
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Are the Trans Fat Purveyors of Our Generation - rm2889
https://twitter.com/jwmares/status/1133449746792767488
======
Lazare
A lot of fear mongering there. His argument boils down to:

1\. Beyond burger has canola oil in it, and canola oil is responsible for
diabetes, dementia, depression, anxiety, aggression, and kills kittens. Okay,
I made the last one up, but he did claim the other ones. And they're all
nonsense, except for the bit where he mentions canola oil has an unhealthy
ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, which it does, but he conveniently forgets to
mention that it's one of the healthiest vegetable oils by that metric. (He
incorrectly slams "seed oils" as being especially bad, but most non-seed oils
at worse, and one of the only oils which is better - flax seed oil - is also a
"seed oil".)

2\. Impossible Burger uses engineered bacteria to produce soy leghemoglobin,
and even though that's perfectly healthy, engineered bacteria are kinda weird,
and uh, something something Nassim Teleb, don't put "foreign ingredients" in
your body. Or in other words, it's probably _healthy_ , but it's icky and
violated his sense of taboo.

Meh.

~~~
eyko
On the point about canola oil, it's not so much that it's a good fat (it is),
but that it becomes a trans fat when heated (all vegetable oil). Since this is
not a salad with a drizzle of canola oil, but a burger, that is something you
should care about.

~~~
Lazare
Canola oil contains low amounts of trans fat, comparable to all other oils,
and while heating it does increase the amount, it's _slow_. Using canola oil
in a deep fryer for 7 hours per day for 7 days resulted in boosting the trans
fats from 2.4% to 3.3% by weight; the canola oil in the beyond burger will be
at the low end of the range. Meanwhile, actual beef fat is around 5% trans
fat, meaning that _if_ trans fats are all you care about, the beef burger
probably has more trans fats than a beyond burger.

(Whether beef tallow is _actually_ better or worse than canola oil is complex,
and some suggest trans fats in beef fat are healthier in canola, etc., but OPs
naive "don't swap out a beef burger for a beyond burger because traaaaaans"
seems a bit simplistic. Canola oil doesn't have much, and it's comparable to
other sources of oil, including animal fats.)

~~~
orwin
I thought all vegetable oils were bad when heated (and also provide few
nutrients, unlike animal-based grease/fat).

~~~
Lazare
If you heat them past the _smoke point_ , yes, they lose a ton of nutrients
and become quite unhealthy. In normal use, no, not really. The impact of
heating them is quite small. And comparing them to animal fats...they're
clearly slightly better in some ways, but slightly worse in others. How you
balance those factors...I don't think we remotely have good data on yet.

For now I'd just try and eat in moderation and look askance at people making
sweeping assertions about any food being all good or all bad.

(On the other hand, we have much better data about the _environmental_ impact
of vegetable versus anaimal calories.)

------
ablation
Regardless of veracity of OP's claims on Twitter, it's worth noting he sells
"bone broth" and other animal-derived health and fitness products. There's
always a dog in the fight somewhere.

~~~
anonymous5133
Makes a lot of sense now. Read the comments in that twitter thread. There are
people there who think a beef patty isn't considered a "processed food". Wow,
I just don't know what to say. Also you can kinda tell people commenting kinda
have an agenda when they're using terms like "fake meat".

~~~
dagw
_There are people there who think a beef patty isn 't considered a "processed
food"_

Where do you draw the line with processed? A beef patty is in essence just a
steak, ground up, and mushed together. Now there are no doubt some more
unsavory purveyors of beef patties that do more than that, but in itself I
find it hard to argue that a beef patty (which I can trivially make myself in
my own kitchen using only a chefs knife) counts as processed.

edit: that being said, I don't find his overall argument persuasive at all and
it's not like he's a neutral scientist.

~~~
DanBC
> A beef patty is in essence just a steak, ground up, and mushed together.

Some beef patties are ground steak.

Others use mechanically recovered meat, where the bones left after butchering
are sprayed with high pressure water to blast off any remaining scraps of
meat.

One country had significant health scare where MRM was thought to be the
highest risk product:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1482140.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1482140.stm)

~~~
dagw
Can you still buy MRM beef patties in the US? From what I can find the process
has been banned since 2004

~~~
DanBC
The US still allows "pink slime", which is a different form of MRM.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime#Current_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime#Current_use)

------
JamesBarney
I don't think anyone is arguing that these burgers are healthier than eating
salmon and broccoli. Just healthier and more environmentally friendly than
ground beef.

His complaint is > 8/ My larger concern on both of these burgers is that - at
minimum - they are HIGHLY processed products with lots of stuff that doesn't
lead to healthier humans: vegetable oils, soy, protein isolates, additives,
all non-organic. They are not real foods. (cough, Soylent)

Mainstream science doesn't think vegetable oil is worse for you than burger
fat.

It doesn't think soy is bad for you

It doesn't think orgamic is healthy for you.

He doesn't specify which additives are bad for you and I'm too lazy to go
through all the additives.

And I have no idea what science thinks about protein isolate but I doubt it's
any worse for you than other forms of protein.

He just stringing together a bunch of friends truisms and pretending it's a
rock solid case.

P.s. I don't understand why they're getting so much hate for a fairly
innocuous product that is trying to do some good.

~~~
cannonedhamster
He hates on it because it impacts the profits of the products he sells. That's
it. Never trust someone who is motivated by profit to believe a particular
narrative.

~~~
undersuit
Aren't the producers of Beyond Burger also motivated by profit and therefore
just as suspect?

~~~
cannonedhamster
I'm going to say yes. You should be just as suspect of health claims and
sustainability claims of a plant based burger. But there's generally science
to back up that a plant based diet it both better for the environment and
better for health reasons than a meat based diet. Does that mean you shouldn't
eat meat? I mean, you do you, but if you care about the environment or health
generally the veggie burgers are more likely than not to be more supportive of
your belief system. If you don't care about either of those things, then I
suppose you would choose on taste and that's a personal preference.

~~~
sridca
> But there's generally science to back up that a plant based diet it both
> better for [...] health reasons than a meat based diet

Try reading these nutritional studies and you will see how much bullshit is
behind them.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20029519)

It still amazes me that people surrender to nutritional authorities, instead
of self-experimenting (cf. Asra Conlu on YouTube) and finding out the facts
for themselves.

~~~
closetohome
Yeah yeah, the meat industry has quibbles with the WHO study connecting red
meat to cancer. Shocker.

~~~
sridca
Have you read those studies yet? If not you are wasting your breath away on
borrowed beliefs.

~~~
closetohome
I did. It read like a corporate brochure.

~~~
sridca
I'm referring to the studies behind the "science" you claim to back up that a
plant based diet is both better for [...] health reasons than a meat based
diet.

Unless you have read those studies, before seeing how much bullshit is behind
them, you'd be wasting your breath away on borrowed beliefs.

But then I doubt you are capable of doing it, as even a scientific review
appears as "corporate brochure" to you.

~~~
dang
If you continue to break the site guidelines like this, we will ban you.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
sridca
I'll refer you to my last comment to you.

------
aaubry
I don't know why some people want vegetarian food to taste like meat. I enjoy
eating meat, but the best vegetarian foods that I had did not taste like meat
at all, and it is how it should be. It's like with sugar, if I want to avoid
consuming it, I don't replace it with sweetener, I just don't put the sugar in
and enjoy the untainted taste of the other ingredients.

~~~
ageitgey
> I don't know why some people want vegetarian food to taste like meat.

There are lots of reasons people want vegetarian versions of meat. Here are
some of the most common:

1\. Still want to eat meat, but want to reduce the environmental impact of
meat production.

2\. Don't want to eat meat for moral/preference reasons, but still enjoy the
taste of eating it.

3\. Want to eat meat, but don't like the dietary impact and want a healthier
replacement.

~~~
pnongrata
As a complement to your list, I'd say it's more marketable AND makes the
transition for some people more smooth.

------
asutekku
It’s a burger. It’s not meant to be consumed daily and it switching to it or
other plant based burger decreases the amount of meat consumed.

No matter what it’s a much better deal than going in to a mcdonalds / whatever
and getting the burger of the month from there.

~~~
dagw
If you go to McDonalds and order a burger with fries and a coke, then surely
just changing the actual meat in the burger to a Beyond Meat burger is going
to have close zero effect on the overall "healthiness" of that meal.

~~~
asutekku
I’m not referring only to healthiness. It’s also better for the environment
and cows didn’t need to be slaughtered for that.

------
jedberg
It seems OPs major complaint is that they are not healthy. But unless I'm
mistaken, healthy isn't even part of their marketing. Their main thing is how
it's better for the environment.

~~~
anonymous5133
Also when stacked next to a processed beef patty, Beyond Meat patties are by
far healthier without a doubt.

~~~
geowwy
How do you figure that?

~~~
defeomike
Well, processed meat is a known carcinogen
[https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-
info/kno...](https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/general-info/known-
and-probable-human-carcinogens.html)

Doubt these processed plant based foods are very health promoting, but we at
least don’t know for a fact that they’re carcinogenic.

~~~
cr1895
>processed meat

I'm pretty sure what they're getting at here is something like a salami or
cured bacon. Not simply ground beef.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Yup, I did a literature review of this 5+ years ago, and that is normally how
the term is defined in the literature.

I suspect that frozen burgers may be included in this (depending on
ingredients), but ground mince converted into burger patties definitely isn't.

------
Vinnl
Are these really considered healthy? I always looked at them as being
competitors to regular meat, sans the suffering and environmental impact. If
they do that, without being more unhealthy than regular meat, then I don't see
the problem - so how do they compare to regular meat?

~~~
vfc1
Based on the ingredient list they are not healthy eaten in large amounts, for
an occasional treat why not.

The science seems to point to whole plant foods as being the way to go in
terms of optimal health, and this is highly processed food.

It sure helps to reduce the environmental impact of meat, so I'm all for them
as long as people are well aware that they are not healthy.

------
Sawamara
"Vegetable oils are terrible for you?"

At that point, I knew something was up. He is one of those who consider soy
harmful to you. Sheer insanity.

Also, he is making an argument on a false pretense: that eating processed meat
is somehow okay because its already introduced to our diet. Guess what: it is
not good for people. This is a product that is designed to be an alternative
to that, not to home-cooked healthy italian meatless alternatives.

~~~
s9w
There is quite some data on vegetable oils being unhealthy. Why is that
"insanity"?

~~~
closetohome
The insanity is claiming that the oils in Beyond are somehow as bad or worse
than the fat found in red meat.

~~~
tracker1
The fats found in red meat are pretty well balanced fats that we, as humans
can readily metabolize and use. The risks of saturated fats were never
substantiated and walked back significantly in the past decade, and as to
cholesterol is actually beneficial to one's numbers (also, see: cholesterol
hacking).

Now, the nutrition profile of naturally fed animal sources is very different
from garbage/feed fed livestock. Which is another issue at hand.

Personally, I'm allergic to legumes so can't really handle any of the
vegetarian options out there.

------
UberofXplsgo
So he points to glyphosphate in the impossible burger and canola oil in the
the beyond meat burger as being unhealthy. It seems a bit dubious though as
the glyphosphate is within fda approved levels and canola oil doesn't have a
firm concensus of being unhealthy

------
frafra
"unnatural ingredients". What does it mean? Are "natural" ingredients better a
priori? Is a molecule that is produced by a living organism better than the
very same molecule synthesized in a lab? No, there is no scientific proof of
that; that is just marketing.

"their most controversial ingredient is Soy Leghemoglobin. To make this
ingredient, Impossible genetically engineers a yeast bacterium to produce a
protein". So? What is the problem with that? It is scary because is made by a
bacterium like most of the industrially produced vitamin C? Or is it because
the bacteria has been genetically modified, like the ones who produce insulin
for people suffering from diabetes? And what about "natural" meat produced
from animals being fed with GMO soy then?

"In general, I think unwise to mess with the complex system of human biology
by introducing large qts of foreign ingredients". Again, "foreign"? What do
you mean with that?

Then it continues with "all non-organic" and so on, like the process is
relevant, while the final result is not, similar to homeopathy.

I am very skeptical about this kind of criticisms.

~~~
Sawamara
He has several a-prioris built into his argument, the most important hidden
one is: \- Meat is inherently superior because we keep eating it (nevermind
that we keep eating lentils and peas just fine for thousands of years) \- That
your gut somehow cannot be introduced new things to it because the science is
not clear on the long-term effects (regardless of how clear science are on the
long term effects of processed red meat) \- Also, naturalistic fallacy, like
hamburgers were natural entities that grow in gardens, and you just pluck them
from the trees, and its oh-so-natural

+1: If he is so worried about canola oil, just check what quality of oil
burger king is using for frying his meat.

~~~
dagw
The actual most important hidden one is: - Meat is inherently superior because
my company sells meat based products.

------
Jedi72
I expect the meat lobby to craft many a vile hit-piece over the next 15 years
as their market share is (ironically) carnivorously devoured.

------
t4ko
I always assumed fast food was unhealthy and full of artificial ingredients,
even real patties can have negative health effects. I would not consider those
meat replacements to be healthy but they surely are good enough to replace
fast food patties.

Also I re-read his tweets and I can't find the part where it's clearly stated
that transfat are used, I just see oil being mentioned in those ingredient
lists.

~~~
geowwy

      > Also I re-read his tweets and I can't find the part where
      > it's clearly stated that transfat are used
    

I don't think he's saying Beyond Burgers contain trans fats. I think he's
saying Beyond Meats are doing the same thing Crisco etc did when they marketed
hydrogenated vegetable oils as a replacement for animal fats. It seems like a
valid comparison.

------
BrendanD
One of the motivations for vegetarianism is to reduce one's carbon footprint.
Highly processed products packed in plastic thwart this goal.

------
vfc1
These fake meat products shouldn't be much healthier than pink slime burgers
made of ground beef and fat.

Most burgers are made of 20 to 30% fat trimmings anyway, and the rest is
ground beef.

All types of oils are not good for us, oil in general is not a health food, no
even extra virgin olive oil.

The backlash against these fake meat products will come slowly but surely,
these are not heath foods and should only be eaten sparingly.

Whole foods are the way to go, as opposed to highly processed foods like this
plant-based burger.

~~~
_carl_jung
> All types of oils are not good for us, oil in general is not a health food,
> no even extra virgin olive oil.

I don't buy this. Omega 3 is the obvious counter example, but I don't even
believe that olive oil is outright bad for you.

~~~
vfc1
It has to do with the processing, olive oil is a food extract. Olives are
awesome, olive oil is not, it's not a health food unlike popular belief.

It's not a whole food, most of the nutrients and the whole fiber has been
taken out by the processing.

Olive oil only contains modest amounts of some vitamins, that can be easily
obtained elsewhere.

Otherwise, it's almost 100% liquid fat with little micro-nutrient content.

You mean fish oil? I think here people are talking about plant oils. Fish oil
is not a health food either, AFIK it's no longer recommended by the American
Heart Association [https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/practice-
manag...](https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/practice-
management/aha-does-not-recommend-omega-3-fish-oil-supplements-prevent-heart)

For a pollutant free source of Omega 3, there is algae oil at very small
amounts, or most people bodies just make their own Omega 3, just like any
other animal.

How do herbivores get their Omega 3? Through diet, ground flax seeds is a
great way to help your body produce Omega 3.

~~~
_carl_jung
I'm not sure that the above can be summarised as "oils are not good for us".
If the oil was removed from olives, the resulting olives would not be
healthier.

If the fish oil was removed from fish, the resulting fish would not be
healthier.

I'm not sure how this became a debate about vegetarianism either.

~~~
vfc1
Eating the oil in its natural form, together with the whole olive, is not the
same as eating the oil separately.

The effect that has in your digestive system is not the same. Another example
is eating fructose extract instead of a whole fruit.

Eating the whole fruit does not spike your blood sugar, unlike eating the
equivalent amount of fructose. Also, it does not satiate as much.

Compare the satiety of eating 10 olives to eating a tablespoon of olive oil or
two.

It's this reductionistic approach to nutrition where we try to extract these
single nutrients that is harmful, because our body has evolved to eat whole
foods and not food extracts.

We humans have evolved to eat the whole foods, not highly processed food
extracts.

There are thousands of compounds in whole foods that interact with each other
and our bodies in a million different ways, and that we are only beginning to
comprehend.

~~~
cr1895
>We humans have evolved to eat the whole foods, not highly processed food
extracts

You picked olives, so...what exactly is great about eating a raw, unprocessed
olive?

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-
culture/food/t...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-
culture/food/the-plate/2016/07/olives--the-bitter-truth/)

~~~
vfc1
Eating whole foods is not about eating raw, that is different.

I don't think the argument to eating raw makes much sense either, as we are
the only animal on the planet that has evolved to eat cooked food and that has
been the case for maybe a couple of millions of years, at least much longer
than the human species (which goes back to aprox. 200k years).

The olives that we eat as appetizers are cured or sun-dried, because the raw
olive tastes horribly indeed.

So there is some treatment of the food to make it edible, or some cooking
involved.

But this is very different than extracting an oil and discarding the rest of
the food, together with all of its fiber and most of its nutritional content.

It's like taking a fruit and only eating its sugar, one is healthy and the
other is not.

