible Burger based
Whopper burger. So you can easily make a direct comparison at any Burger King
outlet.

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Munky-Necan
I'm hoping that lab grown meat takes off. I believe that this is on par with
expanding solar power and electric cars in terms of combating global warming.

~~~
Mirioron
I hope so too. This seems like one of the most important things to tackle, but
how safe is it? What's the chance that 50 years down the line we figure out
that this has some damaging effect on the human body?

~~~
asdff
It would have a similar composition as ground beef. I guess refrain from
excess like any red meat.

------
rglover
Does anybody know of a good comparison of the nutrition profile of Beyond Meat
vs. natural beef?

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frsandstone
Archive.org cache:
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Google cache:
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Looks like a classic HN hug took it down.

~~~
latc
Thanks... Haha I've increased capacity and it should be back up now

------
jojobas
The implication is that eating meat is not ethical, something most don't agree
with.

~~~
ramraj07
Most don't agree with because for many it's part of their identity, it's what
they grew up eating every day with their parents. To find their way of life
being classified as unethical is jarring to say the least, so they put up a
barrier to doing so.

I do not find fault in that attitude either, to be human is to have emotion,
and to feel a sense of belonging. For someone who grew up on barbecue that's
hard to reconcile.

However, a rigorous impartial analysis always categories eating meat as not
ideal on both moral and ethical grounds. It probably has higher consensus
among philosophers than climate change does with climate scientists. The irony
is that I doubt all philosophers are vegetarian/vegan, so they themselves are
probably the biggest hypocrites (or they have built up some system of ethics
where being unethical on this is okay).

I come from a country where even if you're not vegetarian, your dose of meat
is a few pieces of chicken once a week. It was very straightforward for me to
choose vegetarianism and even then I struggled with it. I have nothing but
respect for someone from rural Texas who chooses to be vegetarian though; that
is just infinitely harder.

~~~
dilap
Here's a question: Is it immoral for lions to eat zebras?

Here's another question: Imagine the entire Earth is actually a factory farm
for aliens. Every time someone dies, their body is actually secretly used for
alien food. Would you want Earth to cease to exist?

Or perhaps a closer analogy, imagine super-powerful aliens take over Earth and
terraform Mars and Venus, which they use as human farms. Maybe 30 billion
humans live on Earth, Mars, and Venus, leading full lives with everything
provided to them that a human wants, but killed at 18 years of age.

Alien human-rights activists wish to stop the humans from breeding, and let
the population fall to several thousand. They will devote the planets to
instead growing Alien Corn.

Do you want this to happen?

~~~
buzzy_hacker
> Here's a question: Is it immoral for lions to eat zebras?

Lions must eat meat to survive. We can choose not to eat meat and still
survive. That's a morally relevant distinction. If you are arguing that
because meat-eating is natural then it must be moral, I would direct you to
the appeal to nature fallacy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature)

> Here's another question: Imagine the entire Earth is actually a factory farm
> for aliens. Every time someone dies, their body is actually secretly used
> for alien food. Would you want Earth to cease to exist?

No, but I fail to see how this runs counter to the moral claim that humans
eating meat is bad. The correct analogy to your hypothetical would be to
imagine that all animals live their full lives and are only consumed upon
their death. It would not be morally wrong to eat them then.

> Or perhaps a closer analogy, imagine super-powerful aliens take over Earth
> and terraform Mars and Venus, which they use as human farms. Maybe 30
> billion humans live on Earth, Mars, and Venus, leading full lives with
> everything provided to them that a human wants, but killed at 18 years of
> age. Alien human-rights activists wish to stop the humans from breeding, and
> let the population fall to several thousand. They will devote the planets to
> instead growing Alien Corn.

This analogy is not close at all. Animals do not lead full lives with
everything provided to them that they could want. The vast majority of farmed
animals live horrific lives that are not worth living and are killed very
young. Chickens, for example, are artificially grown to reach a large size
very quickly and then slaughtered shortly after.

The correct analogy to this hypothetical would be a so-called "humane" or
"ethical" farm where the animals are free to live in a close-to-natural
environment before being slaughtered. I would agree that that is much better
than factory farms, and perhaps even morally acceptable if the animals' lives
are worth living and they would not have existed otherwise. But, this is not
how most farmed animals live. Not even close.

~~~
jojobas
Still, would it be morally preferable to genetically engineer lions to eat
grass and replace normal lions with herbivore ones?

