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Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put "Meatless" Meat To the Test
assertation (1255714) writes "Bill Gates and the founders of Twitter are betting millions that meat lovers will embrace a new plant-based product that mimics the taste of chicken and beef. Meat substitutes have had a hard time making it to the dinner tables of Americans over the years, but the tech giants believe these newest products will pass the "tastes like chicken" test. Gates has met several times with Ethan Brown, whose product, Beyond Meat, is a mash-up of proteins from peas and plants."
Prepare to be targeted by an angry mob from PETA...
The other PETA, that is... People Eating Tasty Animals.
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"The difficulty now comes in finding a way to convince carnivores to switch."
If it tastes like meat, smells like meat, and looks like meat, then I won't refuse it on principle. How do you get me to switch? Make it cheaper than real meat.
In fact I belong to one such group: south Indian lacto-vegetarian brahmin. My rational mind and my reading of scriptures tell me, it is just a cultural practice, Hinduism does not really ban meat. My reading of books in evolution and my rudimentary understanding of biology tells me Homo sapiens evolved to eat at least some meat. Our closes primate relatives bonobos and chimps both eat meat. Still my cultural training is so ingrained I would not be able to bring myself to bite a piece of chicken, or something that resembles chicken. I am sure bits and pieces of meat must have found their way into my plate by accident. Restaurant workers might not have changed gloves, or the pizza cutter might not have been wiped before cutting my pizza, or the soup might have had a chicken stock instead of vegetable stock. Even after knowing all this, I am not able to bring myself to eat meat or anything that resembles meat.
I know we form such a microscopic minority what we think or do would not have the slightest effect on the general population and trends. But still, I have no plans to change.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
a pound of ground beef (16 OZ 90%) is under 4.50 as I write this in my local store. Also chicken breasts are going for 2.99$ a pound. Im not going to spend more money for less of a product, that is not even real meat
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I tried it. The texture and protein feel matches lean chicken or turkey reasonably well. But the fat flavor is missing. This is a general observation I have with all the faux meats. They simulate really lean cuts, but all the flavor comes from the fat, which is missing. It's probably the case that recreating the fat of meat is more difficult than creating the protein. This is a challenge to the manufacturers out there.
Recently I bought a 6 lb package of 88% ground beef at Costco for less than $18.
$5.27 for 12 oz is double what I'm paying for beef.
I'm all in favor of reducing meat consumption but not at the price of doubling my food budget.
I'm still waiting for a meat-based vegetable substitute.
Why is meat so cheap compared to vegetables
Tens of billions of dollars in farming subsidies every year and the animal feed subsidy is almost as large as all the others combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States
It's not that meat is so cheap compared to vegetables, it's that you pay the difference in other ways.
It's the fat that tastes good, not the meat. Go make a burger from fatless steak tartar and prepare to gag. No cheating with mayo or cheese.
Why do you think a filet mignon has bacon around it, or bleu cheese or a cream sauce on it? Bogue without...even flawlessly medium rare.
A veggie patty with some good animal fat substitute is the way to go.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I find that not eating meat is pretty trivial ...
Good for you. I'm reminded of a quote from a comic I read when someone expressed shock and incredulity that another character had not seen Star Wars. Her response was simply, "Your life experiences are different from my own." What you are basically saying here is that you don't really like meat all that much and it was no big sacrifice to give it up. That's not the case for everyone.
I find the switch to a meatless diet extremely hard, and I become just absolutely ravenous when I go more than a few days without it. I've tried three times for all the good reasons that you mention, and I just get a craving that cannot be satisfied by anything else.
Almost any garden variety restaurant in China can make you a dish that usually can't be distinguished from a meat dish, and if I wish I can make several of them myself.
As someone who likes meat, I find that statement laughable. If the vegetables in the dish are the most interesting and delicious part to you, then that's probably true for you. However, while I do enjoy many vegetarian Chinese and Indian dishes, I will NEVER confuse them for those with meat. The taste of the meat is not found in the meat itself but also in the sauces.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Our ancestors didn't eat meat.
Tell that to the American horse, the Mammoth and a number of other species that our ancestors ate into extinction.
Have gnu, will travel.
This totally misses the point. I, and many people, do not want factory produced food. I want food I can replicate without high technology. I can grow plants, fruit, nuts and MEAT out in my fields. Meat is easy to produce. I have pastures. The sun shines on them. The rain falls. The forages grow. My pigs, chicken, ducks, sheep and geese eat the plants (and bugs). I eat the animals (and plants). It works. It's easy. It's reliable. It's sustainable.
My way does not require electricity, high technology, a laboratory or shipments of chemicals from distant locations.
What the factory farmed methods, be they CAFO or huge grain fields, does is to concentrate the power and wealth into the hands of the few resulting in a fragile, brittle system that can easily fail or be attacked and controlled by hostile forces.
Bill Gates Meatless Meat is a total fail.
I'll stick to real meat.