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

McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 577 posts

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#421

Post by roland00 »

JamesBarney wrote: post #420
bransonf wrote: post #414

I always wonder what the vegetable vs meat market would look like without subsidies. Imagine a free market where the veggie burger at McD is $1 and the beef one is $5. How many people would opt for the vegetarian option? Instead, in the market which we have intervened, it’s the beef that cost $1 and the veggie burger $5. Obesity is driven in part by lack of affordability of vegetables and in terms of resources and po…

You are way overestimating the effect of subsidies.

How so?

The cost of soybeans is a lot cheaper to make an artificial burger (once they get the R&D down) than feeding the same soybeans to a cow and getting roughly 1:10 the calorie weight due to energy pyramids. You can get roughly 200 kg of protein per acre per year, while cows it is roughly 19 kg of protein per acre per year.

Of course this is talking future costs, for we are still perfecting artificial plants / proteins that taste like meat even though we been "branding" veggie burgers since the 1980s and the food science goes back hundreds of years prior to that.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#422

Post by ixwt »

JamesBarney wrote: post #420
bransonf wrote: post #414

I always wonder what the vegetable vs meat market would look like without subsidies. Imagine a free market where the veggie burger at McD is $1 and the beef one is $5. How many people would opt for the vegetarian option? Instead, in the market which we have intervened, it’s the beef that cost $1 and the veggie burger $5. Obesity is driven in part by lack of affordability of vegetables and in terms of resources and po…

You are way overestimating the effect of subsidies.

I'll dig up the source later, but some studies show that each hamburger has an $8 subsidy behind it. I don't think the parent comment is way over stating the effects of subsidies.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#423

Post by wraptile »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #410
creaghpatr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godspeed to the marketing team that has to go to market with "modified e-coli".

Oi but is eating bacteria and yeast - a living organism - vegan?

Well your mouth, gut is full of living organism and well, you inhale, consume living organisms all the time just by existing so I wonder how far this argument can go.

As far as veganism goes I think bacteria is where they draw the line right?

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#424

Post by catmanjan »

roland00 wrote: post #421
JamesBarney wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are way overestimating the effect of subsidies.

How so? The cost of soybeans is a lot cheaper to make an artificial burger (once they get the R&D down) than feeding the same soybeans to a cow and getting roughly 1:10 the calorie weight due to energy pyramids. You can get roughly 200 kg of protein per acre per year, while cows it is roughly 19 kg of protein per acre per year. Of course this is talking future costs, for we are still perfecting artificial plants / pr…

Are the soybeans they're feeding to cows interchangeable with human consumption soybeans?

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#425

Post by wraptile »

klenwell wrote: post #38
belltaco wrote: post #2

>somewhat unsurprisingly, will be called "McPlant." Is it just me that didn't find the name obvious, and perhaps not a good one? Many people have an aversion to something if it's called plant, healthy or natural. I think Impossible Foods was right in marketing their products for meateaters rather than vegans.

What's interesting is that McDonald's has tried something like this this before and, it has been argued, effed it up due to naming. For an interesting account of their first failed attempt, 30 years ago, I highly recommend this New Yorker article, The Trouble with Fries (2001): https://web.archive.org/web/20081218211703/http://www.gladwe... It's Malcolm Gladwell so take it with a packet of salt I suppose. I think it'…

> and who goes to McDonald's for health food?

This is such a weird statement, especially when McDonald's constantly markets itself as a hangout/social/party food and is often perceived as such culturally everywhere around the world. So limiting variety seems like an awful contradiction here.

When I was teen we'd hit mcdonald's constantly as a group of friends, that was pretty much the only time any of us would eat mcdonalds. Now that vegetarianism is becoming more popular mcdonald quickly dropped out of the menu since they don't have a single valid option.

To me it's just so mind blowing that mcdonald's didn't carry a single vegetarian meal other than salad, fries or desserts; what a rookie business mistake.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#426

Post by least »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #298
andreilys wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do want to kill plants, which can feel pain and hear themselves being eaten [1] https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group...

Well, meat requires more plants to “suffer” than eating the plants directly. So if this was your line if reasoning, you would be a staunch vegan. The majority of crops are grown to feed livestock. People usually make your argument in bad faith because even when corrected you never had a moral interest in “minimizing plant suffering” to begin with. You just thought you had a good gotcha.

> So if this was your line if reasoning, you would be a staunch vegan.

Not really. A person who eats both doesn't typically agonize over the morality of eating animals or plants like many vegans do. It's pointing out the fallacy of advocating veganism on the basis of animal suffering.

That of course is only one argument for veganism among many much stronger ones, but it doesn't make it a bad argument to make.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#427

Post by newyankee »

Nbox9 wrote: post #58

I think it’ll be a big win when plant-based burgers are cheaper than animal based burgers. From a raw ingredients standpoint plant based food should almost always be cheaper than animal based food because the costs associated with farming plants is lower than the costs associated with farming animals. Hopefully, with McDonald’s scale and with their vertical integration they can make affordable, tasty, and comparably…

In McD India menu they already have a couple of types of veggie burgers to cater to the local population. However their patties have potato as one of the main ingredients and it is doubtful whether it will appeal to an average western buyer who needs that meaty feel alongwith protein.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#428

Post by ornornor »

spacephysics wrote: post #172
Nbox9 wrote: post #58

I think it’ll be a big win when plant-based burgers are cheaper than animal based burgers. From a raw ingredients standpoint plant based food should almost always be cheaper than animal based food because the costs associated with farming plants is lower than the costs associated with farming animals. Hopefully, with McDonald’s scale and with their vertical integration they can make affordable, tasty, and comparably…

Not so fast with the health talk. Vegetable oils are most likely carcinogenic, amid other health issues (GI, heart) [0]. Red meat is not [1] Further, these fake meats, Impossible Burger namely, have been linked to kidney failure in mice studies [2] (one commissioned by the Impossible Foods manufacturer). In particular: " * A rat feeding study commissioned by the manufacturer Impossible Foods found that rats fed SLH […

I wonder how much healthier the hormones and antibiotics in meat are though.

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#429

Post by nobody9999 »

abawany wrote: post #40
caymanjim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way. If a menu has "Eggs Benny" on it, I'll order "Eggs Benedict" because I can't bring myself to say cutesy things. I know it's my hangup. I'll change orders before I say something like that, most of the time.

I similarly refuse to use Starbucks' cute-isms for cup sizes (Venti, etc.) but I won't have any trouble ordering a McPlant - it might even provide me another reason to visit a McD beyond the wireless-for-the-price-of-a-coffee reason.

>I similarly refuse to use Starbucks' cute-isms for cup sizes (Venti, etc.)

I don't go to Starbucks often, but I also dislike the naming convention.

As such, being someone with a sense of humor, if I do go to Starbucks, I'll often order a 'grande culo' beverage and see what happens.

It's amazing how few Starbucks barista are fluent in Spanish. :)

Re: McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu

#430

Post by ornornor »

rangoon626 wrote: post #265
whimsicalism wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a few hundred years is long enough that if there's any sort of clear signal that they cause cancer, it's going to be visible.

One wonders why cancer rates continue to climb

We’re getting older and much better at detecting cancer, most likely.
Post reply on HN