What heartens me is that the shift towards plant-base protein can be gradual while still having a large impact. Ingredients like ground beef make up the majority(?) [1] of beef sold and there are already good plant based simulacra on the market [2] with more coming soon.
I have my doubts we'll see anything marketable and cost competitive that could compete with larger cuts of meat in the next decade, but I could see a near-term future where Taco Bell is using a 50/50 beef/plant "meat" in their food with that ratio shifting away from animal products with time.
This is just shareholder value. Scaling meat has so many problems, but if you can sell fake meat at meat prices suddenly there is so much more profit margin to be returned to shareholders.
I do not believe for 1 second that Tyson cares about health, environments, farmers or the well being of animals.
> "We just got to the point last year where the consumer is demanding [the elimination of antibiotics in the food chain] and wants transparency."
The only reason your animals need antibiotics is because they're living in overcrowded cells eating the wrong food (they're ruminants, corn/soy is not their food), covered in fecal matter etc. etc. A small number of animals per acre , lots of sunlight (ultraviolet light) and proper waste disposal (bugs, rains, etc).
if they can make affordable plant based chicken that's as tasty and protein-packed as real chicken and veg beef that's as good as real beef, then I'm 100% in.
the biggest problem with non-meat foods (for me) has always been with their macros. I can get 32g of protein with nearly zero fat or carbs from 4oz of chicken for less than $2 a serving. Last I checked, this was not possible with alternative food.
I had the same outlook as far as taste goes. I really think it is just our palette being trained to love this type of food. After switching to a vegan diet, I do not crave meat whatsoever. I really enjoy all of the dishes I would have never eaten otherwise.
The company Tyson invested in stacks up quite well to conventional meat.
http://beyondmeat.com/
The cost of meat is kept artificially low in the USA because bribed/corrupt polititions keep giving meat producers free or cheap water grants, etc. Ironically, in another article thread on HN it was mentioned that it would cost $50B to repair dams in the USA, and I think that is about what the government gives to meat producers.
Solve the epidemic corruption of public elected officials and a lot of other problems would be resolved.
I think this is pretty cool. I don't think it will eliminate meat from diets, but it offers more variety and choices. Most plant-base meat substitutes are pretty terrible. But I'm not even sure why they exist, plants are already pretty great. Consider Chipotle's sofritas, lots of people who swear by meat love it...and that's because it tastes good.
My meal tonight also had no meat in it (another tofu dish), but used some fermentation of the soybeans (Doenjang [1]) to create an incredibly savory and rich soup stock. I'll probably eat a burger tomorrow, but I don't see these other foods as penalty foods and I'll often choose them over the meat foods because they taste good, not for any other reason.
It's a bit like buying a Tesla, it's a no compromises great car, not a penalty box like the market tried to push for years. Great vegetarian food doesn't even have to be labelled as vegetarian, it just has to be great food and people will choose to eat it.
As a consumer, I do care about the footprint of my meat based protein, although I don't want to give up eating meat.
As a chef, if they can get marbling in, I'm excited for the different styles we could create.
Note: a plant based reactor (sorry I couldn't remember the term, the seed for the meat to grow with), has been mentioned a few times as becoming close to ready, which would bring the costs down a lot.
yep, vat interests me as well since I am not sure of the amount of carbohydrates in plant based proteins. Lentils and beans for example have good amount of protein, but also tend to have a lot of carbs.
"Because they are cold-blooded, insects are very efficient at converting feed into protein (crickets, for example, need 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein)."[0]
Interesting to see if the company actually shifts it's culture.
My wife is vegetarian so I'm exposed to quite a bit of different sources of veggie protein. My concern is that the fake meat stuff is actually kind of expensive compared to meat. If it was cheaper I can see more folks move in that direction.
It also doesn't taste like meat. I will happily eat a vegan meal that tastes good. I'll eat meat that tastes good. But I just don't see a point in buying a "soy chicken schnitzel" which does not taste like chicken at all. Why should I be interested in that product in the first place?
Hopefully one day we'll get to actually replicating the taste properly. Or growing meat synthetically. I'm happy to move to either.
1. It's expensive because people with more money are more likely to be vegetarian.
2. We don't pay for the true cost of meat, i.e. green house gas emissions, water usage, transportation costs, etc....
I'd worry about phytoestrogens as well. There are compounds in plant based foods that must be consumed in moderation (as all things). A vegetarian diet is superior in many ways to the modern western diet, but not without its own risks/disadvantages.
This problem has nothing to do with vegan foods. The problem is that meat and dairy benefit from government subsidies. This might be because of lobbyists, but that's none of my business.
Definitely forward looking to invest in food intake in general rather than just meat. That being said, I thought the future of meat itself was "lab meat" i.e produced in growing vats, rather than on farms. The other thing is balance, if your source of plant protein is skewed to one thing like Soy, there is the risk of the body not being used to the other things in Soy --it's not like Chinese when they eat anything other than rice, have the protein as the main dish or portion --it's mostly a side dish and not the main source of nutrition.
According to random people on the internet plant based protein isn't as good your for cat as animal based protein. Why couldn't that be the same for humans?
Ignoring the arguments for taste (subjective), animal welfare (agreed to a large extent), and environmental impact (also agreed), there's still the issue of protein bioavailability. Plant-based protein is simply inferior in this regard. I still eat a mostly plant-based diet and look forward to the day when that parity problem is solved.
Incidentally, if anyone has a suggestion for an egg substitute that doesn't taste like crap and has similar nutritional content, I'm all ears. Eggs are pretty ethically dubious in my book, too.
Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you birthed whole animals, let them grow for two years, fed them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their remains, and ship that to people?" Plant based protein and maybe even more so cultured/clean meat (e.g. http://www.memphismeats.com/) seem likely to totally replace how we do things now.
"You mean you planted that whole acreage with seed, let them grow, watered and fertilized them all the while, just to cut them down, chop them up and ship that to people?"
How are you going to do aseptic technique and metabolic regulation rate for less energy than skin+immune system and a liver? Anyone who's ever cultured mammalian cells knows that you toss the medium with most of the carbon source remaining because it's gotten too acidic with lactate. Turns out that livers are a really energy-efficient way of keeping cells alive.
> Animal agriculture seems to me like one of those things that in 50 to 100 years people will look back on with bewilderment.
Really? It's not like we've been doing that for 5,000 years or something. But in 50 years they'll be like "What were you doing for the last 5,000 years?"
Animal agriculture is not going to be one of those things. In fact I can guarantee you that even if we figure out a meat replacement people will still eat animals in 100 years. Something that's been done for 5,000 years doesn't get stopped that quickly.
As evidence look at how many people want to "go back to the farm", and raise their own animals. On the surface, why? It's harder and more expensive. Yet, people want that anyway.
How long something has been around is often a good way to determine how much longer it will be around in the future.
I'd be willing to bet that humans will stop driving cars much sooner than they stop farming. Humans have been practicing animal agriculture for a long time...
Actually, a lot of the perennial food crops we do or could eat are adapted to environments containing ungulates or other animals, and there are a number of nutrient problems and pathogen vectors that wouldn't be as much of an issue if the land was being judiciously (rotation) grazed.
What will end up being seen as crazy is locking them all up in a barn and burning fossil fuels to bring the food to them instead of them using their own legs, all for another 20% body mass and giant meat portions (think: steak, chicken breast).
The future is in algae based proteins. They contain all essential amino acids, naturally anti inflammatory and have no known allergens.
The taste profile problem will be solved eventually and algae based chemical compounds as taste and color additives will be omnipresent in our foods in 5-10 years.
@sethbannon you should also consider investing in algae based meat alternatives. (I.e. Solazyme / TerraVia)
Keto and Paleo are constantly growing. I personally think we'll head in the direction of "to-fit" dieting (through genetics, personal experimenting, etc.).
It'd be foolish to keep swinging back and forth on the USDA/HHS "one size fits all" legislature.
A cow's rumen is amazing. You can feed a cow almost any vegetable matter and they will grow and produce milk and meat. Chickens and pigs are more particular but in terms of energy in to food out, are still very inexpensive and easy to manage. Cell cultures require sterile laboratory conditions, growth factors and very specific nutrient requirements.
A largely plant-based diet, sure, that is what most (but not all) of our hunter gatherer ancestors ate, but I doubt cell cultures will ever get within even a order of magnitude of the efficiency of growing and eating real animals.
It's not clear to me that humans are going to think of a more efficient way to turn energy and matter into food in the next century.
We could potentially alter the animals into something that would be hard to recognize, but that'll be an evolution of animal husbandry, not something that will leave us bewildered at animals.
What do you see that indicates we're going to make massive leaps beyond what animal life has already provided in turning sunlight and air into useful lipids and proteins?
This is the perfect example of Silicon Valley hubris: farming animals is bewildering and barbaric, so obviously this New Thing™ that didn't even exist two years ago will totally replace what humans have been doing for the past ten thousand years.
And then 50 to 100 years after that people will look back on with bewilderment. "You mean you planted whole seeds, let them grow for months, watered them all the while, just to kill them, chop up their leaf, and ship that to people?"
[+] [-] SeanBoocock|9 years ago|reply
I have my doubts we'll see anything marketable and cost competitive that could compete with larger cuts of meat in the next decade, but I could see a near-term future where Taco Bell is using a 50/50 beef/plant "meat" in their food with that ratio shifting away from animal products with time.
[1]: http://meat.tamu.edu/ground-beef-labeling/ [2]: http://beyondmeat.com/products/view/beefy-crumble
[+] [-] maerF0x0|9 years ago|reply
I do not believe for 1 second that Tyson cares about health, environments, farmers or the well being of animals.
> "We just got to the point last year where the consumer is demanding [the elimination of antibiotics in the food chain] and wants transparency."
The only reason your animals need antibiotics is because they're living in overcrowded cells eating the wrong food (they're ruminants, corn/soy is not their food), covered in fecal matter etc. etc. A small number of animals per acre , lots of sunlight (ultraviolet light) and proper waste disposal (bugs, rains, etc).
[+] [-] nunez|9 years ago|reply
the biggest problem with non-meat foods (for me) has always been with their macros. I can get 32g of protein with nearly zero fat or carbs from 4oz of chicken for less than $2 a serving. Last I checked, this was not possible with alternative food.
[+] [-] morcutt|9 years ago|reply
The company Tyson invested in stacks up quite well to conventional meat. http://beyondmeat.com/
[+] [-] sdenton4|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulcole|9 years ago|reply
2. Unless you're on a very specific diet or have some kind of exercise heavy hobby, that is a lot of protein (essentially a day's worth).
[+] [-] frozenport|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|9 years ago|reply
Solve the epidemic corruption of public elected officials and a lot of other problems would be resolved.
[+] [-] bane|9 years ago|reply
My meal tonight also had no meat in it (another tofu dish), but used some fermentation of the soybeans (Doenjang [1]) to create an incredibly savory and rich soup stock. I'll probably eat a burger tomorrow, but I don't see these other foods as penalty foods and I'll often choose them over the meat foods because they taste good, not for any other reason.
It's a bit like buying a Tesla, it's a no compromises great car, not a penalty box like the market tried to push for years. Great vegetarian food doesn't even have to be labelled as vegetarian, it just has to be great food and people will choose to eat it.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doenjang
[+] [-] marak830|9 years ago|reply
As a consumer, I do care about the footprint of my meat based protein, although I don't want to give up eating meat.
As a chef, if they can get marbling in, I'm excited for the different styles we could create.
Note: a plant based reactor (sorry I couldn't remember the term, the seed for the meat to grow with), has been mentioned a few times as becoming close to ready, which would bring the costs down a lot.
[+] [-] it_learnses|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|9 years ago|reply
Much like solar etc tanks coal.
Ranching, in particular, will become niche / artisan endeavors.
[+] [-] brightsize|9 years ago|reply
"Because they are cold-blooded, insects are very efficient at converting feed into protein (crickets, for example, need 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein)."[0]
I'm plenty squeamish but might just be willing to try mealworm flour. Other ideas: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130514-edibl...
[0] http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e.pdf
[+] [-] brohoolio|9 years ago|reply
My wife is vegetarian so I'm exposed to quite a bit of different sources of veggie protein. My concern is that the fake meat stuff is actually kind of expensive compared to meat. If it was cheaper I can see more folks move in that direction.
[+] [-] viraptor|9 years ago|reply
Hopefully one day we'll get to actually replicating the taste properly. Or growing meat synthetically. I'm happy to move to either.
[+] [-] muninn_|9 years ago|reply
1. It's expensive because people with more money are more likely to be vegetarian. 2. We don't pay for the true cost of meat, i.e. green house gas emissions, water usage, transportation costs, etc....
[+] [-] ra1n85|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nilved|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alrs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agitator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkozyra|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xexers|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulcole|9 years ago|reply
I'd be willing to wager it'll happen in my lifetime.
[+] [-] wnevets|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcticbull|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cholantesh|9 years ago|reply
Incidentally, if anyone has a suggestion for an egg substitute that doesn't taste like crap and has similar nutritional content, I'm all ears. Eggs are pretty ethically dubious in my book, too.
[+] [-] sethbannon|9 years ago|reply
Disclosure: I'm an investor in Memphis Meats
[+] [-] notyourwork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wollstonecraft|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ars|9 years ago|reply
Really? It's not like we've been doing that for 5,000 years or something. But in 50 years they'll be like "What were you doing for the last 5,000 years?"
Animal agriculture is not going to be one of those things. In fact I can guarantee you that even if we figure out a meat replacement people will still eat animals in 100 years. Something that's been done for 5,000 years doesn't get stopped that quickly.
As evidence look at how many people want to "go back to the farm", and raise their own animals. On the surface, why? It's harder and more expensive. Yet, people want that anyway.
[+] [-] booleandilemma|9 years ago|reply
I'd be willing to bet that humans will stop driving cars much sooner than they stop farming. Humans have been practicing animal agriculture for a long time...
[+] [-] hinkley|9 years ago|reply
What will end up being seen as crazy is locking them all up in a barn and burning fossil fuels to bring the food to them instead of them using their own legs, all for another 20% body mass and giant meat portions (think: steak, chicken breast).
[+] [-] fluxby|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stagbeetle|9 years ago|reply
It'd be foolish to keep swinging back and forth on the USDA/HHS "one size fits all" legislature.
[+] [-] whyenot|9 years ago|reply
A cow's rumen is amazing. You can feed a cow almost any vegetable matter and they will grow and produce milk and meat. Chickens and pigs are more particular but in terms of energy in to food out, are still very inexpensive and easy to manage. Cell cultures require sterile laboratory conditions, growth factors and very specific nutrient requirements.
A largely plant-based diet, sure, that is what most (but not all) of our hunter gatherer ancestors ate, but I doubt cell cultures will ever get within even a order of magnitude of the efficiency of growing and eating real animals.
[+] [-] droopyEyelids|9 years ago|reply
We could potentially alter the animals into something that would be hard to recognize, but that'll be an evolution of animal husbandry, not something that will leave us bewildered at animals.
What do you see that indicates we're going to make massive leaps beyond what animal life has already provided in turning sunlight and air into useful lipids and proteins?
[+] [-] pdog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mynameishere|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SN76477|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soheil|9 years ago|reply
Plants are alive too.
[+] [-] intrasight|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Koshkin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sanswork|9 years ago|reply
As for animals in the wild it's expected you understand that they are referring to humans.
[+] [-] kbos87|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] accountface|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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