Plant based burgers and lab grown meat

UberTiger

UberTiger

UberTiger

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The last year or so has seen a massive increase in the number of companies offering plant based burgers and other plant based meat alternatives.

Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger are two of them.

It’s well reported that meat farming is incredibly bad for the environment, so I welcome the technological advances in this arena.

Seeing as I’m wandering the streets of Central London this evening, and given the spirit of the Extinction Rebellion protests this evening I thought I’d give one a go!

I originally intended to just grab a regular burger, but saw one of the new plant based ones on the menu for the first time. I’ve seen loads of vids of YouTubers in the states trying the Impossible Burger, so was excited to give this ago.

I got the Beyond Burger from Honest Burger in Covent Garden. £11.50 later for that and some chips and I’m really pleasantly surprised!

First bite was super weird, got a tinge of an odd flavour. And the burger also looked reeally red in the cross section. Which I found disconcerting even though I knew it wasn’t meat! Although it might be partly due to the lighting in here.

After that though, texture and taste was great. Was a really solid burger. Decent chips too.

I’ll definitely go out of my way to try more of this type of food in the future. Both to experiment and to try and do my bit for reducing my meat consumption,

What do y’all think about these new meat substitutes? Will you be cutting back on your meat?

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Quartz said:
I disagree.

Some meat farming is; some meat farming isn't. There are many places on Earth where human-edible vegetation does not grow but vegetation that is animal-edible does. So we use the animals to turn that vegetation into human-edible meat.
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That's interesting, and that that makes sense in those cases, but it still seems to be an issue. I'm woudn't say I'm very well versed in the subject, but I've definitely seen multiple articles over the last couple of years highlighting the various types of pollution and environmental impact of different types of meat farming, beef in particular. Whether it's methane pollution or high water and energy usage as a result of that type of farming.

Wikipedia said:
The 2006 report Livestock's Long Shadow, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, states that "the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases(GHG) and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution."[1] (In this and much other FAO usage, but not always elsewhere, poultry are included as "livestock".)

A 2017 study published in the journal Carbon Balance and Management found animal agriculture's global methane emissions are 11% higher than previous estimates based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[2] Some fraction of these effects is assignable to non-meat components of the livestock sector such as the wool, egg and dairy industries, and to the livestock used for tillage. Livestock have been estimated to provide power for tillage of as much as half of the world's cropland.[3]

According to production data compiled by the FAO, 74 percent of global livestock product tonnage in 2011 was accounted for by non-meat products such as wool, eggs and milk.[4][not in citation given] Meat is also considered one of the prime factors contributing to the current sixth mass extinction.[5][6][7][8] A July 2018 study in Science asserts that meat consumption will increase as the result of human population growth and rising individual incomes, which will increase carbon emissions and further reduce biodiversity.[9]

In November 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a Warning to Humanity calling for, among other things, drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of meat.[10] A similar shift to meat-free diets appears also as the only safe option to feed a growing population without further deforestation, and for different yields scenarios.[11]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
 
pooley said:
do we even know the ingredients in these burgers?
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Impossible Foods - https://impossiblefoods.com

For the Impossible Burger it seems this is made by taking the DNA from Soy, combining it with yeast and fermenting to make heme (from hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen), which is part of what makes meat taste good.

https://impossiblefoods.com/heme


The reciped changed this year for the Impossible Burger for V2.0

The Impossible Burger is the brainchild of Stanford biochemist and genomics expert Pat Brown, PhD, MD, who has described industrialized meat production as "the most destructive technology on Earth."

At Impossible Foods, the key components of meat have been identified, characterized and sourced from plants such as soy and potatoes, and processed using high-moisture extrusion and other techniques in order to meet precise functional, taste and textural criteria.

Impossible Burger OLD ingredients list: water, textured wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein, natural flavors, 2% or less of: leghemoglobin (soy), yeast extract, salt, soy protein isolate, konjac gum, xanthan gum, thiamin (Vitamin B1), zinc, niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin (Vitamin B2), vitamin B12.

Impossible Burger NEW ingredients list: Water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavors, 2% or less of: potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, food starch modified, soy leghemoglobin, salt, soy protein isolate, mixed tocopherols (vitamin E), zinc gluconate, thiamine hydrochloride (vitamin B1), sodium ascorbate (vitamin C), niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B12.

The new version“has as much bioavailable iron and high-quality protein as a comparable serving of ground beef from cows,” says the company. “In addition, it has no cholesterol, 14g total fat and 240 calories in a quarter-pound patty (a quarter-pound beefburger has 80mg cholesterol, 23g total fat and 290 calories).”
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https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/A...centrate-in-its-plant-based-Impossible-burger


Beyond Burger - https://www.beyondmeat.com

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https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/
 
Psycho Sonny said:
the people who are going to be eating these and the target market are vegetarians. so they wouldn't be eating meat.
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Not necessarily. I love meat, and will continue to eat it, but would happily eat more of these or switch to the burger form of this kind of meat if I knew it was better for the environment and not worse for me than a normal burger.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
the target market of gucci belts isn't chavs but chavs do also buy gucci belts.

so yes the target market of these burgers is vegetarians. that doesn't mean non vegetarians can't or won't buy them.

i linked to the fake kebab which i buy regularly and i'm not vegetarian.
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lol, you calling me the chav of the burger world :p

There can be more than one target market, and the target market for these newer meat replacement/alternatives companies isn't just vegetarians.

You could actually argue that the primary market for some of these companies is people like me, they're trying to convert meat eaters. It's a much bigger potential market, at about 80% of the worlds population, vs 20% that are already vegetarian.

Impossible states their mission is to make an eco friendly meat replacement that meat lovers will also enjoy.

https://medium.com/impossible-foods/the-mission-that-motivates-us-d4d7de61665

https://impossiblefoods.com/mission

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Here's a summary of the report that was commisioned to get the figures in the stats image I posted above.

https://impossiblefoods.com/if-pr/LCA-Update-2019

Animal farming occupies about half of all vegetated land (at the expense of forests and grasslands that store carbon), uses about one third of all freshwater, contributes about one seventh of global GHGs and generates nutrient pollution2 (which creates enormous ‘dead zones’ in coastal ecosystems). In the US, beef provides just 3% of our calories but generates half of agricultural greenhouse gases and uses nearly half of the contiguous land area.1

To implement strategies needed to keep global warming below a 1.5 °C rise -- as adopted by the 2016 Paris Agreement -- we need truly sustainable options that can satisfy the growing consumer demand for meat and dairy.

Enter the Impossible Burger®, made from plants. The average American eats approximately three burgers worth of ground beef per week, equivalent to 50 billion burgers per year. The Impossible Burger was made for this market -- made with the same nutrition, flavor, aroma, and “beefiness” as meat from a cow, but made entirely from plants and with a vastly reduced environmental impact.
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  • Aquatic eutrophication potential decreases by more than 78% due to the avoided manure emissions from raising beef cattle, avoided fertilizer emissions during feed production, and a reduction in electricity consumption by avoiding slaughtering activities.

  • Global warming potential decreases by more than 60%, primarily due to the avoided emissions associated with manure and enteric emissions generated over the course of raising cattle.

  • Land occupation is reduced by more than 99%, by avoiding reliance on pasture for grazing (the majority of beef’s land footprint). Cropland demand is also reduced from 6.8 m2 per year to 2.4 m2 per year due to the elimination of agricultural products for beef cattle feed.

  • Water consumption is reduced by more than 79% as a result of avoiding the irrigation used to cultivate feed crops for beef cattle.
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As Beyond Meat makes IPO history, Ikea unveils meatless meatballs and Burger King rolls out the Impossible Whopper nationwide, here’s a look at the increasingly compelling case for giving up meat and dairy forever

a 2018 study of 40,000 farms in 119 countries published in the journal Science, cutting out your consumption of meat and dairy might be the single most effective step you can take to reduce your negative environmental impact on the Earth. One reason: We get just 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein from meat and dairy, but livestock suck up 83% of our farmland and generate 60% of the agricultural greenhouse gas.

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” lead study researcher Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford told the Guardian. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”
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Interesting they seem to think going meatless is more effective at reducing your poluting impact on the earth than stopping your combustion vehicle usage.
 
lol, meh, as long as the nutrition is comparable, which is according to that table apart from the protein level being lower, and as long as it tastes good I'm still interested if it's more beneficial to the environment along the entire food chain. Interesting the salt level seems a fair bit higher.

I wonder if the type of fats are healthier though when it's the plant based fat, vs that from meat.

I'm sure as V3, 4 and 5 come out they'll be able to improve on all aspects of the nutritional content.
 
True. Although it would be neat if they made it tasty and healthy.

I eagerley away the time I can have my daily Berocca Breakfast Burger™ and get all the vitamins and minerals I need to kick start the day ;)
 
Yum - for all the haters, you can now buy meat vegetables! :D

https://www.delish.com/food-news/amp28198683/arbys-marrot-vegetables-made-of-meat/

Let's talk about how it's made. For starters, Arby's uses 100-percent turkey breast and rolls it up. "With a cheesecloth and plastic wrap, you're able to wrap it into that rounded cone shape that you get with carrots," brand executive chef Neville Craw told Delish. It's then smothered in dried carrot juice powder (aka where the nutrients and color comes from), and roasted for an hour.
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