Wait until you see the photos of what goes on inside meat packing plants.
Just kidding, you won't. The political power of the meat industry is so significant in government that they actually made it a felony to record and publish what goes on inside hog confinement operations, meat packing plants, butchering, etc. https://aldf.org/issue/ag-gag/
Not excusing what these plants do from an ethical standpoint, but there's a big difference between "gross meat stuff is around because this plant processes meat" and "this plant is dirty and unhygienic in a way that causes risk to people consuming the product." Lots of things that look nasty and would be terrible for PR are perfectly safe from a food safety perspective.
Right, but these are leaked photos from a Beyond Meat plant (something that is a felony to do in slaughterhouses) and the inspectors say the plant is fine.
So how is this different from the current status of slaughterhouses but without photos of the inside?
Proof that a bad thing is obviously happening is different from a strong (justifiable) suspicion that a bad thing is happening.
And it doesn't matter anyway. That meat plants might be gross doesn't mean Beyond Meat should be allowed to be. Everyone should be producing food in a clean environment.
You can look at other countries though, here is an "ethical" slaughter house in France, self described as "more respectful of the environment and animal welfare"
If you eat meat and can’t watch these videos, are you a hypocrite since you suspect/know how much suffering this causes but don’t want to face the consequences of your choices and ignore it altogether?
What evidence do you have that the FDA representatives that are required to sign off on meat production are not doing their job correctly? How many cases of pork parasites or beef contamination in non-fast food products have there been in the past couple years?
That there are 15 [1] facilities per FDA employee. Take a look at your buildings security, I highly doubt you have a 1 security guard for 15 of the company's buildings. There is no way the FDA is actually annually inspecting every facility (afaik, they don't claim to either).
> How many cases of pork parasites or beef contamination in non-fast food products have there been in the past couple years?
Why do we get to exclude fast-food? That's what beyond burger is tbh, so if we exclude fast-food then it doesn't matter if beyond burger is contaminated.
Primarily it was because I view "Chipotle/jack in the box/whoever sickened thirty people" to be a different case, with different acting incentives and systems than "Store brand meat full of parasites". I am claiming that fast food supply chains are distinct enough from consumer oriented supply chains that they cannot reflect on each other.
This is not the case for beyond meat, as it's still a small business that is distinct from fast food companies and serves both companies and consumers.
every animal is inspected before and after slaughter and stamped by regulators (USDA not FDA) if meat is not stamped by an inspector it cannot be sold. A meat packing plant cannot operate if an inspector is not on site.
As opposed to your doubts about once a year monitoring, literally everything is inspected or it is illegal to sell (even as dog food).
Wait are you telling me mass made vegan processed junk food is the same as mass made regular processed junk food ?
I'm socked !
Anyways, earth gave us plenty of non animal derived product to thrive on, most of them are already pre packaged in protective layers, they're cheap, tasty, can be cooked in thousands of ways, they're called veggies et legumes
> Anyways, earth gave us plenty of non animal derived product to thrive on
It really didn't. Essentially every vegetable you have ever eaten is the product of millennia of genetic modification by humans and is completely unrecognizable relative to its natural form. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, and collard greens are all horrifically mutated forms of a single natural species, engineered specifically for mass human consumption. Compare this to animals: livestock are of course influenced by husbandry but not anywhere near the same extent. One can easily match livestock to their natural forms; e.g. chicken to junglefowl; cattle to other bovine species; domesticated hogs to wild hogs. Probably none of these species is more changed than, say, the domestic dog so it's not even clear one can attribute the changes to the needs of human consumption as one does with vegetables.
If the naturality argument holds water, then it in no way points us to the produce aisle, but rather to the butcher's.
Your comment take the "best lie" of the year award.
All mass produced live stock have been carefully selected for breeding and slaughtering, all of them, chickens, cows, pigs, ducks, the lot. Not only selective breeding, but also chemical treatment due to the conditions they are grown in.
So no, they have changed susbtancially.
Do you think the "original" pig was this fat?
The "original" cow produced this much milk?
The "original" chicken produced this many eggs and meat?
Oh yes, forgot to mention that to cook delicious beans you need real cooking skills... I enjoy barbecue too, and I am sorry for those (many many here) unable to experiment other stuff. Innovating in cooking can also be a form of hacking.
I keep meaning to get Joe Yonan's
Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein, based on articles he's written (sorry, I'm on my phone, can't provide examples).
Cooking really is an art. I cooked this the other day, it was one of the best things I've ever made. It was like a bean chilli but from heaven. Specially posting this for you!
Dal Makhani
https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/dal-makhani-restaurant-sty...
(I am not affiliated with this web-site, I use u-block to browse it)
Whenever an article like this is published, there's always conflation of all these different issues. Vegan people, vegan people who hate Beyond Meat/meat substitutes, pro-meat people who hate the term "beyond meat", anti-processed-food people, etc etc.
But from a neutral standpoint as to the ethics of the product (not that I don't have my own opinions, just that I am not making this about them): The factories need to be clean. There's no excuse. You cannot put out a product that will make people sick.
And for the record, major "junk food" brands are actually great at this. When was the last time you heard of Lay's or Hershey having a recall because their food was acutely poisoning people?
Whether or not you like or approve of a specific food product, food that is sold in the United States should be safe to consume.
I like and consume Beyond Meat, but it sounds like they need to get their act together.
Nitpicking: Ferrero's not owned by either of the companies I mentioned.
But I take your point - it happens. It's really rare though, and it's always met by "oh shit, we'll fix this", not "well, we don't have a lot of money to make repairs right now, let's wait until we expand the factory several times."
Especially given the breadth of products and the volume of products they produce vs the smaller company. Food and industrial safety relies on pervasive vigilance which relies on a culture of vigilance.
Listeria's pretty hard to get rid of I guess - the Blue Bell ice cream company went through several rounds of issues with it, and it almost did their company in. Criminal penalties of over $17 million, too.
1- this is junk food. It's highly processed food, the antithesis of their communication of healthy.
2- their communication is about "saving the planet" from cow farts. The issue is not cow farts. The issue is intensive agriculture and bad quality meat. Cows do not magically create CO2. They fart existing CO2 from grass, and grass capture CO2 from the atmosphere. It's a cycle. What broke the cycle are fossil fuels.
3- the ultimate goal is to put intellectual property on food. Same textbook recipe as Monsanto. And that's the major risk with all these "new protein" companies. We can't have food be an intellectual property.
The problem is methane, which is more potent than CO2.
Feeding the world with animal meat is not sustainable… requires too many resources and creates too much pollution and habitat loss.
Surely there are better ways to feed the world. Plant based is the future and products like beyond meat help with that transition… for those folks who still crave burgers etc.
( it's funny how biased this table is laid out, agriculture is summed, while fossil fuels is detailed, showing smaller numbers, and gas flared ( 100M tons! ) is a footnote ).
The main problem is the source of energy we are using globally.
Food is a pillar of what defines humanity, thousand of years of culture, agriculture, traditions.
41 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 81.3 ms ] threadJust kidding, you won't. The political power of the meat industry is so significant in government that they actually made it a felony to record and publish what goes on inside hog confinement operations, meat packing plants, butchering, etc. https://aldf.org/issue/ag-gag/
So how is this different from the current status of slaughterhouses but without photos of the inside?
And it doesn't matter anyway. That meat plants might be gross doesn't mean Beyond Meat should be allowed to be. Everyone should be producing food in a clean environment.
> That Beyond Meat is gross doesn't mean mass slaughter of animals should be allowed to continue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbgZQxd6J4
ps: don't watch if you don't want to see animal in distress, dead/dying animals
> How many cases of pork parasites or beef contamination in non-fast food products have there been in the past couple years?
Why do we get to exclude fast-food? That's what beyond burger is tbh, so if we exclude fast-food then it doesn't matter if beyond burger is contaminated.
[1]: 272,719 [2] / 18,000 [3] [2]: https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-basics/fact-sheet-fda-glan... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_Drug_Administration
This is not the case for beyond meat, as it's still a small business that is distinct from fast food companies and serves both companies and consumers.
Am I wrong in this thinking?
every animal is inspected before and after slaughter and stamped by regulators (USDA not FDA) if meat is not stamped by an inspector it cannot be sold. A meat packing plant cannot operate if an inspector is not on site.
As opposed to your doubts about once a year monitoring, literally everything is inspected or it is illegal to sell (even as dog food).
Surely you can see the flaw in this?
I'm socked !
Anyways, earth gave us plenty of non animal derived product to thrive on, most of them are already pre packaged in protective layers, they're cheap, tasty, can be cooked in thousands of ways, they're called veggies et legumes
It really didn't. Essentially every vegetable you have ever eaten is the product of millennia of genetic modification by humans and is completely unrecognizable relative to its natural form. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, and collard greens are all horrifically mutated forms of a single natural species, engineered specifically for mass human consumption. Compare this to animals: livestock are of course influenced by husbandry but not anywhere near the same extent. One can easily match livestock to their natural forms; e.g. chicken to junglefowl; cattle to other bovine species; domesticated hogs to wild hogs. Probably none of these species is more changed than, say, the domestic dog so it's not even clear one can attribute the changes to the needs of human consumption as one does with vegetables.
If the naturality argument holds water, then it in no way points us to the produce aisle, but rather to the butcher's.
All mass produced live stock have been carefully selected for breeding and slaughtering, all of them, chickens, cows, pigs, ducks, the lot. Not only selective breeding, but also chemical treatment due to the conditions they are grown in.
So no, they have changed susbtancially.
Do you think the "original" pig was this fat?
The "original" cow produced this much milk?
The "original" chicken produced this many eggs and meat?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33318215
I personally do not prefer the taste of beans to the taste of shredded barbacoa.
But from a neutral standpoint as to the ethics of the product (not that I don't have my own opinions, just that I am not making this about them): The factories need to be clean. There's no excuse. You cannot put out a product that will make people sick.
And for the record, major "junk food" brands are actually great at this. When was the last time you heard of Lay's or Hershey having a recall because their food was acutely poisoning people?
Whether or not you like or approve of a specific food product, food that is sold in the United States should be safe to consume.
I like and consume Beyond Meat, but it sounds like they need to get their act together.
Well, in May: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2022/05/more-than-300-sick-in...
But I agree that it's rare, overall.
But I take your point - it happens. It's really rare though, and it's always met by "oh shit, we'll fix this", not "well, we don't have a lot of money to make repairs right now, let's wait until we expand the factory several times."
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-prosecutors-prob...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bell_Creameries#2015_list...
And their COO didn't bite anyone's nose...
1- this is junk food. It's highly processed food, the antithesis of their communication of healthy.
2- their communication is about "saving the planet" from cow farts. The issue is not cow farts. The issue is intensive agriculture and bad quality meat. Cows do not magically create CO2. They fart existing CO2 from grass, and grass capture CO2 from the atmosphere. It's a cycle. What broke the cycle are fossil fuels.
3- the ultimate goal is to put intellectual property on food. Same textbook recipe as Monsanto. And that's the major risk with all these "new protein" companies. We can't have food be an intellectual property.
I might be wrong. But this is my assessment.
Feeding the world with animal meat is not sustainable… requires too many resources and creates too much pollution and habitat loss.
Surely there are better ways to feed the world. Plant based is the future and products like beyond meat help with that transition… for those folks who still crave burgers etc.
You are very wrong.
But 63% of methane production comes from Fossil fuel industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_emissions#List_of_emis...
( it's funny how biased this table is laid out, agriculture is summed, while fossil fuels is detailed, showing smaller numbers, and gas flared ( 100M tons! ) is a footnote ).
The main problem is the source of energy we are using globally.
Food is a pillar of what defines humanity, thousand of years of culture, agriculture, traditions.