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Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

theverge.com

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Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#111

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

as much as i appreciate a meatless burger, it's no-where near perfect. The saturated fat content is extremely high (15%) thanks to the coconut oil. And it's super high in sodium as well: 1240mg (about 70% of 1500). and half of it is still fat. They've still got some work to do before it can be considered healthy.

But, they say it tastes just as good as the real thing, which is quite an achievement.

Ingredients: Potato protein, soy protein (soy leghemoglobin), coconut oil, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, methylcellulose, and food starch modified.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#113

Post by dfxm12 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37

This is nice for all the reasons mentioned but honestly I'm probably not going to ever eat it until it makes its way onto the value menu. I don't go to fast food to get a $5 burger, I go there to get a $1.55 burger. I can't be the only one.

What if it cost $2.55?

The meat-free burger will cost customers about one dollar more than the beef version.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290336/burger-king-impos...

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#114

Post by ma2rten »

chrisco255 wrote: post #74
wccrawford wrote: post #69

As far as I can tell, I'm the target demographic for this. I eat beef (and other meat) burgers because I like how they taste. If this comes close, I'll gladly switch, even though they cost a little more. I'm far from vegetarian, but I've been thinking more and more that I'd like to slim down on my actual meat eating for a few reasons, including the environment, the animal living conditions, and the cholesterol. The o…

As someone raised around cattle ranches, I really don't understand the animal living conditions argument.

There is a documentary called Dominion which might be interesting to you:

https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch

Warning: it's quite shocking / bloody.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#115

Post by ndespres »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #58
ndespres wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well at some point we will have to reckon with the economics of how a $1.55 burger comes to be. It's simply not possible without sacrificing health, animal welfare, and the environment. Not trying to be preachy about this, but in a cheap meal there are many costs upstream which you pay for one way or another, just not at the counter.

I see no reason we can't have a plant based $1.55 burger that's not superior to the meat burger on all those metrics. The plant burger doesn't have the whole animal portion of the supply chain to pay for. It seems like an economics of scale issue.

My original post more accurately could have read "the economics of how a $1.55 meat burger comes to be."

I don't know anything specific about how the Impossible meatless burger is produced. I know that there are some tricky economics involved in beef production, specifically in government subsidies for the corn which is fed to cattle to make beef; the stream of meat "byproduct" which is turned into "ground beef"; and the huge supply of land and water rights used for grazing cattle which was obtained long ago by huge ranches for free or cheap, which any new at-scale competitor (meat or meatless) will have a hard time beating.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#116

Post by loeg »

sgillen wrote: post #100
goda90 wrote: post #41

Here an interesting quote[0] from the founder of Impossible Burger that kind of touches on the meatless vs vegetarian/vegan discussion happening a lot in this thread: "[Before becoming a vegan] I loved putting milk in my coffee and cereal, but plant-based milks don’t work for me so far. No-one is trying very hard to deliver the full experience of what consumers value from milk. We don’t want to follow the course of s…

Ironically I find that I (vegetarian, not vegan) tend to enjoy meat replacements that don't try replicate meat. I find the ones that DO try to replicate meats taste are just not very good at it, and it ends up tasting pretty bad. The good stuff is still tasty and savory but it's doing its own thing. edit: Not to say the impossible burger can't be good (I've not been able to try one) Just a comment on existing product…

Isn't this just a criticism of existing meat-alike products? Or have you tried impossible burger and found it not tasty?

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#117

Post by [deleted] »

mfatica wrote: post #96
honkycat wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a vegan. But I do hold a lot of environmental values. There is a LOT of interesting writing on the economy of the meat industrial complex. In essence: It is totally propped up by with subsidies from the US Government. They LOSE money on every cow slaughtered. They destroy our planet. All of the profits go to the billionaire farm owners who lobby to keep the laws in place. It is so horribly corrupt. Personall…

How do local farmers fall into the mix? I buy a cow every year from a local farm - they raise and slaughter the cow and deliver the whole thing butchered and packaged. I much prefer this to anything I could buy at the grocery store.

[deleted]

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#118

Post by noselasd »

GordonS wrote: post #77
noselasd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of an "impossible" 150g burger are we talking about here that contains animal meat ? 10% ? 50% ?

In a cross-contamination scenario as described, it's going to be trace amounts only.

So it's a meatless burger that might have been in contact with meat or been in contact with a surface that has been in contact with meet ?

And this upsets people to the point the entire product is dismissed and labelled a lie ? No wonder the world is not at peace.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#119

Post by kemiller »

rmason wrote: post #64
hhs wrote: post #32

I lived in England for a bit and remember fast food places commonly having veggie burgers. This was both in Burger King and McDonald's. It was super convenient for that occasional quick bite. In the US, Burger King has been supplying veggie patties for some time, but I wonder why it took American fast food places so long to expand. For instance, why is there still an absence of veggie burgers in a typical US McDonald…

In America only one or two percent are vegetarians. In England it's over twenty percent! That's the reason it pays to cater to them. My sister is a vegan and on my urging she tried an impossible burger when it first came to San Francisco and she loved it. But Burger King is cooking the impossible burger on the same grill upon which they're grilling the meat. I haven't asked her but I'm guessing most vegans won't be b…

Depends why they are vegan. If it’s for environmental or even ethical reasons a small amount of cross-contamination may not be objectionable as long as they personally are not contributing to demand for meat.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#120

Post by mattmanser »

rmason wrote: post #64
hhs wrote: post #32

I lived in England for a bit and remember fast food places commonly having veggie burgers. This was both in Burger King and McDonald's. It was super convenient for that occasional quick bite. In the US, Burger King has been supplying veggie patties for some time, but I wonder why it took American fast food places so long to expand. For instance, why is there still an absence of veggie burgers in a typical US McDonald…

In America only one or two percent are vegetarians. In England it's over twenty percent! That's the reason it pays to cater to them. My sister is a vegan and on my urging she tried an impossible burger when it first came to San Francisco and she loved it. But Burger King is cooking the impossible burger on the same grill upon which they're grilling the meat. I haven't asked her but I'm guessing most vegans won't be b…

No, it's not. I wouldn't even say it's 5%, let alone 20%.

You only have to walk into a supermarket to see this is nonsense, meat vs veggie options are like 10 to 1.

You're referencing one widely debunked survey (this is about the vegan part of it, but it applied to the whole study and the vegetarian percentage claim (of 14%, not 20%), is discussed and debunked later in the article):

https://fullfact.org/health/vegans-uk/

I know 1 vegan and 1 vegetarian, but I know at least 6 ex-vegetarians.

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