I’ve tried the Beyond Meat burger, and it was fine. Unfortunately, I ordered it at a slightly upscale restaurant with pretensions of gourmetness, and it was served with two bland toppings; a garlicless aioli (and c’mon, people “garlic” is in the name!), and avocado. It needed mustard and relish at the very least, to counteract the blandness of the patty. I will try it again at a fast food place.
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As a matter of practicality, I also suspect it’s the most they will do here.
I’m all for truth-in-advertising though. The more transparency the better. I’m just glad in this case the change, if any, is coming from suing a giant chain.
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Agreed. It will take a huge change to shift from meat based to veggie based fast food, and it won’t happen over night, especially as long as the meat-based supply chain is so entrenched and profitably.
But we’re going to have to acknowledge the damage being done generally speaking by the current way we feed (mostly) the west. This is not something that individuals making life style choices or individual corporations adding veggie or vegan options is going to fix. We need a major shift to less meat over all, to more local supply chains, etc.
In the mean time, sanctimoniously shitting all over each other and our food choices isn’t going to help anything. Vegans are not the problem here, to be quite frank. If people think that vegans are the problem, then they likely don’t understand what the real problem is.
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Absolutely. The current agricultural system is catastrophically unsustainable.
Just like omnivores, vegans and vegetarians can be wonderful people and they can be not wonderful people, but not because they’re vegan. I have to admit I’m a little skeptical that this lawsuit is about sustainability reform, but again, I like companies being compelled to disclose maximum information about their products, a cause I’ve been pushing for decades, so I’d be a hypocrite to criticize this lawsuit. And I agree, being able to know what’s in our food is important, as the rise of food allergies has demonstrated dramatically.
My Weird Al post was mostly for fun, not actual criticism of anyone in this particular situation. While it’s true that we have a system far too reliant on the courts for change, that’s not the plaintiffs’ fault save insofar as we’re all partly responsible, just as we’re all partly responsible for the lack of actions on sustainability.
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This is very true. The reason this is most upsetting to me personally is that the Beyond/impossible burgers represent the only vegan option I have seen that actually resulted in carnivores I know trying meat alternatives. Friends and members of my family who are literally “steak and potato” types have purchased these products from grocery stores and been amazed by how good they are as meat analogues. They would never in a million years have tried any “veggie” burger before this.
This, to me, is meaningful, real progress, and these issues about one group or another having their needs met manages to ignore the fact that the goal here is supposed to be getting people to eat less meat. These products are succeeding where nothing else has in the past, and for that reason I rail against any actions taken that impede that goal, including making these products more difficult to sell, to find, or to prepare in “traditional” meat-based restaurants.
Because, as you say, this isn’t going to happen overnight, and the last thing we need is these orgs deciding this whole plant-based thing is just too much trouble to be worth trying at all.
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Yeah, I think that’s an important point here. If the goal is to give alternatives to meat eaters, they are doing well and I’m glad to see them expand into this particular market. Obviously, if someone has already committed to a vegan diet, they don’t need convincing on the merits of more veggies in their diet.
Yep. Seems to be the case.
Yes, but they should take vegetarians and vegans into account, even if it’s just s small portion of their customers. There isn’t any reason they can’t cater to both the regular meat eaters and the vegans/vegetarians.
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Tiny nitpick, human beings cannot be strict carnivores. I identify as omnivore. 
Given the deserved hype they’d received before I first tried the impossible burger, I wasn’t shocked how good they are, but I was surprised. I’m personally looking forward to vat-grown meat indistinguishable from livestock meat. Once that’s on the market I’ll likely never eat the latter again.
I get what you’re saying, and a balance is rational, but @milliefink and @Mindysan33 raise good points. Will cross-contamination make vegans physically sick? I’m not a doctor but I’d be skeptical. It will however mean they’re potentially eating tiny amounts of meat, and they absolutely deserve to know if that’s the case.
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That depends a great deal on the cooking surface and my tolerance for dog shit, doesn’t it?
The point is that vegans and vegetarians all make choices as to what their specific beliefs tolerate. I know vegetarians who are cool with a soup or rice made with chicken broth, but not actual meat. Or vegans who avoid meat products but are okay using leather when it’s the most practical thing to use. Or are okay with honey.
Yes, some microscopic atoms of carbonized meat might be on someone’s veggie burger, but at some point they have to accept that if they’re that stringent, they maybe shouldn’t be going to a fast-food restaurant run by high school kids to get their strictly vegan lunch.
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Even if that’s true, one has know about it to make an informed decision.
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Me too! But I’m amazed how good these analogues are currently.
Totally, I agree - people should know what they are eating. Beef Tallow was used (but not disclosed) by McDonalds in Canada for years for cooking fries, and folks (rightly) freaked out about such when that was announced (this, BTW, is why their fries were so much more awesome in Canada than the US for so long!). But it seems in this case Burger King actually did have an alternative option right in their marketing.
I look at it this way. If I had a peanut allergy, I would likely ask if what I’m purchasing might have come into contact with peanuts before doing so. If Vegans went to BK and said “Hey, I’ll have an Impossible burger. Does it come into contact with meat or is it cooked on surfaces where meat is cooked?” and BK either 1) didn’t offer them the non-grill alternative or lied about their answers, then a) that’s terrible and b) they deserve what they get. But if you’re going to have a food restriction, I feel like there has to be some personal responsibility in that process, if only because IMHO it is not a good idea to ever believe that a third party will take your wellbeing as seriously as you do, especially if your requirements differ from their “norm”.
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As a veg of 20+ years, yes, this is quite real. On two non-consecutive occasions (years apart) I have gotten ill from accidentally consuming beef products…I wasn’t going to go to the hospital or anything, but my gut was every definition of “not happy” for about 18 hours.
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I remember the days when McDonald’s fries were cooked in beef tallow.
- sigh *
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It’s beyond… meat.
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Your body stops producing the enzymes to properly digest meat after a few years of not eating it; ingesting actual amounts of meat will definitely make someone sick if they can’t digest it. The trace amounts left on a grill by a charred burger that might migrate to a veggie burger? Absolutely not. But I can see how someone might make themselves sick, psychosomatically, if they believe it will make them sick.
And as noted above, if they’re that sensitive to potential contamination, BK offers to prepare their Impossible Whopper off of the grill already.
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Thinking about this situation more generally, this is a problem that people who follow other religiously mandated diets have solved already.
Rather than having the burden of checking all the ingredients and preparation methods falling on the individual who is trying to follow any particular code, you can have an independent certification agency to do the job at scale.
Food producers and restaurants who want to attract an observant clientèle can pay for certification, which would give people confidence in being able to buy that product/service, knowing that it was OK for their preferences.
IIRC, the UK’s vegetarian society already run such a scheme, so I’m sure that vegan groups could organise a similar scheme, that would cut through the confusion caused by the profusion of marketing terms being used at the moment.
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Can you cite a reference for this please?
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Of this I was aware.
This is what I meant. I wasn’t clear. My apologies.
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I don’t personally think this matters in terms of how “bad” this situation is. If they were told “no meat” and there was meat, that’s not cool. If they “expected” no meat but there was meat? Different animal.
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I can quote my doctor, who warned me to ease back into meat gradually after 15 years of being a vegetarian, because my body couldn’t digest it anymore. Or various vegetarian friends, who have been extremely sick after eating meat.
But if you’re looking for a scientific citation, heck, I dunno.
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Meh, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it be clearly disclosed on the menu.
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