
Plant-based “meat” is so tasty that Europe’s meat industry has to bite back - jkuria
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21731869-dutch-vegetarian-butcher-latest-come-under-attack-its-labelling-plant-based-meat
======
KozmoNau7
So this guy has cracked the secret to mouthwatering meaty goodness, where
others have failed?

Excuse me if I seem extremely skeptical. I'm sure his products are tasty, but
they're not fooling anyone.

"Indistinguishable from the real thing!"? Yeah, no. Maybe for overly-processed
charcuterie products that are mostly potato starch anyway. But absolutely not
when it comes to actual cuts of meat.

It's basically all soy, and I'm sorry, but I've tried a ton of soy "meat
substitutes", and they don't even come close.

~~~
itchynosedev
In the Netherlands, the pastry section in Albert Heijn features "sausage
rolls", and I tell you, the meat-substitues ones taste good, and very close to
the ones that contain actual animal protein.

It's not because their product is incredibly meat-like, it's because the meat
product doesn't taste much like meat. If there's not much difference, why not
opt for a more environmentally friendly option?

The veggie butcher's chicken nuggets, hot dog sausages and mince taste
delicious. It's hard to tell the difference between actual meat based chilli
beans and the ones based on meat substitute mince.

I can't vouch for other meat alternative products. Most of them taste like
crap. Heavily spiced carbs that only slightly resemble the product they try to
imitate. The veggie butcher's produce is nutritionally (at least macros) very
close to meat. Around 20% of protein. Carb heavy meat substitutes is my pet
peeve and if it's not high in protein, it's not entering my body.

~~~
andreasklinger
Agree

Most people tend to overestimate the quality of the majority of meat consumed
- it's not filet steak

It's ground beef, sausages, pressed shredded chicken, thin strips, etc, etc

~~~
KozmoNau7
I'm sure it's perfectly adequate for processed meat, where you're not really
tasting the meat itself as much as the salt, sugar and other spices added to
it.

If they can make a schawarma meat substitute that tastes the same as actual
schawarma meat and has similar mouthfeel, I'm perfectly OK with that.

------
Turing_Machine
If it were really better, they wouldn't have to give it a deceptive name to
get people to eat it.

~~~
blunte
"better" is a vague word and depends on your goals. Is a 3-wheeled car still a
car? It does pretty much the same thing. Will people be confused as to whether
it's a "real car" like the 4-wheel cars? No.

Likewise, nobody is being fooled by this vegetarian meat. And seriously, given
that it is more expensive than meat, the "average" person isn't going to
accidentally buy vegetarian meat without realizing it.

This is the usual protectionism a desperate industry that is already headed
for (self) destruction. Whether it's a bird flu that causes the culling of
millions of chickens (happens here in NL every few years), or the problem of
having nowhere to put the enormous amounts of manure from the dairy and cow
industry, or the problem of antibiotic restrictions, or so on and so on, the
change is inevitable.

True vegetarians don't really care too much about these products. They're
quite expensive, and many of us have a particular love of good vegetables and
cooking techniques. The meat is not really missed. But for new vegetarians or
people who have been told by their doctors to shift their diets to less meat,
these products are nice to have around.

~~~
KozmoNau7
"True vegetarians don't really care too much about these products. They're
quite expensive, and many of us have a particular love of good vegetables and
cooking techniques. The meat is not really missed."

Just because you've chosen to willfully deny yourself the flavor and texture
of meaty goodness, that doesn't mean that other people don't still crave it,
whether animal- or vegetable-sourced.

And no, I do cook a lot of veggie dishes (my girlfriend is a strong proponent
of traditional German veggie dishes) and every single one that has been touted
as "so meaty and satisfying" has definitely been found lacking in that area.

------
KozmoNau7
I don't want my previous comment to seem like I'm 100% against this, but there
are some significant issues. The biggest one is availability, closely followed
by price. I live in Denmark, not the Netherlands, so can I even buy these
products? I've tried Quorn and a number of other meat substitute products
available here, and I'm sorry, but they're simply bland or even downright
repulsive.

Secondly, what is the price difference when compared to actual meat? And I
don't mean the absolute cheapest possible meat option, I want to compare with
good quality organic meat, something where at least some significant steps
have been taken to improve conditions for the animals.

~~~
maaark
I've heard Quorn has gotten better since I last tried it a decade or two
ago...

~~~
KozmoNau7
It's acceptable in something like a lasagna, but the "chicken" fillets leave a
lot to be desired.

------
fulafel
There's a big increase in other vegetarian alternatives too in store
selections. Even in microwave meals. Even MacDonalds.

------
thisisit
While a case can be made for whether the products taste equivalent to real
meat, the controversy is on whether a non-meat substitute can actually use a
meat name. I personally think if they are famous for what they do, then there
is no deception. In which case the Dutch politicians are acting foolish.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
This has happened before. When the herbal crowd started putting 'tea' in the
name, but there was no actual tea in the product, there was some politicking.
But the relevant committee decided that herbals were helping people buy more
hot-water-based products across the board, so they relented.

------
mc32
Of late it's been said that one of the most detrimental things to ingest, from
a healthy eating perspective, is highly processed foods, things like most
flour, canned goods, etc.

Would this be considered a "highly processed" industrial food? If so, would
people consider it a healthy alternative?

------
jitix
I’ve recently switched to a mostly-vegetarian diet and have been enjoying
Beyond Meat and Gardein products. The only thing that worries me is the
“closed source” nature of such products. Tasty plant based protein is a tough
problem to solve and people are doing that these days with a lot of hard work
and investment but i think for something as basic as food the process of
making them should be more open.

I know that the companies need to make money and the investors need to get
their returns but maybe we should have more oversight/openness in how these
products are made.

------
hawski
I preferred to eat meat every day since I remember. I tried once lately for a
couple of days to not eat meat. Mainly eating tofu as a substitute with some
lentil.

On third day of such a diet I was feeling very bad. I was feeling weak,
nauseous and a bit shaky. I tried to eat sugar in form of candy bars. It
passed after I have eaten a few sandwiches with lots of meat.

Was it wrong what I did? Is my body programmed to digest meat and can't easily
switch to other sources of protein? When I'm not eating meat I feel weaker.

~~~
Zlatty
That's rather strange. It really depends on what your original diet consisted
of. You might have done a complete 180 without giving your body time to
adjust. This is not the typical experience of cutting meat out of your diet as
you should have gotten more energy and less fatigue after a meal.

------
nowherecat
Great. So someone figured out how to make a product that looks like and tastes
like meat, and it likely is hydrolized soy protein with a nice mixture of
artificial flavors and colors. Yeah, why not harm humans instead of animals.

I think a better approach to the problems that come with our “out of control
meat consumption” is to drastically reduce meat consumption and eat it
consciously. Much better than getting lost in the artificial flavors of
frankenfoods .. No one really needs to eat meat more than once or twice a
week.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Have you got any sources to back up your claims of deleterious effects on
human health? Any at all? I will remind you that the claims of phytoestrogen
interfering with human reproductive ability have not been proven, despite
rigerous study.

~~~
nowherecat
No, nothing other than my personal experience (and of my partner) while eating
a vegetarian and later exclusively vegan diet for almost 2 years. We ate a lot
of fake foods, highly processed "health foods", most of them soy based and
looking back at that time I can't say that we felt very good and healthy.

I believe we, as humans, do best with foods, which ingredients we can
pronounce and source ourselves and put together without a lab and complicated
checmical processes.

If you are ok with consuming foods of questionable "nature" because nobody
could yet prove to you that they can be bad for human health, go for it. But I
am going with my guts here, because that works for me.

~~~
KozmoNau7
That is probably more a case of bad nutritional choices, and not the fault of
the soy products themselves. Most highly processed "health foods" are anything
but. They're usually loaded with sugar.

Instead of trying to replicate an omnivorous diet by substituting all the meat
you ate with substitutes, you should try branching out into an actual
primarily vegetarian diet instead. Instead of substitute beef in your
hamburger, try a portobello mushroom instead.

You sound like one of those paranoiacs who rail on about "chemicals in food!",
without actually knowing what you're talking about.

~~~
nowherecat
I can assure you that the highly processed health foods I ate back then, were
not loaded with sugar, because I consciously tried to eat as little sugar as
necessary.

You are quick to judge, calling me a "paranoiac" that doesn not know what he's
talking about, based on a handful of sentences I wrote. I studied nutrition
and I have experienced my body on many different diets. What I can say for
myself, is that there is one important factor, that matters way more than the
food taken in.

> Instead of trying to replicate an omnivorous diet by substituting all the
> meat you ate with substitutes, you should try branching out into an actual
> primarily vegetarian diet instead. Instead of substitute beef in your
> hamburger, try a portobello mushroom instead.

Ehm. So you are writing this as a response to me saying, that replicating an
omnivorous diet with some secret mixture which resembles real meat so closely
that it is difficult to distinguish from it, might be a bad idea? Maybe should
have told me 10 years ago when it mattered and not after I just said the same
thing.

------
princeb
ground meat needs to fight back.

I don't think "meat" is at the level that can replicate ribs, roasts, bone-in
steaks, barbecue brisket and burnt ends yet.

when they do, then real meat better start fighting hard.

------
Paraesthetic
The amount of farming land destroyed for plants is far worse than grazing land
however.

~~~
mickduprez
care to back that up with some facts? Off the top of my memory a beef cow
requires at least 2 acres of land and an average of about 60 litres of water a
day. Granted plants require more water per acre but 2 acres grows a lot more
food per acre than any cow.

looking at your post in another way, the reason more land is used for plants
is because of feed for the cattle such as soy and corn, not for human
consumption.

~~~
King-Aaron
Yeah, even an arbitrary ten-second glance at google will let you know that
it's substantially worse to have grazing land for cattle than it is to have
cropping land.

Beef, on average, requires 16726m^3 per ton of product, whereas wheat requires
1437m^3/ton

[http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report12.pdf](http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report12.pdf)

Not to mention that to successfully raise cattle year-round, you need to
rotate feed crops for them as well. So you require not only land and resources
for the cattle themselves, but also for their feed.

~~~
sidlls
Not to disagree, but raw tonnage of food product is only one measure of food
value. Nutritional composition and density is at least as important if not
more so.

Meat and wheat serve different nutritional roles.

~~~
King-Aaron
Very true.

