Category: War On Meat

Soylent Cow

The garden utopia is not blooming as we were promised;

Plant-based meat spiked in popularity in 2016 when the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger — both made to look and taste like beef — launched and gained mainstream media attention. Some ingredients that make up plant-based meat include soy, potato, pea protein, artificial flavors, coconut oil, beans, etc.

Now, start-up companies who produce plant-based meat products are experimenting with blending animal fat into plant-based ingredients as they are now prioritizing taste over sustainability, according to the Post. Companies also don’t mind straying away from its vegan and vegetarian customers as they are more interested in reaching a larger base of consumers.

According to a recent Gallup survey, in the United States, only 4% of Americans claim they are vegetarian and 1% vegan, revealing a slight decline to figures that were seen in previous years. In 2018, 5% of Americans in the survey claimed they were vegetarian, and 3% said they were vegan.

Master Plan for Humanity: I’ll eat the still-beating hearts of my enemies before I eat bugs.

Y2Kyoto: They’re Not After Your Meat

Or your guns, nor your gas stoves…

The world’s most-developed nations will be told to curb their excessive appetite for meat as part of the first comprehensive plan to bring the global agrifood industry into line with the Paris climate agreement…

The guidance on meat is intended to send a clear message to governments. But politicians in richer nations typically shy away from policies aimed at influencing consumer behavior, especially where it involves cutting consumption of everyday items.

‘Livestock is politically sensitive, but we need to deal with sensitive issues to solve the problem,’ said Dhanush Dinesh, the founder of Clim-Eat, which works to accelerate climate action in food systems. ‘If we don’t tackle the livestock problem, we are not going to solve climate change. The key problem is overconsumption.’


India has by far the largest herd in the world with over 300 million head of cattle! Who is gonna tell them?

War On Meat

California expats ruin another state.

The proposal, titled “Prohibition of Slaughterhouses” is currently in the signature gathering phase and would prohibit “the construction, maintenance, or use of” any meat processing facilities in Denver beginning January 1, 2026, as well as “require the city to prioritize residents who employment is affected by the ordinance in workforce training or employment assistance programs.”

The legislative intent of the proponents includes seeking an increase in plant-based protein sources, as well as pushing the claim that livestock is a major contributor to climate change, though no explanation is provided as to how pushing existing meat processing outside of Denver city limits would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If enough signatures are gathered it would appear on the April 2024 municipal election ballot.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Dispatches from the war on meat;

In a new, unprecedented effort, scientists at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) scrutinized decades of research on red meat consumption and its links to various health outcomes, formulating a new rating system to communicate health risks in the process. Their findings mostly dispel any concerns about eating red meat.

“We found weak evidence of association between unprocessed red meat consumption and colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Moreover, we found no evidence of an association between unprocessed red meat and ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke,” they summarized.

The IHME scientists had been observing the shoddy nature of health science for decades. Each year, hundreds of frankly lazy studies are published that simply attempt to find an observational link between some action — eating a food for example — and a health outcome, like death or disease. In the end, owing to sloppy methods, varying subject populations, and inconsistent statistical measures, everything, especially different foods, seems to be both associated and not associated with cancer. How is the lay public supposed to interpret this mess?

Where’s The Beef?

I’ll have a side of ribeye with my striploin please. Medium

National Library of Medicine- Meat and mental health: a systematic review of meat abstention and depression, anxiety, and related phenomena

The majority of studies, and especially the higher quality studies, showed that those who avoided meat consumption had significantly higher rates or risk of depression, anxiety, and/or self-harm behaviors. There was mixed evidence for temporal relations, but study designs and a lack of rigor precluded inferences of causal relations. Our study does not support meat avoidance as a strategy to benefit psychological health.

Beyond Appétit!

New York Post;

A leaked internal document revealed Beyond Meat products manufactured at the plant had tested positive for the harmful bacteria Listeria at least 11 times in the second half of 2021 and the first half of this year, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The document was reportedly provided by a former employee who was worried about conditions in the plant, which is located within an hour of Philadelphia. Two other ex-employees confirmed that bacteria had been found at the facility.

The outlet also obtained internal documents stating that various contaminants, including string, metal, wood and plastic, had been found in Beyond Meat products produced at the plant as recently as last December.

Bloomberg published photos from inside the facility that were provided by a former employee. The pictures showed “what appear to be spills, unsafe use of equipment, and mold on walls and ingredient containers,” according to the report.

What Happened To Beyond Meat?

The media moved on to the next latest thing.

Beyond Meat shares have dropped ~83% this year while sales have stagnated, per The New York Times.

– In October, it laid off 200 workers, or ~19% of its workforce.
– The company lost four execs, including the COO, who was accused of biting a man’s nose during a fight.

Employees also told The Wall Street Journal that CEO Ethan Brown, who founded Beyond Meat in 2009, rushed timelines, resulting in wasted resources and unenthused customers.

But it’s not just Beyond Meat

Brazilian meatpacker JBS announced it would shutter its plant-based arm in October, while Kellogg’s Morningstar Farms has seen sales drop, reportedly over supply chain issues.

Y2Kyoto: Schadenfrozen

“Germany is now the largest meat importer in Europe;

While Green politicians have condemned meat eating, the social reality is different, with nearly the entire German population eating meat on a regular basis. However, agricultural and green policies are stifling German meat production, making Germany wholly dependent on meat from foreign countries; this is creating a new dependence similar to Germany’s reliance on Russian gas, which turned out to be a catastrophic mistake.

Let them eat lettuce.

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