Alt Meat

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vinny11950

Minister of Fire
May 17, 2010
1,793
Eastern Long Island, NY
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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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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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.
 
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/
 
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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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.
 
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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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.
 
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.
 
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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… 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.
 
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.:p
 
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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.:p
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.
 
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.
 
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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Meh, pills... I could live with that. But substituting tea for coffee?!? You might as well just shoot me.
emoji14.png
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.
;lol with you there
 
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Reminds me of the movie "Soylent Green" with Charlton Heston.

 
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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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.
 
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.
 
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.