Alt Meat

[sloeffle]

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.

 

[begreen]

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.

 

[begreen]

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.

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?

 

[Seasoned Oak]

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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.

 

[begreen]

"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/

 

[sloeffle]

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.

 

[sloeffle]

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.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Id like to learn how

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.

 

[vinny11950]

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.

 

[williamtell]

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.

 

[peakbagger]

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.

 

[sloeffle]

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".

 

[semipro]

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.

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.

 

[MikeK]

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.

 

[MTY]

And here I thought alt meat was canine.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

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.

 

[MTY]

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.

 

[Ashful]

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!”

 

[MTY]

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