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

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

#451

Post by buryat »

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…

> Obesity is driven in part by lack of affordability of vegetables

The main issue with obesity is cheap sugar, and it comes from plants.

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

#452

Post by ericbarrett »

ineedasername wrote: post #364
dkersten wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Italian pizza has rather little cheese. I remember watching something once where the chef of a fancy pizzeria said that the most important thing in pizza is the bread: it should taste great without any topping. Then the sauce and finally everything else. I've had a great vegan pizza once and between bread, sauce and toppings, it tasted like great Italian-style pizza. Sure, a sprinkle of cheese would have made it…

Well, there's a wide variety of "American" style. First two main distinctions: NY/NJ style, which is generally the traditional American pizza. 1" crust, a little crispy, thin body, sauce, lots of cheese. This has a few variations though, most notable "thin crust", which is often cracker-thin and very firm & crispy, the body much thinner too. The other main variety is Chicago deep-dish pizza, which is very thick, anyw…

I would argue there’s a third Western style. Typically served round; thicker, more sour crust; a very generous cheddar/jack/mozzarella blend; and modest amounts of sauce, compared to Chicago-style anyway. The crust is often dusted with cornmeal. Round Table (founded in Menlo Park!) epitomized this pizza, though I haven’t eaten there in years so I can’t say if they’ve kept any semblance of quality.

You’ll find it throughout the Southwest at many smaller chains. Dion’s is one regional I can vouch for. Two Boots in New York is probably the closest I ever found on the East Coast, but I didn’t look hard outside of the City.

It’s distinct to me from New York style because of the amount of cheese and the rise of the crust. The more topping-laden variants (“combo”) can require a knife and fork to eat, whereas a classic New York slice is designed to be eaten standing up and toppings are portioned accordingly.

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

#453

Post by crooked-v »

kalleboo wrote: post #445
jasonkester wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would swapping the beef out of a Big Mac extra value meal (super sized) make enough of a difference that it didn’t make people fat? Seems like you could attack that thing from a lot of different angles (smaller portions, not including a quart of sugar to drink, etc.) and get better results.

And how healthy are these heavily-processed plant-based patties anyway? French fries are also plant-based, that doesn't make them healthy in and of itself.

Broadly speaking, they're slightly healthier than cheap beef, but not to a degree that's going to change your life by itself.

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

#454

Post by [deleted] »

buryat wrote: post #451
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…

> Obesity is driven in part by lack of affordability of vegetables The main issue with obesity is cheap sugar, and it comes from plants.

[deleted]

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

#455

Post by andykx »

buryat wrote: post #451
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…

> Obesity is driven in part by lack of affordability of vegetables The main issue with obesity is cheap sugar, and it comes from plants.

I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make. That doesn’t mean that sugar is a vegetable.

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

#456

Post by 3131s »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #438
roland00 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1. Energy efficiency doesn't translate to costs of patty raw materials. Cattle can graze on uncultivated land, getting that portion of food for virtually free. There are other added costs to cattle farming outside of feed. 2. There are many costs to a cooked burger outside the cost of the patty.

> Energy efficiency doesn't translate to costs of patty raw materials. Cattle can graze on uncultivated land, getting that portion of food for virtually free. There are other added costs to cattle farming outside of feed.

Every time someone says this, but it's like 97% of cattle in the US that are crop-fed.

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

#457

Post by calcifer »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #449
buryat wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

come back with sources, right now it's just a claim

The only sources I can find are NGO's with an obvious agenda. Just like the sources that say how much water is used for one pound of beef.

> The only sources I can find are NGO's with an obvious agenda.

How is that a bad thing? Is the CDC untrustable because they have an obvious anti-disease agenda?

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

#458

Post by ReptileMan »

chris-orgmenta wrote: post #390
hated wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I am concerned the Neapolitan pizza is the only real pizza. Compare it to the archetypical Dominoes Margherita pizza. American variants of "pizza" definitely deliver melted cheese, tomato sauce, and heated bread in large quantities but the layers of flavor that you find in a faithful reproduction of Neapolitan pizza to the Italian standard are completely missing. One of the first things Americans will notic…

I suppose it's worth noting that the Neapolitan pizza can only have been in existence since 1548 at the earliest, and there are probably more 'real'/traditional pizzas sans tomato

Actually Neapolitan pizza is 170 years old. Flatbreads have been around for millennia.

So pizza in Naples is only slightly older than pizza in Little Italy in NYC. It arrives in USA in 1890s

The main problem is that in the great american convenience rush of the 50-s, 60-s etc the tradition is overwhelmed by mass pizza from the chains. And what becomes mass pizza (especially delivered) is inferior product. We have lower baking temperatures, start pumping the dough with oil, sugar and whatnot to get some browning. To compensate for lack of flavor in the dough you start putting all kinds of toppings on top and too many of them. Upping the calories to insane levels to compensate for their flavorlessness.

I think that when people dish out on American pizza they don't mean NYC, New Haven, Chicago or Detroit styles but Dominos and Pizza Hut at their worst.

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

#459

Post by 3131s »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #398
3131s wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is wrong, it a real sense, to have unreasonable personal rules about a restaurant kitchen. It's wrong to eat meat.

Says you. Others (by the billions) say otherwise. Raising a stink in a public restaurant makes you look silly. Witness the widespread cultural backlash against it. This is all obvious and well-known. I know that righteous indignation is a drug, and it shows mostly on the internet, thank goodness. But we should all strive to break the addiction. The world will be a better place.

Ignorance is a drug. Righteous indignation is just anger, the only emotion that ever drives real progress. The world would be a better place if you and everybody else stopped eating meat, sorry that triggers you.

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

#460

Post by boruto »

mike_d wrote: post #244
boruto wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should visit india. Vegetarian food is always a bit cheaper than meat and poultry.

Over half of under-5 child mortality in India is the result of malnutrition, and half the children under 3 are below a healthy weight. The WHO has citied not only insufficient food, but also a substandard diet.

I am not arguing the merits of nutrition. My point was vegetarian is always a tiny bit cheaper than poultry in the menu.
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