[HN Gopher] McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu
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McDonald's is adding plant-based burgers to the menu
Author : elsewhen
Score : 220 points
Date : 2020-11-09 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usatoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usatoday.com)
| baby wrote:
| Imo this is a big win, I used to work at McDonalds in France and
| a big market was the muslim market that would only buy the fish
| burgers.
| [deleted]
| tartoran wrote:
| I persobally will continue to avoid McDonalds but think this is
| not a bad initiative. I've been eating a whole lot less meat
| lately and don't miss it at all. I sometimes have veggie burgers
| from Trader Joe's and they are, surprisingly, very good. I also
| tried veggie salamy and bologna and they are quite good as well
| though the heavy processing is a big turn off for me.
| zo7 wrote:
| What about the processing in the veggie salami/bologna turns
| you off? Their meat counterparts are also heavily processed and
| are known to be carcinogenic.
| tartoran wrote:
| You answered this question yourself. I am not sure how
| unhealthy the processig is so I prefer to stick with less
| processed veggies, I eat fresh as much as I possibly can
| kalel83 wrote:
| Without being able to eat vegan fries, I will still avoid
| McDonalds.
| kibwen wrote:
| Are we leaping to conclusions by assuming this is referring to an
| impossible burger/beyond burger sort of product? A "plant-based"
| burger could also just be the sort of plain old veggie burger
| that e.g. Burger King has been offering for decades. Is there
| more detailed information somewhere?
| Nbox9 wrote:
| 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 healthy veggie burgers
| a reality.
| boruto wrote:
| You should visit india. Vegetarian food is always a bit cheaper
| than meat and poultry.
| elif wrote:
| 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, I
| can buy it from Dominos, a US brand that doesn't even offer it
| in the US.
| markdown wrote:
| What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without
| cheese?
| ada1981 wrote:
| I've been vegan for about 15 years..
|
| I love Daiya cheese for pizzas and it melts well too.
|
| There are also a number of specialty cheeses that are
| great.
|
| I think if you live in a decent sized city you can find
| great vegan pizza / supplies.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| There are vegan products that mimic the flavors and
| textures of cheese. And yes, there are also pizzas without
| cheese.
| sofixa wrote:
| As someone who has eaten vegan pizza, no, it's not, it's an
| abomination. Just make a veggie/vegan lasagna instead...
| dkersten wrote:
| 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)
| tashoecraft wrote:
| I've found so far, vegan cheese either melts and doesn't
| taste good or doesn't melt and tastes good. And by good I
| mean in comparison to mass produced cheese. It'll be
| awhile before there's a good, vegan alternative to
| homemade mozzarella. However, there doesn't need to be.
| The vast majority of cheesy/non-vegan food that's eaten
| is low quality ingredients.
| edkennedy wrote:
| Then again, that's what everyone said about "proper meat
| replacements" as well a few years ago.
| ianai wrote:
| It's a taste thing which varies person to person. Andy's
| vegan margarita pizza is my favorite and the cheese
| scratches all the boxes for me. I've had fine vegan
| mozzarellas various places though. Might be time to try
| again or just encourage people to try for themselves as
| tastes aren't universal.
| wasdfff wrote:
| The vegan cheeses I've sampled tend to fall into this
| uncanny valley of cheese flavor. Like yeah, its sorta
| like cheap bag cheese, cheese with more sweaty feet
| undertaste that I couldn't not picture once I made the
| mental connection. Usually doesn't melt, I've taken a
| torch to some trying to get it to melt and just end up
| searing it.
|
| Vegan burgers sometimes suffer from this when they lean
| away from the bean/tex mex route and try and tackle a
| hamburger. It ends up tasting like the grease is masking
| all the flavor, and it isn't pleasant rendered fatty
| grease like in a burger but vegetable oil and a
| surprising amount of it. I don't know if its the way its
| prepared or what, but imo its a tough prospect trying to
| ask $15 for a burger that tastes like oil soaked starch,
| hidden behind the aioli on the bun hoping you don't
| notice. Impossible burgers fall into this grease pit area
| for my pallet, I've tried them pretty much anywhere I see
| them at least once and no matter how they try and hide
| the patty with the other components it still stands out
| like a sore thumb to me.
|
| I'll wait another 5 years and try again. Hopefully more
| food science development can iron out these kinks.
| crishoj wrote:
| Cheese isn't necessarily dairy-based
| hobby-coder-guy wrote:
| Yes it is
| samatman wrote:
| Vegan 'cheeses', however delicious, are cheese only by
| analogy with real cheese, which is necessarily dairy-
| based.
| KitDuncan wrote:
| I make cashew "mozzarella" for my vegan pizza. Everybody I
| know absolutely loves it.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| cashew is the best method of faux cheese. It has the
| creaminess and a good melt, but doesn't brown right.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There is no best method of faux cheese - it depends on
| your usecase.
|
| That said, I do agree that cashew is extremely versatile.
| yesenadam wrote:
| Recipe please?
| LegitShady wrote:
| you can google cashew mozzarella. They're all basically
| cashew, tapioca starch (makes it stretchy), flavorings
| (miso/nutritional yeast/etc), garlic, and a liquid
| (water/non-dairy yogurt/etc). The ingredients are
| blended, then cooked until it thickens.
| ha4fsd3fas wrote:
| The appeal is the same as a Vegan burger. If you mimic
| cheese well enough then why would it not be a pizza?
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| I assume it uses vegan cheese:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_cheese
| dkersten wrote:
| 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 better still,
| but the point is it tasted great and it tasted like pizza.
|
| Sure, it doesn't make for a great American-style pizza,
| which is all about overloading on cheese (and having rather
| meh tasting bread typically...), but that's not all there
| is to pizza around the world.
| kibwen wrote:
| 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.
| splouk wrote:
| You've clearly never eaten pizza in Italy :P
| dandare wrote:
| 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.
| coryfklein wrote:
| > 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 emplanations
| 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
| kristo wrote:
| Gee well that's a rather bold statement. I find this
| attitude of "if you're pro lynching you're racist" so
| insufferable.
| ianai wrote:
| One go to is just make sure everything else is plant based
| or vegan (depending) and just order without cheese. Pizza
| without cheese sounds odd as a pretext, but does work in
| practice. It's also a lot lighter.
| gpm wrote:
| 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.
| ejolto wrote:
| Pesto isn't vegan, it's got parmesan cheese in it.
| gpm wrote:
| True, I've had some pesto like substance on vegan pizzas
| served by _very_ vegan friends, so I guess they have a
| good substitute for it.
| eskaytwo wrote:
| Parmesan is easy to substitute for nutritional yeast.
| It's the mozzarella substitutes that are trickier to make
| realistic/tasty.
| Lorkki wrote:
| 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.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| 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/].
| the8472 wrote:
| > are making "real" vegan cheese
|
| But are they actually making it? The site looks quite
| aspirational.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| I've tried two of the cheeses. I don't think that one
| particular group is selling anything yet.
| creaghpatr wrote:
| Godspeed to the marketing team that has to go to market
| with "modified e-coli".
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The E in E Coli stands for "Escherichia". Which sounds
| like a kind of Queso. Maybe they can make it work.
| dstick wrote:
| E Coli Flower
|
| You're welcome!
| ttul wrote:
| I wonder to what extent farming subsidies and implicit
| subsidies such as the under pricing of carbon emissions make
| meat burgers less expensive than they ought to be.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| The meat (and dairy) industry receive massive subsidies from
| the the US federal government, and they have massive
| externalized costs. Some externalized costs are greenhouse
| gas emissions, downstream downstream pollution, reduced
| health outcomes in consumers, heavy fresh water usage. The
| meat & dairy industry received the majority of the benefit
| from the $867 billion farm bill passed in 2019.
| jhawk28 wrote:
| In exchange for these subsidies, farms have lots of
| regulation and little control over prices. I wouldn't
| consider that to be a benefit. The main downside is that it
| keeps around the bad farmers and makes it harder for the
| good ones.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 74 cents on every dollar made by a dairy farmer are from
| government subsidy. I think I can confidently state that
| that's a benefit.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >The meat & dairy industry received the majority of the
| benefit from the $867 billion farm bill passed in 2019.
|
| No, they didn't. The majority of the 10 year funding bill
| went to SNAP (food stamps). [1]
|
| I do hate how I have to waste my time researching your
| ridiculous claims, I do wish such extreme takes could just
| be out right deleted before they cause any damage.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/massive-867-billion-
| farm-bil...
| butbutemails2 wrote:
| Bro we subsidize livestock feed corn and soy
| Nbox9 wrote:
| What percentage of SNAP funding is spent on foodstuff
| with animal products in it? Over a quarter of the average
| American food budget is spent on meat and diary directly,
| with more being spent on products that contain meat and
| dairy. It's safe to assume SNAP spending is similar.
|
| https://www.valuepenguin.com/how-much-we-spend-food
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The majority of the 10 year funding bill went to SNAP
| (food stamps).
|
| That would only rebut the claim being made if there was
| an analysis that SNAP spending + other subsidies did not
| result in a majority of the total ending up with the meat
| and dairy industry. Its worth noting that _even before
| they were configured into a poverty support program_ ,
| food stamps were conceived of, and have always been
| (hence the involvement of USDA) an agricultural subsidy
| program. So what goes into SNAP is not separate from
| industry subsidies.
| Daishiman wrote:
| If you priced the externalities, plant-based food is an order
| of magnitude cheaper, at the very least.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| My grocery bill decreased when I started eating exclusively
| plant based foods. In most meals the most expensive item on
| the plate is the meat.
| mike_d wrote:
| Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming
| majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not
| ranchers. (there are some misleading charts on the
| internet that try to bundle school lunch programs
| providing milk as a meat subsidy)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Plant based food are cheap because the overwhelming
| majority of government subsidies go to farmers and not
| ranchers
|
| And then the ranchers buy the subsidized feed...
|
| 74 cents on every dollar a dairy farmer earns is from
| subsidy.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If you priced the externalities in fossil fuels would be
| cost prohibitive, but a sizable political faction,
| particularly in the US, views Pigovian taxes as equivalent
| to totalitarian Communism, and an influential if anti-
| scientific set of economic viewpoints views externalities
| as either unreal or not practically subject to
| internalization.
|
| So, I wouldn't hold your breath.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| > an influential if anti-scientific set of economic
| viewpoints views externalities as either unreal or not
| practically subject to internalization
|
| That's interesting, if not too surprising, unfortunately.
| Is there somewhere I can read more?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > and comparably healthy
|
| Every plant-based meat I'm aware of has been processed to hell
| and back, so I'm dubious of the claims that they are healthier.
| sosborn wrote:
| What inherent trait of "processing" makes a food unhealthy?
| fpgaminer wrote:
| I was also dubious of the claim that "processed" foods are
| less healthy, but there does seem to be some evidence to
| support the claim at least along one vector:
|
| > Processing may affect the natural resistant starch
| content of foods. [...] Whole grain wheat may contain as
| high as 14% resistant starch, while milled wheat flour may
| contain only 2%.
|
| > The fermentation of resistant starch produces more
| butyrate than other types of dietary fibers.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Proc
| essing_ef...
|
| > Butyrates are important as food for cells lining the
| mammalian colon (colonocytes). [...] Butyrate is extremely
| essential to host immune homeostasis.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyrate
|
| Basically, resistant starch is extremely important to the
| health of your colon, and fairly important to your health
| in general. From what I hear, colon cancer is not terribly
| fun. Since processing greatly reduces the resistant starch
| content of certain goods it seems reasonable to claim that
| "processing" makes some foods less healthy.
|
| Though like all things there is a lot of subtly here; I
| wouldn't be surprised if plant based burgers end up
| healthier on the whole despite the processing when compared
| to regular meat. But they are unlikely to be healthier than
| the equivalent in unprocessed veggies.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Basically, resistant starch is extremely important to
| the health of your colon, and fairly important to your
| health in general.
|
| So if you eat exclusively processed grains, you don't
| have the resistant starch. Meanwhile, read meat is linked
| with actually causing colon cancer, not just failure to
| prevent it.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Get ready for the future. A Finnish company can make protein
| from air and electricity now. Once they figure out
| carbohydrates, oils, sugar, starch, we may give up growing
| food corn entirely.
| ben_w wrote:
| Oils and the carbs are the easy ones to make. Do you have a
| link or the name of the company?
| bluntfang wrote:
| Lucky for you GP said they were comparable, not healthier!
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It's long overdue that all the social costs of meat consumption
| are priced into those goods and/or that we subsidise plant
| based alternatives so that the ecological benefits are
| reflected at the counter. I'm pessimistic it's going to happen
| though.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Even just removing the current subsidy on meat & dairy would
| do a lot.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| They arguably could do this by making the meat come from
| ecologically better solutions (silvopasture, savory method,
| etc.). Imagine if both the meat and plant choices were both
| better.
|
| The counter-argument is it that all burgers would monetarily
| expensive, but factory meat is also expensive just in forms of
| unaccounted externalities.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Hopefully, with McDonald's scale and with their vertical
| integration they can make affordable, tasty, and comparably
| healthy veggie burgers a reality.
|
| McDonald's hasn't even made tasty _meat_ burgers a reality, so
| that 's asking a bit much.
|
| OTOH, I supect McDonald's will continue to harvest as much of a
| premium as the market will bear from anyone with special
| dietary preferences that they cater to, including vegetarians,
| regardless of underlying food costs. Now, if there is lots of
| competition in serving vegetarian fast-food, then there will be
| pressure to bring the price down to the extent costs support
| it.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| You notice how I mentioned taste after price. I suspect
| McDonald's prioritizes costs over taste, but that taste will
| factor into their final product.
| lhorie wrote:
| > From a raw ingredients standpoint plant based food should
| almost always be cheaper than animal based food
|
| Genuinely curious: is it though? I can certainly see the
| strength of the argument if we're merely comparing 1 lb of soy
| vs 1 lb of beef, but my understanding is that veggie burgers
| require quite a bit of processing to become "meat-like". It'd
| be interesting to keep track of cost and environmental impact
| differences between a low-tech soy-tasting patty vs an
| impossible burger.
| bane wrote:
| 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 up an entirely new, mediocre, but
| fast/cheap dining experience.
|
| One thing to note is that after some initial offerings, Burger
| King has yet to really keep their plant burger in the weekly
| coupon deluge I get. Meaning if I want like 2 entire burger
| meals I can get it for under $10 with the right coupon. But if
| I want their Impossible Whopper I still end up paying full-
| price for it.
|
| So yes, if the plant burgers were cheaper than the alternative
| there really wouldn't be much of a reason to eat the originals
| any more.
| golemotron wrote:
| > It's also more accepting for people who have various
| dietary restrictions
|
| Except for those on a ketogenic diet.
| ben_w wrote:
| There are vegan ways to do that. No idea if they're
| worthwhile, but they are possible.
| neltnerb wrote:
| The buns already contain so much sugar that they don't
| really apply.
|
| I did keto for a while and looked at the nutritional
| information for those burgers, they're not really on the
| list unless you get them bun-free.
|
| The veggie burgers when bun free do have carbs, but I'd
| consider them to be borderline okay at 6gm of sugar and
| non-fiber carbs (1gm of sugar) for 14gm of fat and 19gm of
| protein for a reasonably solid ratio of 6:33 or ~20%. It's
| not as good as bacon, but it's probably as good as beans...
| adrian_mrd wrote:
| A good way to think of this problem is that there are two
| solutions:
|
| Option A, farmers continue to receive government subsidies, or,
| Option B, consumers pay the 'real' price for food (which
| factors in the cost of externalities eg climate change, no
| factory farms, etc)
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| It is strategically important for a country to be able to
| feed itself (vs importing food). Farm subsidies are the
| current method that enables this.
|
| At least that's what the internet told me, I have no insight
| into that industry.
| thehappypm wrote:
| It's less about importing food but ensuring that food is
| cheap enough that the entire populace can cheaply access
| food.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Also, enabling overproduction.
|
| Farmers get it coming and going. If it is a "bad" year,
| and the crops fail, you don't get money and might not be
| able to afford to keep going next year. If it is a "good"
| year _and_ a "good" year for everyone else, it becomes a
| "bad" year again -- overproduction means that your prices
| drop and you might not be able to afford to keep going
| next year.
|
| But while both situations are equally bad for the farmer,
| it's _really_ bad for civilization if you don 't produce
| enough food -- in fact, you want to ensure that even in
| multi-sigma off-years, with flooding everywhere that
| floods and drought everywhere else, you _still_ produce
| enough food to feed everyone.
|
| That means that you have to build in a _lot_ of
| overproduction -- _every_ year should be a "bad" year
| for the farmers.
|
| (As an aside, you'll never see more concealed glee than a
| couple of farmers in one state talking about a flood in
| another state that produces a similar slate of crops,
| knowing that's going to bump crop prices by 20-30% while
| also not wanting to be happy about others' misfortune.)
| spacephysics wrote:
| 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 [soy leghemoglobin]
| developed unexplained changes in weight gain, changes in the
| blood that can indicate the onset of inflammation or kidney
| disease, and possible signs of anemia
|
| * Impossible Foods dismissed these statistically significant
| effects as "non-adverse" or as having "no toxicological
| relevance" "
|
| I understand these aren't as good test subjects as human
| studies, however it seems under the guise of the green
| movement, this evidence has been willfully ignored, or just not
| known. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
|
| [0] - https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/why-vegetable-oils-
| are...
|
| [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/sep/30/research-
| red-me...
|
| [2] - https://www.gmoscience.org/rat-feeding-studies-suggest-
| the-i...
| mike_d wrote:
| I don't remember the exact details, but the study found that
| after X days of eating Impossible Burgers mice suffered
| serious health side effects. So what did they do? Ran another
| study for X/2 days and resubmitted to the FDA.
| thorwasdfasdf wrote:
| Yes, oils are pretty bad for you but Red meat is a class 2
| carcinogen. So, neither are good for you.
| msandford wrote:
| 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.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| 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.
| gmadsen wrote:
| a veggie burger is almost always not healthier.
| cavisne wrote:
| You still need to process those plants to mimic what the animal
| did (ie fermenting the grass to extract bioavailable protein
| and stripping out fibre).
|
| Veggie (black bean/lentil) burgers can already be cheaper than
| meat. But the meat replacement (ie similar protein to meat)
| burgers are more expensive.
|
| I'm not sure why mcdonalds would bother making a meat
| replacement burger, its fast food so they can just use
| flavouring to make it _taste_ like meat without incurring the
| expense of adding protein. It probably will be cheap.
|
| As a plus side their customers will still be starving for
| protein afterwards. Large fries please!
| warent wrote:
| I'm at a loss for what you're suggesting here or what your
| point is. No consumer is going to buy meat flavored rice
| cakes, and standard plant-based meat has as much protein as
| animal meat.
| bluntfang wrote:
| >As a plus side their customers will still be starving for
| protein afterwards.
|
| Why? Meat replacements are engineered to have similar
| nutritional value as the meat-based version.
|
| for example, BK:
|
| >A traditional Whopper has 660 calories, 40 grams of fat (12
| of which are saturated) and 28 grams of protein. The
| Impossible Whopper clocks in at 630 calories, 34 grams of fat
| (11 saturated) and 25 grams of protein, so it's pretty
| similar from a macro nutritional standpoint. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.today.com/food/burger-king-s-impossible-
| whopper-...
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Distribution of proteins is also important. Meat is
| complete protein.
| ben_w wrote:
| Not the _only_ one, though, especially as there is no
| rule about mixing ingredients when making meat
| replacements.
| nightski wrote:
| Despite being down-voted you are absolutely correct. In
| addition meat is very nutrient dense (especially organ
| meat) with those nutrients being more accessible and
| digestible than the ones in plants.
| petra wrote:
| From what i've read, the impossible burger is pretty close to
| meat, unlike other plant based burgers.
|
| On the other and, burger king already sell those.
|
| So i'm curious, why doesn't McDonald's sell those too ?
|
| Is the supply restricted to burger king ? or do they think it's
| not woth the more expensive price, and and meat eaters will still
| prefer to eat a McD burger, while plant easters don't care that
| much about closeness to meat ?
| Falling3 wrote:
| Impossible has had ongoing supply issues. My city is very vegan
| friendly and had at least a handful of restaurants service
| impossible burgers that disappeared when Burger King rolled
| their impossible whopper out. There may be other factors, but I
| suspect this was part of the decision.
| fossuser wrote:
| 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 impossible burger I didn't like it, but I
| was also eating meat at the time. After a few months of being
| vegetarian I think they're great.
| petra wrote:
| The impossible has v2. Did you taste that ? How is it
| compared to beef for you?
| fossuser wrote:
| 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).
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| Now vs long term. If they NEEDED something now - just use
| beyond. I don't think the are getting hammered now, but I
| think they see this as a trend that will stick so they want
| to be able to support the volumes needed for a real rollout
| and get all those profits in house. I guarantee they will be
| the biggest fake meat producer in a few years. Just imagine
| the impact of a fake meat McRib!
| cavisne wrote:
| The COVID related menu simplification at mcdonalds have made it
| really hard to eat even slightly healthy there. I'm surprised
| they are considering a project like this, although 2021 is a ways
| out.
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mcdonalds-
| plant-based, which points to this.
| foxhop wrote:
| Plants can taste great without using mad science to change them
| to taste similar to animals.
|
| Vegan eggplant India curry comes to mind, so good.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This is McDonald's we're talking about. They are very much more
| concerned with mad science than taste. They're concerned with
| keeping costs low and their food easy to transport, store and
| cook (or reheat).
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| While true, those of us who liked the taste and texture of meat
| but became vegetarian for other reasons really appreciate how
| hard companies are trying to imitate meat with plants.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| What is the point of making vegetarian and vegan foods taste like
| omnivore foods?
|
| Would it not make more sense (less cost, honest, etc.) to make it
| taste like what they are?
| azinman2 wrote:
| > " McDonald's had been running small tests of plant-based
| options in Canada since as early as last year, and was reportedly
| canvassing customers in the UK recently for their thoughts on
| vegan options at the Golden Arches"
|
| In 2001 I had a vegetarian (vegan?) burger at McDonalds in the
| UK. McDonalds in India already has plenty of unique veggie items
| on their menu. I'm confused by these statements.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| Yeah, we've had a McVegan (actual name) in Sweden and Finland
| since 2017:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpellmanrowland/2017/10/1...
| motives wrote:
| India is a more unique market due to the extremely high number
| of Hindus, who do not eat beef due to the revered status of the
| cow. This has a significant impact on the provisioning of
| products, as McDonalds would not be able to survive on beef
| alone.
| amelius wrote:
| Soy based?
| chucky wrote:
| In several countries in Europe, McDonald's has served plant-based
| alternatives for years. In Sweden they serve the McVegan, for
| example: https://www.mcdonalds.com/se/sv-se/product/mcvegan.html
| mping wrote:
| We have the McVeggie over here (Portugal) which are meh, but I
| recently discovered Linda McCartney's veggie burgers and I have
| fooled a couple of people thinking it was meat. They are very
| very good IMHO.
| Gys wrote:
| Interesting! Where do you buy those in Portugal?
| retSava wrote:
| In Sweden, we also have the chain called Max, which was quite
| early, and more importantly, serves a wide variety of products
| based on non-red-meat (plant, chicken, fish). They are
| generally pretty good too.
|
| https://www.max.se/maten/meny/green/
|
| This, imo, is more important than serving the token plant based
| one, which on the other hand is better than zero. Gotta start
| somewhere.
|
| edit: actually, all those linked above are non-meat stuff, all
| 13 of them.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| Made in cooperation with Orkla's Anamma brand:
| https://www.orkla.com/news/mcdonalds-chooses-vegetarian-burg...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The plant based hula burger didn't do so well in the US. Times
| are different now though...
|
| Although, I do also wonder if a plant is the same thing
| colloquially as a "plant based alternative".
| antpls wrote:
| I never saw it in France
| reaperducer wrote:
| McDonald's had an all-veggie burger back in the 80's in the
| United States, but it went away.
|
| I don't know if it was nationwide, or regional. It came out
| around the same time as the McDLT, which was awesome.
|
| (As an aside, one of the things that has always bugged me about
| McDonald's is its menu inconsistency from market to market. The
| franchisees have too much power, IMO. I have to drive a few
| hundred miles each year to get McRibs because the local
| franchise owners won't carry it. And McRibs don't freeze well.)
| dbspin wrote:
| In the 90s Burger King had an incredible 'meat like' vege
| burger here in Europe. As a freshly vegetarian teenager at
| the time it was my go too 'faux flesh'. For some unknown
| reason they cut it from the menu in favour of their rather
| awful 'bean burger'.
| rch wrote:
| It's good to see options proliferate and do well in the market.
| Ideally though, the next phase of this trend should yield
| products which emphasize organic/regenerative attributes, or
| similar labeling with ties to positive ecological outcomes.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Let's see if they take beef flavor out of their fries.
| xnx wrote:
| It would be nice if they made some McPlant fries!
| chris_st wrote:
| Or will they just put it into their "burgers"? Seems like the
| kind of thing they'd do.
|
| For the uninitiated: McD's used to fry their fries in lard, and
| then changed in the 90's to vegetable oil to lower cholesterol,
| etc. But they still (secretly) used beef flavor, from animals,
| and lost a $10M lawsuit from vegetarians and Hindus.
|
| But they didn't change the recipe [1].
|
| 1: https://www.eatthis.com/mcdonalds-french-fries-taste-
| differe...
| wincy wrote:
| It wasn't lard, it was beef tallow. Lard is specifically pig
| fat.
| wincy wrote:
| I wish they'd start using beef tallow again. I recently made a
| few batches of store-bought fries deep fried in tallow and it
| was one of the best things I've ever tasted. There's something
| primally satisfying about the taste of animal fats vs plant-
| based fats.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| That's one opinion. I personally am put off by the tastes and
| smells of animal fats and proteins. Perhaps it's because I
| consider animal products to be very unhealthy and
| environmentally harmful. The percentage of people in
| developed countries that are either vegetarian or vegan is
| increasing and McDonals is clearly trying to service this
| demographic.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| As a lifelong US vegetarian, I won't hold my breath. The number
| of times McDonalds has test marketed vegetarian alternatives has
| left me doubting they will ever bring a veg alternative to
| market.
| imkieren wrote:
| We have had the McVeggie in New Zealand for a while now - They
| even included it in our "Kiwi Burger" range. I think it's off the
| menu now but easily the best burger I have had from Maccas.
| falcolas wrote:
| I had a "Beyond Burger" the other day. It was larger than you'd
| ever get from either BK or McD's, but it was still a licensed
| product.
|
| The flavor was pretty good (if a bit too "meaty" as it were), but
| the texture was very wrong. There were sizable globs of rubbery
| material in them which was a bit disturbing (think Pearl Tea
| style tapioca, only 2-3x more resilient). It was as if globules
| of gristle had made it into the final product, bypassing the
| grinder.
| doctorOb wrote:
| I've had a few Big Macs lately, and from my perspective the
| meat is perhaps the least consequential part of that sandwich,
| both flavor and texture-wise. At one point I asked for 4x extra
| cheese (gross, I know) and after the first few bites, that too
| seemed to be pushed aside in the palate by the sauce. I can
| almost guarantee you I would not notice a difference if they
| swapped the beef for beyond meat.
| falcolas wrote:
| In my example, it was about 1/2 or 1/3 lb worth of meat, with
| minimal fixings, so at least some places are definitely using
| it in a way where the flavor/texture of the 'meat' matters.
| twostorytower wrote:
| They came up with a new formula somewhat recently and I had the
| same experience. I think it's just awful. Impossible Burger has
| been a consistent, very burger like experience.
| sevencolors wrote:
| I think they must not be cooking it correctly. I've had the
| Beyond Burger patties and ground meat. If you only warm it up
| some of the "gristle" feels like plastic bits. Yuck. If you low
| and slow cook it, seems like it integrates better
|
| And salt and spices help too, I feel they purposely under
| season it
| HaloZero wrote:
| I've found it works substantially better as ground meat because
| you don't get that squishy texture. We've added it to pasta,
| tacos, and various things now and it's worked out well. Just
| add some turmeric, chili powder and cook in some cumin seeds.
| antpls wrote:
| I bought a frozen "impossible burger" (although I don't
| remember if it was beyond burger or impossible burger). It was
| not a good experience. When uncooked it looked like cat can
| food, when cooked it still smelled like cat food.
|
| I have a feeling those are the same ingredients than cat food.
|
| I would rather eat an official and assumed vegan burger rather
| than one of those "fake" meat burger
| sct202 wrote:
| That was 100% a Beyond Burger. I cannot stomach another
| Beyond Burger after the smell that hit me after the first
| time I opened a package of raw Beyond. Raw Impossible Burger
| has basically no smell to me.
| edpazu wrote:
| McBelieve would have been a much better name.
| vaccinator wrote:
| Plant meals would be nice... around here they removed the salads
| from the menu (because covid)
| corry wrote:
| Here in the Kitchener-Waterloo region of Ontario/Canada, the
| local McDonalds ran with Beyond Meat burgers for about a month
| (maybe April-ish)? From what I could tell, it was very successful
| (often sold-out, and anecdotally the workers told me that it was
| the most popular new thing they'd seen in a long time). For my
| family, we went from not having eaten McD's for years to getting
| it occasionally.
|
| However, they stopped it suddenly. So the fam now goes to A&W
| since they have Beyond.
|
| Anecdotal evidence that doing meatless right in fast food can be
| a driver of growth, higher margins, and bring back a key
| demographic that otherwise wouldn't dream of setting foot in
| there.
| ttul wrote:
| The A&W Beyond burger is amazing.
| abawany wrote:
| Yes, I was thrilled to see that A&W had Beyond Burgers in
| Canada. It is the sole reason they got my business multiple
| times when I used to visit that country.
| ckosidows wrote:
| Is it only in Canada? We have an A&W in town and I never
| would have thought to go there. But if they have plant
| burgers I might.
| abawany wrote:
| It appears not to be the case:
| https://awrestaurants.com/food/burgers/AW
| (https://awrestaurants.com/menu). I think I have been to a
| US location once/ever in the previous decade but in Canada,
| I would often seek out their locations when I wanted lunch
| (Beyond Burger wrapped in lettuce).
| maxerickson wrote:
| Will people forever speculate that they have real meat in them?
| daveoc64 wrote:
| As a Vegan, that can be a concern.
|
| The best way for companies to alleviate that concern is to make
| your Vegan products clearly different from the meat ones.
|
| McDonalds offers "Veggie Dippers" in the UK, and as they have a
| vegetable texture, they are easy to tell apart from other
| products:
|
| https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/veggie-dippers-4-...
|
| I think that this particular product is aimed at
| Vegans/Vegetarians, while products like the Beyond Burger and
| Impossible Burger are aimed at "flexitarians".
|
| So, when making a "meaty" product, the simplest thing to do is
| make it a different shape than your other products.
| werber wrote:
| Vegans will be concerned about shared grill space, I know that
| was a big issue for friends for mine with Burger King's
| Impossible implentation
| icanhackit wrote:
| As an ethical vegan (reduce animal suffering but previously
| enjoyed eating meat) I don't care if it shares the same grill
| or goes into the same fryer. But I'm also unlikely to go
| somewhere where that'd happen - it's more likely if I'm
| pressed for options i.e. somewhere out of the city.
|
| I'd give the McDonalds burger a go though - it's always
| interesting to see how far food tech can be pushed and how
| different it is from the real-deal. The key in my mind is
| synthetic collagen to give fake meat the bounce/snap/chew of
| real meat (FWIW I don't eat fake meat often, just interested
| in food tech in general).
| imwally wrote:
| This used to be a concern for me earlier on in my vegan years
| but I soon realized that veganism isn't about eating a "pure"
| diet, it's about the animals. The best thing for the animals
| is for these products to sell and I shouldn't let a little
| cross contamination deter me from that.
| Spivak wrote:
| Yep, I call myself a "mostly plants" person because of
| this. When buying and cooking for myself I avoid meat and
| animal products but I felt like it was wrong to waste food
| just because it was meat.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Some vegans. If you care about the environment at all you're
| not going to be demanding every restaurant buy additional
| grills, expand footprint, or alternatively not serve vegans
| at all. Demanding separate grills doesn't have any impact on
| animal suffering either. The only vegans I could see caring
| about that are the purity test vegans or the vegans who are
| convinced meat is physically dangerous to human health, and
| those people shouldn't eat in McDonald's regardless.
| dmurray wrote:
| The "pure" vegans may be a minority, but will have a
| disproportionately loud voice.
| Arcuru wrote:
| I have also heard that some people that are on strict vegan
| diets can develop an intolerance to animal products. So I
| guess it's possible they could have issues with cross
| contamination.
|
| Disclaimer: This is pure, third-hand speculation. I am not
| in a position to know if developing an animal products
| intolerance is possible.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I can confirm having developed some intolerance to animal
| fats since becoming vegetarian. It isn't usually a
| problem if my fake-meat is cooked on the same surface as
| real-meat, but every so often I will experience some
| stomach discomfort. Pig fat seems to be the most likely
| to cause it.
| ajay-b wrote:
| If you eat too much McDonald's you McPlant into an early grave.
| belltaco wrote:
| >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.
| xnx wrote:
| Remember all the mockery around the name "iPad"? First
| impressions are often wrong.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The mockery was mostly about how obvious/lazy/predictable
| people felt the name was. I don't understand why you think
| that disproves anything? The iPad was a success, but the name
| can still be obvious without the product being bad.
| jamyot wrote:
| I agree McPlant is quite boring, and honestly, a little
| unappetizing. Although I'm happy they are (finally) offering a
| vegetarian burger, with all the time they waited to release
| one, they could have put more thought into the name.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| I can't remember the last time I gave McDonald's money, but I'd
| try a plant-based item if they named it _the McBean_ or _the
| McGraze_.
| untog wrote:
| > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called
| plant, healthy or natural.
|
| I don't think that's true, particularly "natural". People have
| been labeling everything they can "natural" for years in order
| to boost sales.
|
| But it's interesting that McDonalds is being so explicit.
| Perhaps Impossible and Beyond Meat have already done the hard
| work of exposing people to these products and now McDonalds
| hopes to swoop in without dealing with any of the product
| confusion?
|
| Either way I'm interested to try them. I've had a few of the
| Dunkin Donuts Beyond Meat breakfast sandwiches and they're
| fantastic.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yes! Beyond Meat is definitely a 'cut above' the other one.
| And McD's started by collaborating with Beyond Meat. If that
| means anything, I look forward to a great McPlant!
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| People who shop the dollar menu are a different customer than
| someone who will pay a premium for a meat substitute.
| reaperducer wrote:
| "Premium" is the key word here.
|
| There was an article in one of the business magazines about a
| year ago about why so many fast food companies are adding
| meatless options.
|
| It's not about health. It's not about choice. It's not about
| the planet. It's about money.
|
| The menus need high-priced items and low-priced items to
| appeal to different types of customers. Most fast-food joints
| need a basic product they're known for, and a premium product
| that costs the consumer more and has a larger profit margin,
| that the average consumer might occasionally try.
|
| The fast food companies can charge more for a meatless
| product, and reap bigger profits.
|
| A little greenwashing doesn't hurt, either.
| mprovost wrote:
| Once the meatless companies scale up their supply chains
| and production lines, they predict that they'll be cheaper
| than meat. So in the future the meatless option will be the
| "dollar menu" and you'll have to pay a premium for the real
| deal. Of course that also depends how the subsidies to the
| meat industry keep up as demand drops.
| reaperducer wrote:
| McDonald's already has the omnivore market. It's trying to
| bring in the herbivores, so McPlant makes it obvious.
| manojlds wrote:
| They already do that in markets like India
| elicash wrote:
| 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 kiosks.
| topspin wrote:
| > 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?
|
| No. There are plenty.
| bigbubba wrote:
| I absolutely hate all the cutesy trademarks businesses
| expect you to use. I don't want a 'Mc' anything, just give
| me a 'number 5 Burger.' And fuck all the bullshit terms
| these corporations use instead of small/medium/large. These
| are all attempts by their marketers to worm their corporate
| language into your brain.
| [deleted]
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Last time I was at a McDonald's, it was easy, even
| preferred, to order from a giant touch screen, so perhaps
| there's less friction on silly names than there used to be.
|
| (Reminds me of a report I read ages ago about the "Ziosk"
| on-table ordering devices causing customers to be more
| likely to order desserts and other "guilty pleasure"
| foods.)
| caymanjim wrote:
| 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.
| abawany wrote:
| 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.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Starbucks ' cute-isms for cup sizes (Venti, etc.)_
|
| Most people misunderstand Starbucks size names. They
| think they're all smart assuming that Starbucks calls a
| small drink "tall" because of marketing or whatever. But
| it's actually the too-cool-for-school crowd that is
| wrong.
|
| "Short" is in the shortest cup. It's the small size.
|
| "Tall" is the taller cup. It's the regular size.
|
| "Grande" is the large size. "Grande" means "large."
|
| "Venti" is extra-large. "Venti" means "twenty," and is
| used because the drink is twenty ounces.
|
| Because Starbucks doesn't list the "short" size on the
| menu, angry people assume Starbucks is trying to hide
| something. But it's not. Just ask for a short. I've never
| been to a Starbucks that didn't have the short size.
|
| When I order a "short," about 90% of the time the
| response is, "Don't you want a 'tall,' instead? It's the
| same price." My response is, "It's not about money. It's
| about portion control." And everyone goes about their
| business.
| abawany wrote:
| Re. "short", I am the opposite - I am ordering the
| "largest". I appreciate the thought they appear to have
| put into the sizes and your associated explanation but I
| think using numbers (1-4?) would have been more intuitive
| but I guess then it would be less distinctly Starbucks?
| alistairSH wrote:
| All true, but the names are still "cute". Small, regular,
| large, XL work just fine.
|
| That said, I'm already order what amount to a liquid
| dessert with a silly name, so IDGAF. Venti
| Frappathingamajig with extra whip and a side of the
| 'beetus please.
| hnick wrote:
| Around here I'll often go somewhere and ask for "your
| smallest size of chips" or something, and they'll tell me
| they don't have small, only regular. OK thanks for that
| unnecessary interaction.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I thought it had something to do with the day they
| changed their prices by changing the names - what was a
| short became a 'tall', and the tall became a 'venti'.
| Essentially charging more for each size (charging the
| tall price for what used to be a short) etc.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Fuck all that shit, no other business uses those terms
| because they are specifically Starbucks corp's attempt to
| be cute, despite what you may think. Who the fuck in
| America says 'venti' instead of extra large? Nobody
| except Starbucks and their customers, so cut the shit.
| amanzi wrote:
| "McPlant" is a fairly horrible sounding burger! Burger King
| here in NZ have plant-based burgers called the Rebel Whopper
| which is quite a catchy name. Technically, it can't be
| classified as vegetarian though, because it's cooked on the
| same grill as the beef burgers. Not sure if the McPlant will be
| cooked on different grills or not?
| kall wrote:
| I think the Rebel Whopper branding is really spot on. It's
| like the opposite of the McLean problem described in another
| comment: it's not the reasonable choice.
| geff82 wrote:
| The Rebel Whopper is a marvel! It is just "the real thing"
| and brings me the same joy as eating the meat burger. I
| usually choose the Rebel since they introduced it. We have
| a McVegan in Germany, too. I like it, but it is not "like
| the others".
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| What on earth? Why would that matter? Does somebody lose
| their vegan powers if a particle of fat gets into their
| burger?
| senkora wrote:
| People can be irrational when it comes to their diets, but
| that doesn't make them wrong. Some people care and some
| don't.
|
| Restaurants tend to take the strictest interpretation of a
| diet because that minimizes angry customers.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yeah and I don't like kale in my food. Clearly I'm not
| wrong, because apparently nobody is. But a busy
| restaurant is not the place to make a fuss over where a
| particular dish was cooked. I don't get to insist on a
| separate pot to make my meal, because it might get
| polluted by kale.
|
| It is wrong, it a real sense, to have unreasonable
| personal rules about a restaurant kitchen.
| imtringued wrote:
| >Why would that matter?
|
| It matters because a burger that smells and tastes like
| real meat because it got into contact with meat is not
| vegan.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Very simply, you can't sell it as vegetarian if it has meat
| in it. Vegetarians may choose to abstain from meat for many
| reasons, including religious ones. Burger King's duty is
| not to question those choices; it's simply not to deceive
| their customers.
| legostormtroopr wrote:
| No vegan diet, no vegan power. Those are the vegan police
| rules - https://scottpilgrim.fandom.com/wiki/Vegan_Police
| dheera wrote:
| I fully agree with this.
|
| The goal really should be to cut down on the carbon impact in
| the long term with a product that is hopefully _also_ tastier
| and healthier, that will entice a large fraction of the country
| to increase the plant-based fraction of their diet. Not just
| offer a veggie burger for "poor liberals and vegetarians" who
| have nothing else to eat at McDonalds.
|
| I really hope they don't screw this up by producing a crappy
| Costco-quality veggie burger. Impossible and Beyond are doing
| great on the taste front, Burger King already engaged
| Impossible, and I'm not sure how much research it will take
| McDonald's to catch up.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called
| plant, healthy or natural.
|
| Moreover, to many "McPlant" will sound like a healthy
| alternative, when in reality many plant-based meat replacements
| are a similar number of calories or higher than meat, and are
| unlikely to be healthier in general.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Can we decouple the idea of "healthy" from calories? Calorie
| density doesn't make a meal unhealthy.
| thehappypm wrote:
| In a very real sense, calories are the only thing that make
| a meal unhealthy, too, though.
| suprfnk wrote:
| > Calorie density doesn't make a meal unhealthy.
|
| That's right.
|
| > Can we decouple the idea of "healthy" from calories?
|
| Not completely. While calories themselves don't make a food
| healthy or unhealthy, healthy foods definitely skew towards
| low caloric density, and unhealthy foods definitely skew
| towards high caloric density.
|
| No causation, very strong correlation.
| shafyy wrote:
| Many plant-based meats are healthier than animal-based meats,
| just because they don't contain cholesterol and usually few
| saturated fats. Somewhat related, they also hae a lower
| chance of giving you foodborne dieases.
|
| Sure, they're still burgers and not kale salads.
| fullshark wrote:
| Mc _something_ it had to be. The question is what is the
| something. McVeggie doesn 't work, because veggie burgers
| became synonymous with the last generation of plant based
| burgers. McPlant does sound awkward right now but with the full
| backing of mcdonalds marketing / their resturant footprint it
| will roll of the tongue within a few months of launch.
| cavisne wrote:
| It's probably because they will sell it as "plant based" vs
| vegan/vegetarian as it'll be on the same grills as real
| burgers.
| lisper wrote:
| > Mcsomething it had to be.
|
| I would have gone with "McMiracle Burger" (as a riff on
| "Impossible Burger").
| colesdefectum wrote:
| McPossible Burger would have worked.
| JonathonW wrote:
| If they wanted to get sued for trademark infringement.
|
| (McDonalds is working with Beyond Meat, one of Impossible
| Foods' largest competitors, for their plant-based meat
| substitutes; deriving their product name from a
| competitor's product is almost certainly a bad idea.)
| elicash wrote:
| Did it actually need to be a different menu item?
|
| I'm just throwing this out there, but maybe there was an
| equivalent to what "Supersize" meant for going larger in size
| instead that's geared towards plant-based versions of each
| burger. So maybe I still want a Big Mac, but I want it with
| these plant-based burgers but still with the extra slice of
| bread and the special sauce.
|
| I don't have a name for this as clever as Supersize, but it
| seems feasible.
| shafyy wrote:
| This is actually a good point. Kind of like how BK does it
| with the Impossible Whopper. It's still a Whopper, but with
| plant-based meat.
| sjy wrote:
| McDonald's have been selling a new plant-based burger called
| the McVeggie in Australia all year.
| https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/mcveggie%E2%84%A2
| bserge wrote:
| Betting on people ridiculing the name as "McP"
| ObsoleteNerd wrote:
| McMeatless.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Is it just me that didn't find the name obvious, and perhaps
| not a good one?
|
| It's easy to imagine some sort of stylized green leaf on the
| wrapper, would would fit well with their other iconography. To
| understand why it's a good name, you need to imagine it in the
| visual context of their design language.
| [deleted]
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Many people have an aversion to something if it's called
| plant, healthy or natural.
|
| I don't think this is the issue.
|
| Nobody would eat something called "McMeat", it begs the
| question "What kind of meat?" and usually the assumption is the
| worst. When I hear "McPlant", what comes up in my head is
| eating a tree or grass. If you leave it to people's
| imagination, often what comes to mind is the worst not the
| best.
|
| This is the genius of "Impossible Burger". They manage to
| suggest it's great and sidestep the inevitable question of what
| is in it. They are literally suggesting the opposite, that they
| found the holy grail of food, great tasting and healthy.
|
| Though I have the same feelings when I read "McRib" as well and
| it's making another comeback so maybe I'm off base here.
| coryfklein wrote:
| > I have the same feelings when I read "McRib"
|
| Me too! That name invariably forces a cringe as I imagine
| biting down on a rib bone secreted away between two buns.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| The McRib is coming back again?
|
| (insert guy looking at girl meme, with McPlant being
| overlooked for McRib is Back)
| klenwell wrote:
| 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's Gladwell at his best and I often find
| myself referring back to it whenever the topics of fast food or
| marketing come up.
|
| On the naming:
|
| _The McLean was a flop, and four years later it was off the
| market. What happened? Part of the problem appears to have been
| that McDonald 's rushed the burger to market before many of the
| production kinks had been worked out. More important, though,
| was the psychological handicap the burger faced. People liked
| AU Lean in blind taste tests because they didn't know it was AU
| Lean; they were fooled into thinking it was regular ground
| beef. But nobody was fooled when it came to the McLean Deluxe.
| It was sold as the healthy choice--and who goes to McDonald's
| for health food?_
|
| Times have changed, but I think there's still a lot to be said
| for this suggestion at end of article:
|
| _But transparency can backfire, because sometimes nothing is
| more deadly for our taste buds than the knowledge that what we
| are eating is good for us. McDonald 's should never have called
| its new offering the McLean Deluxe, in other words. They should
| have called it the Burger Supreme or the Monster Burger, and
| then buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the
| tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site._
| maxsilver wrote:
| I think the times have really changed since 30 years ago.
| McDonalds sells Fruit and Lattes and Salads and Wraps now (or
| did until the pandemic started) and while none of those were
| a top seller, they all moved units. Healthy (or at least, the
| illusion of healthy) is in, even at McDonalds.
|
| As long as the burger tastes good, and isn't gross or labour-
| neglected or similar (like their salads and wraps
| occasionally were), then I suspect the Plant-based Burger to
| do reasonably well.
|
| Anecdotally, I'm at McDonalds about once a week, and I'd try
| it at least once.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| "buried the news about reduced calories and fat in the
| tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site."
|
| Exept how do you reach your target audience now? Vegans wont
| be checking the remotest corner of the mcdonalds website
| every sunday. Worst of all, you'll probaly piss off meat
| eaters who might feel deceived, your main customer.
| MiguelHudnandez wrote:
| US vegans will not be partaking any time soon. McDonalds
| still uses beef and milk along with oil for the fries.
|
| In other counties I believe McDonalds uses vegetable oil
| for the fries.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > along with oil for the fries.
|
| They use vegetable oil in the US. The reason why McDonald
| fries are not vegan is due to the flavoring, not the oil.
|
| From https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/small-
| french-frie...
|
| > French Fries
|
| > Ingredients: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil, Corn
| Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef
| Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives] _), Dextrose, Sodium
| Acid Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt._ natural Beef
| Flavor Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As
| Starting Ingredients. >Contains: Wheat, Milk.
| maxsilver wrote:
| Would they really get that angry?
|
| Most people know that "Chicken" McNuggets are only
| modestly-chicken-based (and are primarily corn starch and
| whatever other stuff). McNuggets are still a top seller,
| even though real 100% Chicken Tenders were on the same menu
| right next to them for years.
|
| Similarly McChicken "nugget-paste-based" sandwiches are on
| the McDonalds menu, right next to 100%-real Buttermilk
| Chicken sandwiches.
|
| I could see something similar working out with a McPlant-
| type burger.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Its only ever a minority that gets outraged or praised
| over certain things. not entire groups as a whole. I
| would hypothetically fall in to the category of being
| 'outraged' over not explicitly mentioning the fact that
| the burger that I eat contains soy instead of very low
| quality meat. especially if I have the expectation of a
| regular mcdonalds burger. There is enough grey area in
| what is fit for human consumption when you look at
| certain additives sugar replacement and now you allow
| companies to not even have to put meat in a product that
| pretends to contain meat?
|
| Hypothetical ofcourse as I dont go to mcdonalds
| [deleted]
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| IIRC McDo in the UK advertise their nuggets as "100%
| breast meat". They clearly aren't as they have batter,
| but I assume they mean "the meat portion is 100% chicken
| breast" yet have a niggling feeling they mean "the meat
| we put in is all chicken breast but we put textured
| soya/other fillers in too".
|
| One of the problems with all the lying in advertising is
| you never quite know how cynical you need to be.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| The McDo menu varies pretty dramatically from country to
| country, I wouldn't be surprised if they are telling the
| truth in that instance.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger have managed to get
| around this by focusing on the apparent paradox of healthy
| versus tasty. Burger King leveraging that branding and
| calling it the Impossible Whopper was a good call.
|
| Communicating that it's a plant based food isn't good enough,
| they need to communicate that it tastes good first and
| foremost.
| edpazu wrote:
| I think McBelieve would have been a much better name for non-meat
| menu items.
| yboris wrote:
| Coinciding news from Japan: _Eco-friendly, healthy plant-based
| meat in spotlight in Japan_
|
| https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20201108/p2g/00m/0fe/11...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| purely driven by curiosity, not vegan or health-concerned or
| anything, it still took me a very long time (years) to one time
| take a chance and try an Impossble burger somewhere (think it was
| A&W). One night I just decided to take the plunge.
|
| It was 'fine'. But nothing is really incentivizing me to have it
| regularly. I kind of want to be mislead -- don't tell me it's a
| plant-based burger. If the studies are consistent, I'll think
| it's fine.
|
| McDonalds finally taking the plunge into this is big for markets
| as is anything they get into. I suspect that they finally see the
| numbers working as far as consumer-readiness and competitors all
| selling them now also. So that indicates it must be working
| somewhat at the other places like Burger King etc. Has anyone you
| know said they eat plant burgers regularly tho - other than
| veggie/vegan friends??
|
| Maybe McNatural would be a better name, less focused on the Plant
| aspect which I agree will turn ppl away.
| bkanber wrote:
| I would say one in three of the burgers I consume is plant-
| based, I do it to reduce meat consumption. If I find myself at
| BK, for instance, I always get the impossible whopper. Same at
| home--1 lb beyond beef for every 2 lb ground beef. Eventually
| the veggie stuff will get even better (and cheaper), and the
| ratio will flip.
| redisman wrote:
| Same - I'm not too ideological and want to take a pragmatic
| approach to it while still recognizing that I want to eat
| junk food every now and then. My main pet peeve is that in my
| usual spot they slap $4 extra to sub impossible instead of
| real meat. The burgers are great so I take it but it just
| shouldn't be more expensive than an animal that's been fed
| the veggie patty ingredients times a hundred to make that
| patty.
| spacephysics wrote:
| No, I'd rather have them tell me its fake meat. The 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 [soy leghemoglobin]
| developed unexplained changes in weight gain, changes in the
| blood that can indicate the onset of inflammation or kidney
| disease, and possible signs of anemia * Impossible Foods
| dismissed these statistically significant effects as "non-
| adverse" or as having "no toxicological relevance" "
|
| I understand these aren't as good test subjects as human
| studies, however it seems under the guise of the green
| movement, this evidence has been willfully ignored, or just not
| known. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
|
| [0] - https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/why-vegetable-oils-
| are...
|
| [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/sep/30/research-
| red-me...
|
| [2] - https://www.gmoscience.org/rat-feeding-studies-suggest-
| the-i...
| randyrand wrote:
| Worth noting, McDonalds has dozens of different menus all across
| the world.
| major505 wrote:
| Burguer King have this in the menu. I tried one, I still prefer
| the meat ones, but is nice to have the option, specially when
| before the pandemic I was craving for some fast food, I could go
| there with my girfriend who is a vegetarian, and she could eat
| more than french fries.
| notRobot wrote:
| I traveled to India last year for a business trip. Indian McD has
| apparently had vegetarian burger options for decades, including
| the McVeggie (vegetable patty), McSpicy Paneer (cottage cheese
| patty) and McAloo Tikki (potato-based patty).
|
| The Indian population is about 40% vegetarian, so this makes
| sense. Personally, I think the vegetarian burgers tasted
| incredible, and I wish we had them here.
| bilalq wrote:
| Like others have mentioned, I don't see this being successful.
| Unlike Burger King and Wendy's, McDonald's uses beef tallow in
| their fries, making vegetarians avoid them.
|
| If the only appeal here is a subpar burger that you can't even
| get fries with, people are just gonna go elsewhere.
| teej wrote:
| McDonalds hasn't used beef tallow in their fries for 20+ years.
|
| [edit] this seems disputed. The ingredients list includes
| "natural beef flavor" which it says is wheat and milk
| derivatives.
|
| To clarify: old school McD fries were fried in beef tallow at
| the restaurant. Now it's vegetable oil at the restaurant, but
| are par-fried at the processing plant in vegetable oil with
| some "natural beef flavoring"
| s5300 wrote:
| Yeah, the tallow and subsequently good fries of McDonalds
| ship sailed literal decades ago now.
|
| On a lighter note, if you've yet to hear this news, I think
| you can officially say you're old now.
| kalel83 wrote:
| As your edit conveys, they still do use Beef Tallow.
| coryfklein wrote:
| The parent is at least tempering their statements with
| uncertainty. How is it that you are _certain_ that they use
| beef tallow? Seems like a rather strong claim given that
| McDonalds doesn 't appear to list their ingredients.
| hereisdx wrote:
| India has had vegetarian burgers for years, in fact, most people
| order these veg burgers because they don't eat meat ( culture /
| religion ). Ive never eaten meat, but I really love burgers.
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