Predicting A New Consumer Revolution: The Plant-Based Diet
In "Moving Towards a Plant-Based Diet" I announced that my wife and I were embarking on a 75% vegetarian diet, pushing meat down to about 25% of our meals. Earlier this morning Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution posted "The Revolution Has Begun: Beyond Meat" which makes me think that when trends start they ripple through social tribes quickly!
Tabarrok states that "animal rights will be the big social revolution of the 21st century."
Most people have a vague feeling that factory farms aren’t quite ethical. But few people are willing to give up meat so such feelings are suppressed because acknowledging them would only make one feel guilty not just. Once the costs of giving up meat fall, however, vegetarianism will spread like a prairie wildfire changing eating habits, the use of farm land, and the science and economics of climate change.
My new diet choice was based on three things: Health, mercy, and a cleaner world. Mounting evidence suggests that, at least Americans, consume too much meat and reducing its consumption can significantly reduce disease. Further, factory farming can be brutal and animal agriculture causes a good deal of environmental damage.
Tabarrok's post was inspired by finding a tasty new vegetarian burger from Beyond Meat. The faux burger "extracts protein from peas and then combines it with other vegetable elements under heating, cooling and pressure to realign the proteins in a way that simulates the architecture of beef."
I'll be checking it out the next time I venture into Whole Foods...
What are your thoughts?
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Rob Viglione is a PhD Candidate in Finance @UofSC with research interests in cryptofinance, asset pricing, and innovation. He is a former physicist, mercenary mathematician, and military officer with experience in satellite radar, space launch vehicles, and combat support intelligence. Currently a Principal at Key Force Consulting, LLC, a start-up consulting group in North Carolina, and Head of U.S. & Canada Ambassadors @BlockPay, Rob holds an MBA in Finance & Marketing and the PMP certification. He is a passionate libertarian who advocates peace, freedom, and respect for individual life.
Image source: http://beyondmeat.com/
It's the future. People are more asleep on this than other issues in the "alternative" media "conspiracy" and anarchy or crypto circles. For your health, for the other innocent kin in the animal kingdom, and for the planet, plant-based diets are the future, as they were the past. All we need to survive and thrive can be had 100% from plants while doing the harm possible to other innocent beings on the planet we share. We are not meant to be dominating predators. That's a savage brutal condition of survival from the past that we haven't evolved out of, and yet some people take pride in being carnal and beastly lower consciousness beings, like they don't want to be more evolved human beings... lol.
i agree, this will be a growing trend...especially as innovations, better marketing, and growing awareness make it easier to consume all or most of your calories/nutrients without meat.
You'll have to pry the meat from my cold dead hand. :-D
ha! i feel the same way about my guns...
Watch out for that so-called "mounting evidence" against meat. Most of it is done through variable isolations, which is down right impossible to do with humans. For example, it's not the vegetarian's diet that makes them healthier than meat eaters but rather they overall life habits (more exercise, less smoking, etc.).
Also, there has never, ever been a single study finding a causal relationship with saturated fat (mostly coming from animals) and diseases. In fact, it was the saturated fat hysteria that gave rise to (almost literally) lethal trans fats.
Of course, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise from your beliefs. If you're true to your description then you will try to convince people voluntarily, which I salute. Too many vegans are excessively aggressive in their "campaigning."
lol we seem to think quite a bit alike! From my original post...should have added something similar this time around:
"As an economist, I can't help being skeptical of...well, basically everything! I know how research works and I know how statistics can be used to prove the point you want. Non-findings just don't get published, which makes the journal literature biased towards the sensational. On top of that, studying complex systems like large groups of humans (economics) or even the intricate system that is a human, requires ruling out thousands of potentially correlated contributing factors, many of them unseen.
That said, all diet prescriptions should be treated as hypotheses with the humility to acknowledge that we're all different with potentially unique sensitivities to the same inputs. Also realize that there are a number of things going on in your life and environment that can effect your health. For instance, those who care about their diet are also more likely to exercise, which, itself, contributes enormously to your health; which contribution dominates is TBD."
I agree...stopped meat a while ago. But I find humor in this too. Why eat plants disguised as meat? Plants are good, I like them, I don't need them to look like hamburger to eat them. Maybe it's reverse psychology: "If I make this look like meat, I can get plants rights advocates to eat it too." I don't know, it's early and I haven't had nearly enough plant-based stimulants yet! Sorry.
ha! very true...it is interesting how so many vegan products are created to look like meat or cheese. I'm also fine with plants, legumes, and grains without needing them to look like meat :)
What they don't understand is the correlation between processing food and cancer. The more you mess with food the more carcinogenic it becomes. I like raw foods. I began buying raw sugar. I use very little sugar, but this stuff is delicious! I didn't know sugar had flavor. If you look at this from an historical perspective you can see a relationship between processing food and increases of cancer in the general population.
yeah i'm similarly a minimalist when it comes to processed foods...ish. Still indulge in some here and there and haven't ventured into the raw food realm yet. But you're right, real food actually has flavor :)