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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

#641

Post by mike00632 »

alpaca128 wrote: post #194
gnicholas wrote: post #176

Are they cooked separately from the meat burgers? Some people don’t care, but some definitely do. Carl’s Jr. doesn’t keep their Beyond Burgers separate, apparently.

Just out of interest, what's the reasoning behind a strict separation of the two? I understand it in the case of gluten free products because that can really have health implications, but when you are vegan for ethical reasons it shouldn't make a difference, right? But I'd say this is great news either way. I like meat, but when there's a way to get the same taste and texture without the bad consequences for animals…

There is a health concern about bacteria (even dead bacteria) from meat causing endotoxemia in the gut.

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

#642

Post by mike00632 »

scottie_m wrote: post #218
scott_s wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some vegetarians and vegans, they are greatly troubled if they consume even any animal by-product. There was a point when I felt this way; I stopped after a while, and told people "Don't worry, I'm not religious about it." I think there can be digestive concerns; eating a non-meat thing that was soaked in beef-grease may cause digestive trouble for someone who hasn't had beef in a very long time. But I've also he…

Wouldn’t those same people want to avoid a place like Burger King in general? They’d be supporting the business of one of the largest consumers of beef in the world.

You could say there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but then where would you go out to eat at all?

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

#643

Post by tialaramex »

mikekchar wrote: post #612
tialaramex wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food security. Anywhere paying attention to history knows that you can get starved into submission, so if you don't have food security any money you spent on walls, navies, missile silos etcetera was pointless. So it makes good public policy sense to subsidize local food production and/or have high tariffs on imported food. In WWII Britain came closest to having to surrender due to food shortages. It didn't have then…

Not to dispute your main point, but in Japan more than 1 million people died of starvation after the US blockades in WWII. It's the reason it is illegal to import staple foods into Japan to this day. The question of whether or not Japan would have surrendered without nuclear attacks is still very much an open one. It's really hard to say what the Japanese government was thinking at the time, but I can say that my mot…

I'm not sure, but in re-reading what I posted it occurs to me that it's possible to read it as suggesting nowhere else starved (or not as badly as Britain) whereas what I was intending was that Britain's big threat turned out not to be aerial bombardment, rocket attack, or straight-up beach invasion but simply starvation. Invading Britain proved completely impractical, bombing it into submission was too costly to be continued, but starving it was close to working.

Culture varies, and it seems unlikely that the British "stiff upper lip" would have carried on through starvation rations as the Japanese did. Certainly the government of the day is recorded as having expected to be overthrown once the reality of starvation was felt by the common people, unless the next shipments of food arrived (which they did).

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

#644

Post by anthony_doan »

I've tried the impossible burger on a friend's recommendation (fat burger).

He overblown it.

It's good. But it doesn't taste like meat and the texture isn't close, only the seared like texture works the inner is different. The flavor is off. I want to say the fat of meat gives it that good taste which impossible burger does not have.

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

#645

Post by veryworried »

knicholes wrote: post #459
veryworried wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This religious rule comes from a well known scientific observation: meat blocks calcium absorption.

You mean calcium blocks iron absorption. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1600930

Yes.

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

#646

Post by jfengel »

ergothus wrote: post #149
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…

You are correct on all points, in my experience. That said, those of us that DO miss some level of meat simulacra (great phrase!) will appreciate this. I lost the taste for actual red meat over 20 years ago, but the texture is still something that has few parallels. Between the hardcore beef aficionados wanting nothing to do with "fake meat" and the hardcore vegetarians/vegans happy to consume veggies I find bland or…

Beyond Meat products are at a lot of stores, including Safeway and Target. In mine they're located over by the fresh meat. The web site has a locator: https://www.beyondmeat.com/where-to-find/

It does a remarkably good job of giving the texture of a mediocre burger. Not a great burger by any means, but it might fill a niche that you don't get from the Morningstar-type burgers.

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

#647

Post by hkyeti »

anthony_doan wrote: post #644

I've tried the impossible burger on a friend's recommendation (fat burger). He overblown it. It's good. But it doesn't taste like meat and the texture isn't close, only the seared like texture works the inner is different. The flavor is off. I want to say the fat of meat gives it that good taste which impossible burger does not have.

Not sure which is was but the v2 is significantly better than v1 and they are constantly upgrading each year

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

#648

Post by hkyeti »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #634

For those that think the Impossible is still not up to snuff: Has anyone done any testing of mixing of real beef and impossible to get as close as possible to "real" perception while minimizing the amount of real?

There are startups doing that, eg better meat co etc. It's a smart way to reduce costs and environmental / suffering impact.

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

#649

Post by hkyeti »

tonmoy wrote: post #523
cmonnow wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same reason why the life of a cow is apparently less significant than that of a human. There is a hierarchy of 'life'. Those who try to say 'All or Nothing' when it comes to harming a sentient being are either ignorant or simply trying to justify their meat-eating habits.

I am definitely justifying eating meat, but that is not a fallacy of the argument by itself. If you think of “hierarchy of life” as being closely related to us, then I could justify eating super intelligent octopus over cows. Again if you mean the hierarchy as intelligence then I would ask if it is ok to consume the less intelligent variants within a specific species. Moreover, would it be ethical if we bred/genetica…

On the plants front, know that the ratio for beef is over 20 to 1. ie a cow eats 20 calories of plants, to produce 1 calorie of meat. It's far more efficient (and less plant consumption overall) to just eat the plant calories instead.

You could make the same argument with eating engineered zero sentience humans. Or humans born with extreme disabilities. I think ethically it comes down to does the being have the ability to feel pain and suffer, and the emotional responses that come with it. eg a pig is more intelligent than a 3 year old, can solve the mirror test and has deep bonds with family, builds emotional connections, has the basic emotions we have etc. It's hard to justify their suffering and ultimate consumption by us when there are so many alternatives available.

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

#650

Post by hkyeti »

johnchristopher wrote: post #598
nickik wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology is more or less there. But it would require a significant amount of actual product development. The technology is capable of producing pretty much every meat, even new kinds of meat that smell like meat but where evolution did not conveniently evolve an animal to produce it. For the company the issue is scale, and since the beef market is huge and profitable they are focusing on scale, more then on int…

Thanks. Can fish flesh be done as well?

Yes, the gardein fishless fillet has convinced several of my omnivore friends they are eating real fish. Same I've heard for the ocean hugger raw tuna sushi etc
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