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

211–220 of 577 posts

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

#211

Post by dkersten »

sofixa wrote: post #143
markdown wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?

As someone who has eaten vegan pizza, no, it's not, it's an abomination. Just make a veggie/vegan lasagna instead...

Honestly depends on the pizza. You can have good vegan pizza and bad normal pizza. You can have "cheese replacement" and you can have pizza that just doesn't use cheese. There's a wide spectrum and some of it is, IMHO, pretty nice (maybe some cheese would make it better still though) and some is not.

(I'm not vegan, I just like to try vegan/vegetarian foods)

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

#212

Post by dstick »

creaghpatr wrote: post #174
nanomonkey wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few groups that are making "real" vegan cheese, ie modifying e-coli or yeast to produce the same milk proteins, and then going through the cheese making process. One such is Real Vegan Cheese [ https://realvegancheese.org/ ].

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

E Coli Flower

You’re welcome!

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

#213

Post by Lorkki »

ejolto wrote: post #189
gpm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pesto and tomatoes on (circular) bread can be quite delicious... It's not the same food as "pizza" in my humble estimation, but it's still very good.

Pesto isn't vegan, it's got parmesan cheese in it.

There are many ways to make pesto, and to make it plant based as well. My current favourite when preparing it myself is to grind smoked roasted almonds and nutritional yeast flakes.

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

#214

Post by dandare »

markdown wrote: post #141
elif wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of animal agriculture products is artificially lowered by direct subsidy, price controls, and indirectly lowered by the unaccounted ecological costs. It is largely a matter of policy rather than a reflection of market forces. On a level playing field, the cost competitiveness is there. For instance, in New Zealand, one of the largest dairy export markets, I can buy a vegan pizza for the same price. In fact,…

What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?

The appeal of vegan pizza is that no animals were industrially farmed to make it. If you think your cheese is suffering free you are lying to yourself.

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

#215

Post by kibwen »

dkersten wrote: post #208
markdown wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?

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…

And some pizza doesn't have any cheese at all, such as pizza marinara (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_marinara), which is rare in the US but was pretty common growing up in the Italian portions of Western Pennsylvania.

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

#216

Post by msandford »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #183
spacephysics wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 […

Yes, oils are pretty bad for you but Red meat is a class 2 carcinogen. So, neither are good for you.

According to the WHO class 2 is "probably carcinogenic" and what was effectively a meta (or meta-meta) analysis showed that the increased risk was 18%.

Do we know how bad vegetable oils are for people yet? Is there any reason to think that they're 100% A-OK?

Humans have been eating meat for 10s or 100s of thousands if not millions of years. Humans have been eating highly refined vegetable and seed oils for what, a couple of hundred?

One of these food sources helped turn apes into humans. The other didn't even exist until humans invented a LOT of technology.

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

#217

Post by coryfklein »

dandare wrote: post #214
markdown wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?

The appeal of vegan pizza is that no animals were industrially farmed to make it. If you think your cheese is suffering free you are lying to yourself.

> you are lying to yourself.

Gee well that's a rather bold statement. I find this attitude of "if you're not vegan you're a liar" so insufferable. I can think of at least a few explanations for the parent comment. "If you think your cheese is suffering free..."

1. You may be underinformed

2. You've purchased free range dairy products

3. You know something I don't

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

#218

Post by ben_w »

golemotron wrote: post #209
bane wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifelong meat eater here. I'm really happy about this news and hope it sticks over the long-run. These new plant-based burgers are basically zero penalty ways to eat more responsibly. They taste about as good as the normal "ok" burger from FastFoodJoint(TM), cost about the same, and are less worse for the planet and everybody on it. It's also more accepting for people who have various dietary restrictions and opens u…

> It's also more accepting for people who have various dietary restrictions Except for those on a ketogenic diet.

There are vegan ways to do that. No idea if they’re worthwhile, but they are possible.

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

#219

Post by gonehome »

petra wrote: post #121
gonehome wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess because vertical integration is way better for margins at scale. Why be dependent on another company if you don't have to? It's way better to own your own product. McDonalds partnered with Beyond briefly probably to test demand in the market. They're better off investing in their own recipe if they're able to pull it off. I'd guess they can afford to pay the people they need to do it. When I first had an im…

The impossible has v2. Did you taste that ? How is it compared to beef for you?

Maybe that's what happened? I had v2 later and liked it better?

The first time I had it the smell was off, and the outside was too crisp so it didn't taste like a burger - it was closer than a veggie patty or something but the experience was like eating beef that had something off with it (not pleasant). I was disappointed since everyone said you couldn't tell the difference and to me it was immediately obvious.

After being a vegetarian for a while I tried again and this time it was better. The smell is still a little off, but other than that with condiments and stuff inside a bun it's easy to forget it's not a real burger. Though it's hard to know if it's just because I haven't had one in a long time.

It satisfies enough of what it feels like to eat a burger to enjoy them at a cookout. It also makes it easier for me to be a vegetarian since burgers were my favorite food.

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

#220

Post by topspin »

elicash wrote: post #24
reaperducer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's already has the omnivore market. It's trying to bring in the herbivores, so McPlant makes it obvious.

There are omnivores like me that are excited about plant-based burgers yet feel silly ordering a "McPlant." I'm so self-conscious that if I'm at a Denny's I won't order a "Moon Over My Hammy." I'm aware the person taking the order doesn't care and hears these menu names a thousand times a day and still have that aversion. Are there more than a tiny number of us? I don't know. That said, this is another benefit of the…

> feel silly ordering a "McPlant."

Indeed. Why not something that suits our self image? McMindful perhaps.

> Are there more than a tiny number of us?

There are plenty.

Post reply on HN