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."

Comments

The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch

[Nidi62]

I don't get the fixation people have with 'tastes like meat' (actually the texture is the tricky part, taste is rather easy). If you actually learn to cook reasonably well then meat dishes actually aren't the most fantastic things around....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. OTOH there are plenty of other ways to enjoy your vegetables more.

Show me a vegetable dish with the flavor and texture of a nice medium rare filet mignon, or a slab of prime rib medium with au jus, and I will switch. Until then, I am keeping my meat.

Re:The diffciulty in getting carnivores to switch

[afgam28]

A good steak really is an amazing thing, and no meat substitute is likely to replace it. A fake meat product that is made from "peas and plants" doesn't sound anywhere near as nice as a rare filet mignon, but it still sounds a lot better than mechanically separated pink slime and the mystery meats that fast food restaurants put in burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, etc.

It's still early days and I'm sure this Beyond Meat product will get cheaper, to the point where this could replace the low-grade meat that is so common in the food industry. This would be a massive win in terms of animal welfare, sustainability, nutrition and maybe even cost to consumers.

I suspect that a lot of people would prefer vegetables that have most of the taste, texture and protein of meat, rather than food that is grown in horrific conditions but technically meets the definition of meat despite being quite different nutritionally.

Not all vegetarians would like vegetarian meat.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Some of the vegetarians follow vegetarian diet due to religious reasons. An extreme form of that practice is followed by the Jains, They would not even eat root vegetables because harvesting it kills the plant. But they would accept milk because milking does not kill the cow. There are others who would eat all the vegetables, but not meat. These people not only don't want to eat meat, they don't want anything that looks like 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.

Re:But the price?

[the eric conspiracy]

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.

Re:But the price?

[crioca]

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.

Miss the point - I don't want factory food

[pubwvj]

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.