Hampton Creek is the makers of "Just Mayo" which is talked about in this article. What isn't said is that they've been on the shelves at Target up until 2 months ago when Target pulled all their products for an unknown reason. Speculation has it that Hellmans was very upset that Just Mayo was disrupting the mayo business and delivered falsified claims to Target trying to get them to pull the products. It's a real slugfest right now.
On another note, Beyond Meat's founder was featured on "How I Built This", a favorite podcast for many HN'ers.
They didn't give free product coupons to customers. They paid contractors to secretly buy. With coupons, atleast customers can try it out and retailers are aware that free products were given out.
I think what these companies are doing has a different appeal, though. There are plenty of vegetarian protein sources I enjoy, but I also just like the taste of a good burger. If I could get a burger that tasted like real beef, but without the environmental and ethical concerns of beef, I would gladly trade it.
Yep. Sugar, oil and salt with a bit of crunchy veg, chilli, soft rice noodles, often egg, a touch of fish sauce and lime. Classic. Will definitely be on offer at http://8-food.com/ launch :)
I'll do some more research on this, since you took the time to post. My initial reaction after doing a bit of searching on the author is that he appears to have a financial interest in promoting soy-based foods.
Not really. If every food you eat has a microgram of soy, that still wouldn't be the same as eating a pound of tofu, which wouldn't be the same as eating 3000 Calories of tofu.
I can't speak for China and Indonesia, but I've lived in Japan for a number of years. Tofu is not super common as a dish, mostly as a filler in small portions of some side dishes.
Well, yes actually. I've read enough over the years that I personally avoid soy and soy-based products. When it comes up, I explain why. It's not a great accomplishment to link to a paper that performs well in organic search.
> It's not a great accomplishment to link to a paper that performs well in organic search.
It's a cursory BS test. If the evidence is hard to find, it's generally because there's no evidence available from credible sources. Belief that the truth is out there, is not sufficient anymore.
You can read a lot to support nearly any claim, that statement is less valuable evidence than even an actual anecdote. Regardless, surely you'd be able to recall at least one reputable source to serve your "explanation." Why do all the high performing organic search results supporting your claim come from sketchy websites and paranoid blogs? I see the "soy is evil" sentiment come up on hn with some regularity, and I can't understand why because the argument never presents it as more a credible claim than alternative medicines or homeopathy.
Debunked: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224
"Clinical studies show no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men: results of a meta-analysis."
Citing one study (meta analysis or not) and claiming debunked is not a serious argument, especially with respect to diet where there is data all over the place.
There was an inverse association between soy food intake and sperm concentration that remained significant after accounting for age, abstinence time, body mass index, caffeine and alcohol intake and smoking. In the multivariate-adjusted analyses, men in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods.
Wrong measure. What if men had lower concentration of sperm but higher volume of the ejaculate? Soy is known to have benefits on prostate and much of the volume of sperm comes from prostate liquid.
Possibly wrong measure, and not the whole story in any case.
The implicitly suggested volume measure might not be the wrong measure either since fertility depends on quite a few variables, several we don't even know about.
These unknowns are actually a bit concerning on their own since fertility has been falling rapidly, at least in most of the western hemisphere, and the cause is unknown.
> Nevertheless, Americans as a whole still consume very little soy protein. Based on 2003 data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, per-capita soy protein consumption is less than 1 gram (g) per day in most European and North American countries, although certain subpopulations such as vegetarians, Asian immigrants, and infants fed soy-based formula consume more. The Japanese, on the other hand, consume an average 8.7 g of soy protein per day; Koreans, 6.2–9.6 g; Indonesians, 7.4 g; and the Chinese, 3.4 g.
At least it's several times bigger than European and USA consumption.
Citation required for what? The fact that they eat more soy?
Demonizing soy is just a fad. Like demonizing meat or dairy.
Most of USA and Europe eats female mammals like cows and chickens, are we going to make claims that female animal estrogen contained in that flesh makes men infertile? Seems like a much more probable cause than phytoestrogen from plants, not that I would be irresposible to make that argument without any evidence, as is the case for soy.
Several startups are trying to grow real meat in vitro.
Memphis Meats (which is in San Francisco, not Tennessee) has succeeded in growing chicken in vitro from stem cells. Mark Post at the University of Maastricht has been able to grow beef in vitro. This stuff tastes like meat from animals. It's the production cost that's the problem.
That's going to be the good stuff. Further downscale are the processed soy products. These are Soy Extender 2.0; textured vegetable protein processed to make it taste more like meat. You can buy soy hamburger patties now, under the Beyond Meat brand. Whole Foods carries them. Anyone tried one?
I had a startup that made software for meat processing companies. It is pretty horrifying being in meat plants but most people are not yet at the point where they can accept not eating it. In my experience I feel better eating occasional offal and grass-fed meat than I do regularly eating meat of any other variety or eliminating it entirely. It is one thing to claim moral high ground and simply avoid eating meat, and we can absolutely do away with it on a taste basis based on what is coming out of vegan restaurants these days, but the cultural shift will take a long time and "good enough" is clearly a higher bar than tofu. I suspect it is somewhat like electric cars. A more political issue than we like to admit and something where assuming the products were comparable in price/taste/texture/experience people might opt for the socially concious choice, that threshold simple isn't there for the majority of people yet. A worthy pursuit but one that is not necessarily limited to startups. Big Food and one off restaurants are pursuing these ideas more fundamentally than anyone else is right now and I suspect that they will be the eventual winners of the race to good enough. The meat industry is fundamentally antiquated the way it is setup now and will simply shrink down to as demand wanes, or more likely just switch to exporting.
I really do think there is a pretty sise-able market at least in California for people looking to reduce their intake of meat but not wanting to go full vegan. People who like the taste of a good burger but want to be healthier (more fiber, less fat and less antibiotics) and reduce the environmental impacts. I am one of them.
I think one of the simplest solutions would be to have a different line of products under a different brand name which had a mixture of plant based meat alternative (i.e. Boca or Impossible Burger) to actual meat in the burger. That way you get the taste of meat but the substrate is fiber based.
The level of actual meat could be adjusted like they do fat content for ground beef (i.e. I'm feeling sorta vegan today so I'm gonna go 75% plant based today).
The one thing I never understood is American vegetarian restaurants who serve tofu steaks as the entire dish. This looks awful:
> People who like the taste of a good burger but want to be healthier (more fiber, less fat and less antibiotics)
If the goal is to be healthier, why not just go with the highest quality beef you can find, but eat it less often?
A quality steak once a week sure must be healthier than a heavily processed veggie burger every day (tho i have no data to prove it).
I don't really understand why this stuff is in the news so much these days. Boca burgers have been around forever and they taste fine - I tried Impossible Foods and it's at best a marginal improvement. And as for mayo, Vegennaise has been around for a while too and it's totally fine, other than getting a bit soupy when the jar is almost empty.
I hope so. If we can make meat or something really similar without killing animals, I would consider this a huge win for lessening the misery of the universe.
Is the universe at large legitimately impacted by our meat consumption? Off-hand, I can't think of a single thing mankind has done that has more than neglibly impacted anything beyond our own atmosphere.
In addition to lessening misery, reducing the consumption of animal meat also helps prevent global warming (since animal farming is a significant contributor to the problem).
This is an unpopular statement around these parts, but, there's no proof that any human activity is causing the current increase in global temperatures, and they match the progression that preceded previous solar grand minimums, of which we are headed into another one now.
Not saying humans aren't causing tons of ground level pollution, which we totally are and that's indisputable. Just don't confuse it with global warming.
A hypothesis must be falsifiable for it to be valid in the first place, and saying "the Sun did it" is a valid way to falsify the hypothesis; thus you now must also prove the Sun is not affecting climate change to the degree that we have measured.
No one has been able to prove this, and all evidence collected by NASA seems to indicate that the Sun is by far the largest driver of climate fluctuations on Earth, even during the modern age, not humans.
It is an acceptable response because you are spreading falsehoods under the guise of "may not be popular here". Popularity does not determine reality... facts are facts. Your assertion of "no proof that any" is easily shown to be utterly false with a simple google search.
And now you crack out another absolute "all evidence collected by NASA" which is also just plain wrong. First NASA isn't the only group studying climate change, nor is it their primary mission. So whether or not NASA has or has not found evidence that the Sun is the largest driver is immaterial.
And again a simple Google search shows you are utterly wrong in regards the Sun being the primary driver.
Say 97 % of doctors agree that you will die if you don't change your lifestyle. Would you not change your lifestyle even though there's a theoretical possibility that you will die irregardless?
Those same scientists produced the data that made this possible. The same predictions they've been making since the 70s, the same ones Al Gore et al. built a financial empire on... did not come true, and are woefully wrong.
Pay attention to both scales. Did humans have greater climate change ability than we have now, in the past, but then suddenly stopped? Notice the range labeled "mini ice age" covers a time period during an extended period of abnormally low solar activity (with the Spörer and Maunder minimums happening during this period).
Edit: Also, sorry, I couldn't find better URLs for these images, Google isn't cooperating today.
Again I'm no expert, but some Googling states that the medieval was indeed possibly hotter at some places on Earth but that this was due to difference in solar radiation and absence of vulcanic eruptions, factors that are not in play today.
On a more personal note, if a scientific consensus is not it, what kind of information would be able to convince you that man made global warming is real?
I agree and I think it usually simplifies industries in negative light. But the dairy lobby ain't something to shrug at. I think i remember reading a while back on legislation deciding if products like almond milk can call themselves milk.
On another note, Beyond Meat's founder was featured on "How I Built This", a favorite podcast for many HN'ers.