Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 663 posts

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

#541

Post by danans »

tfehring wrote: post #531
Thorrez wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 subsi…

The economics are skewed in the opposite direction, though. It takes many times more soy, water, and energy to produce $1 of beef vs $1 of substitute, because most of the soy you feed the cow is lost to heat and non-edible cow parts.

Once R&D costs of the meat substitute are accounted for, the marginal cost of production is lower. So at the same or slightly lower retail price than meat, an equivalent substitute's profit margin will be huge compared to meat. That's what these firms are after.

And in the long run, industrial scale meat production will take a big hit.

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

#542

Post by Jaruzel »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #449
astura wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* is the wild card character so veg*n "matches" both "vegan" and "vegetarian." It's a short-hand way to say "vegetarian and/or vegan."

It's not very obvious that it's supposed to stand for more than one letter. Is it less confusing to do this way than to say "vegetarian" since that includes vegans?

Have you met any Vegans? There is no way they'd accept being lumped into a larger 'Vegetarian' demographic. One thing about Vegans is, is that they are not shy about telling you what they are.

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

#543

Post by kzrdude »

vwarner1411 wrote: post #98
jfengel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I too prefer the Beyond Meat burger to the Impossible Burger, but I don't know about a meat eater not noticing. I love meat - especially beef, but lately I've also been trying meat alternatives. Just recently, I ordered an Impossible Burger, and it just left me wanting beef. It's not that it was bad - the burger looked similar to beef, and was juicy and delicious. But it didnt taste like beef. Maybe it's different fo…

Cooking it in animal fat is a good way to reduce meat consumption anyway, so it's a good strategy that way.

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

#545

Post by rorykoehler »

Wistar wrote: post #399
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…

Addon: This youtube video posted by Burger King of "expletive-filled double-takes from actual diners informed that the Whoppers they just ate were made of plants..." https://youtu.be/N9FED3jkNTo ... was linked from this Politico piece: "Inside the Race to Build the Burger of the Future." https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/01/meat-poli...

Isn't it illegal to sell people food that doesn't contain what is advertised?

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

#546

Post by dotancohen »

Jedi72 wrote: post #528
jopsen wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really like cheeseburgers that much how about just eating fewer? :) Does it have to be an all or nothing experience?

If you are vego for ethical reasons then yes, every time its bad.

Every time you press the accelerator pedal on your car you are spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. Every time is bad.

That does not mean that we stop driving. We drive less.

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

#547

Post by darpa_escapee »

jackbrookes wrote: post #111
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?

What makes you think "processed" and "chemicals" are bad for you?

Including "natural flavors" in an ingredients list is a way to incorporate any number of undisclosed substances in a product. No substance obscured by the "natural flavors" label needs to go through any safety testing or analysis[1]:

> Even the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, has concluded that the “FDA’s oversight process does not help ensure the safety of all new GRAS determinations” and that the “FDA is not systematically ensuring the continued safety of current GRAS substances.”

You need to ask yourself what a company has to gain by intentionally obscuring ingredients in their product meant to be consumed by humans, and what you have to lose by consuming it.

> Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract...

"Natural flavors" is the 5th ingredient by weight in the new Impossible Burger.

While I understand that this board often has a "but dihydrogen monoxide is a chemical" outlook, being skeptical about undisclosed substances in food is a valid stance.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/what-does-...

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

#548

Post by gigatexal »

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…

This is great news. I’m looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for your review.

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

#549

Post by henrikschroder »

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.

Thank you for illustrating my point by claiming that if ethics aren't the top overriding priority in your decision, you somehow don't care about ethics at all. That is exactly the attitude that I find frustrating when talking to certain vegans and vegetarians.

Imagine the following scenario: I have a choice between two burgers. They both taste the same and cost the same, but the first one requires a cow to die, and the second one doesn't.

If I don't care about ethics, then I would choose randomly between the two, because that's not a deciding factor.

But if I consistently choose the second one, then I obviously care about ethics, it is a deciding factor for me. It's just not the most important deciding factor, but it's still there. Why does it have to be binary? Why does it have to be all-or-nothing for you?

I obviously might not care as much as you do about it, but you claiming that I don't care about it at all is incredibly offensive.

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

#550

Post by inapis »

henrikschroder wrote: post #376
int_19h wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I'm not at all a vegetarian, but I will definitely try it, and if it's as good as they say, I see no reason to not prefer it. There's a small subset of the population for whom meat consumption is some kind of cultural statement, but most really only just care about taste, I think. If the same taste can be had in a healthier package and without killing anything, it's a win-win.

> 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…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN