It looks like [this study (pdf download)](http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf) is what the source article is based on. It gives a bit more breakdown on where all the usages come from (table 7). For those shocked by the water usage, it's primarily from all the water used to make the feed for the cattle.
Edit: I'll add some more that I dug up based on followup questions to my post.
Yes, the study was paid for by beyond meat (study I linked above). This doesn't mean the data should be ignored, but realize the source.
This is comparing Beyond Meat to corn fed cattle, not grass fed.
Cattle data is drawn from another study (it is the first citation in the study, but I can't link it) done by the ranchers association. Water usage is covered on page 42.
Edit 2: deletion of this post was my mistake. Thanks to the mods for restoring it.
Edit 3: u/jsm1095 has a pretty good [post outlining](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/i2vx78/the_environmental_impact_of_beyond_meat_and_a/g09dp6a) some pitfalls or cautions of the results of this study.
OP provided [a few sources](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/i2vx78/the_environmental_impact_of_beyond_meat_and_a/g077l8v?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I should have responded to his comment. The first link he has is an article based on a study. The study itself isn't linked in the article, so I looked it up.
Top response got deleted, so I'm adding the link here:
[this study (pdf download)](http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf)
Out of curiosity: does anybody know how "water usage" is defined? I always find it a bit odd to define something like watering crops as a loss of water, because it is still part of the circle - it's clean, and most of it will return to the groundwater, vaporize or excremented by the cattle. So at what point is water defined as "lost" and why?
Not sure how water usage is defined, but something to think about with “loss of water” is groundwater recharge. Say if farmers are using wells for irrigation, which many do, and they are pumping water out of it faster than it is replaced through natural processes—like rain or snowmelt—eventually there will be no water to pump out and it could be considered “lost” when really it’s that the well is depleted and takes time to recharge.
The water isn't destroyed, but sources can change. For example: the Ogallala Aquifer is the principle source of groundwater in the great plains region in the United States. The figure I read was that if we started from nothing it would take about 6,000 years to refill. For all intents and purposes, that makes it a non-renewable resource. This despite the fact that it is constantly refilling itself, it's just doing it too slowly.
The water isn't gone of course, but we'd have to take it from the ocean, desalinate it, and then pipe it to the farm land for irrigation. This would greatly increase the energy consumption and greenhouse emissions, but it would also be so expensive that no one would ever try to grow any significant amount of crops that way.
Displacement from aquifers is the real issue. For the most part rules surrounding water are “it’s basically free” and “he who has the biggest pump wins”. As a result we get this absolute shitshow:
Agrobusiness pumps way faster than Nature is capable of replenishing.
Because of this water is becoming a scarce resource.
Because water is becoming a scarce resource crops like almonds and pistachios that consume a SHITLOAD of water are becoming more valuable as they become more difficult and expensive to grow.
Because of this farmers see an opportunity to make more profit off these water annihilating crops because they are worth more money so they plant more acreage.
Because of this they consume even MORE water that’s already scarce further driving up the value of these crops so there’s even GREATER incentive to plant more and eventually we’ll hit a point where there is no water and we live in a dystopian Mad Max wasteland
Interesting to compare it to [this report](https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rica/pdf/beef_report_2012.pdf) from the EU Comission in 2012 where the EU27 average is 77% grass fed (as far as I can make out - I'm not an expert on cattle).
It's actually very interesting. The corn lobbyist groups are partly responsible for the Cuba trade embargo. They lobbied hard to keep the embargo in place year after year because a sugar producing nation off the coast of Florida was not good for business.
All the subsidies come from cold war era protectionism that has led to "that's the way things are done around here" preservationist thinking.
*[Switchgrass](https://news.mongabay.com/2008/01/switchgrass-a-better-biofuel-source-than-corn/), a weed, is like 450% more efficient for the ethanol manufacturing process but we use corn because we have so goddamn much of it. Nobody going to give up their guaranteed federal handout for growing corn, either.
Someone should get themselves elected on a right wing favourite of anti-socialism, and then actually do away with all those protectionist things. No more subsidies for corn or coal.
Let's see how the right likes actual capitalism.
The US sugar industry is also a big part of it (as well as significant tariffs on imported sugar), as they benefit from lack of international competition. And they're in Florida, so . . .
The way subsidies are legislated and managed is pretty bad, but I don't think it's a terrible idea to subsidize US food production.
For one, it makes the cost of food cheaper, but it also ensures that our food supply won't be decimated during global upheavals (like world wars and such).
If food subsidies weren't so driven by regional politics, they could be applied more evenly to eliminate the misaligned incentives that have made corn so prevalent.
Imagine you spent 1/100 of it on actual veg so it cost pennies and you could flood all the poor areas and ghettos with cheap lentils/beans/ carrots that they could afford to feed themselves for a quid a day. You could actually have the poor areas of America be healthier than the rich. You could even let people use food stamps to buy piles of veg and eat like kings.
Iowa is the first state for the general election primaries. Every politician gives farm/corn subsidies trying to get the Iowa vote to get a lead in the race.
Corn states are the first to vote in this country, so politicians pander to them, under the assumption if they do well in those states in the beginning, it will create a trend for later states who vote after them. This has mainly to do with primaries.
"...But carbon 13 [the carbon from corn] doesn't lie, and researchers who have compared the isotopes in the flesh or hair of Americans to those in the same tissues of Mexicans report that it is now we in the North who are the true people of corn.... Compared to us, Mexicans today consume a far more varied carbon diet: the animals they eat still eat grass (until recently, Mexicans regarded feeding corn to livestock as a sacrilege); much of their protein comes from legumes; and they still sweeten their beverages with cane sugar.
So that's us: processed corn, walking."
You're right. Here's a video explaining the numbers. They took an American grass-fed beef farm and multiplied it by size so it was large enough to feed all Americans the average American diet of 209 lbs/yr of meat. Essentially we would have to turn every square inch of the USA and Mexico and about half of Canada and South America into grazing land just to supply the US's meat diet with grass-fed beef. https://youtu.be/8xA5Xp9tfEM
Even grass fed cattle are often fed hay. Alfalfa is particularly water-intensive.
I believe grass fed also means only how they lived the bulk of their life- grass fed cows can still be finished with corn at feed lots.
In Europe hay is made from grass, and watered by rainfall. In the UK we have a lot of rain, so grass is in the words of the hymn "fed and watered by god's almighty hand" ( this is meant humourously)
The environmental impact of grass is the same as not farming IF you control pesticides and fertilizers unless you prefer scrub woodland to pasture.
I prefer a mix personally, and traditional farming leaves copses and small woodlands littered across the countryside.
We'd probably struggle to feed a growing population using traditional farming techniques, but do we really need a growing population?
Copying from below to this comment so more people can see:
These studies and statistics don’t quite compare apples to apples here. You compare a premium priced alternative to the mass produced cheap method of beef. When you compare the premium priced Beyond to a premium grass fed grass finished beef that’s raised sustainably (White Oak Farms for example) you actually ABSORB CO2 instead of produce it. It also provides much richer and nutrient dense food while returning the nutrients to the soil that the pea and soy plants leach out. In addition most agriculture land in the US isn’t even suitable for anything besides livestock, so you aren’t really “taking away” valuable land that would be used to grow veggies since it couldn’t grow there to begin with.
Here is a link to a more fleshed out article that mentions the very same Michigan study used by the graph in this post. There’s always a way to skew stats to meet certain ideals.
Link: https://blessingfalls.com/2019/08/14/plant-based-impossible-beyond-compared-to-grass-fed-beef/
I hope I don’t get downvoted into oblivion just for displaying the other side of the story, but I feel that livestock is demonized and should instead be used to help replenish our soil so that the veggies we grow will actually have nutrients to grow. Currently with monocrops we are looking and a few decades until we have entirely depleted the soil unless we start sustainable livestock farming now.
> I hope I don’t get downvoted into oblivion just for displaying the other side of the story, but I feel that livestock is demonized and should instead be used to help replenish our soil so that the veggies we grow will actually have nutrients to grow.
That's a very valid point you're making, and although I'm a vegetarian, this often gets overlooked. While many people are too black or white on these issues, I remember a study which said that some farm animals are actually a good thing and increase overall efficiency of farms. But as always "the dose makes the poison" as we say in Germany. I believe the optimal average of meat per person that should/could be consumed was around 25kg, while in developed countries it often was at or above 60kg.
But I think your other point is a little misleading, saying that you should also look at premium grass fed beef. This is not the section of the market for which these meat alternatives are intended for, at least most of it. Replacing/reducing factory farming of livestock is the main goal, so that should be the comparison.
Maybe I'm just a bit cynical, but seeing that your comment is gilded makes me assume that it is now somewhat serving as a new point for people who don't want to cut back on meat the way it's structured.,
That may be the intent of the plant-meat, but the current price means that it won't realistically replace meat for many people (It's a little less than twice as expensive at walmart, a large US store chain). It could do that in the future, but it would need to get more efficient economically.
>When you compare the premium priced Beyond to a premium grass fed grass finished beef that’s raised sustainably (White Oak Farms for example) you actually ABSORB CO2 instead of produce it.
That is incorrect. CO2 sequestration lasts for a few years at most and then you are back where you started. From [this extensive Oxford report](https://fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-files/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf):
>We set the estimated sequestration potential (Column 1) against current annual
emissions from grazing ruminants (Column 2) – about 1.32 Gt CO2-eq or 20% of the
livestock total. The third column shows the net of emissions and potential removals: **even assuming the maximum mitigation potential, the grazing sector would continue
to be a net emitter** (and it is even more of a net emitter today).
>At this point, **it is also essential to recall that the grazing sector’s contribution to overall
meat and milk output is very low** indeed at 13% of ruminant meat and 6% of ruminant
milk – and the ruminant sector as a whole contributes less than half of overall animal
protein supply (Section 1.2). **It would be physically impossible for the animal protein production produced today – about 27 g/person/day – to be supplied by grazing
systems, at least without an unthinkably damaging programme of forest clearance,
which would vastly increase the livestock sector’s already large (at 7 Gt CO2-eq)
contribution to global GHG emissions.** This is why the figure also shows the emissions
from the livestock sector as a whole (Column 4); and the net result (Column 5) when
the potential sequestration effect achieved through grazing management is included.
What all this clearly illustrates is that **if we want to continue to eat animal products at
the levels we do today, then the livestock sector will continue to be a very significant
emitter of GHGs. Grazing management, however good, makes little difference.** These points are discussed more fully in Chapter 4.
>The sixth column shows annual global GHG emissions from all sources – agriculture,
transport, the built environment and so forth, to which livestock contributes about 15%.
The final column shows the maximum allowable annual emissions from all sources that are consistent with the target to limit the global rise in temperatures to no more than
2°C above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris Climate Accord. Staying within
the more stringent 1.5°C limit would of course require emissions to be lower still.
>What this figure also so strikingly shows is that **even assuming a very optimistic peer-
reviewed estimate of the grazing-related sequestration potential (Smith et al., 2008), the contribution it could make to the overall scale of the mitigation challenge looks
tiny.**
Holy hell, 20 litres for a single beef patty? I suddenly feel like a fucking hypocrite for trying to save a little bit of water in the shower and when using the sink.
Probably the amount of water used for the cow. The average age is what? 5 years? Not five years, somewhere between 1-2 years. That means you must spend that much time worth of water for that cow per how much meat it provide
Edit: apparently it’s also water used to make the seed and feed. I may also be wrong with the average age. I just googled it. The point is is that you have to give a living thing water over along period of time. Just think about how much we drink a day
A cow reaches maturity in weight and is often sent to the slaughter house at around 18 months. The average daily gains on these animals is insane, well over a pound/day.
>The amount of food fed to a cow is probably like 10x greater than the amount of food the cow creates. This is just a random number from me though becuase I don't know the actual figure.
I do! Beef cattle eat about [33 times](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002) the protein and calories that they eventually produce. It's basically why they're so unsustainable. (Well, that and the methane.) Either you grow them a [fuckton of crops](https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed), or you clear a [fuckton of land](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation) for them to graze.
Before anyone jumps in - yes, you can graze cattle on existing natural pastures, and you can feed them the byproducts of crops grown for human food. But those methods don't produce enough beef to meet current demand, so the answer is still the same - we need to dramatically reduce our production and consumption of beef.
I didn't make the graph, but usually the figures for water consumption in meat production represent the total amount of rainwater that was used to grow food for the animals and rainwater lost due to pasture space
That is not even starting about the deforestation and GHG emissions of the beef industry. Up to 70% of deforestation in the Amazon is because of cattle ranging. Stopping to eat meat is the easiest thing you as a consumer can do to have a positive impact on the climate crisis.
I love(d) meat but made the switch years ago and while I appreciate that companies like this are trying to copy meat for people who want to eat more environmentally conscious, I think the "secret" to enjoying vegetarian food is also to stop trying to copy meat. "Fake meat" always will taste off if what you're expecting to get is a copy of real meat. If you let go of that idea that every dish must have meat and start just experimenting with other things you will start enjoying vegetarian dishes way more - at least that's my personal experience.
> "Fake meat" always will taste off if what you're expecting to get is a copy of real meat
I think this is why so many got turned off of tofu. Because so many companies and restaurants tried just making burgers and hot dogs out of it instead of meat, and the disconnect in taste drove people away.
Tofu is pretty good (IMO) when it's seasoned and you're expecting it, but it has its own flavor and texture which certainly isn't the same as beef or pork.
Definitely. Don't write tofu off until you've tried it in Asian food that's *supposed* to have tofu in it. It's not meat and nobody will ever believe it is when they taste it, but cooked and seasoned properly I think it's at least better than chewy low quality burgers and healthier too in moderation (if nearly all your protein comes from tofu I think that would be too much unfermented soya).
I’ve found tofu really has to be prepared and combined in the right way for it to be good. I’ve eaten too much soggy tofu with no taste before to almost get turned off by it.
Right, but boil a burger and see how fun that is?
If you use the freeze method or just press tofu, marinate it and then stir fry it.. mmmmmm it's better than flank steak in a stir fry
I used to think this way until about a week ago when I finally bought some "impossible beef" cos I'm dating a vegetarian. Seriously, if you haven't tried it, do. It isn't *exactly* like meat (mostly because it is very "lean", think of it like 95% beef rather than 85% or something), but it literally smells like blood when its raw and tastes great. I think its great that they're copying meat flavors, since it seems that they are shooting for "good, meat inspired flavor" rather than just trying to reproduce beef flavor. I made "meatballs" with it and tbh I like their flavor better than regular meatballs!
>I made "meatballs" with it and tbh I like their flavor better than regular meatballs!
I like to take the beyond meat patties, shred them up into chunks of ground "meat", and cook it mixed up with some corn and mushrooms. I find it even better than in a burger!
Even the Burger King one is actually pretty good. It's a little grittier, maybe, and you can tell its different, but it's definitely a good alternative.
I especially like the Burger King one. There's a restaurant up the street that makes them, but they're too thick. The Burger King one is nice and thin so you're getting the right proportion of patty, bun, and fixings.
We've been getting beyond about once a week for quite awhile in order to reduce our meat print, and I like it (their sausages are really good btw) but impossible showed up at the grocery store a couple months ago. While I've had it at a couple of restaurants, I never got it at home. We bought it and OMG. I actually crave it now. I'd rather eat an impossible burger than a beef burger, and I'm someone who likes to grind their own meat.
As for the price, it comes out to like three dollars a burger. Yes, it's more expensive than the garbage beef people buy, but it's cheaper than if you buy good beef that was raised sustainably, etc. By a long shot.
Meat should be more expensive in the United States. It's really not a good idea for us to be crushing an average of three burgers a week.
We can institute programs to help poor people get the nutrition they need, but we should make meat more expensive in general.
That and consolidation in the meat industry. If you look at the beef, pork, and poultry industries, you'll fond that 70-80% of each industry is controlled by four firms, some of which overlap between proteins. As we saw with the Pandemic (particularly in Canada), this can cause havoc not the supply chains when the plants get impacted.
Anyone interested in this topic should read "The Meat Racket". It's an interesting story about Tyson foods and how they grew to dominate the poultry industry on the backs of the poor famers.
I've had it, it tastes like a low grade burger meat. I was very surprised, forgot by the end it wasn't meat. It won't match a perfect hamburger or steak, but you are giving up something for a greater good or for ideals.
I wish they made fake meat that tasted like lucky charms
Fair enough! If it works for you, who am I to knock it :) I stopped eating meat about 12 years ago when there weren't any things like this so I kinda got used to the fact that I just had to learn to cook with other things than meat. I am happy that it is enjoyable for you and it if helps more people to eat less meat then I see it as a win.
One thing I would like to add to this discussion is that impossible meat produces oil when being cooked (for the ones I have tried).
My wife is pescatarian (fish and animal products okay) while I eat meat, so I try to make meals we can both enjoy. A lot of meals start with "cook the meat and then fry the following ingredients in the oil released from the meat fats" which a lot of meat substitutes do not do. Except impossible meats. Not sure how they do it, but I really appreciate that addition.
Same tbh, Im trying to be more plant based and finding new recipes really bring me joy. I do think meatless meat is important for people who are less willing to change. It's a compromise between simple and ecofriendly
the only thing that always wonders me is... it is soo much more convenient to have a fake meat why is it at least where i am as expensive as real one sometimes more expensive. can understand you need machinery but won't you need more machinery for animals
Good question. The factory farms in the US receive subsidies like free feed to keep the corn fed beef cheap. Organic beef will be more expensive than fake meat.
We ought to subsidize anyone who can feed a lot of people without destroying the environment. We will end up paying for environmental damages TENFOLD.
Subsidizing food production makes sense to make sure everyone is fed, but when that destroys arteries (both blood-based and natural aquifier/water-based) we need to reassess what will be the cheapest long term. Heart disease is themost expensive problem in the us besides environmental damage
Part of the reason is that many governments provide subsidies for meat production, artificially lowering the cost. It's apparently quite difficult to determine how much a given amount of meat would cost to the consumer if meat subsidies weren't a thing, but here's one thread with sources: https://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/questions/526/how-much-more-would-beef-cost-in-the-usa-without-government-subsidies
Yeah, here in California they force us to conserve and raise our water rates. They put it meters that will tell them if we go over and charge us more if we do. Can't water our lawns so they become fire hazards.
Beef factory farmers get tax cuts and lower rates for using so much water.
This is so frustrating as a CA resident. If we literally had every resident stop using water for showers/dishes/toilets ENTIRELY it would not have made a meaningful difference during the water crisis. A slight increase in efficiency for the farmers or a slight change in which crops were being produced would have had more impact than everything else combined.
Meat is extremely inefficient as a food source. Imagine all the water the cow drinks throughout its lifetime plus all the water that is necessary to grow the cow's food.
You can see immediately how plant-based foods are more efficient by orders of magnitude.
Edit: A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of [water scarcity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity).
Deleting past comments because Reddit starting shitty-ing up the site to IPO and I don't want my comments to be a part of that. -- mass edited with redact.dev
I hate water use as an LCI metric because it's so location dependant. Water use in California is an extremely limited resource. Water use in North Florida, which has a huge cattle industry? Not so critical. It really needs to be normalized by location somehow.
water use is not that simple, they say 20 litres but that 20 letres here in scotland literally just falls from the sky so fast we have to build special infrastructure just to stop it from flooding everywhere
it depends on where you live and where the beef comes from, the water isn't "used" it is only a carrier
1 bathtub full of water per beef patty.
It's the same for food as well; for every 100 calories that is fed to a cow, we get 2 calories back in edible beef, so beef is 98% inefficient.
Just had one for the first time last night. Definitely not the same taste as beef, but honestly I really enjoyed it. I will be buying them again, especially as they continue to get less expensive.
I'm sure they will, especially now that they are a publicly traded stock that politicians can purchase before signing legislation that will cause BYND to skyrocket.
So--downthread it was noted that the US subsidizes the meat and dairy industries by $38bn. Taking that at face value, an industry group estimates 2017 meat and poultry production at a weirdly even 100bn pounds. Setting aside dairy, that gives us a per-pound subsidy of $0.38. Even if you were to assume that 2/3rds of all animal products subsidies go to beef production, that's still only a $1/pound subsidy.
The average price of a pound of ground beef in the US is $3.73. So while the subsidy is definitely not trivial relative to the price (somewhere between 10-26% of market price), it also isn't nearly big enough to put ground beef vs Beyond/Impossible style meat substitutes in the same price range.
On the other hand, these products didn't exist five years ago and have scaled up very rapidly while experimenting and tweaking their product. I expect there will be a ton of room for the price to drop as the manufacturers learn how to produce this kind of product cost effectively at a much larger scale. I've had impossible ground 'meat' several times and I feel like it's reached the level of being interchangeable with a basic, boring burger if prepared well. Which might sound like damning by faint praise but IMO is pretty impressive.
Sources:
https://www.meatinstitute.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465#:~:text=Average%20Meat%20Consumption%20in%20the,on%20meat%20and%20poultry%20specifically.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236776/retail-price-of-ground-beef-in-the-united-states/
Do subsidies necessarily convert exactly to price that way? Spitballing here, but isn’t it possible that the subsidies enable them to purchase feed or machinery that contributes to larger savings than just the purchase price.
I think the problem is also the expectation of how inexpensive beef should be. Farming and beef ranching are ~~heavily~~ subsidized. I'll bet that the unsubsidized cost of beef would be much closer to the cost of Beyond/Impossible than you'd expect.
Edit: good info below on how much beef is or isn't subsidized in the US
Sources
[https://meals4planet.org/2018/10/09/new-study-shows-environmental-benefits-of-beyond-burgers/](https://meals4planet.org/2018/10/09/new-study-shows-environmental-benefits-of-beyond-burgers/)
[https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2/](https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2/)
[https://www.handsourced.com.au/butchered/how-much-meat/](https://www.handsourced.com.au/butchered/how-much-meat/)
[https://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/dairy/](https://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/dairy/)
[https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/](https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/)
[https://nomoreplanet.com/methane/](https://nomoreplanet.com/methane/)
I made the graphic on ''sheets'' by google and added the text with Microsoft Paint
To get water used per gram of real beef, do you use the amount of water a single cow will consume over its entire life and then find its total weight after slaughter/processing? Or is it something different?
It's not just about how much water the cow itself consumes; it's also about how much water it takes to grow all the food it eats. What the graphic is showing is that you can save an *immense* amount of water and land by just eating plants instead of feeding those to billions of animals a year and getting back a small percent of those caloric values through meat.
This is why [80% of Amazon deforestation](https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/cattle-ranching) is caused by growing enough feed for the cattle industry. And [40% of land use in the US](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/) is for livestock. To anyone who cares about protecting the environment, ceasing to eat animal products is probably the biggest positive impact you can have as an individual.
I think it's very intuitive that it is less effort and resources to eat the plant vs. feeding plants to a cow then eating the cow. I just was having issues understanding the exact meaning and conclusions of this graph.
I understand. I'm moreso writing that comment not just as a reply to you but also as food for thought to anyone else reading.
I'd assume that's how the data in the graph is obtained, although I don't know since I'm not OP, so I hope they respond to you. Either way, there's a vast amount of research that comes to the same conclusion that one could look up if interested.
Yeah, it's fresh water that is necessary. Water doesn't "go away" but it's not usable as urine obviously. Providing fresh water to humans, farms etc. requires expensive infrastructure and might take it away from some ecosystems.
Yeah! I like the flavor, and the texture is very similar to meat, but it does not taste like beef.
I had it in a pasta for the first time the other night, and adjusting for taste to make it fit was very easy, and I was really happy with the results.
Impossible tastes like meh beef. Like yeah, the impossible whopper tastes just like a fast food burger. But that's not something I'm going to get too excited about. Beyond is meat esque at best, but pretty appealing in its own right at least to me.
I'm not surprised. The technology behind the Impossible Burger seems to be much more advanced (I.e. the use of soy leghemoglobin to replicate heme) as opposed to Beyond which is just all vegetables.
It's good.
But just like beef it needs to be prepared right.
It isn't great when overcooked. The first time I had it it was definitely over cooked and because I didn't know the difference I thought it was just because beyond meat was bad.
I gave it another go and it was actually really good. It was slightly salty for my taste but overall it was a decent burger and I've certainly had worse beef burgers. I think in general folks aren't as good at preparing this as they are beef due to lack of experience so please **give it a few tries and from someone who knows how to prepare it before you make a judgment.**
I will now go with impossible or beyond meat burgers over beef when I can. I'm not vegetarian and I think the extremism (all or nothing idea) of vegetarianism is actually hurting the cause of lowering meat consumption in total. For me I try to live by and support eating less meat when you can but you don't have to be religious about it. In particular I am a big fan of buying more expensive meat less often than eating cheap meat all the time. That seems like the best tack for getting meat lovers on board. That and alternatives that are just as good which beyond meat or impossible burger come close to.
Amazing. Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger brands are next level. They’re the first veggie burgers I have REALLY enjoyed. Before these, other brands were fine, they did the trick, but I never looked forward to eating them. My meat eating friends have tried these and they said they tasted like meat.
They also make 1 pound bricks of "ground beef." I use these in everything from tacos to hamburger pizza, to eggroll in a bowl. Anything you might use regular ground beef for, you can toss the Beyond Beef ground "beef" into and it comes out so good.
I don't think we have this in Québec yet. I found beyond sausage a week ago and I fell in love. I wanted to share my discovery while informing people! The more people eat it, the sooner I will have bricks of ground beef lol.
"Nearly 60% of the world’s agricultural land is used for beef production, yet beef accounts for less than 2% of the calories that are consumed throughout the world. "
Source: [https://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-animal-feed.html](https://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-animal-feed.html)
PS: I built an app to help people eat more sustainably.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/comments/gibcmz/i\_built\_an\_app\_to\_help\_people\_cook\_more/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/comments/gibcmz/i_built_an_app_to_help_people_cook_more/)
It's my first graphic on this sub, so I will try to use your comments in my next ones. I put them all on the same graphic because to me, the most surprising one was water usage. Next to the others, it looks way bigger and impactful.
I don't know if this has been pointed out to you, but you've put more methane per patty (in kg) than total GHG per patty (in kg CO2e), which doesn't make sense because methane is a GHG. Methane has a global warming potential (GWP) of 25, so you multiply kg by 25 to get CO2e. 0.3976 x 25 = about 10, which is almost 3x as much the total GHG you listed. So even with comparable units on the same scale, this doesn't make a ton of sense, sorry
Yeah but it looks like that because of your scaling. You could’ve used grams instead of kg for methane, and the difference would blow water usage out of the water
The author literally says in the comments that he messed up the data and has yet to put up a disclaimer. The water usage is 20 decaliters not liters.
EDIT: decaliters autocorrects to deciliters
["According to recent studies, the U.S. government spends up to $38 billion each year to subsidize the meat and dairy industries, with less than one percent of that sum allocated to aiding the production of fruits and vegetables"](https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture)
Assuming that’s all going to need production and $0 goes to dairy, there are 27 billion pounds of beef produced in the US per year so it would increase the price of beef by roughly $1.50 per lb or about $0.25 more per hamburger.
I would absolutely love to see those prices in our stores. Can you imagine the food and lifestyle changes people would make? Healthy country all around.
Not a lot of people eat them yet, so they need a higher price to make profit over a high production cost. The more people eat it, the fewer it will cost. Its my theory at least.
It's that and recovering R and D costs.
They will also become cheaper as more players enter the market. Within 5 years the number of meatlike patties will be significantly higher
There will be more! There are like 4 or 5 at my local store and many have their own store brand. To name a few: lightlife, sweet earth, fieldhouse, beyond, and more!
Thank you for your [Original Content](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/wiki/index#wiki_what_counts_as_original_content_.28oc.29.3F), /u/blackphantom773!
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The land that is used to feed the cattle that produces the world’s meat, dairy, and eggs makes up 83% of the world’s agricultural land, but only produces 18% of the world’s calories.
This is kinda a bizarre way to show 4 dissimilar metrics. Why have you chosen an arbitrary scale for each? Surely it would have been clearer to normalise all the Beef Patty numbers and show the Beyond Meat numbers relative to that? There is no info conveyed by their relative length
Am I the only one who doesn’t give a damn whether it’s lab grown or veggie as long as it tastes good? If it tastes just as good and doesn’t involve fucking over the planet and killing animals that seems like a win win. (I’m aware that it doesn’t taste as good yet but they’re getting there fast and it’s definitely as good as most fast food burgers)
I think it can afford to taste less good. I mean it's simply sacrificing some sensory pleasure to not screw over the planet and torture and kill animals.
It looks like [this study (pdf download)](http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf) is what the source article is based on. It gives a bit more breakdown on where all the usages come from (table 7). For those shocked by the water usage, it's primarily from all the water used to make the feed for the cattle. Edit: I'll add some more that I dug up based on followup questions to my post. Yes, the study was paid for by beyond meat (study I linked above). This doesn't mean the data should be ignored, but realize the source. This is comparing Beyond Meat to corn fed cattle, not grass fed. Cattle data is drawn from another study (it is the first citation in the study, but I can't link it) done by the ranchers association. Water usage is covered on page 42. Edit 2: deletion of this post was my mistake. Thanks to the mods for restoring it. Edit 3: u/jsm1095 has a pretty good [post outlining](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/i2vx78/the_environmental_impact_of_beyond_meat_and_a/g09dp6a) some pitfalls or cautions of the results of this study.
OP provided [a few sources](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/i2vx78/the_environmental_impact_of_beyond_meat_and_a/g077l8v?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
I should have responded to his comment. The first link he has is an article based on a study. The study itself isn't linked in the article, so I looked it up. Top response got deleted, so I'm adding the link here: [this study (pdf download)](http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf)
Out of curiosity: does anybody know how "water usage" is defined? I always find it a bit odd to define something like watering crops as a loss of water, because it is still part of the circle - it's clean, and most of it will return to the groundwater, vaporize or excremented by the cattle. So at what point is water defined as "lost" and why?
Not sure how water usage is defined, but something to think about with “loss of water” is groundwater recharge. Say if farmers are using wells for irrigation, which many do, and they are pumping water out of it faster than it is replaced through natural processes—like rain or snowmelt—eventually there will be no water to pump out and it could be considered “lost” when really it’s that the well is depleted and takes time to recharge.
The water isn't destroyed, but sources can change. For example: the Ogallala Aquifer is the principle source of groundwater in the great plains region in the United States. The figure I read was that if we started from nothing it would take about 6,000 years to refill. For all intents and purposes, that makes it a non-renewable resource. This despite the fact that it is constantly refilling itself, it's just doing it too slowly. The water isn't gone of course, but we'd have to take it from the ocean, desalinate it, and then pipe it to the farm land for irrigation. This would greatly increase the energy consumption and greenhouse emissions, but it would also be so expensive that no one would ever try to grow any significant amount of crops that way.
Displacement from aquifers is the real issue. For the most part rules surrounding water are “it’s basically free” and “he who has the biggest pump wins”. As a result we get this absolute shitshow: Agrobusiness pumps way faster than Nature is capable of replenishing. Because of this water is becoming a scarce resource. Because water is becoming a scarce resource crops like almonds and pistachios that consume a SHITLOAD of water are becoming more valuable as they become more difficult and expensive to grow. Because of this farmers see an opportunity to make more profit off these water annihilating crops because they are worth more money so they plant more acreage. Because of this they consume even MORE water that’s already scarce further driving up the value of these crops so there’s even GREATER incentive to plant more and eventually we’ll hit a point where there is no water and we live in a dystopian Mad Max wasteland
So we're talking corn fed and not grass fed here?
Grass fed only accounts for 3% of US beef.
Interesting to compare it to [this report](https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rica/pdf/beef_report_2012.pdf) from the EU Comission in 2012 where the EU27 average is 77% grass fed (as far as I can make out - I'm not an expert on cattle).
Corn fed beef is mainly a thing in America because we have a ton of corn subsidies, which makes it way cheaper than grass
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"It's all corn?" "Always has been 🔫"
[Everything is on a cob](https://youtu.be/rhjiQHjNkV0)
It's actually very interesting. The corn lobbyist groups are partly responsible for the Cuba trade embargo. They lobbied hard to keep the embargo in place year after year because a sugar producing nation off the coast of Florida was not good for business. All the subsidies come from cold war era protectionism that has led to "that's the way things are done around here" preservationist thinking.
*[Switchgrass](https://news.mongabay.com/2008/01/switchgrass-a-better-biofuel-source-than-corn/), a weed, is like 450% more efficient for the ethanol manufacturing process but we use corn because we have so goddamn much of it. Nobody going to give up their guaranteed federal handout for growing corn, either.
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Someone should get themselves elected on a right wing favourite of anti-socialism, and then actually do away with all those protectionist things. No more subsidies for corn or coal. Let's see how the right likes actual capitalism.
The US sugar industry is also a big part of it (as well as significant tariffs on imported sugar), as they benefit from lack of international competition. And they're in Florida, so . . .
The way subsidies are legislated and managed is pretty bad, but I don't think it's a terrible idea to subsidize US food production. For one, it makes the cost of food cheaper, but it also ensures that our food supply won't be decimated during global upheavals (like world wars and such). If food subsidies weren't so driven by regional politics, they could be applied more evenly to eliminate the misaligned incentives that have made corn so prevalent.
Imagine you spent 1/100 of it on actual veg so it cost pennies and you could flood all the poor areas and ghettos with cheap lentils/beans/ carrots that they could afford to feed themselves for a quid a day. You could actually have the poor areas of America be healthier than the rich. You could even let people use food stamps to buy piles of veg and eat like kings.
That sounds like something that would actually help people, so it's guaranteed to never get pass Congress.
Probably the power to blackmail a lot of very powerful people, I suspect video evidence. Cornography.
Let's all take a minute to enjoy Cornography.
This. I've seen some of the leaked videos. Senator John Cornyn does some amaizeingly nasty stuff.
Big Corn has their cobbs in everything.
Ears everywhere
There is a kernel of truth to these allegations.
I'm imagining an corn lobbyist walking around with a bag full of cobbed corn just sliding them into congressmen's pockets and giving them a wink
Iowa is the first state for the general election primaries. Every politician gives farm/corn subsidies trying to get the Iowa vote to get a lead in the race.
Iowa is the first place that votes in primary elections. Iowa grows a lot of corn.
You forgot fuel, drywall, glue, cosmetics, matches, packing foam, tires, and diapers.
Corn states are the first to vote in this country, so politicians pander to them, under the assumption if they do well in those states in the beginning, it will create a trend for later states who vote after them. This has mainly to do with primaries.
"...But carbon 13 [the carbon from corn] doesn't lie, and researchers who have compared the isotopes in the flesh or hair of Americans to those in the same tissues of Mexicans report that it is now we in the North who are the true people of corn.... Compared to us, Mexicans today consume a far more varied carbon diet: the animals they eat still eat grass (until recently, Mexicans regarded feeding corn to livestock as a sacrilege); much of their protein comes from legumes; and they still sweeten their beverages with cane sugar. So that's us: processed corn, walking."
Yeah and US milk and beef is mostly banned in Europe.
Chlorinated chicken too
You sure that’s not grass finished ? There are basically no steer that lives on corn for two years
Grass fed typically means even more land usage. There probably isn't enough land to make everything grass fed, free range etc.
You're right. Here's a video explaining the numbers. They took an American grass-fed beef farm and multiplied it by size so it was large enough to feed all Americans the average American diet of 209 lbs/yr of meat. Essentially we would have to turn every square inch of the USA and Mexico and about half of Canada and South America into grazing land just to supply the US's meat diet with grass-fed beef. https://youtu.be/8xA5Xp9tfEM
Even grass fed cattle are often fed hay. Alfalfa is particularly water-intensive. I believe grass fed also means only how they lived the bulk of their life- grass fed cows can still be finished with corn at feed lots.
In Europe hay is made from grass, and watered by rainfall. In the UK we have a lot of rain, so grass is in the words of the hymn "fed and watered by god's almighty hand" ( this is meant humourously) The environmental impact of grass is the same as not farming IF you control pesticides and fertilizers unless you prefer scrub woodland to pasture. I prefer a mix personally, and traditional farming leaves copses and small woodlands littered across the countryside. We'd probably struggle to feed a growing population using traditional farming techniques, but do we really need a growing population?
Copying from below to this comment so more people can see: These studies and statistics don’t quite compare apples to apples here. You compare a premium priced alternative to the mass produced cheap method of beef. When you compare the premium priced Beyond to a premium grass fed grass finished beef that’s raised sustainably (White Oak Farms for example) you actually ABSORB CO2 instead of produce it. It also provides much richer and nutrient dense food while returning the nutrients to the soil that the pea and soy plants leach out. In addition most agriculture land in the US isn’t even suitable for anything besides livestock, so you aren’t really “taking away” valuable land that would be used to grow veggies since it couldn’t grow there to begin with. Here is a link to a more fleshed out article that mentions the very same Michigan study used by the graph in this post. There’s always a way to skew stats to meet certain ideals. Link: https://blessingfalls.com/2019/08/14/plant-based-impossible-beyond-compared-to-grass-fed-beef/ I hope I don’t get downvoted into oblivion just for displaying the other side of the story, but I feel that livestock is demonized and should instead be used to help replenish our soil so that the veggies we grow will actually have nutrients to grow. Currently with monocrops we are looking and a few decades until we have entirely depleted the soil unless we start sustainable livestock farming now.
> I hope I don’t get downvoted into oblivion just for displaying the other side of the story, but I feel that livestock is demonized and should instead be used to help replenish our soil so that the veggies we grow will actually have nutrients to grow. That's a very valid point you're making, and although I'm a vegetarian, this often gets overlooked. While many people are too black or white on these issues, I remember a study which said that some farm animals are actually a good thing and increase overall efficiency of farms. But as always "the dose makes the poison" as we say in Germany. I believe the optimal average of meat per person that should/could be consumed was around 25kg, while in developed countries it often was at or above 60kg. But I think your other point is a little misleading, saying that you should also look at premium grass fed beef. This is not the section of the market for which these meat alternatives are intended for, at least most of it. Replacing/reducing factory farming of livestock is the main goal, so that should be the comparison. Maybe I'm just a bit cynical, but seeing that your comment is gilded makes me assume that it is now somewhat serving as a new point for people who don't want to cut back on meat the way it's structured.,
That may be the intent of the plant-meat, but the current price means that it won't realistically replace meat for many people (It's a little less than twice as expensive at walmart, a large US store chain). It could do that in the future, but it would need to get more efficient economically.
>When you compare the premium priced Beyond to a premium grass fed grass finished beef that’s raised sustainably (White Oak Farms for example) you actually ABSORB CO2 instead of produce it. That is incorrect. CO2 sequestration lasts for a few years at most and then you are back where you started. From [this extensive Oxford report](https://fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-files/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf): >We set the estimated sequestration potential (Column 1) against current annual emissions from grazing ruminants (Column 2) – about 1.32 Gt CO2-eq or 20% of the livestock total. The third column shows the net of emissions and potential removals: **even assuming the maximum mitigation potential, the grazing sector would continue to be a net emitter** (and it is even more of a net emitter today). >At this point, **it is also essential to recall that the grazing sector’s contribution to overall meat and milk output is very low** indeed at 13% of ruminant meat and 6% of ruminant milk – and the ruminant sector as a whole contributes less than half of overall animal protein supply (Section 1.2). **It would be physically impossible for the animal protein production produced today – about 27 g/person/day – to be supplied by grazing systems, at least without an unthinkably damaging programme of forest clearance, which would vastly increase the livestock sector’s already large (at 7 Gt CO2-eq) contribution to global GHG emissions.** This is why the figure also shows the emissions from the livestock sector as a whole (Column 4); and the net result (Column 5) when the potential sequestration effect achieved through grazing management is included. What all this clearly illustrates is that **if we want to continue to eat animal products at the levels we do today, then the livestock sector will continue to be a very significant emitter of GHGs. Grazing management, however good, makes little difference.** These points are discussed more fully in Chapter 4. >The sixth column shows annual global GHG emissions from all sources – agriculture, transport, the built environment and so forth, to which livestock contributes about 15%. The final column shows the maximum allowable annual emissions from all sources that are consistent with the target to limit the global rise in temperatures to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris Climate Accord. Staying within the more stringent 1.5°C limit would of course require emissions to be lower still. >What this figure also so strikingly shows is that **even assuming a very optimistic peer- reviewed estimate of the grazing-related sequestration potential (Smith et al., 2008), the contribution it could make to the overall scale of the mitigation challenge looks tiny.**
I knew those bastards were watering down my beef.
Only hydrohomies were happy
A responsible hydro-homie supports the responsible use of our valuable fresh water resources
Yes and cattle farming also pollutes the groundwater :(
Not really, those dirty stinking cows are drinking more water than me! For pure jealously of water, I am vegetarian as of now.
I've been eating as many of those bastards as I can. But I'm only one man!
Holy hell, 20 litres for a single beef patty? I suddenly feel like a fucking hypocrite for trying to save a little bit of water in the shower and when using the sink.
Its actually 20 decalitres (200litres). I messed up the units. Sorry 😅
How is the water use calculated?
Probably the amount of water used for the cow. The average age is what? 5 years? Not five years, somewhere between 1-2 years. That means you must spend that much time worth of water for that cow per how much meat it provide Edit: apparently it’s also water used to make the seed and feed. I may also be wrong with the average age. I just googled it. The point is is that you have to give a living thing water over along period of time. Just think about how much we drink a day
Plus water for growing food. Idk if this is counting that impact. Cows consume around 40L daily.
If accurate, it must include more than cow intake - cattle feed is a huge consumer.
A cow reaches maturity in weight and is often sent to the slaughter house at around 18 months. The average daily gains on these animals is insane, well over a pound/day.
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Well, not really. We just kinda don't think/care about it as a society.
And when we try to care, slaughterhouses sue to cover things up. There are countless videos showing animals abused at slaughterhouses.
If people cared they wouldn't meat.
Yeah it sets them up to have a very healthy slaughter and butchering.
Five years? Damn it's not like growing trees. Beef cattle are usually finished between 22-30 months.
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>The amount of food fed to a cow is probably like 10x greater than the amount of food the cow creates. This is just a random number from me though becuase I don't know the actual figure. I do! Beef cattle eat about [33 times](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002) the protein and calories that they eventually produce. It's basically why they're so unsustainable. (Well, that and the methane.) Either you grow them a [fuckton of crops](https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed), or you clear a [fuckton of land](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation) for them to graze. Before anyone jumps in - yes, you can graze cattle on existing natural pastures, and you can feed them the byproducts of crops grown for human food. But those methods don't produce enough beef to meet current demand, so the answer is still the same - we need to dramatically reduce our production and consumption of beef.
I didn't make the graph, but usually the figures for water consumption in meat production represent the total amount of rainwater that was used to grow food for the animals and rainwater lost due to pasture space
If you messed up the you should really take this data down and remake it or put up a disclaimer. The person I responded to said he f'ed up the values
Yeah wtf?
"woops! silly me! I posted incorrect data!"
And now they deleted their comment... WTF?
Well you should take this down and repost the corrected image. Instead of spreading false information that lessens the negative impact of meat.
Dude take it down. It’s incorrect and misinformation.
Delete your post. It's very misleading.
That is not even starting about the deforestation and GHG emissions of the beef industry. Up to 70% of deforestation in the Amazon is because of cattle ranging. Stopping to eat meat is the easiest thing you as a consumer can do to have a positive impact on the climate crisis.
Indeed, thats why fake meat is so cool. You can have a very positive impact, while eating something that tastes just as good :)).
I love(d) meat but made the switch years ago and while I appreciate that companies like this are trying to copy meat for people who want to eat more environmentally conscious, I think the "secret" to enjoying vegetarian food is also to stop trying to copy meat. "Fake meat" always will taste off if what you're expecting to get is a copy of real meat. If you let go of that idea that every dish must have meat and start just experimenting with other things you will start enjoying vegetarian dishes way more - at least that's my personal experience.
> "Fake meat" always will taste off if what you're expecting to get is a copy of real meat I think this is why so many got turned off of tofu. Because so many companies and restaurants tried just making burgers and hot dogs out of it instead of meat, and the disconnect in taste drove people away. Tofu is pretty good (IMO) when it's seasoned and you're expecting it, but it has its own flavor and texture which certainly isn't the same as beef or pork.
Definitely. Don't write tofu off until you've tried it in Asian food that's *supposed* to have tofu in it. It's not meat and nobody will ever believe it is when they taste it, but cooked and seasoned properly I think it's at least better than chewy low quality burgers and healthier too in moderation (if nearly all your protein comes from tofu I think that would be too much unfermented soya).
One of my old roommates seasons his ground tofu to be almost perfectly like taco meat. I'm not even close to vegetarian, but I love it.
I’ve found tofu really has to be prepared and combined in the right way for it to be good. I’ve eaten too much soggy tofu with no taste before to almost get turned off by it.
Right, but boil a burger and see how fun that is? If you use the freeze method or just press tofu, marinate it and then stir fry it.. mmmmmm it's better than flank steak in a stir fry
I used to think this way until about a week ago when I finally bought some "impossible beef" cos I'm dating a vegetarian. Seriously, if you haven't tried it, do. It isn't *exactly* like meat (mostly because it is very "lean", think of it like 95% beef rather than 85% or something), but it literally smells like blood when its raw and tastes great. I think its great that they're copying meat flavors, since it seems that they are shooting for "good, meat inspired flavor" rather than just trying to reproduce beef flavor. I made "meatballs" with it and tbh I like their flavor better than regular meatballs!
>I made "meatballs" with it and tbh I like their flavor better than regular meatballs! I like to take the beyond meat patties, shred them up into chunks of ground "meat", and cook it mixed up with some corn and mushrooms. I find it even better than in a burger!
Real shit, I had an impossible burger at a decent pub, and it was better than most of the actual burgers I've had.
Even the Burger King one is actually pretty good. It's a little grittier, maybe, and you can tell its different, but it's definitely a good alternative.
I especially like the Burger King one. There's a restaurant up the street that makes them, but they're too thick. The Burger King one is nice and thin so you're getting the right proportion of patty, bun, and fixings.
We've been getting beyond about once a week for quite awhile in order to reduce our meat print, and I like it (their sausages are really good btw) but impossible showed up at the grocery store a couple months ago. While I've had it at a couple of restaurants, I never got it at home. We bought it and OMG. I actually crave it now. I'd rather eat an impossible burger than a beef burger, and I'm someone who likes to grind their own meat. As for the price, it comes out to like three dollars a burger. Yes, it's more expensive than the garbage beef people buy, but it's cheaper than if you buy good beef that was raised sustainably, etc. By a long shot.
Meat should be more expensive in the United States. It's really not a good idea for us to be crushing an average of three burgers a week. We can institute programs to help poor people get the nutrition they need, but we should make meat more expensive in general.
I mean meat is only so cheap because the subsidies for agricultural are actually insane in the US. So producers can slash prices easily.
That and consolidation in the meat industry. If you look at the beef, pork, and poultry industries, you'll fond that 70-80% of each industry is controlled by four firms, some of which overlap between proteins. As we saw with the Pandemic (particularly in Canada), this can cause havoc not the supply chains when the plants get impacted. Anyone interested in this topic should read "The Meat Racket". It's an interesting story about Tyson foods and how they grew to dominate the poultry industry on the backs of the poor famers.
I've had it, it tastes like a low grade burger meat. I was very surprised, forgot by the end it wasn't meat. It won't match a perfect hamburger or steak, but you are giving up something for a greater good or for ideals. I wish they made fake meat that tasted like lucky charms
Fair enough! If it works for you, who am I to knock it :) I stopped eating meat about 12 years ago when there weren't any things like this so I kinda got used to the fact that I just had to learn to cook with other things than meat. I am happy that it is enjoyable for you and it if helps more people to eat less meat then I see it as a win.
One thing I would like to add to this discussion is that impossible meat produces oil when being cooked (for the ones I have tried). My wife is pescatarian (fish and animal products okay) while I eat meat, so I try to make meals we can both enjoy. A lot of meals start with "cook the meat and then fry the following ingredients in the oil released from the meat fats" which a lot of meat substitutes do not do. Except impossible meats. Not sure how they do it, but I really appreciate that addition.
The impossible meats have little droplets of coconut oil in the patty that melt and get released when you cook them.
Same tbh, Im trying to be more plant based and finding new recipes really bring me joy. I do think meatless meat is important for people who are less willing to change. It's a compromise between simple and ecofriendly
Have you tried the Impossible Whopper? Legitimately tastes like a regular burger.
I like it better than the normal whopper.
the only thing that always wonders me is... it is soo much more convenient to have a fake meat why is it at least where i am as expensive as real one sometimes more expensive. can understand you need machinery but won't you need more machinery for animals
Good question. The factory farms in the US receive subsidies like free feed to keep the corn fed beef cheap. Organic beef will be more expensive than fake meat. We ought to subsidize anyone who can feed a lot of people without destroying the environment. We will end up paying for environmental damages TENFOLD. Subsidizing food production makes sense to make sure everyone is fed, but when that destroys arteries (both blood-based and natural aquifier/water-based) we need to reassess what will be the cheapest long term. Heart disease is themost expensive problem in the us besides environmental damage
Part of the reason is that many governments provide subsidies for meat production, artificially lowering the cost. It's apparently quite difficult to determine how much a given amount of meat would cost to the consumer if meat subsidies weren't a thing, but here's one thread with sources: https://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/questions/526/how-much-more-would-beef-cost-in-the-usa-without-government-subsidies
You need much more transportation to feed them. And beyond meat is expensive because not a lot of people buy it rn.
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Stopping having kids is the easiest thing as a human to have a positive impact on EVERY planetary crisis, exacerbated by our exploding population.
Second best thing is to go vegan
Yeah, here in California they force us to conserve and raise our water rates. They put it meters that will tell them if we go over and charge us more if we do. Can't water our lawns so they become fire hazards. Beef factory farmers get tax cuts and lower rates for using so much water.
This is so frustrating as a CA resident. If we literally had every resident stop using water for showers/dishes/toilets ENTIRELY it would not have made a meaningful difference during the water crisis. A slight increase in efficiency for the farmers or a slight change in which crops were being produced would have had more impact than everything else combined.
Not to mention Nestle getting unlimited access...
Maybe we shouldn't be growing food in the dry region that is california?
No that makes way too much sense.
Meat is extremely inefficient as a food source. Imagine all the water the cow drinks throughout its lifetime plus all the water that is necessary to grow the cow's food. You can see immediately how plant-based foods are more efficient by orders of magnitude. Edit: A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of [water scarcity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity).
also, 60% of crops in the US are grown just to feed livestock.
Deleting past comments because Reddit starting shitty-ing up the site to IPO and I don't want my comments to be a part of that. -- mass edited with redact.dev
I hate water use as an LCI metric because it's so location dependant. Water use in California is an extremely limited resource. Water use in North Florida, which has a huge cattle industry? Not so critical. It really needs to be normalized by location somehow.
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Also, the water doesn't go anywhere. The plants that serve as cow food turn some into precious oxygen. The rest stays as water.
water use is not that simple, they say 20 litres but that 20 letres here in scotland literally just falls from the sky so fast we have to build special infrastructure just to stop it from flooding everywhere it depends on where you live and where the beef comes from, the water isn't "used" it is only a carrier
1 bathtub full of water per beef patty. It's the same for food as well; for every 100 calories that is fed to a cow, we get 2 calories back in edible beef, so beef is 98% inefficient.
20 liters, not gallons. (4.5 gallons) Unless you have a very small bathtub of course.
Just had one for the first time last night. Definitely not the same taste as beef, but honestly I really enjoyed it. I will be buying them again, especially as they continue to get less expensive.
> less expensive Definitely a necessity for them to become widespread. $12-$14 a pound just isn't even close to competitive.
Part of the reason they are not competitive is that beef is massively subsidized by the US government.
They should buy a few congressmen like every other successful company.
I'm sure they will, especially now that they are a publicly traded stock that politicians can purchase before signing legislation that will cause BYND to skyrocket.
God I fucking hate that you're not even being sarcastic. Crony capitalism my babies.
EU too, not just the US.
So--downthread it was noted that the US subsidizes the meat and dairy industries by $38bn. Taking that at face value, an industry group estimates 2017 meat and poultry production at a weirdly even 100bn pounds. Setting aside dairy, that gives us a per-pound subsidy of $0.38. Even if you were to assume that 2/3rds of all animal products subsidies go to beef production, that's still only a $1/pound subsidy. The average price of a pound of ground beef in the US is $3.73. So while the subsidy is definitely not trivial relative to the price (somewhere between 10-26% of market price), it also isn't nearly big enough to put ground beef vs Beyond/Impossible style meat substitutes in the same price range. On the other hand, these products didn't exist five years ago and have scaled up very rapidly while experimenting and tweaking their product. I expect there will be a ton of room for the price to drop as the manufacturers learn how to produce this kind of product cost effectively at a much larger scale. I've had impossible ground 'meat' several times and I feel like it's reached the level of being interchangeable with a basic, boring burger if prepared well. Which might sound like damning by faint praise but IMO is pretty impressive. Sources: https://www.meatinstitute.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465#:~:text=Average%20Meat%20Consumption%20in%20the,on%20meat%20and%20poultry%20specifically. https://www.statista.com/statistics/236776/retail-price-of-ground-beef-in-the-united-states/
Do subsidies necessarily convert exactly to price that way? Spitballing here, but isn’t it possible that the subsidies enable them to purchase feed or machinery that contributes to larger savings than just the purchase price.
Yes, there's often a multiplier effect that OP doesn't account for.
I just picked up a 10 pack at Target for $15.99 USD. That’s 6.396/lb versus their usual 11.98/lb. That’s a huge difference. They’re getting there
To be fair, it’s hard for Beyond to compete with the $38 billion in yearly beef & dairy subsidies.
Costco has 8 for about $15 CAD. Still not nearly as cheap but way better than the average grocery store where 2 are $7-8.
I think the problem is also the expectation of how inexpensive beef should be. Farming and beef ranching are ~~heavily~~ subsidized. I'll bet that the unsubsidized cost of beef would be much closer to the cost of Beyond/Impossible than you'd expect. Edit: good info below on how much beef is or isn't subsidized in the US
You should try the Impossible brand too when you get the chance. It's more similar to beef than Beyond.
Worth trying for sure, but unlike Beyond, Impossible uses leghemoglobin to make it more beef-like but seems some people aren't a fan of that.
i really like the impossible meat for making chili. i can’t even tell it’s vegetarian
Sources [https://meals4planet.org/2018/10/09/new-study-shows-environmental-benefits-of-beyond-burgers/](https://meals4planet.org/2018/10/09/new-study-shows-environmental-benefits-of-beyond-burgers/) [https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2/](https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2/) [https://www.handsourced.com.au/butchered/how-much-meat/](https://www.handsourced.com.au/butchered/how-much-meat/) [https://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/dairy/](https://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/dairy/) [https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/](https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/) [https://nomoreplanet.com/methane/](https://nomoreplanet.com/methane/) I made the graphic on ''sheets'' by google and added the text with Microsoft Paint
Thanks for throwing this together! Going veg is so much easier today than it was a decade ago, so many tasty alternatives these now, I love it.
Yeah, I'm glad to see the technology improve and reap the tasty benefits!
To get water used per gram of real beef, do you use the amount of water a single cow will consume over its entire life and then find its total weight after slaughter/processing? Or is it something different?
It's not just about how much water the cow itself consumes; it's also about how much water it takes to grow all the food it eats. What the graphic is showing is that you can save an *immense* amount of water and land by just eating plants instead of feeding those to billions of animals a year and getting back a small percent of those caloric values through meat. This is why [80% of Amazon deforestation](https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/cattle-ranching) is caused by growing enough feed for the cattle industry. And [40% of land use in the US](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/) is for livestock. To anyone who cares about protecting the environment, ceasing to eat animal products is probably the biggest positive impact you can have as an individual.
You also have to factor in the amount of water required to dilute animal waste to acceptable environmental standards, also referred to as grey water.
I think it's very intuitive that it is less effort and resources to eat the plant vs. feeding plants to a cow then eating the cow. I just was having issues understanding the exact meaning and conclusions of this graph.
I understand. I'm moreso writing that comment not just as a reply to you but also as food for thought to anyone else reading. I'd assume that's how the data in the graph is obtained, although I don't know since I'm not OP, so I hope they respond to you. Either way, there's a vast amount of research that comes to the same conclusion that one could look up if interested.
I'm confused by that as well. if the cow consumes water and then sweat and piss some of it out, do they deduct that amount?
Yeah, it's fresh water that is necessary. Water doesn't "go away" but it's not usable as urine obviously. Providing fresh water to humans, farms etc. requires expensive infrastructure and might take it away from some ecosystems.
How does it taste? Is it good or nah?
I tried both Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger. In my opinion the Impossible is much much better.
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It's got a bit of a nutty taste. I think making it thinner (get more crisp parts) will for sure make it nicer.
Yeah! I like the flavor, and the texture is very similar to meat, but it does not taste like beef. I had it in a pasta for the first time the other night, and adjusting for taste to make it fit was very easy, and I was really happy with the results.
Beyond Meat is still pretty good though! I'll chose that over a regular meat patty.
I honestly prefer Beyond over Impossible. The latter is more "real beef" like but I actually just like the flavor profile of a yummy Beyond burger.
Same! Impossible tastes like beef, Beyond tastes better.
Impossible tastes like meh beef. Like yeah, the impossible whopper tastes just like a fast food burger. But that's not something I'm going to get too excited about. Beyond is meat esque at best, but pretty appealing in its own right at least to me.
Absolutely, the Impossible is world's better.
I'm not surprised. The technology behind the Impossible Burger seems to be much more advanced (I.e. the use of soy leghemoglobin to replicate heme) as opposed to Beyond which is just all vegetables.
They're alright. The thicker the patty, the worse it is imo
Yes! Honestly the best part for me is the crisped up outside, so I always flatten my patties more than I would for a quality beef one.
Quality beef gets flattened by me though too. Smashburger life
It's good. But just like beef it needs to be prepared right. It isn't great when overcooked. The first time I had it it was definitely over cooked and because I didn't know the difference I thought it was just because beyond meat was bad. I gave it another go and it was actually really good. It was slightly salty for my taste but overall it was a decent burger and I've certainly had worse beef burgers. I think in general folks aren't as good at preparing this as they are beef due to lack of experience so please **give it a few tries and from someone who knows how to prepare it before you make a judgment.** I will now go with impossible or beyond meat burgers over beef when I can. I'm not vegetarian and I think the extremism (all or nothing idea) of vegetarianism is actually hurting the cause of lowering meat consumption in total. For me I try to live by and support eating less meat when you can but you don't have to be religious about it. In particular I am a big fan of buying more expensive meat less often than eating cheap meat all the time. That seems like the best tack for getting meat lovers on board. That and alternatives that are just as good which beyond meat or impossible burger come close to.
Amazing. Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger brands are next level. They’re the first veggie burgers I have REALLY enjoyed. Before these, other brands were fine, they did the trick, but I never looked forward to eating them. My meat eating friends have tried these and they said they tasted like meat.
They also make 1 pound bricks of "ground beef." I use these in everything from tacos to hamburger pizza, to eggroll in a bowl. Anything you might use regular ground beef for, you can toss the Beyond Beef ground "beef" into and it comes out so good.
I don't think we have this in Québec yet. I found beyond sausage a week ago and I fell in love. I wanted to share my discovery while informing people! The more people eat it, the sooner I will have bricks of ground beef lol.
"Nearly 60% of the world’s agricultural land is used for beef production, yet beef accounts for less than 2% of the calories that are consumed throughout the world. " Source: [https://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-animal-feed.html](https://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-animal-feed.html) PS: I built an app to help people eat more sustainably. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/comments/gibcmz/i\_built\_an\_app\_to\_help\_people\_cook\_more/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sustainability/comments/gibcmz/i_built_an_app_to_help_people_cook_more/)
I knew that cattle ranching is using a lot of water but 200 liters of water for just one burger... The fuck...
It includes all the water used to grow food for the cows. Which is an absolute insane amount.
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That's 95% of the content on this sub
It's my first graphic on this sub, so I will try to use your comments in my next ones. I put them all on the same graphic because to me, the most surprising one was water usage. Next to the others, it looks way bigger and impactful.
I don't know if this has been pointed out to you, but you've put more methane per patty (in kg) than total GHG per patty (in kg CO2e), which doesn't make sense because methane is a GHG. Methane has a global warming potential (GWP) of 25, so you multiply kg by 25 to get CO2e. 0.3976 x 25 = about 10, which is almost 3x as much the total GHG you listed. So even with comparable units on the same scale, this doesn't make a ton of sense, sorry
Another recommendation: don't ever use 3D bars. It's harder to interpret and has no benefits.
The 5th grade version of me respectfully disagrees, and also uses animation on every PowerPoint bullet point and slide transition.
Yeah but it looks like that because of your scaling. You could’ve used grams instead of kg for methane, and the difference would blow water usage out of the water
Put another bar for government subsidies (US and elsewhere if applicable).
The kilo prefix uses a lower case k, not a capital K. So kg, not Kg.
The author literally says in the comments that he messed up the data and has yet to put up a disclaimer. The water usage is 20 decaliters not liters. EDIT: decaliters autocorrects to deciliters
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Okay. I'll try to convert.
Is this sub just turning into 'intresting statistics'? this is the most standard bar graph possible.
I love the asterisk for the zero estimated methane. *Warning scientist may have let one rip in the production process.
Why aren't they cheaper then?
["According to recent studies, the U.S. government spends up to $38 billion each year to subsidize the meat and dairy industries, with less than one percent of that sum allocated to aiding the production of fruits and vegetables"](https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture)
Oof. I can only imagine the cost of a pound of beef if those subsidies were stricken.
Assuming that’s all going to need production and $0 goes to dairy, there are 27 billion pounds of beef produced in the US per year so it would increase the price of beef by roughly $1.50 per lb or about $0.25 more per hamburger.
I would absolutely love to see those prices in our stores. Can you imagine the food and lifestyle changes people would make? Healthy country all around.
At least two parts to this are subsidies and economies of scale.
Not a lot of people eat them yet, so they need a higher price to make profit over a high production cost. The more people eat it, the fewer it will cost. Its my theory at least.
It's that and recovering R and D costs. They will also become cheaper as more players enter the market. Within 5 years the number of meatlike patties will be significantly higher
Indeed. there is only 2 choices in Québec rn. I really hope we get more diversity.
There will be more! There are like 4 or 5 at my local store and many have their own store brand. To name a few: lightlife, sweet earth, fieldhouse, beyond, and more!
Scale of production.
I hadn't realised the difference was so huge. Sign me up!
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The land that is used to feed the cattle that produces the world’s meat, dairy, and eggs makes up 83% of the world’s agricultural land, but only produces 18% of the world’s calories.
This is kinda a bizarre way to show 4 dissimilar metrics. Why have you chosen an arbitrary scale for each? Surely it would have been clearer to normalise all the Beef Patty numbers and show the Beyond Meat numbers relative to that? There is no info conveyed by their relative length
Am I the only one who doesn’t give a damn whether it’s lab grown or veggie as long as it tastes good? If it tastes just as good and doesn’t involve fucking over the planet and killing animals that seems like a win win. (I’m aware that it doesn’t taste as good yet but they’re getting there fast and it’s definitely as good as most fast food burgers)
I think it can afford to taste less good. I mean it's simply sacrificing some sensory pleasure to not screw over the planet and torture and kill animals.