The juiciest topic in the global food industry this year is artificial meat featuring its own “blood.” When the US company Beyond Meat went public on the NASDAQ on May 2, its shares surged 163 percent, with shares being purchased by Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, former McDonald’s president Don Thompson and Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing. The rise in environmental and health consciousness has seen a rapid increase in business opportunities for environmentally friendly foods associated with vegetarian and vegan diets.
Studies are increasingly showing that excessive meat consumption is harmful to health. In 2003, an American health advocate revived “Meatless Monday,” promoting the idea of refraining from eating meat every Monday. The practice was taken up in many countries, including the US, Canada, Brazil and Italy. For those of us who simply must have meat, and for whom a vegetarian meal constitutes a form of torture, artificial meat or veggie meat substitutes are the best option. According to a United Bank of Switzerland (UBS) report, veggie meat sales are predicted to soar from US$4.6 billion in 2018 to US$85 billion in 2030.
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are currently the two largest producers of artificial meat in the world. Both companies are targeting not vegetarians but meat eaters, hoping to break away from the idea that vegetarian foods are meat substitutes.
Photo: Bloomberg
照片:彭博社
According to Beyond Meat’s chief growth officer, Chuck Muck, when the company approached stores and supermarkets, it asked them to display the product together with the meat products, to be sold together with real meat, and not to place it in the vegetarian foods section, as they wanted to attract meat-eaters, too. Impossible Foods founder Patrick Brown says, “We score zero points if a vegan or vegetarian buys our burger. The more of a meat lover they are, the more they are our target customer.”
In April last year, Burger King teamed up with Impossible Foods to promote a veggie hamburger, calling it the Impossible Whopper, which was convincing enough that not even the Burger King staff could tell the difference between the two. This increased Burger King’s customer flow by 18.5 percent. The popularity of the Impossible Whopper led McDonald’s to team up with Beyond Meat to trial an artificial meat burger in Canada, followed by KFC working with Beyond Meat to produce Beyond Fried Chicken. With major fast food companies one after the other embracing artificial meat, the potential market for vegan foods knows no bounds.
(Translated by Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
Photo: AP
照片:美聯社
今年全球餐飲業最火熱的話題就是會流出「血水」的人造肉!美國Beyond Meat於去年五月二日那斯達克掛牌上市,當日股價大漲百分之一百六十三,包括比爾蓋茲、李奧納多狄卡皮歐、麥當勞前執行長唐湯普生、香港首富李嘉誠都掏錢投資。因環保與健康意識興起,素食與蔬食帶來的綠色「食」尚商機正快速襲捲全球。
越來越多的研究發現,過量攝取肉食對健康造成危害,美國學者在二○○三年發起「週一無肉日」,推廣每週一不吃肉的活動,包括美國、加拿大、巴西、義大利等國陸續加入。但對無肉不歡的人來說,吃素是件痛苦的事,於是人造肉或是素肉成為最佳選項。根據瑞銀報告顯示,素肉銷售從二○一八年的四十六億美元,預估至二○三○年將達八百五十億美元。
Beyond Meat與Impossible Foods為目前全球兩大人造肉廠商,兩家大廠瞄準的都不是素食者,而是吃肉的人,希望跳脫以素食為肉品替代物的框架。
Beyond Meat首席增長官查克莫克說,Beyond Meat和超商、超市等通路業者接洽時,要求一定要把產品擺放在肉類區,和真肉一起販賣,而非放在蔬食區,因為要讓吃肉的人也可以接受Beyond Meat;Impossible Foods創辦人派崔克布朗也說:「若是純素或一般素食者購買我們的漢堡肉,我們得到的是零分,越愛吃肉的人,才是我們真正的目標顧客。」
去年四月,漢堡王和Impossible Foods推出素肉漢堡,取名為「不可能華堡」,逼真到讓連漢堡王內部員工也無法分辨真偽,為漢堡王提高百分之十八點五的客流量。因「不可能華堡」爆紅,勁敵麥當勞也和Beyond Meat在加拿大試推人造肉漢堡,就連肯德基也和Beyond Meat推出人造肉炸雞(Beyond Fried Chicken)。在速食巨頭紛紛投向人造肉的懷抱下,顯示出蔬食市場的無限潛力。
(自由時報)
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into
There are several methods to prevent or slow down enzymatic browning in fruit. __3__ This lowers the pH level of the fruit tissue, causing the PPO to be far less active. Another method is to store the fruit in an airtight container or to wrap it tightly with plastic wrap. Doing this will reduce its exposure to oxygen. __4__ Although fruit that has undergone enzymatic browning may look less appealing, it is still safe to eat. However, by using one of these simple methods, you can enjoy fresh-looking fruit for a longer period. 有一些方法能避免或減緩水果的酶促褐變。其中一個有效的方式就是在切片水果的表面塗上酸性物質,像是檸檬汁或醋。這樣做能降低水果組織的酸鹼值,讓 PPO 更不為活躍。另一個方式是將水果存放在密封的容器內,或用保鮮膜將其緊緊包住。這樣做會減少水果與氧氣的接觸。快速蒸一下切片水果或將其短暫浸泡在滾水中也能使PPO失去活性,並終止 PPO 與空氣的作用。 雖然經歷酶促褐變的水果可能看起來較不吸引人,但仍然可以安全食用。然而,藉由採用這些簡單方法中的其中一個,你就能在更長的一段時間享用看起來新鮮的水果。 What Did You