BYND Beyond Meat out of main

[willow_hiller]

Some interesting choices by Starbucks: Starbucks Adds Plant-Based Meat to US Menu

Sounds like they're serving Beyond Meat products in Canada, and Impossible Foods products in the US.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Impossible Foods offering on Forge right now. Minimum buy-in $250k. Thoughts? I have to admit I don't follow the plant-based meat industry very closely, although Beyond Meat has been public for awhile now.

 

[pz1975]

Impossible Foods offering on Forge right now. Minimum buy-in $250k. Thoughts? I have to admit I don't follow the plant-based meat industry very closely, although Beyond Meat has been public for awhile now.

What is the valuation we would be buying in at?

 

[UnknownSoldier]

What is the valuation we would be buying in at?

Implied valuation would be $11B. This is triple the previous Series G funding implied value of $4.2B. It's not clear if Impossible Foods is close to IPO or not and I've heard no rumors one way or the other about it.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Implied valuation would be $11B. This is triple the previous Series G funding implied value of $4.2B. It's not clear if Impossible Foods is close to IPO or not and I've heard no rumors one way or the other about it.

I like this industry a lot but I'm not able to put a number of it, valuations seem very high to me. And there will be other distruptions with lab-grown meat. Not sure how the world will react to those too.
My idea is that in 5-10 years we will see some big change in the meat market, but it's a long time and I wouldn't be surprised if "fake meat" stock prices plummet for years. Also "real meat" industry is fighting (see those stupid rules about "you can't call this MILK" etc. It will come for meat too.)

 

[Featsbeyond50]

For some reason, I find investing in cars that don't stink, drip oil in your garage, blow gaskets, are safer, and have a full tank every morning so much more appealing than investing in fake meat.

 

[JRP3]

Think of it as more efficient meat, just as EV's are more efficient cars. Animals take plant material and process it into muscle tissue inefficiently. No reason to assume we can't engineer a better method.

 

[bkp_duke]

Think of it as more efficient meat, just as EV's are more efficient cars. Animals take plant material and process it into muscle tissue inefficiently. No reason to assume we can't engineer a better method.

Yeah, I don't buy that.

Beyond Meat, etc. are HIGHLY processed foods. In the history of agriculture, highly processed has not been received well by the human body.

My family and I won't touch this stuff till a LOT more research is done.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yeah, I don't buy that.

Beyond Meat, etc. are HIGHLY processed foods. In the history of agriculture, highly processed has not been received well by the human body.

My family and I won't touch this stuff till a LOT more research is done.

Kinda reminds me of the baby formula fad in the 1960s and 1970s. People were saying baby formula was better than mothers milk. Now it has flipped, and now people are doing everything they can to not use baby formula. Not an exact analogy, of course, there are big differences. The bottom line is that whenever you have a new artificial food source that wholesales replaces something natural, you really have to wonder what you’re missing from the natural source. It isn’t quite the same as there are healthy vegans all around. But every persons body is different and they have all different needs.

 

[JRP3]

Beyond Meat, etc. are HIGHLY processed foods.

And how do you think plant material becomes meat in an animal? It is HIGHLY processed, broken down completely, and reassembled in a completely different form, (and is not necessarily healthy either).

 

[ggies07]

And how do you think plant material becomes meat in an animal? It is HIGHLY processed, broken down completely, and reassembled in a completely different form, (and is not necessarily healthy either).

And beyond (see what I did there...) that, how will people eat their burgers on Mars? From what I understand, the proteins in these new meats are from plants...can't ship a cow to Mars, but you can grow plants.

 

[bkp_duke]

And how do you think plant material becomes meat in an animal? It is HIGHLY processed, broken down completely, and reassembled in a completely different form, (and is not necessarily healthy either).

Pardon me, but which of us is an M.D.? Which of us did a Ph.D. in a metabolism lab?

NATURAL animal processing is WAY WAY WAY different than synthetic processing. @Cosmacelf already mentioned one last iteration when we "tried to do better than nature", and failed miserably (MISERABLY). Do I need to bring up partially hydrogenated oils? That was something we though was "better than butter" and turned out to have MUCH worse outcomes for heart disease than natural fats.

Yeah, these "fake meats" need to prove themselves, and with some SERIOUSLY rigorous 3rd party testing that the big ag boys cannot influence.

Impossible and Beyond: How healthy are these meatless burgers? - Harvard Health

Plant-based burgers designed to taste like meat are being marketed to vegetarians and meat-eaters alike as nutritious, earth-friendly alternatives to animal protein. How two well-known brands stack...

www.health.harvard.edu

I reference Section 2 of the above article by Harvard (written for the lay person). Saturated fats, which are directly due to food processing - hard to get around them, are SUPER bad for your cardiovascular system.

 

[bkp_duke]

And beyond (see what I did there...) that, how will people eat their burgers on Mars? From what I understand, the proteins in these new meats are from plants...can't ship a cow to Mars, but you can grow plants.

Eating plants, in or close to their natural state, is WAY different metabolism than eating these super-processed creations.

Again, the science needs to be proven for these products. People here are way too willing to say "it's not meat, it must be healthier than meat". FAR FAR from the truth.

 

[JRP3]

Pardon me, but which of us is an M.D.? Which of us did a Ph.D. in a metabolism lab?

The one who seems to be having an extremely emotional reaction to the topic.

NATURAL animal processing is WAY WAY WAY different than synthetic processing. @Cosmacelf already mentioned one last iteration when we "tried to do better than nature", and failed miserably (MISERABLY). Do I need to bring up partially hydrogenated oils? That was something we though was "better than butter" and turned out to have MUCH worse outcomes for heart disease than natural fats.

And EV's of the past were fairly crappy compared to the ones we have today.

Yeah, these "fake meats" need to prove themselves, and with some SERIOUSLY rigorous 3rd party testing that the big ag boys cannot influence.

I agree, especially the beef, pork, dairy and poultry lobby.

I reference Section 2 of the above article by Harvard (written for the lay person). Saturated fats, which are directly due to food processing - hard to get around them, are SUPER bad for your cardiovascular system.

From that article: 85% lean ground beef (4 oz) 6gr Saturated fat.

 

[willow_hiller]

From that article: 85% lean ground beef (4 oz) 6gr Saturated fat.

For what anecdotes are worth:

My wife and I have cut red meat from our diets. Both Millennials. We're not vegetarians, but we also don't eat meat often. Partially out of health concerns, partially out of environmental concerns.

But we decided to make burgers one night and went to go explore our options from the grocery store. At our local Wegmans, the Impossible Foods plant-based protein is next to the ground beef and turkey (and the Wegmans brand plant-based protein). For some reason Beyond burgers are still in the relatively secluded frozen vegan section. But taking a look at the saturated fat between the plant-based protein and ground turkey, we chose the turkey. It had something like 1.5 g of saturated fat per serving, while the Impossible burger had more saturated fat than the lean ground beef.

 

[bkp_duke]

The one who seems to be having an extremely emotional reaction to the topic.

And EV's of the past were fairly crappy compared to the ones we have today.

I agree, especially the beef, pork, dairy and poultry lobby.


From that article: 85% lean ground beef (4 oz) 6gr Saturated fat.

STOP comparing EVs to anything medical. It's . . . the worst possible over-simplification you could make.

FACT is that the synthetic meats are NOT healthy. If you want to argue that they are better for the environment, fine. But they are NOT better for the human body, not by a long shot.

 

[ggies07]

FACT is that the synthetic meats are NOT healthy. If you want to argue that they are better for the environment, fine. But they are NOT better for the human body, not by a long shot.

I'm confused, it says the fat in Impossible Burgers is from coconut and sunflower oil. Maybe you have explained this before and I missed it, but what's so bad about that?

 

[willow_hiller]

I'm confused, it says the fat in Impossible Burgers is from coconut and sunflower oil. Maybe you have explained this before and I missed it, but what's so bad about that?

From the Mayo Clinic:

"Coconut oil has been shown to raise cholesterol levels — the good and the bad kinds — more than other plant-based oils like olive or canola. And in truth, medium-chain triglycerides make up only a small amount of the fatty acids in coconut oil.

Plus, while other heart-healthy fats like olive oil, canola oil, or omega-3 fatty acids in nuts and seafood have been supported by a large body of evidence, coconut oil's supposed benefits still haven't been proved in large-scale human research."

Don't get tricked by these 3 heart-health myths

The food you eat can play a major role in your risk of heart disease. Here's what you need to know to avoid popular misconceptions.

www.mayoclinic.org

Both Impossible and Beyond use coconut oil to imitate the juicyness of beef, but it's not great if you're avoiding saturated fat.

 

[JRP3]

FACT is that the synthetic meats are NOT healthy.

You claimed saturated fats are "directly due to food processing" yet the article you linked showed the same amount of saturated fat in ground beef as in a Beyond burger. So are you also saying that ground beef is NOT healthy? How about the zero cholesterol in plant based meats compared to beef?

 

[willow_hiller]

So are you also saying that ground beef is NOT healthy? How about the zero cholesterol in plant based meats compared to beef?

Maybe we should resurrect the BYND thread; it's not incredibly tech-related: BYND Beyond Meat out of main

But 1. Ground beef is absolutely not healthy. Very high in saturated fats compared to other proteins.

And 2. Counterintuitively the amount of cholesterol in a food doesn't have as much of an impact on your bodily cholesterol as saturated fat. You can see in that Mayo clinic link that coconut oil is linked to increased cholesterol. It's why me and my wife gave up red meat in the first place.

Here's another source on it: Cutting Through the Cholesterol Confusion

"Part of the confusion comes from the fact that cholesterol in food isn't the same thing as the cholesterol that clogs arteries. To be sure, foods high in cholesterol can cause blood levels of cholesterol to rise. But only about one in three people seem to be especially susceptible to the effects of cholesterol in food.

"And even then, dietary cholesterol isn't the biggest worry when it comes to heart disease," says Kathy McManus, MS, RD, director of nutrition for Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston. "Studies show it's only about half as important as saturated fat and trans fat in raising serum cholesterol levels.""