# Alt Meat



## vinny11950 (Aug 2, 2019)

With all the news about Burger King serving the Impossible Burger soon, this article caught my attention about the possible future of cow meat and the alternatives.  This article clearly takes the positive view of the change so there is that.

For myself, as I grow older and my cholesterol creeps up, I try to limit my beef intake to 1 burger a month.  If there is a tasty option for a healthier non-beef burger I will take it just for my own health reasons.  

https://www.outsideonline.com/2399736/impossible-foods-beyond-meat-alt-meat

Obviously this will be a huge market disruption on the consumer side and the manufacturers and ranchers will have to adjust, if that is possible.


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 2, 2019)

Mfs and Ranchers may start producing quality instead of quantity for a change. Possibly save a lot of Sq miles of rain forest if beef demand wanes. I already include 50% vegetables when making meatloaf trying to cut down on all the meat ,and it taste great with the juice form the onions, carrots and cabbage ground up in there. Im sure Mfs can do the same,so im optimistic.


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## vinny11950 (Aug 2, 2019)

Seasoned Oak said:


> Mfs and Ranchers may start producing quality instead of quantity for a change. Possibly save a lot of Sq miles of rain forest if beef demand wanes. I already include 50% vegetables when making meatloaf trying to cut down on all the meat ,and it taste great with the juice form the onions, carrots and cabbage ground up in there. Im sure Mfs can do the same,so im optimistic.



Sounds like a tasty meatloaf.


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## begreen (Aug 2, 2019)

There is a sea change happening in ranching. The feedlot, industrial livestock ranching method is definitely not soil or water-friendly. However, there are large scale regenerative soil farming methods that include and rely on livestock to help improve soils while sequestering carbon. Done properly livestock should be part of the carbon drawdown picture. How big is this? The state of Montana is now paying ranchers ($) for rotational grazing.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/li...-to-sequester-carbon-using-rotational-grazing
Rep Tim Ryan has studied this and brought it up in the presidential debates. Ruminants can actually be beneficial, but livestock raising methods need to change. It's a big topic, but read up on what Allan Savory has been doing for decades. His program started in Africa, but has now spread worldwide with some great results.
https://www.savory.global/


I am not sure the impossible burger idea of faux-meats is the best form of protein. It still takes a lot of water to raise soy and most of these crops are GMO engineered to make them RoundUp ready. They get serious dosings of glyphosate. The process is also chemical-intensive (fertilizers) which kill the soil and are responsible for a lot of CO2 emissions. Algae farms can generate much more chemical-free protein per acre and use seawater. There are systems planned that are better at sequestering carbon than the large monocrop soy farms which are hard on the soil instead of regenerative. Industrial crop methods create a huge amount of CO2. Soil is disappearing from farms at an alarming rate. This needs to change.

http://www.fao.org/gacsa/en/


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## begreen (Aug 2, 2019)

vinny11950 said:


> For myself, as I grow older and my cholesterol creeps up, I try to limit my beef intake to 1 burger a month. If there is a tasty option for a healthier non-beef burger I will take it just for my own health reasons.


This may seem like an odd question, but do you drink much coffee? If yes, how is it made (perk, drip, french-press, espresso)?


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## tadmaz (Aug 2, 2019)

I eat tons of meat.  Health has never been better.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/human-fuel-food.167720/
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/im-no-longer-anxious-about-not-having-food-available/


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## vinny11950 (Aug 2, 2019)

begreen said:


> This may seem like an odd question, but do you drink much coffee? If yes, how is it made (perk, drip, french-press, espresso)?



Now I drink about 1 large cup a day.  Drip coffee, Mr Coffee coffee maker.  Why, does it affect cholesterol?

I used to drink more, but it was giving me heartburn, especially the Italian Roast from Starbuks.


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## begreen (Aug 2, 2019)

Coffee contains terpines. A couple of these oils are directly related to body cholesterol levels in some people. I have high-cholesterol from both parents and am on statins. Over the years I have been tested extensively to see if there was a way I could drop LDL levels. I'm already on a lean diet, but getting poly-unsaturated fats helped a little. I tried a lot of other different things (fasting, no eggs, no meat, niacin, etc.) and nothing made a big difference. Cholesterol testing should be done before eating but I was allowed coffee before the tests. Then about 7 years ago I just happened to be coming off of a fast and hadn't had coffee in a week. My levels were so low that the doc thought the lab made an error, but they didn't. Some research showed it was the unfiltered french-press coffee causing higher levels of serum cholesterol. I switched to tea in the mornings. Since then my levels have stayed down and my statin dosage dropped in half. My cholesterol hasn't gone up since this change. It's a bit of a bummer because I like coffee so I compromise and have filtered (Melita style) coffee occasionally.

This is not the case for everyone, but if you are genetically disposed to high cholesterol it's worth a try to see if eliminating coffee helps drop levels.

https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/coffee-link


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## vinny11950 (Aug 2, 2019)

begreen said:


> Coffee contains terpines. A couple of these oils are directly related to body cholesterol levels in some people. I have high-cholesterol from both parents and am on statins. Over the years I have been tested extensively to see if there was a way I could drop LDL levels. I'm already on a lean diet, but getting poly-unsaturated fats helped a little. I tried a lot of other different things (fasting, no eggs, no meat, niacin, etc.) and nothing made a big difference. Cholesterol testing should be done before eating but I was allowed coffee before the tests. Then about 7 years ago I just happened to be coming off of a fast and hadn't had coffee in a week. My levels were so low that the doc thought the lab made an error, but they didn't. Some research showed it was the unfiltered french-press coffee. I switched to tea in the mornings and since then my statin dosage dropped in half. My cholesterol hasn't gone up since this change. It's a bit of a bummer because I like coffee so I compromise and have filtered (Melita style) coffee occasionally.
> 
> This is not the case for everyone, but if you are genetically disposed to high cholesterol it's worth a try to see if eliminating coffee helps drop levels.
> 
> https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/coffee-link



I didn't know that, Begreen.  Thank you for the information.  I just got a blood test earlier this week but don't have the results yet.  Usually I am around 190-220, and I try to keep a low cholesterol diet.  I am trying to stay away from the statins, but I may not have a choice.


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## begreen (Aug 2, 2019)

I hear you. Not fond of having to take daily pills, but it is what it is. We all have different histories and genetics. I just pulled out the records. My cholesterol went from 230 - on statins, down to 155 on 1/2 the statin dosage after dropping coffee. My HDL dropped to 47 and LDL was 86. That's was better than my wife's low levels! 6 yrs later they are creeping up a bit, but I am more relaxed about my diet now. Still, I have to watch my LDL levels if I want to stay on a lower statin dosage.


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## Ashful (Aug 2, 2019)

Meh, pills... I could live with that.  But substituting tea for coffee?!?   You might as well just shoot me.  [emoji14]

Try to touch my bourbon, and you’ll lose a finger.


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## PaulOinMA (Aug 2, 2019)

This was an interesting story on alternative meat on PBS Newshour.  Haven't tried a faux-flesh burger.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/c...repreneurs-fool-you-with-a-plant-based-burger.

Here's a more recent story on trying to grow meat from animal cells.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/california-startups-are-growing-meat-from-animal-cells


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## PaulOinMA (Aug 2, 2019)

Ashful said:


> … But substituting tea for coffee?!?   You might as well just shoot me ...



Me, too.  I usually make a pot of coffee a day.

Been too hot for coffee lately, so I've switched to tea.  Need to make a dent in the shelf of tea-like stuff my wife has in the pantry.  

People know she doesn't drink coffee, only tea, so they keep giving her teas as gifts.  Usually it's some weird-ish thing.  She only likes real black tea, not tisane.  She likes things like: Earl Gray, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, etc.  Especially like's Thompson's Tea.

https://www.thompsonstea.com/

So, as mentioned, I've been making pots of her faux teas.  Very good this summer as an iced drink.


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 2, 2019)

One coffee in the morning.Too much of a laxative to drink it all day. Sometimes i give it a shot of Kahlua just to make it more interesting. Asked my doctor if one or two strong beers a day would be bad for my heart condition.He said no which is good cuz i wasn't giving it up anyway.


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## Ashful (Aug 2, 2019)

Seasoned Oak said:


> One coffee in the morning.Too much of a laxative to drink it all day. Sometimes i give it a shot of Kahlua just to make it more interesting. Asked my doctor if one or two strong beers a day would be bad for my heart condition.He said no which is good cuz i wasn't giving it up anyway.


My predecessor at work is 79 years old.  A few years ago, on one of the beer and cheesesteak lunches we used to take frequently, I made some off-hand comment about not telling his doctor about how we spend our lunch hour.  His response was poetic, "I know a lot more old drunks than old doctors."

I've always wondered if he a Brother Bart were related.


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## Jan Pijpelink (Aug 2, 2019)

I have cardiomyopathy. have an ICD in the chest. Drink espresso's. Love beer. Hard liquor is not my thing, but a bourbon every now and then, sure. BP is usually 117 over 74. My cardiologist keeps telling me I am in excellent shape. Had heart surgery in the Cleveland Clinic in 2006.
We love meat but changed habits. Once a week steak, once a week chicken, twice a week seafood, once a week pork, two days a week no animal protein.


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## peakbagger (Aug 2, 2019)

The head of the Cooper Institute has had multiple interviews and he normally gets around to the discussion of "squaring the curve" His theory is your genetics pretty well decide your maximum lifespan. Its genetic poker and the hand was already dealt 9 months before you were born. What Dr. Cooper suggests and has pretty good research is your lifestyle and activity level substract from the maximum lift span that are in the cards. Live healthy and you get to maximize the years you were dealt, have a unhealthy lifestyle and you subtract big time. More importantly the unhealthy lifestyle folks go into a long possible decades decline where they quality of life get worse to the point where its questionable if they really living. Those are the folks in nursing homes for years. The Dr Cooper ideal is do things that keep you healthy (diet and exercise) so that when the end comes it happens quickly, no long term decline just one morning you don't wake up. Thus the term squaring the curve. 

My dad was sure he would pass away in his early seventies. He did not have a great lifestyle growing up and into mid life. He was an occasional cigar smoker. He really ramped his activity level and diet in his mid fifties and quit smoking. He made it to 97, he was in assisted living but was quite active literally until the day before he passed. He used to work for AARP and had his standard speeches he used with groups and he would observe that there are old retirees and there are young retirees but the old retirees are not necessarily old and the young retirees are not necessarily young.  

My mom made it 87, sadly she had an odd variety of dementia so her last three years were unpleasant. Up until that kicked in she ran the house and kept a vegetable garden.  In her family many of the aunts and uncles made it over 100 unless they rolled a tractor on themselves in their 90s or didnt take care of themselves. I attended my moms sisters 90th birthday last weekend and she still lives independently in Florida. I look at it as I might live long but the years are mine to loose.


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## begreen (Aug 2, 2019)

Ashful said:


> Meh, pills... I could live with that. But substituting tea for coffee?!? You might as well just shoot me.


Yeah, my wife would agree. She was weaned on coffee. I really wanted to get off of the higher statin dosage. Leg and foot cramps sometimes were serious and pretty painful. Haven't had any on the lower dosage. I still have an occasional cup, just filtered now.


> Try to touch my bourbon, and you’ll lose a finger.


 with you there


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## Dix (Aug 3, 2019)

Reminds me of the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Aug 3, 2019)

Dix said:


> Reminds me of the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston.



It's PEOPLE!


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 14, 2019)

Well iv had my first "Impossible whopper" . I have to say im impressed. Looks like meat,taste like meat and has the texture of fine ground meat. Im betting if i didnt know its wasnt meat i could have been fooled. A little pricey compared to real meat ,but hey, a viable alternative as arrived.


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## Jan Pijpelink (Aug 14, 2019)

The "fake meat" technology comes from the Soviet era. When there was very limited real meat available during communist regime, they developed plant based meat that is almost identical to real meat in texture, flavor, etc. Real meat was only available to the party top. When we came to the US in 2003 we rented out our house to a Cuban scientist who was trained in this science in the Soviet Union in the 1980's. He told us about it. Interesting stuff. He was in the Netherlands to work at Unilever to develop plant based meat.


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 14, 2019)

The beyond meat products or today seem way ahead of the various Soy based meat alternatives that have been around for years. Tried them from time to time but they never hit the mark.


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## Jan Pijpelink (Aug 14, 2019)

Seasoned Oak said:


> The beyond meat products or today seem way ahead of the various Soy based meat alternatives that have been around for years. Tried them from time to time but they never hit the mark.


I was not referring to Soy "meat", but Veggie "meat" as we know it now.


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## sloeffle (Aug 18, 2019)

We have cattle, and do rotational grazing so my opinion is a little biased. 

If are ever bored, please make a trip to Ohio and I can show you the acres upon acres of woods that farmers have cleared in my area over the past x amount of years to grow soybeans. The sad thing is, they just scoop the trees up with a track hoe, pile them up, throw a bunch of diesel fuel on them and burn them. They don't even have a logging company come in and take them away. Hundreds of thousands of acres of Amazon rain forest has been cleared to grow soy too.  IMHO - you are just trading cow farts for Roundup.

Here is an interesting article that has been making the rounds amongst the beef crowd:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vegetarian-vegan.html

Start buying your meat from a local farmer and learn where your meat comes from and you won't feel as bad about eating it.


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## sloeffle (Aug 18, 2019)

begreen said:


> Coffee contains terpines. A couple of these oils are directly related to body cholesterol levels in some people. I have high-cholesterol from both parents and am on statins. Over the years I have been tested extensively to see if there was a way I could drop LDL levels. I'm already on a lean diet, but getting poly-unsaturated fats helped a little. I tried a lot of other different things (fasting, no eggs, no meat, niacin, etc.) and nothing made a big difference. Cholesterol testing should be done before eating but I was allowed coffee before the tests. Then about 7 years ago I just happened to be coming off of a fast and hadn't had coffee in a week. My levels were so low that the doc thought the lab made an error, but they didn't. Some research showed it was the unfiltered french-press coffee causing higher levels of serum cholesterol. I switched to tea in the mornings. Since then my levels have stayed down and my statin dosage dropped in half. My cholesterol hasn't gone up since this change. It's a bit of a bummer because I like coffee so I compromise and have filtered (Melita style) coffee occasionally.
> 
> This is not the case for everyone, but if you are genetically disposed to high cholesterol it's worth a try to see if eliminating coffee helps drop levels.
> 
> https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/coffee-link


Thanks for the info @begreen. Next time I go in, I'll have to ask my doctor about this. I usually drink drip coffee, so I don't think it should affect my results too much from what I read in the article you linked. Unfortunately I inherited the gene from my dad.


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## begreen (Aug 18, 2019)

I have it on both sides of the family but was lucky to have a cooperative doc that was willing to test me multiple times until we could find something that worked.  If your doc is amenable maybe get tested before and then after a week or two of no coffee. I still have an occasional coffee, but just once or twice a week now instead of a few cups a day.


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## begreen (Aug 18, 2019)

sloeffle said:


> We have cattle, and do rotational grazing so my opinion is a little biased.
> 
> If are ever bored, please make a trip to Ohio and I can show you the acres upon acres of woods that farmers have cleared in my area over the past x amount of years to grow soybeans. The sad thing is, they just scoop the trees up with a track hoe, pile them up, throw a bunch of diesel fuel on them and burn them. They don't even have a logging company come in and take them away. Hundreds of thousands of acres of Amazon rain forest has been cleared to grow soy too.  IMHO - you are just trading cow farts for Roundup.
> 
> ...


Rotational grazing is good. I support the ideas and implementations of Allan Savory and regenerative agriculture. Have you gone over to chat with David Brandt in Carroll, OH?


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 18, 2019)

sloeffle said:


> .
> 
> If are ever bored, please make a trip to Ohio and I can show you the acres upon acres of woods that farmers have cleared in my area over the past x amount of years to grow soybeans. .


From what iv read far less land and resources are needed to grow plants for  food vs growing plants to produce meat.Ranging from Like a 10 to 1 ratio to 2 to 1. Depending on which study. If some of the land now used to produce animal feed were use to produce plants were going straight into the food chain you wouldnt need nearly the amount of land. Only about 1/10th of the corn grown each year goes directly to feed people, the rest feeds farm animals. Of course another factor is the fact that some animals can be raised on land the is not quite suitable for farm crops.


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## begreen (Aug 18, 2019)

"Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported.  Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/


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## sloeffle (Aug 18, 2019)

begreen said:


> Rotational grazing is good. I support the ideas and implementations of Allan Savory and regenerative agriculture. Have you gone over to chat with David Brandt in Carroll, OH?


We live about an hour or so north of David. He is east of Columbus and we are north of Columbus. I've read some of David Brandt, Ray Archuleta, and Gabe Brown's various articles. They are all big proponents of no-till farming, and cover crops. David speaks at a lot of local events but unfortunately most of those are during the day. Most of our ground is wooded, and the small portion of open ground we do have is in grass, legumes, weeds and forbes for the cattle. I'm an IT guy by day and gentlemen farmer by night too.

If Jim Gerrish ever came to town I'd probably take some time off to listen to him speak. He's pretty much a cult figure amongst us rotational grazers. One of these days I'd like to make it down to Georgia and visit Will Harris's place too. His farm was given an award for the holistic grazing work they've done by the Savory Institute. He's on a much different scale though.


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## sloeffle (Aug 18, 2019)

Seasoned Oak said:


> From what iv read far less land and resources are needed to grow plants for  food vs growing plants to produce meat.Ranging from Like a 10 to 1 ratio to 2 to 1. Depending on which study. If some of the land now used to produce animal feed were use to produce plants were going straight into the food chain you wouldnt need nearly the amount of land. Only about 1/10th of the corn grown each year goes directly to feed people, the rest feeds farm animals. Of course another factor is the fact that some animals can be raised on land the is not quite suitable for farm crops.


I'd be interested to know if these studies also include the inputs that the farmer has to put into the crop. The tractors and combines that plant the grain all run off of diesel fuel. I was talking to a guy a few days ago who farms for a big farmer in the area and he told me on a good day, one of their tractors will burn 15 gallons an hour easy. He said their combines will burn around 200 gallons a day ( 20 - 25 gallons an hour I'd assume ). This doesn't include hundreds of gallons of roundup that gets sprayed or the hundreds of pounds to the acre of fertilizer that they put down in a given year.

The grass my cows graze doesn't need fertilized since 88% of what a ruminant eats comes out the back end. The grass, legumes and forbes only have be planted once, not ever year. My grass land is not a monoculture either like a soybean or corn field. We had monarch caterpillars in our pasture last week. Grass lands also sequester a lot of carbon. Personally I've been trying to eat less meat too. I think if we all ate a little less meat, the planet would thank us.

My point in all of this rambling is, eating a burger that is made with plants is not without any kind of impact to the planet.


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## Seasoned Oak (Aug 19, 2019)

Id like to learn how


sloeffle said:


> Personally I've been trying to eat less meat too. I think if we all ate a little less meat, the planet would thank us.
> My point in all of this rambling is, eating a burger that is made with plants is not without any kind of impact to the planet.


Id be happy to succeed at eating a little less of everything. I know ill never give up meat entirely but just trying to cut back as i know i eat too much of it. Could never give up a good Ribeye or Tenderloin now and then.And those would be much harder to make out of plants.  I have too many grills to swear off meat entirely.


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## vinny11950 (Aug 19, 2019)

I finally tried the Impossible Whopper from Burger King and it was decent.  It is not the same taste, but very close.  I would buy it again.


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## williamtell (Aug 20, 2019)

I've had a del taco 'beyond' soft taco. I had a regular beef one to try side by side. 

If I was just given only a beyond taco I wouldn't of been able to tell the difference.


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## peakbagger (Aug 21, 2019)

I think it comes down to that its going to be hard to beat a good quality cut of steak cooked by someone knowing how to cook it or even a hamburger cooked on a grill with fresh meat. Luckily that is not the target for these meat substitutes. Its going after the mass market day to day uses of meat like typical chain food. I do not know anyone who dines at a chain that goes there and expects a quality burger. They want a cheap, fast consistent meal and I expect the typical consumer may not even detect the difference unless they are told. I expect most of the grass fed low impact beef is not ending up in chain food. 

Note that the new class of meat substitutes could easily be made with soy protein instead of pea protein, its just that soy has an image problem as its "cheap protein" and GMP strains are used to increase production. Pea protein is far less known and is perceived and marketed as a   "premium" product that hasnt gone the GMO route, yet. The older style soy based products were also designed to be healthy so they dont use saturated fats, the new style burners use saturated fats to make them taste more like hamburger. Saturated fats are better then trans fats but far worse than vegetable based fats and the so called hard vegatable oils like Palm oil have their own concerns. In the vast majority of the products its a whole lot of marketing and hype to move it upscale. 

I eat the older style meat and chicken patty substitutes on occasion as they are a lot faster to cook right out of the freezer and easier to clean up. I normally put plenty of toppings on them and as far as I am concerned they are an acceptable meal. I tend to do a lot of chicken or turkey anyhow so I am not the target market for the alt-meats.


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## sloeffle (Aug 21, 2019)

peakbagger said:


> I expect most of the grass fed low impact beef is not ending up in chain food.


As I understand it from the ag folks at Ohio State. The burgers you eat at the various fast food chains are generally cull cows. The majority of which are old milk cows. An OSU professor told us during one of the classes I took "you can make any part of the cow tender by grinding it".


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## semipro (Aug 21, 2019)

sloeffle said:


> We have cattle, and do rotational grazing so my opinion is a little biased.
> 
> If are ever bored, please make a trip to Ohio and I can show you the acres upon acres of woods that farmers have cleared in my area over the past x amount of years to grow soybeans. The sad thing is, they just scoop the trees up with a track hoe, pile them up, throw a bunch of diesel fuel on them and burn them. They don't even have a logging company come in and take them away. Hundreds of thousands of acres of Amazon rain forest has been cleared to grow soy too.  IMHO - you are just trading cow farts for Roundup.
> 
> ...



I get your point that eating veggies still has an impact but according to the USDA 70% of the soybeans produced in the U.S. goes to feed livestock not people (directly).  https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-soybeans-factsheet.pdf

That's a shame about the clearing methods you mention.  I wish there were better sticks/carrots to discourage that sort of thing.


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## MikeK (Aug 23, 2019)

I have read, there is research showing, that the fatty acid profiles in grass fed meat and eggs is healthier than that produced "conventionally" by today's standards with high grain diets, etc.  Wife has ranging chickens outside and have taken the pictures showing our eggs next to grocery store eggs, and I am amazed at the obvious color difference.  I need to try to find that. 

@sloeffle, I read an article by Jim Gerrish in Stockman Grass Farmer discussing the possibility of switching our current production model to grass fed vs grain fed as is more common now, as in nationwide.  He had a lot of good points and numbers to show that this is realistic, when the acres that are currently used with grain feeding, etc, are taken into account.

As @begreen said, this "regenerative ag", by simply changing management practices to increase organic matter could be a huge part of carbon reductions, while decreasing input costs for producers (although change is never simple or easy).   A way for consumers to change the way things are done is to vote with their dollars by finding local farmers that use methods that they want to support.


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## MTY (Oct 5, 2019)

And here I thought alt meat was canine.


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## EatenByLimestone (Oct 6, 2019)

Local food is always preferable!  

This summer I was cleaning 3 smallmouths and drew a small crowd watching me work.  Most were kids around 9 years old or so.  It surprised me as I knew their great grandfathers and all were fishermen, their baby boomer grandparents never got into fishing, and neither had their parents.

I was happy to have them watch and learn, but a little nervous when the kids started becoming braver and were touching the fish as I was working.  They were smart enough to keep off the fish I was working on so all was good.

The most interesting person to watch that day was a recently retired nurse, who wanted to learn how to clean the fish if her sons and grandchildren caught anything.  She grew up with fish being cleaned all around her.


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## MTY (Oct 7, 2019)

I worked in a large grocery store meat department almost 50 years ago.  We received boxes of frozen beef.  I would peel the cardboard off, run the frozen cube through a bandsaw making boards of frozen beef.  This would then be ground.  Throwing fat trimmed from cuts of beef into the grinder along with the boards gave us ground round, ground chuck, and ground sirloin.  Today these would be labled as percentages of fat.  

One burger could have the meat from many different animals mixed into it.  I think it is better to take a round steak and grind it oneself rather that buy burger in the store.  It is not difficult to do. 

I have cut, ground, wrapped and eaten many different species.  Deer, elk, bear, moose, antelope, all eat well, and have to be healthier than what one purchases in the stores.  Grinding does make the tough cuts tender.  

I have also seen stockyards where the cattle bark.  

Lewis and Clark camped just across the river from where I live.  When I read up on them, I learned that dogs were a normal diet item.   Our dependence on beef is a fairly recent cultural norm, and I would bet that if things ever go to pieces, people will be willing to eat whatever they can get their teeth into.  

But I have become soft.  Today I had a doe eating on the lawn while I was working in the yard.  A few years ago I would have been sizing her up for the stew pot, but today I just thought she was cute.


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## Ashful (Oct 7, 2019)

MTY said:


> Lewis and Clark camped just across the river from where I live. When I read up on them, I learned that dogs were a normal diet item. Our dependence on beef is a fairly recent cultural norm, and I would bet that if things ever go to pieces, people will be willing to eat whatever they can get their teeth into.


I have a few close friends from China, we all met as students, and they were simply amazed that we just keep our dogs as pets, when they first arrived in this country. They kept eying my two young dogs and asking things like, “well, yeah... she is your pet for now, but you are going to eat her when she’s grown, right?”

So then I started teasing them about the rumor that you never see cats around Chinese restaurants, and they seemed to take offense at this notion.  I asked why, as if cats had some holy standing in China, and was told, “no, but they taste absolutely awful!”


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## MTY (Oct 7, 2019)

My grandmother told me that in Philly cats were referred to as roof rabbits at the meat counter during the depression.


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