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Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

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Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#121

Post by honkycat »

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.

Personally, I don't have a problem with locally raised beef. Factory farms make up the majority of beef.

Stats are here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-factory-f_b_1...

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#122

Post by SilasX »

honkycat wrote: post #71
everdev wrote: post #40

I wonder what the cost basis is of an Impossible Burger vs. a beef patty. The meat industry has built up some economies of scale but it's hard to believe that raising and slaughtering cows is the most cost effective way to feed people protein.

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…

>It is totally propped up by with subsidies from the US Government. They LOSE money on every cow slaughtered.

I don't think the math works out on that one.

This page [1] gives total meat consumption per person per year as 222.2 lb, which would be (x320 million) = 71 billion lb/year.

This page [2] gives total farm subsidies (which is a high estimate since it include all subsidies not just those to meat) as $20 billion.

So, that's $0.27/lb as an upper bound on the magnitude of the subsidy.

[1] https://www.globalagriculture.org/whats-new/news/en/32921.ht...

[2] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture/subsidies

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#123

Post by gitgreen »

ALittleLight wrote: post #89
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…

Same. I tried the impossible burger recently and was pleasantly surprised - it's as good as meat in my view. As a moral matter I will never eat meat when the Impossible variant is available.

This may sound ridiculous but what I really want to try is an Almost Impossible burger. The flavor and texture of a regular Impossible burg was a bit off from a regular burger but still tasty and close to an all beef experience. I wonder if mixing in a small percent of beef will still achieve the goal of drastically cutting meat consumption while still giving beef consumers their fix.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#124

Post by rhinoceraptor »

honkycat wrote: post #71
everdev wrote: post #40

I wonder what the cost basis is of an Impossible Burger vs. a beef patty. The meat industry has built up some economies of scale but it's hard to believe that raising and slaughtering cows is the most cost effective way to feed people protein.

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…

I think more needs to be done to promote grass fed beef as well. If done well, it can have a negative carbon footprint, versus imitation meats which have many of the same problems that grain fed beef does (monocropping, destruction of local ecosystems, use of pesticides, etc.).

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#125

Post by jkeuhlen »

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…

My wife was diagnosed with celiac last year, and we've found the same to be true of eating GF alternatives. Foods that try to replicate gluten tend to be much worse than things that are just good without it.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#126

Post by JohnFen »

hnarn wrote: post #85
robertfw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, there are quite a few non-dairy creamers that work great for coffee/tea etc, as almond/soy definitely do not work well.

> there are quite a few non-dairy creamers that work great As someone who has tried a lot of non-dairy creamers, I have yet to find a single one that "works great". There's something very characteristic about both the taste and the consistency of milk and most replacement products are nowhere close. That's not to say milk is irreplaceable for all applications, but there's a tendency to over-hype healthy and organic r…

> As someone who has tried a lot of non-dairy creamers, I have yet to find a single one that "works great".

Oh, man, this is so true. I like cream in my coffee, but if the only thing available is non-dairy creamers, then taking it black is much preferable.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#127

Post by PorterDuff »

moate wrote: post #54
friedman23 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegetarians are not common outside of certain metropolitan areas in the US

Data or it didn't happen.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I did run into this (which doesn't answer the question, but is interesting)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5622783/

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#128

Post by clarkmoody »

hnarn wrote: post #85
robertfw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, there are quite a few non-dairy creamers that work great for coffee/tea etc, as almond/soy definitely do not work well.

> there are quite a few non-dairy creamers that work great As someone who has tried a lot of non-dairy creamers, I have yet to find a single one that "works great". There's something very characteristic about both the taste and the consistency of milk and most replacement products are nowhere close. That's not to say milk is irreplaceable for all applications, but there's a tendency to over-hype healthy and organic r…

I think the first step that most people can agree on is to remove all agricultural subsidies and tariffs (and ethanol requirements). That way, the things being produced in -- and imported to -- the US more closely match what consumers actually want, without government putting its finger on the scale.

As the costs of subsidized, unhealthy food rise, consumption will decline. This, of course, assumes that the demand is induced by artificially low prices. If people consume just as much high-fructose corn syrup at higher prices, then you have a cultural challenge on your hands.

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#129

Post by everdev »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #124
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…

I think more needs to be done to promote grass fed beef as well. If done well, it can have a negative carbon footprint, versus imitation meats which have many of the same problems that grain fed beef does (monocropping, destruction of local ecosystems, use of pesticides, etc.).

How would grass fed beef generate a negative carbon footprint?

Re: Burger King is rolling out meatless Impossible Whoppers nationwide

#130

Post by DominikPeters »

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…

The UK's vegetarian rate is more like 10% as far as I recall. Since cooking veggie burgers on the same grill as meat burgers doesn't lead to additional harm to animals, I hope and expect most vegans to be happy to go for it -- veganism is not an allergy.
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