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Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

nytimes.com

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Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#531

Post by tfehring »

Thorrez wrote: post #514
darkpuma wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap soybeans makes meat cheaper, but the production of meat is inherently inefficient. If the production of meat substitutes from soy could be made more efficient than the production of meat from soy, then de facto soy subsidies would disincentivize the consumption of meat.

I wouldn't say subsidies would disincentivize meat. I would say they would incentivize both meat substitutes and meat, in an equally proportional amount.

They distort the prices of both soy products and meat, but not by equal proportions - the reduction depends on the distribution of cost components.

Say it takes 50 cents' worth of soy and 50 cents' worth of other expenses to produce $1 worth of beef, and it takes 90 cents' worth of soy and 10 cents' worth of other expenses to produce $1 worth of meat substitute. If the effective price of soy falls by 10% due to subsidies (and other costs remain the same), the cost of beef will fall by 5%, while the cost of meat substitute will fall by 9%.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#532

Post by telchar »

philwelch wrote: post #468
hexane360 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do realize that the environmental cost of animal farming is guaranteed to be >10x the cost of plant farming, correct? Each step up the food chain wastes roughly 90% of the energy, meaning that you need to grow more than 10 kcal of plants to raise 1 kcal of animal. So feeding animals is 10x as expensive as growing plants, in addition to the costs incurred by actually raising the livestock.

Most cattle feed isn't digestible by humans, so it doesn't matter. Replacing grass with more human-edible crops would probably introduce new problems of similar scale. You might ask, can we just process the grass into something humans can eat? Well, that's what cattle are for.

Better to leave natural habitat on that land rather than clear-cutting forest for grazing land, as happens so much these days and in the past. Better food production efficiency means less forest razed which is a significant win.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#533

Post by lukahn »

Sounds great. It's impressive to see just how far the industry has come, and what's in store for the future. Hopefully it'll be available near me at some point, but even in the last 5 years, the vegetarian alternatives have come a long long way (i.e. not just one menu item any more).

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#534

Post by aitchnyu »

lm28469 wrote: post #57
robin_reala wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you? There’s a full vegetarian menu in Sweden: https://www.mcdonalds.com/se/sv-se/hela-menyn/vegetariskt.ht...

I saw these menus in France, Germany and UK too. Looks like it isn't available in the US though, https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/our-food-y...

And I thought India was the only place McDonalds, Burger King and KFC have a vegetarian menu.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#535

Post by avinium »

tyfon wrote: post #129
yumraj wrote: post #90

I'm curious as to how Impossible burger compares on the health impact. I understand that it's plant based, but it seems to be highly processed and perhaps (not sure) loaded with bunch of chemicals and potentially unhealthy ingredients that make it taste like meat. Hopefully that is not the case and it's not just a meat substitute but is also healthy. Can anyone with more details please opine?

> loaded with bunch of chemicals and potentially unhealthy ingredients that make it taste like meat I never understood why one would want to make a veggie burger taste like meat. Properly made veggie burgers taste delicious by them selves. Much more flavour than the meat versions. But those are probably already on the menu and this is an addition to regular vegetarian burgers? Here in Norway we've had vegan burgers f…

> I never understood why one would want to make a veggie burger taste like meat. Properly made veggie burgers taste delicious by them selves. Much more flavour than the meat versions.

Because some people - myself included - like the taste of meat, and would only choose the veggie version for environmental (or economic) reasons if the taste were basically the same.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#536

Post by notatoad »

jfengel wrote: post #70
moosey wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carl's also has the beyond burger, which I personally think is superior. My wife disagrees, and prefers your standard veggie burgers (we are vegans of 15 years).

I haven't been able to compare the Impossible Burger. I had a Beyond Burger, and it was very good. If somebody were to hand it to a meat eater at a cookout, without calling attention to it, they'd eat it without noticing the switch. Pile on a few toppings (which people usually do because of the flavorless nature of most fast-food and grocery-store beef), and most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference in…

>because of the flavorless nature of most fast-food and grocery-store beef

this was my judgement of the beyond burger too. it's basically indistinguishable from a bad hamburger. it's certainly not a good hamburger, but it could pass as meat the same way most fast food burgers pass as meat.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#537

Post by tfehring »

jedberg wrote: post #308

FYI for a lot of folks in here who may not know, Taco Bell is vegan certified. If you order something vegan they will prep it separately and make sure no animal products touched your food. I suspect they might add Impossible Meat (or a competitor) some time soon.

Yep, I stopped eating Taco Bell in my early 20s once I couldn't stomach it anymore, but I started getting it again when I went vegan and it's great. I think the traditional grossness of it must come from their weird sauces, or maybe from fillers in their meat. They're still $1 burritos so I won't pretend the ingredients are the freshest or highest-quality, but vegan Taco Bell just tastes like normal food and not like, well, Taco Bell.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#538

Post by buzzy_hacker »

landa wrote: post #527
henrikschroder wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the same taste can be had in a healthier package and without killing anything, it's a win-win. Most people that are vegan or vegetarian choose that, because the ethics part of eating meat is the most important factor for them, with price and taste and nutrition trailing that. And then a lot of those people make the assumption that everyone who isn't vegan absolutely doesn't care about the ethics of it. But that…

You can't "care about ethics" if you care about something like taste more. That's like saying you care about the ethics of not stealing, but you care about having an expensive stolen thing more. You just don't care about the ethics.

How does your model of metaethics account for guilt then? I can appreciate your sentiment, I'm a pescatarian for ethical reasons, but I still believe your claim to be untrue.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#539

Post by tfehring »

bitesociety wrote: post #430
LifeofPi314 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the addressable market, and possible valuation you believe that Impossible would achieve? and when?

Right now plant based meat is well under 1 percent of the meat market in the US and it's realistic it could become the majority within 10 years. Who will get the bulk of that is up for grabs, I invested in a smaller competitor to beyond and impossible which had a much lower valuation but with product I think it's right up there with them. Personally I'm a big supporter of them all

I'm really bullish on the possibility of a wide range of competitors for any given meat alternative. There are probably 10+ different brands of prepackaged beef burgers at most grocery stores, and there's a lot more room for differentiation if you're building a product from scratch than if you're just deciding which cows to grind up and shape into a patty.

Do you mind sharing the name of the company you're referring to? I'm always looking to try new options and support companies in the space.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#540

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #174

The Impossible Burger is the best veggie burger I've ever had. I was a vegetarian for 10 years, and have now been a pescatarian for 8 years. It has been 18 years since I have had a proper cheeseburger, and since then I have had many thousands of veggie burgers. Cheeseburgers are probably my favorite food, and I haven't had one in 18 years. If someone told me that the world would end tomorrow, I would go out and eat a…

[deleted]
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