This seems likely true, but at the same time the actual science has been (1) pretty conclusive on the "processed foods are bad" top-line result yet (2) really, really bad at isolating exactly why that top-line result holds. Yes, high glycemic index foods and trans fats are bad, and high sodium is bad for at least some at-risk people. But they aren't bad enough to explain the processing result. So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe because they don't have the stuff you list is potentially premature.

Frankly I think the bigger reason these don't seem to be working out is that they aren't having the actual impact desired. The price isn't coming down. And if the price remains at higher-than-meat levels the ecological impact (which is what I personally care more about) is probably not where it needs to be either.

I mean, let's be blunt: all this dithering about health effects and environmental externalities isn't actually going to change anything. Make a burger for the price of a bean dip, however, and the market will beat your door down even if they claim not to care about the hippy nonsense.

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glenstein 3 days ago | parent [-]

> So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe

As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing in important areas.

My understanding of the studies on UPF health outcomes is that their data is drawn overwhelmingly from traditional categories like junk food and processed starch and sugar. Which is all the more reason to avoid the equivocation between the two categories, lest someone get the mistaken impression that the Twinkie data is about the burgers.

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dragonwriter 3 days ago | parent [-]

> As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing

They imitate meats, but is there any evidence that, in practice, they replace them? In menus, and I suspect in actual human eating behavior, they seem to replace earlier vegetarian options like old-school TVP, not meat.

	▲	erikerikson 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		We have eaten impossible burgers as a replacement of beef burgers we would have otherwise eaten on burger night. Some of us even prefer the flavor but the prices are sometimes higher than beef and that reduced our consumption (at that moment we were tighter). If they were substantially less expensive we would have had to financially rationalize beef, beyond the health and environmental rationalizations.