Using an 1890s theory (Price Elasticity) to drive up your website profits  - <AUTHOR> http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/06/one-simple-secret-from-an-1890-economist-nearly-doubles-website-profits/

<comment><AUTHOR> Price elasticity testing is one of the simplest ways to drive up your profit margins - and usually one of the last things people seem to test.

It gets way more complicated when you have longer revenue models like subscriptions, etc but if you've got an online product that's mostly one-time sales, you need to give it a try.

<comment><USER2> Do you (or any fellow HN'er) have any suggestions about, or personal experience with, trying price elasticity testing for longer revenue models like subscriptions? I will be launching a SAAS soon with a subscription model and am curious about experiences with price testing like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Attrition is the name of the game w/any subscription model, and there are lots of variables at play.

Typically for start-up SAAS pricing look at your competitors to get a sense of what the perceived value is going to be of your offering - what category of SAAS are you getting in to?

<comment><USER2> You could group us in an SEO/Web Analytics category. For our particular niche service, our competitors pricing schemes are all over the place. Our service is born out of our frustration using the other services out there on a daily basis, so we are rolling our own and putting it out there for others to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> When you've got the site live drop me an email zl @ myusername dot com and I'd be happy to share some experience once I have a better feel for the service. Have optimized and participated in several SAAS projects of varying scale.

But a few tips:

a) Attrition, again, is the name of the game. Use that as your metric, look at trailing trends. Typically we've observed the highest drops in between the first 3 billing cycles, after that attrition rate seems to stabilize. If you're lucky attrition stabilizes after the second rebill cyle and you can better manage front end testing and customer aquisition strategy.

b) You're at something of a disadvantage w/price elasticity testing w/SAAS because you're going to get press, people are going to hear about you / hear about your pricing and write reviews early. If you change pricing UP, the internets will scream loudly :). Plus you have to worry about current customers getting upset, always implement price changes DOWN accross the board, always grandfather price changes UP to current users (and tell them about it so they feel warm and fuzzy).

A strategy we've used before is to put together a meaningful ad budget for PPC, and test the heck out of the front end pricing. Treat it like traditional elasticity testing, expecting that rebill #s will hold relatively steady on the back even though you can't predict that. The point is to get the highest front-end you can and then work it down, it's obviously much, much easier to lower pricing than raise.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the tips, I'll let you know when we go live!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about this. Wouldn't you piss off customers if you switch prices on them too much? The Internet tends to keep information. If someone sees that your product used to cost 9.95 and now you are charging 19.95 for it, they would feel cheated paying the higher price, and probably would not pay. And you would not get a chance to explain that you were just testing price elasticity.

<comment><USER4> The answer is yes for many people. If you have a relatively well known product in your niche, people are going to know when you start changing the price.

You have to do it on the quiet, because changing the pricing without any associated 'special offers' is the only way to know for sure.

I've always wondered if I am in the right part of the price/demand curve, but it is so very hard to tell, and doing experiments like this seem to involve risk of alienating your customer base, particularly if you do a lot of repeat business with the same people.</comment></comment>


Show HN: CryptoTrakr – Mobile app to follow Cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> https://cryptotrakr.com <comment><AUTHOR> With the latest hype around cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc) I decided to build an app to track the coins value. It offers some other features such as portfolio manager and notification alerts for prices. Built it in 3 weeks (more or less) with React Native. iOS version is coming pretty soon, it already works but since I do not have an Apple Developer account I'm holding a bit.

Medium post: [https://medium.com/p/cryptotrakr-track-your- cryptos-599c83bd...](https://medium.com/p/cryptotrakr-track-your- cryptos-599c83bd54c6)</comment>


After Nokia Layoffs, Tech Workers in Finland Regroup and Refocus - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/technology/after-nokia-layoffs-tech-workers-in-finland-regroup-and-refocus.html?r=0

<comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10035584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10035584).</comment>


Facebook Fires Finance Chief and Offers Some Big Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/facebook-fires-finance-chief-and-offers-some-numbers/

<comment><USER2> I underestimated Facebook for too long. Then two weeks ago I was in the US Airways lounge between flights in the Charlotte, NC airport (which has amazingly fast free WiFi, BTW) and noticed that HALF of the people who were using the Internet were on Facebook. Granted, an airport lounge is going to pull a certain sub-set of society, but still... Facebook is every bit the social phenomenon that eBay and Yahoo were in the past. I don't know how you put a dollar value on it, but that kind of reach has real value.

<comment><USER3> This seems to be a microcosm of the problem Facebook is facing. Everyone is on it, yet significant (public company esque) profits have yet to materialize. It is definitely a social phenomenon, but unlike eBay and Yahoo monetizing the service is proving to be difficult at very large scales.

Theres also the problem of advertising on a social networking site. If we could observe everyone in that US Airways lounge's average Facebook session, how many ads would we see people click on out of that group? How many people brought something or signed up for something after clicking those ads? Advertising dynamics on a social networking site are fundamentally different. A question I always ask people when the topic of Facebook comes up is "have you ever clicked an ad on there? I don't think I have" and the answer is always some variation of "actually, now that I think about it I haven't". I'm not going to extrapolate too much on this given my sample size, but if this is the standard response to this question everywhere, then Facebook has a serious problem (despite its phenomenon status).

<comment><USER4> It may be true that it is different - but it can be as profitable as other (search companies).

Remember that Facebook basically have all your personal data with which it can select products for you to buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I'm pretty blasé about Facebook from a user's point of view, I am quite interested to know where they will go with an IPO. Google expanded into so many fields other than search after their IPO, I wonder which territories would Facebook venture into. Currently, other than a few LAMP/memcache/API stuff, Facebook isn't doing much outside of the Facebook social-networking world. Google ended up with a phone and transit. Will there be a Facebook channel or matchmaking?

<comment><USER6> The potential opportunities Facebook has are TREMENDOUS. I feel like the potential is there, but it's is barely touched, and I'm not sure why.

Facebook's value is in moving toward mobile. They are ubiquitous enough where the chances of having Facebook in your local area is very high if you're a user yourself.

Given all of Twitter's hype, I feel Facebook could easily crush them. While Twitter's monetization strategy is also, of course, questionable, the two companies are tapping into a paradigm shift that has value that isn't quite fully understood.

Imagine people using Twitter, but with the richness of Facebook's content. While Twitter's 140-character limit was intentional, it's ultimately a limitation, since Facebook users utilize the service very much in the same way. Above all, though, Facebook knows profile information about you and your friends. It can not only serve ads based on what it knows about you, but where you are, and who is around you.

Facebook should ultimately strive to be the omnipresent social tool. There is undeniable value and opportunity for expansion in this. They have the user base, they just need to encourage people to use it in new ways. Twitter seems to be moving toward this, yet there is a huge difference between Twitter's user base (6M last I heard) and Facebook's (150M last I heard).

<comment><USER7> It might be just me, but I don't _like_ giving out all my info to Facebook. I prefer Twitter because I like the fact that people can see only a limited amount of information about me, and visit my website if they need to know more.

I like Twitter because of its simplicity. Facebook is, IMO, just another social network with a few extra features slapped on. Twitter is like that small, efficient UNIX tool that you can combine with other tools to produce something which has much more functionality than the original.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This sounds like a pre-emptive spinning of a senior exec quitting his job. Your standard cold, corporate PR tactic...

<comment><USER9> I'm kinda curious about this too, because the conventional wisdom in the investing world is, "If the CFO leaves, short the stock." Does anyone know what Mr. Yu's next job is? CFOs of fast-growing, about-to-IPO companies don't just up and leave unless another _really_ good opportunity comes along. Plus, if FaceBook grants options with a standard 4-year vesting period, I really doubt Mr. Yu's options have vested, which means he's leaving a lot of money on the table.</comment></comment>


Adding new DNA letters makes novel proteins possible - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/01/19/adding-new-dna-letters-make-novel-proteins-possible <comment><USER2> This is cool scientifically, and also a cool example of how amazing things can happen with interdisciplinary collaboration in biotech.

When you have a new technology with so many potential applications (adding 152 extra codons on top of the normal 64), it can be overwhelming to figure out where to start. Getting from "we can add letters to the DNA alphabet" to "we can build new amino acids into IL-2 to facilitate PEG binding to stop IL-2 binding to the alpha unit of the IL-2 receptor while still binding the beta and gamma units, which will preserve anti-cancer effects while sparing vascular damage" seems like a leap that would require a cross-disciplinary team to make

IL-2 is a molecule that is effective at treating a variety of diseases but has nasty side effects that make it a poor drug. The article discusses sometimes fatal side effects of high dose IL-2 in treating cancer; low-dose IL-2 is actually an effective treatment for autoimmune disease, although it is difficult to titrate the dose in such a way that you don't accidentally dose too high and make the autoimmunity worse.

Another startup, Delinia, engineered an agonist selective for the alpha-beta- gamma subtype of the IL-2 receptor to treat autoimmune disease [0] (where Synthorx is hitting only the beta-gamma part of the IL-2 receptor to treat cancer). Delinia was acquired by Celgene last year for $775M, 3 months after its Series A. Synthorx went public this year and has a $450M market cap. All of that from making different versions of a single protein

[0] [https://lifescivc.com/2016/09/re-balancing-immunity-via- regu...](https://lifescivc.com/2016/09/re-balancing-immunity-via-regulatory-t- cell-potentiation-introducing-delinia/)

<comment><USER3> eDNA is one of the more creepy things you can think of in a dystopian future e.g. you can engineer humans to require a specific synthetic amino acid that doesn't appear in nature this is essentially a potential biological DRM.

While applying it to humans directly is unlikely applying it to be some sort of DRM for drugs to prevent generics from working is quite a realistic possibility.

<comment><USER4> I want more life father/fucker.

<comment><USER5> Some people have not watched Bladerunner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> People speculate there may have been a wider variety of DNA coding in the past. But natural selection plus perhaps some reaction energetics versus complexity settled on the current system.

There was probably a simpler two nuclide encoding versus three beforehand. About half of the amino acids only use the first two nuclides and ignore the third.

<comment><USER7> that seems unlikely, because shifting your recognition domain count from 2-3 means that you basically lose all the evolved information from before and have to rely on chance "correct encodings" everywhere.

<comment><USER8> The idea is that the initial tRNA was not specific enough and only care about the first two letters of each codon and ignored the third. So for example Proline was determined by the first two letters CC? and was associated the four codons CCU, CCC, CCA and CCG. Actually, this is the current mapping.

Other blocks of four codons were split for some reason. We can imagine that originally Isoleucine was determined by AU? so initially AUU, AUC, AUA and AUG encoded Isoleucine, but now only the first three encode Isoleucine and the last one encodes Methionine instead.

This is somewhat based in the blocks of four codons that follow this patter where the first two base determine 16 block that sometimes are split [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code) and because the third base in the tRNA is strange [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobble_base_pair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobble_base_pair)

Anyway, IIRC this is a reasonable speculation but it's not confirmed. So don't take this explanation too literally.

With this idea, the initial DNA could evolve for a few (zillions) years as list like

important-important-whatever-important-important-whatever-important-important- whatever-important-important-whatever-important-important-whatever-important- important-whatever-important-important-whatever

and then make the whatever letters also important with a almost backward compatible code, so in most case it still doesn't mater, but in a few cases it is important.

[Note: The official letter for whatever is "N" instead of "?"]

<comment><USER9> That's a great explanation! To add a cool point, the wobble position is frequently modified by highly specific enzymes to make it matter more. It's like some random protein mutated to do this modification and all of a sudden the organism got more RAM thus increasing it's fitness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I might be missing something but I don't see how adding DNA nucleotides can lead to novel proteins. You have more letters to potentially map to amino acids, but unless you've also expanded your set of amino acids, how does this lead to new proteins? And did they also design new t-RNA's (the things that maps RNA to amino acid)?

<comment><USER11> They have indeed expanded their set of amino acids. I assume they must have added tRNAs as well but the article didn't go into this detail.

<comment><USER7> Romesberg got mRNAs up about 3-4 years ago? I presume the tRNAs are made from processed DNA, not by adding them (adding tRNAs exogenously to bacteria would be tough, and not economical at all).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Floyd does very nice work, but this particular justification -- at least as expressed in this article -- for a 4-base code is completely flawed. The article claims that the reason to augment the codon table is because only two stop codons could possibly be rewired to code for artificial amino acids. But in fact 43 out of 64 codons could in principle be recoded. That's because of the extraordinary redundancy built into the codon table of 4^3 = 64 codons: there are only 20 coded amino acids, plus one necessary stop codon.

So that leaves 43 codons, not 2.

<comment><USER13> It's not that simple. Even when two codons map to the same amino acid, it doesn't mean they have the same implications.

One factor is that different codons translate at different speeds, and these can affect how the protein folds.

Another is that base pairs in DNA may have functions or implications apart from their function as part of a codon in a gene.

Simply remapping a codon to a new amino acid and re-writing all the genes in a cell's DNA to avoid that codon will cause many things to "break" in a cell's function. Life is a messy, inter-connected system without the clean modularity we like to have in software.

<comment><USER12> "can," "may," ...

1) My argument was simply that the limit on recodable codons is much higher than two, as it was claimed in the article. That's hard to argue with. I didn't say the result in every case would be neutral mutations.

2) The consequences of recoding the stop codons are also not neutral. For example, when Isaacs (eventually) did it, there were severe growth phenotypes in the resulting strain.

So I agree that "it's not that simple," which is frankly why I'm not hugely optimistic about this class of endeavors. But the point stands that there is no need in principle for a 4-base code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article talked about directly re-using stop codons like some exotic organisms do to integrate pyrrolysine, but there is another more nuanced way which humans use for selenocysteine: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECIS_element](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECIS_element)

</comment><comment><USER15> So... like... what happened, exactly?

It sounds astonishing, but I can't make heads or tails of it. Rosemberg and his team managed to add new letters ("letters") to DNA encoding, and that allows them to make new proteins... how? Did they make new kinds of acid bases for these proteins – the kinds that don't exist in nature? Is that not an even more astonishing achievement?

I'm way out of my depth here, but I'm also intensely curious about anything related to genetic engineering. Could someone explain this to me?

<comment><USER16> > So... like... what happened, exactly?

A group added a new DNA base pair ("X" and "Y") to a strain of E. coli.

In genes, codons are triplets of DNA letters that transcription and translation machinery converts into specific amino acids. The mechanisms by which this happens are complex, but well understood.

The new DNA letters were used to make new codons that could be translated to particular, novel, amino acids.

<comment><USER15> So, did they effectively invent scalable natural-mechanism synthetic amino acid production? Is it at all as cool and biopunk as I imagine?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder for curiosity and concerns; how and why the new DNA letters have not already evolved and do not already feature in the present range of living species? Should a firm understanding of this, no matter how far off, not be a prerequisite to aspirations of mass production of novel proteins and new lifeforms featuring them?

Novel DNA and proteins - after billions of years natural CI... we better be sure to have a damn good incident response capability! But do we?

</comment><comment><USER18> > Adding new DNA letters make novel proteins possible

> Adding new DNA letters make

> Adding make

<comment><USER19> OK, updated over here.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Apartment search site that doesn't suck - <AUTHOR>

HN helped me find raveable.com, which quite easily destroys every other hotel search site on the net. Can it do the same for apartment listings? <comment><USER2> Are you in the NYC area? <http://renthop.com>

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry, but I think renthop sucks. I know this because I am taking a job in NYC and spent the past week crashing on ferric's couch, conducting an apartment search full-time. And renthop was useless to me.

Searching for "shares" in the East Village yields no results, for example. How hard would it be to harvest craigslist ads? Also, what if I want to do a combined search for shares/studio+s? The neighborhood "Lower East Side" isn't listed. And their "browse" feature is slow and awful.

No, apartment search site needs to function more like a social networking site, so you can preview your roommates' profile, photos, interests/disinterests. And so you can quickly filter by pets, no pets, sex, age range. Everyone asks you to email them a summary anyways. And you need to be able to keep tabs on your applicants/places you are applying to. Not to mention the social proof aspect of having people recommend you.

An NYC apartment site that doesn't suck is next on my to-do list. It's certainly needed. Probably makes more sense as a facebook app.

<comment><USER4> It sounds like you are looking for a roommates / shares site, not an apartment search site.

A Craigslist aggregator with spam/scam/bait_and_switch filtering would be really cool, but that's a different startup.

At least we agree apartment hunting should suck less (especially in NYC). That's what got us started and that's what keeps us going!

<comment><USER5> Craigslist actively codes against aggregators I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://populet.com> is in beta right now. Soon it will be an amazing apartment search site (not to mention great tool for landlords).</comment>


Steven Levy On The Hacker Spirit - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/02/facebook-microsoft-apple-technology-hackers.html

<comment><USER2> I love Steven Levy's writing. It has shaped my life.

I found 'Hackers' when I was 16, read it over and over and decided to become a programmer. Then 6 years later, at 22, I read 'Artificial Life' and left my plum programming job to go into computational biology.

Well, I came back to programming eventually, but this guy can sell me anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> One page read: [http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/02/facebook-microsoft-apple- te...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/02/facebook-microsoft-apple-technology- hackers_print.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Seeing as how Levy went from writing the excellent Hackers in the 80s to writing a book about how awesome iPods are in the 00s I was wondering if he'd suffered severe head trauma of some kind. Glad to hear he seems to have things figured out.

</comment><comment><USER5> "He's like the early hackers at MIT such as _[open source advocate Richard] Stallman_ who fought for people not to have passwords or secrets." .. and now fights for people not to confuse "Free Software" and "Open Source"

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the- point.h...](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)</comment>


Getting into a top graduate school - <AUTHOR>

I graduated from university last spring with a B.A. in computer science. I am currently working at a software company. I would like to attend a top graduate school in 2-3 years once I am more certain of my area of study. I'm not sure what steps I should take to achieve this. I was not passionate about CS until my final year of university so I haven't completed any research/internships. Could anyone with experience point me in the right direction? <comment><USER2> I'm a mathematics professor. I'll tell you how it is in math. You can probably extrapolate to CS, although work experience might count for more there, depending on your field of study.

In math, rec letters are the most important, and whether rightly or wrongly, math professors don't give a damn about the word of anyone other than other math professors.

Figure out how you will be spending your first two years, and the coursework in particular. At good programs it will be killer hard. Are you prepared for this? _Your rec letters need to come from people who thoroughly understand how difficult graduate work is, and who can credibly assert that you will succeed in it._ This needs to be based on your past success, presumably in your coursework.

In particular, top programs look for not only talent but also thorough preparation. Have you gone far beyond your university's requirements, and absolutely excelled?

If you want to get a Ph.D., and don't get into top schools, you can probably go to a mid-tier place, and if you are really thriving, file transfer applications your second year. Or just finish at the mid-tier place. I went to a non-top-ten university for my Ph.D. and am doing very well now.

Good luck to you!

<comment><USER3> I'm going to add to this, your letters of recommendation are critically important. Furthermore, getting into grad school is the same thing as any other job. It's not about what you know, it is about WHO you know. People will get you into grad school IF they want you, and they only know if they want you, if they know you. Simple as that. Face time really matters, so if you want to get into grad school but don't have fantastic letters of rec for whatever reason, make an impression on some of the faculty at the school. Go to conferences and attempt to meet professors in the schools that you are interested in.

Also, as stated above, you can always move into a top their school later in the game. For example, I went to a state school for my undergrad and PhD, but I've since moved onto Cornell, Columbia and Rockefeller. The school matters at some level, but you can make stuff happen when you apply yourself. As with anything else, it's not trivial, but it's kind of a fun game:) Best of luck, Keith

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I'm currently living and working in the same city where I received my undergrad degree from so I could try to go back for a Masters and see where I'm at after that.

Best of luck with OmniSci!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not really answering the specific question you've asked... but all the same it could be useful.

A 'top graduate school' is actually somewhere that probably gets a large number of applications from students (Stanford etc.)

That means when you apply for a phd in that school, you are really trying to appease the admissions department, you may not be allocated to a 'phd supervisor' yet.

But if you find which area you'd like to go into and the various 'leaders' in that field, you will probably notice they are not aligned to a 'top graduate school' and possibly deal with admission enquiries directly. (To quantify a leader check someones h-index score on google scholar then take with big pinch of salt)

What's different in this case is that they will most likely appreciate any additional work you've done which shows how interested you are in that particular field.

An admissions department on the other hand will probably look for GRE, GPA, awards, scholarships as ways to differentiate people.

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure this is false.

In math, anyway, graduate applications are evaluated by math faculty.

<comment><USER4> Actually I made an assumption which was wrong to do.

But in my experience, students approach the PI directly, and the PI makes the decision themselves.

There is no formal application process. This is in non 'top grad schools' but the PI would have 40+ h-index

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One possible option for you is to do a CS graduate degree part-time while still working. Some of the top schools offer great online programs where you take the exact same classes as the students on campus (for example, University of Illinois offers this: <http://cs.illinois.edu/online>)

I graduated with an MS in CS from Illinois in about 3 years while continuing to work full-time. When I attended, you could apply via the normal application process. Alternatively, I know of students who were able to take and complete 2-3 classes as non-degree students before submitting their formal application to the program. They could then apply and transfer these credits towards the program -- I'm guessing it's easier to get in too once you have a few decent grades for classes in the program.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips! I didn't realize that online programs existed for grad school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Let me add that there is a huge difference between PhD and Masters admissions. Masters admissions is typically FAR easier and less research and less rec- letter dependent. Strong work experience is sometimes all that's needed to get into a good Masters program.

For example, a school like Stanford is notorious for having a Masters program that is easier to get into than the undergrad program and is generally not terribly difficult to get into as long as you can pay.</comment>


Why not embrace ActionScript 3 as a replacement for JavaScript? - <AUTHOR>

I've been wondering for some time why AS3 has not been considered for the next generation of Javascript? It's ECMA script, it's statically typed, very well documented. It works incredibly well for display, models and controllers. Supports many types of data. Every piece of interactive web during the last century used AS3. So why not? <comment><USER2> I started a project in ActionScript3, and the language felt like an inferior version of Java, with static typing, everything is in the class, but without the generic. I know my experience with it is very short, but it was not pleasant to work with it. There wasn't a good free IDE support as well, and it was not possible to debug a program under Linux.

</comment><comment><USER3> AS3 is an implementation, not a standard.

Large parts of AS3's feature set actually were considered for standardization, back in the days of the "ECMAScript 4" standard (in quotes because it was never released). That standard was abandoned, due to differences some dismiss as politics and others claim were due to implementation and complexity issues.

</comment><comment><USER4> Politics, mostly.

The same reason it took (takes?) asm.js to move towards a virtual-machine with a standard bytecode so you can pick your language of choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know if this was ever considered?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Every piece of interactive web during the last century used AS3." I'm pretty sure this is not true.</comment>


Whole Foods CEO on plant-based meat: good for the environment, not for health - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/21/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-plant-based-meat-not-good-for-your-health.html <comment><USER3> Compared to a diet of pure fruits and vegetables and grains as the guy says? True, Beyond/Impossible aren't as healthy as that.

But he's literally comparing a veggie burger to a salad, not what it's replacing: ground up cow meat that's reassembled in a factory. You won't find everything in ground beef listed on a label.

Fake burgers are a transition and off-ramp for people looking to eat less meat. Not people living a purist lifestyle like the Whole Foods CEO.

Beyond Meat/Impossible serve as nice punching bag for people denying the impact of the beef trade has on the environment and this article is catnip for them.

<comment><USER4> Actually misses the point entirely.

Comparing a Beef patty to a Beyond Meat patty shows roughly comparable macro nutritional values. [1],[2]

Beyond Meat "wins" in that it does not have any cholesterol, and no trans fats. But each has comparable calories, and fat levels. (Though it should be noted that Beyond Meat is most likely much better for the environment oz for oz).

The issue that the Whole Foods CEO is taking is that Beyond Meat is marketed as a healthy alternative to meat. It is only marginally more healthy _at_ best. Replace a cheese burger with Beyond Meat and you still have something that is unhealthy.

I'd liken this to the same diet fad marketing that vegetarian food was healthier. This lead to Americans believing they were being healthy while over consuming pastas and other processed grains simply because they omitted the meat.

1: [https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond- burger/](https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/)

2: [https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/ground- bee...](https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/ground- beef-\(85%25-lean---15%25-fat-patty-cooked- broiled\)?portionid=46541&portionamount=4.000)

<comment><USER5> How is "marginally more healthy _at_ best" defined?

Vegetarian food is healthier, and reduces all cause mortality. Here's one of many studies that say so:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31387433](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31387433)

<comment><USER6> That study does not say a vegetarian diet is more healthy, it says that people who self-report following a vegetarian diet are more healthy.

And you would expect people who eat a vegetarian diet to be more healthy on average. They're likely more affluent, educated and aren't drinking, smoking or eating junk food as much as the general population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of my biggest frustrations as a 95% vegetarian (for environmental reasons) is this misconception that's emerged about plant-based burgers being healthy. It distracts from the actual benefits of plant-based burgers - <USER2> and ethical benefits - and gives meat eaters another reason to discount a vegetarian diet. It's a hamburger after all, it's not _meant_ to be healthy.

<comment><USER8> > _It 's a hamburger after all, it's not meant to be healthy._

Hamburgers aren't _inherently_ unhealthy (though I'll concede that in practice they often are). A well-made hamburger contains part protein, vegetables and carbs. It's a whole meal. A bit too heavy on the carbs maybe, but not extremely so. It can stand on its own with very few additional flavour components, and has the potential of being a more wholesome meal than many others.

The issue, rather, is twofold. First, almost all burgers skimp on the veggies and generally use low-quality ingredients, instead relying on other flavour components (i.e. too much sugar and salt, and often added fat in the form of low-quality cheese and bacon). And secondly, burgers are umami bombs and lead people to overeat, both in terms of quantity (serving size) and frequency.

<comment><USER9> > A bit too heavy on the carbs maybe

Fat and protein would be the problem. The typical American diet is very high in fat and protein. _More_ carbs (low GI carbs with fiber) would make it healthier. To make a well balanced burger, you'd probably need to eliminate cheese, reduce the size of the patty significantly, use a whole wheat bun, and add plant fiber. You're basically replacing all of the ingredients.

<comment><USER10> Hmm, I think you have it backwards. The fat and protein are the healthy parts (including saturated fats). If you take the bun out of the equation you actually have an incredibly nutritious meal - something my family does all the time. We've been on the keto diet for 8 years now and our blood & overall numbers look better than they have ever before in our lives.

<comment><USER9> I don't think encouraging a keto diet as the de facto "healthy diet" is responsible. Is it _un_ -healthy? Maybe not. There's not enough research to say that conclusively. It's certainly not the standard though.

I have been training hard for about a year now, trying to get my body into as ideal shape as I can get it. During that time, I've experimented with a wide range of diets, including keto. I was on keto for about 4 months. I was decently well fat adapted by the end of it, but I did not feel healthy. I was also not making progress in my training. I plateaued for for months.

I switched to a "high carb" plant based diet and I haven't looked back since. My performance has skyrocketed, my fitness is building at a mind boggling pace, I sleep better, my skin is clearer, and I just _feel_ healthier.

<comment><USER10> I never said that keto was the de facto healthy diet. I said that fat should not be demonized. There is a huge difference.

Just because an athlete at peak performance can utilize carbs effectively does not mean the average person does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >Whole Foods CEO on plant-based meat: good for the environment, not for health

That's literally not what he said, though.

The quote from the article is:

>"As for health, I will not endorse that, and that is about as big of criticism that I will do in public."

Not endorsing something as being healthy as the CEO of a health foods chain and saying something is "not good for health" are two completely different statements.

There are probably insider trading implications holding him back from making absolute promotional statements for a company that he most likely holds stock in.

I agree the Beyond burgers could be "less processed", but IMHO the main health benefit from eating Beyond Meat burgers is because they're "not meat".

That's the main point people seem to be missing.

They're perhaps not as healthy as eating raw nuts and berries for dinner, sure.

But if it's a choice between traditional beef patties and a beyond meat burger of the same size and weight, the beyond meat burger is "healthier" hands down.

</comment><comment><USER12> Actual headline:

Whole Foods CEO: Highly-processed food not good for health.

<comment><USER13> Ideal headline:

Highly-processed organic matter is not food.

<comment><USER14> Sadly, it is food. I hate processed foods as much as anyone, but it would be irresponsible to print this headline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is it exactly about "processed foods" that make it bad for you. Is it just that they tend to be the ones with high sugar and fat content, or is there something about the processing of processed foods that is unhealthy?

<comment><USER16> Ultraprocessed foods produce taste and nutrition combinations that we didn't evolve to eat healthily.

It's incredibly easy and tempting to overeat when consuming ultraprocessed foods compared to consuming more traditional foods.

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study- find...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds- heavily-processed-foods-cause-overeating-weight-gain)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> WHO has details [1] about the carcinogenic impacts of animal meat consumption. There's nothing of that sort for any plant-based burgers. The arguments in these types of articles seem to ignore what I think are more serious health risks from animal proteins.

And animals don't subsist on air. In terms of 'processed', the types of nutrients fed to factory-farmed animals are terrible, including massive amounts of antibiotics. Cows are regularly fed the cheapest carbs available, including Skittles [2]

[1] [https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red- meat/en/](https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/)

[2] [https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/health/spilled-skittles- road-...](https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/19/health/spilled-skittles-road- trnd/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> FWIW, John Mackey has a pretty warped view on the environment, so I have a hard time lending him credibility regarding his opinions on the topic.

"We've been in a gradual warming trend since the ending of the "Little Ice Age" in about 1870, and climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad. In general, most of humanity tends to flourish more when global temperatures are in a warming trend and I believe we will be able to successfully adapt to gradually rising temperatures."

[https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/whole- foods-...](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/whole-foods-market- john-mackey-interview-conscious-capitalism/)

<comment><USER16> Seems like a perfectly reasonable opinion to have? Humans have adapted to climate change before and now we have better technology than ever before to help us deal with it whether that's by transportation, new construction, irrigation, and so on.

<comment><USER18> When I hear the phrase, "climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad", it comes across a denial that human beings are the cause of climate change. Rhetoric that dilutes the message that we're facing the biggest existential threat in the history of humankind is universally harmful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Having been a vegetarian for fifteen years, I simply don't see how it's possible to eat vegetarian healthily without cooking for yourself from scratch. Of course these burgers are not healthy especially compared to meat burgers whose worst ingredient is the bun (which could be replaced by healthy beard instead of the sugar cake it is at most places). Since I started eating meat again, I dropped fifty pounds without even trying (exercise helped a bit). I agree, eating processed foods is terrible and as a vegetarian that doesn't cook there are few alternatives. It's easy to eat garbage and get fat as a vegetarian.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's not meat that's bad for the environment, it's the large scale factory farming methods. There are plenty of veggie farms that damage the environment too.

<comment><USER21> Eating from a lower trophic level is generally more efficient than eating from a higher one.

<comment><USER22> I thought it was the other way, that the further up the food chain the more concentrated nutrients were and the higher the energy density.

Eating a cube of lamb is more efficient than eating grass, surely?

<comment><USER23> More efficient if you're starving and need some calories immediately without having to gather grass.

Not efficient in terms of environmental resources invested.

How much grass being eaten by the lamb resulted in a pound of lamb? How much water did the lamb consumer per pound of weight?

From the article:

>a plant-based burger generates 90% less greenhouse gas emissions, requires 45% less energy, has 99% less impact on water scarcity, and 93% less impact on land use than a ¼ pound of traditional U.S. beef.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I became vegetarian because of the ethical aspects. I really missed Carl's Jr. burgers for a long time until they introduced a burger with a Beyond patty.

I totally empathize with meat eaters who say, "I could never go vegetarian." That's how I feel about the Whole Food CEO's diet. Fifteen fruits and vegetables every day? Unfathomable!

<comment><USER25> Lol, even in his worst case he's saying you get one out of two predicted advantages from it. That doesn't sound too bad, particularly if you eat veggie meat in moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I might be wrong, but last time I visited the US (coming from Europe) I couldn't find in Whole Foods _fresh _ veggie patties.

Those are kept in the fridge, not in the freezer. They are somewhat processed, but surely not as heavily as BM/Impossble.

Seems a nice middle ground. Not as intense as meat / meat imitations, but I'm quite sure they are healthy (given their relative simplicity) and provide sufficient protein.

Have consumed them non-stop over 6 years, and I've kept myself in shape and energetic.

Here are some examples [https://www.vegetalia.com/categoria- producto/vegeburgers/](https://www.vegetalia.com/categoria- producto/vegeburgers/)

</comment><comment><USER27> This again; is there seriously anyone who ate these things and thinks they are healthy? Or anyone who eats burgers and thinks they are healthy? As vegetarian I like them once a month and it would be great if they were extremely good for us; I think we will get there, but for now; if you bake one, smell one, feel one; it definitely does justice to the original; it feels fatty and unhealthy. Which is great as it is better for the world, but healthy, nah.

<comment><USER10> Yes, we eat burgers all the time sans the bun and it's an incredibly nutritious meal with a perfect mix of macro-nutrients. Great protein, good source of fat, and tons of nutrients. Hard to beat honestly.

<comment><USER28> I wonder how many non-keto people would be making this claim...

> "a perfect mix of macro-nutrients"

What is this "perfect mix"? who is determining this? Macronutrients say very little about how good a food it for you.

> "Great protein, good source of fat, and tons of nutrients. Hard to beat > honestly."

Hamburgers contain trans fat[1], cholesterol[2], Neu5Gc[3], heme iron[4] and other cancer causing compounds from cooking/charring[5]. But yea, it's the bun you need to worry about...

1\. [https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/plant-based- fats...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/plant-based-fats-better- for-the-heart-than-animal-fats)

2\. [https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease- lowe...](https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-lower- cholesterol-risk#1)

3\. [https://www.sciencealert.com/evolutionary-story-of-red- meat-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/evolutionary-story-of-red-meat-cancer- cmah-gene)

4\. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/)

5\. [https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/d...](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes- prevention/risk/diet/cooked-meats-fact-sheet)

<comment><USER6> > Hamburgers contain trans fat

This is pretty misleading. Animal fat has a very small amount of trans fat. The main source of trans fat is hydrogenated vegetable oil, which was invented to be a cheap, "healthy" alternative to lard and tallow.

<comment><USER28> > Hamburgers contain trans fat

> This is pretty misleading. Animal fat has a very small amount of trans fat

I'm sorry, but what was misleading? I didn't say "most trans fat in hamburgers is from animal fat". Pointing out that a main source is probably hydrogenated vegetable oil does not negate the animal fat source or the amount of trans fat overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Uhh nowhere in the article does the CEO say that.

He says:

> "I don't think eating highly processed foods is healthy. I think people > thrive on eating whole foods," Mackey says. "As for health, I will not > endorse that, and that is about as big of criticism that I will do in > public."

</comment><comment><USER30> I'll continue buying lean ground beef and steaks from the local butcher. I tried the impossible burger. It wasn't for me.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is Impossible Meat GMO? Any details/studies on if GMOs are healthy/unhealthy for humans/mammals?

</comment><comment><USER32> Seed oils and pesticides, how could that possibly be bad for your health?

<comment><USER33> That's kind of a false dichotomy, because the animals eat that too, which means you eat it, plus you eat the steroids and antibiotics they're given.

<comment><USER34> The animals actually digest it. So no, you don't eat it. You eat meat, which is obviously a different thing from seed oils.

<comment><USER33> Not true, for all compounds at least. Meat does indeed contain pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. We might not test for it, is a different problem.

[https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/does- meat...](https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/does-meat-contain- pesticides-c587f6b252e7)

<comment><USER35> The argument was, I believe, against this -

> the animals eat that too, which means you eat it

It's not true in general, as some things animals eat get digested into other things and don't exist in the animals anymore. Their components do exists, but we don't consider atoms of meat the meat itself.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>