This seems like something Burger King can be fixed just by mandating a separate broiler in the franchise agreement, showing off the change, and then neglecting enforcement until someone complains, at which point Burger King can blame the franchisee
This does raise the question, what is the motivation for these vegans? Is it eliminating animal suffering, reducing global warming as farming is a major polluter, or are they actually just disgusted by animal products in general? As the article hints at, this claim only really makes sense if a sizeable section of the US is completely opposed to animal by-products independent of any ethical, moral or scientific component, just by innate disgust of eating anything that came from an animal. And I do believe the last category to be very fringe and small, and this would also mean being opposed to a large number of medical treatments. Personally, I don't think their claim holds any weight, unintentional cross contamination with beef isn't something the average vegan would find justifiably outrageous in a restaurant that also serves beef, and as far as allergies go anyone that has allergies should be asking around for cross contamination in a restaurant that specializes in what they are allergic from.
>Is it eliminating animal suffering, reducing global warming as farming is a major polluter, or are they actually just disgusted by animal products in general?
For me, it's both. For others, it's religious. For far fewer, it's health (allergies, intolerances, etc). In all of those cases, if a restaurant advertises their product as meat free, it should be or else it's false advertising.
Further complicating the issue is that burger king has for years sold a veggie patty that is heated in the microwave - using separate tools and is "contamination free".
So anyways, if they want to advertise meat-free, then it should be a meat-free product that is served to you.
The case was raised by an individual plaintiff, but in general vegans have a variety of different reasons not to want to encourage farming of animals.
Some of those include discomfort with eating animals and their byproducts, as you mention -- for others, it's based on a desire to encourage more sustainable environmentally-friendly food options.
For some subset of the spectrum mentioned, cross-contamination is an important issue - and for the rest, it may be acceptable under some circumstances, but there's no downside to removal of contamination, so they'd likely support it given the choice.
I visited a strictly vegan Indian restaurant once, there was a huge kerfuffle that night because some diners had brought a baby in and was spoon feeding the child baby food from a jar that was not vegan. This wasn't the issue... the issue was that the spoon was the restaurants spoon. Their religious convictions deemed that spoon now "violated". They threw the family out and made them pay for the cutlery as well.
If they'd used their own cutlery there would not have anywhere near as much animosity.
I see this sort of behavior as irrational. But I dont live these peoples lives and dont believe what they believe.
Why in the world did the family pay for the spoon? I mean I might have offered if someone had politely informed me about what I'd done. But I'm certainly not going to of it's a demand.
Vegans have a variety of motivations and yes - some are disgusted by animal products. I have a number of vege friends and for some of them, I make sure, when barbecuing to use a separate grill and tongs. Others don't really care.
>> They cant claim Vegan if there is animal product in and on it.
Then there's really no such thing as "vegan". All fruits, vegetables, grains, flours...have a certain number of insects in or on them (especially if they're organic).
It would be possible to have some definition like the one for Kosher rules (fundamentally, less than 1 part in 60 doesn't count, though there are many nuances on top of that), but 100% absence of animal products is simply not possible.
> I find it hard to believe that such a person would willingly go inside a Burger King in the first place.
You may well fid it hard to be believe, but vegans actually have meat eating friends and may be accepting of other people's dietary choices, and may want to socialise with them - without putting meat products in their mouths.
Why single out and question veganism specifically?
Wouldn't vegetarians, religious folks, and alpha-gal syndrome sufferers also want a zero animal-product burger? The market is pretty diverse for this demand.
For religious people, there is really no sense to be made out of it. I say this as a Muslim.
I did address alpha-gal by saying that those who have allergies should be mindful of cross contamination in restaurants that serve the stuff they are allergic to.
Food is an area where most people have strong personal preferences. It may not be entirely consistent or logical. It is based on taste, both physical and emotional. Why should we expect vegans to be any different?
These machines are sizeable and you can't just retrofit every existing store by fiat. Then, why shouldn't other special interest groups with dietary restrictions be able to impose their will too? We can have a flame broiler with separate meatatarian, vegan, halal, kosher, and hindu conveyors, all with their own exhaust management to ensure harmful vapors don't migrate where they would contaminate the other product lines.
Sure, and if BK decides to market specifically to people with meatatarian, vegan, halal, kosher, and hindu dietary requirements you would expect them to actually deliver, not just pay lip service - the same as any other offer in the marketplace.
This "impossible burger" isn't the result of vegans picketing BK HQ - it's a marketing ploy by BK... how are vegans being painted as the bad guys here?
Well, let's extend that argument out to the marketplace:
Any company can make any claim they want about their products and then if it becomes too expensive to actually deliver that product they can swap in something inferior and in fact contrary to the original offer.
This is a problem between BK management and the franchises. You can't blame the consumer for expecting to receive the product as advertised. If it's too complicated to produce, don't offer it.
If it rounds down to 0, most marketing is allowed some margin of error.
You can put 0 grams fat per serving on a product that actually has 0.01 grams of fat.
If a vegan restaurant advertises 0% animal products I guarantee that is also incorrect. There is some small percentage of insect parts in almost everything.
It's cooked on a grill that is used for meat. How much animal fat it picks up is to be determined, but my guess is that by weight it still rounds down to 0. From my experience with grills I doubt it's very much at all.
Clearly there is some threshold. What is it? 1 part per thousand? 1 part per billion?
In one case, the result is occasional accidental contamination, in the other, the product is intentionally placed on a contaminated surface.
I don't think anyone is expecting perfection, but there is no reasonable effort being made to avoid this problem for a product that BK advertises as "0% beef".
>but there is no reasonable effort being made to avoid this problem for a product that BK advertises as "0% beef
Adding an extra grill to the restaurant isn't reasonable. Apparently they will microwave it if you ask.
However, the entire kitchen is covered in grease, it's a burger king. There's going to be some amount of cross contamination no matter what they do. They may be able to reduce it from 0.01% beef to 0.001% beef, but who cares? Who is ok with 1 part in 100,000, but not 1 part in 10,000?
There's no functional difference unless you have an allergy and that happens to be the threshold.
If you aren't OK with eating something to that touched meat and may contain trace amounts of beef, don't eat at a Burger restaurant.
I agree—a demand to retrofit everything isn’t feasible. But the demand isn’t “buy the new equipment”; the demand is “Buy the new equipment OR change your marketing to accurately reflect your equipment situation”.
The word "vegan" is not regulated in the US. If hypocrisy is to be avoided then vegan friendly non-milk beverages need to refrain from calling themselves "milk".
This is already a problem in the US with things like "chocolate" and "cheese products." This lawsuit isn't going to be addressing any of that. My concern would be if this lawsuit is going to have a detrimental effect on decreasing meat consumption in the US. Or maybe it'll just add another example to the list of foods that aren't what they say they are, so next time it'll be "chocolate," "cheese products," and "vegan."
I don't know the situation in the US but in Australia I have noticed that we now have "dairy drink" instead of cheap milk, "sandwich slices" instead of cheap cheese. Nowhere on these products does it say milk or cheese because obviously it isn't.
It looks like it and is packaged like it and there's no explicit warning that it isn't the real deal, but that's a marketing sleight of hand that I'm ok with I guess.
Buyer beware. But false advertising? No. That's an enormous slippery slope and the consumer protections benefit us all, not just vegans.
But it's the same situation, and I'm sure BK will solve it with the exact same solution, disclaimers. So we still have "cheese products" right next to actual cheese, packaged in the same way as actual cheese, and this vegan burger is going to be advertised as vegan, but with a disclaimer. Just as some products specify that they're manufactured alongside other peanut products and may contain some peanut.
The downside here is that maybe it stops vegan products from getting more popular and becoming more readily available. That's my only concern. I'm otherwise not opposed to suing companies for false advertising, and I wish that happened more often because if it did, this problem wouldn't have come up in the first place.
Agreed. There should be a disclaimer and end of story.
Although I can see the ridiculous side to this. If I were a hardcore vegan I wouldn't be trusting BK to do the right thing. On my occasional shameful forays to BK I'm looking for a very specific combo - salt, animal protein, empty carbs and a sugar hit. If I'm looking for a healthy choice BK doesn't even cross my mind.
> Then, why shouldn't other special interest groups with dietary restrictions be able to impose their will too? We can have a flame broiler with separate meatatarian, vegan, halal, kosher, and hindu conveyors, all with their own exhaust management to ensure harmful vapors don't migrate where they would contaminate the other product lines.
BK chose this product and marketing specifically to cater to a special interest group with dietary restrictions. No one is demanding that BK must serve vegan food other than by usual consumer pressure.
The problem is that BK really doesn't give one iota of damn about the strict vegans. They're not coming to BK no matter what as only an idiot would believe that there exists any surface in a BK that isn't contaminated with meat. What BK cares about are the "sorta-vegan" folks who happen to be tagging along when the whole group hits BK. However, "Vegan enough that you can be a poseur and rationalize it" doesn't have the same ad copy quality.
However, bringing this back to specifics, someone who is halal should not be able to complain about going into a BBQ joint. However, if said BBQ joint claims to be halal, then it better comply. And if a someone halal decides to sue for your restaurant not being compliant, they deserve to win.
(And, what you forget, is that a lot of the "anti-pork" proscriptions came about as a way to avoid trichinosis. So, if it weren't for modern meat handling, this would be a health issue as well as a religious one.)
Do Burger King not have disclaimers for this? I've seen small print before in the UK about “Apple sticks” (no prizes for guessing what McDonald's product they compete with) being fried in the same oil as fish.
It's been three decades since I worked at Burger King but I remember the broiler being a really big piece of machinery upon which the rest of the kitchen workflow revolved. It might be possible to design something that segregates different types of patties but there certainly will be retrofit costs and likely some kitchens where many other fixtures must be relocated or replaced to accommodate the larger broiler. Which isn't to say they should be able to advertise a vegan burger if they're going to let it get contaminated with animal products. It's just not a simple fix, which might lead to Burger King deciding it's not worth the effort.
When we buy products at the grocery store we can look at the package and after the ingredients list it says "this product may contain traces of this or traces of that", or "this product was made in a factory that also process this or that".
This is very common for traces of nuts and fish. I imagine all vegetarians have this routine for products they haven't bought before. Some vegans/vegetarians care about it a lot, some don't. Both are acceptable stances in my opinion. It's all about transparency.
We also all know insects were likely crushed while harvesting plants and cereals we eat, and probably ended up in our food. But you do develop a certain disgust at the idea that a dead mammal/bird/fish was processed along with your food, so it makes the food less enjoyable. In this case, you would likely simply not go to Burger King, just like you wouldn't buy the pre-processed food that has traces amount of whatever you don't want to sponsor.
I am vegan and in general very aware how mainstream society marginalizes vegan choices, but this strikes me as both frivolous and damaging to the vegan cause more broadly.
It's a Burger King for god's sake - what do you expect? If you want the mainstream to embrace your values you don't want to damage the chances of increasing acceptance just because the ad copy wasn't a 100% accurate.
Would you say "Oh, it's fine!" to someone religious who doesn't eat beef or pork but consumes trace amounts despite a sign saying Halal/Kosher Patties? (As mentioned in the article)
Consider if instead they were allergic -- would they accept something with trace amounts of their allergen?
Restaurants, fast food or otherwise, have an obligation to handle food in a safe manner.
Misleading customers with false advertising is wrong, and potentially dangerous. (I'm told some vegans develop an intolerance for meat over time)
Yes, for certain definitions of "trace amounts." If you order a vegan burger from a Burger King, you're going to get trace amounts of beef in your burger--from atmospheric contamination, if nothing else.
Personally, I'm with you that using the same grill is too much contamination, but it's a fine line. The only way to be sure is to have separate restaurants, which is what they do in Israel to keep kosher. They serve meat or cheese, not both, in any given restaurant.
I'm not vegan, or vegetarian, and am probably pretty guilty of "marginalizing vegan choices" in general. I eat a lot of meat and don't intend to stop, and enjoy making fun of "rabbit food" and those who voluntarily subsist on it.
To me, it seems pretty terrible for BK to advertise something which we all know of as "vegan food", and then not have it be vegan. This may sound melodramatic, but to my mind, tricking someone with some dietary restriction (kosher/halal, say) into violating it (by sneaking pork into a dish) is a sort of physical assault. That's pretty much what BK, presumably unwittingly, did here. They should suffer financially for that.
>To me, it seems pretty terrible for BK to advertise something which we all know of as "vegan food", and then not have it be vegan.
as someone who has had to be confined to celiac and vegan diets for health reasons, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone would assume that any single ingredient in a meal that can be vegan, produces a vegan meal.
If we were to use the criteria of 'food that's known as X but isn't' as a way to judge whether or not we should sue restaurants, celiacs would be having a field day. Celiac-neutral ingredients are used throughout the food industry in ways that will harm celiac patients that are too ignorant to inquire about preparation and contamination.
I guess having been a part of that struggle made me realize that a) food preparation, as an industry, is exceedingly vague both about what you're receiving and how it was prepared, and b) that my food consumption is no one elses business, and that to make informed decisions about it requires personal legwork and investigation -- folks who want the industry to do it for them are going to have a real hard time of things.
(I think you have a reasonable point, but I still disagree, so I'm gonna take one last whack at explaining why.)
I'm a idiot who should have read TFA before commenting --- because then I'd have been able to make a slightly stronger case. The burger was advertised as "0% beef". Now that, coupled with the "everybody knows the impossible burger is vegan", screams to me that it's a vegetarian meal.
The task of eating shouldn't be a hellish chore for people with reasonably common dietary restrictions. I don't know much about celiac disease, but my understanding is that a large part of it is "gluten = bad". If I see something advertised as "0% gluten", it should be safe to assume that it's celiac-safe!
Even disregarding the "0%" part, though... the news has been trumpeting the "impossible burger" for months now. Suppose there had been some "impossible bread" in the news, because it was specially invented to avoid needing gluten. Then, ordering an "impossible burger on impossible bread" from BK, I'd expect it to be gluten-free! Not because it happens to be made with a single gluten-free ingredient, but because the form of the advertising, in the context of the last year of news, would lead any reasonable person to the conclusion that yes, this burger was made with the intention to be gluten-free and vegetarian.
You're absolutely right that, if you have celiac disease, or strong moral dietary restrictions, and you take the attitude of "BK better get it right", then you're gonna have a bad time. But, to me, that's clearly wrong, and we should seek to change it.
Vegan is not a food safety label, it's an ethical label. And "vegan" or "0% beef" with drops of animal molecules on the stove become the classical how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle problem.
Gluten-sensitive folks (Celiacs especially) don't trust anything that isn't shrinkwrapped in a sturdy package. It doesn't matter what the menu says, because life gets veeery messy compared to picking stuff up from supermarket shelves.
Plus, 0% is not 0.0000000%, it's one significant digit. Sure, on the other hand it should have been "0 + epsilon % beef", but ... there's probably some beef in the air too in burger fast food joints / restaurants.
Vegan is not a solely moral label. It’s a label like Kosher or any of the others. It signifies compliance with getting a product without any animal products. BK could and I’d argue should just make a note that even removing the cheese doesn’t make it a vegan sandwich. If they specify which ingredients or cooking processes invalidate it then they’ll still get the otherwise vegans who are willing to eat off shared equipment.
Okay, so is there a Vegan Authority? Because for Kosher it's up to some rabbis. And there are rules for labels such as "Made in X" (usually something like value add must be at least 50% in X).
And so it might be that "vegan" means "no animals harmed during the making of this nor does the sale of this contribute to that", so you can eat animal meat after the animal naturally died and it's not in a factory, ugly farm setting.
Or it might mean that no meat or animal products added/used, except reasonable contamination. After all in lactose-free milk there's still some 0.09% lactose, etc.
Or whatever.
For example frying oil has a big impact on taste, so that might be important, because if it's contamination easily detected by humans then it means it should be contamination easily prevented.
Grills/stovetops? I have no idea, probably not much.
The Certified Vegan Logo is a registered trademark, similar in nature to the kosher mark, for products that do not contain animal products or byproducts and that have not been tested on animals. The certified logo is easily visible to consumers interested in vegan products and helps vegans to shop without constantly consulting ingredient lists. It also helps companies recognize a growing vegan market, as well as bringing the word Vegan—and the lifestyle it represents—into the mainstream. (Please keep in mind, however, that the logo is not yet on every vegan product.) The Certified Vegan Logo is currently on thousands of products manufactured by over 1000 companies.
I can only guess that they did actually check everything else or the lawsuit would be thrown out immediately.
You say "do the legwork", but this isn't possible if companies are allowed to outright lie to you. Sure we keep a list of "known lies" like the mushroom D3 advertised as vegan that is just non-vegan D3 fed to mushrooms. But such deception should not be allowed or it will get much worse as the number of vegans increases. IMO, anyone who wants to ever be able to select products based on anything but a few common criteria should support a hard line on complete ingredient lists and accuracy in advertising.
I think it matters a huge amount what the BK in question was doing. If they were just flipping beef patties and plant-based patties on the same cooktop with no separation or cleaning in between, then I think the plaintiff has a valid point. If you cook vegan food on a surface covered in beef fat, it's no longer vegan. If they're just using the same piece of stainless steel and it'd been cleaned beforehand then it's ridiculous.
Disagree that it’s ridiculous, as the goal of a vegan is to not consume animal products. And by consuming, increase the production by pressing the “demand side” button.
For health reasons, like gluten, a perfect separation makes sense. But as long as people know this is what’s up, I think it’s okay. (And, specifically, they are not ridiculous for reusing it he same steel)
You pointed out a way that vegan people are marginalized in your own comment, when you mentioned needing to seek out places that can accommodate vegan diets. The fact that many restaurants don’t have menu items suitable for vegan means that vegan are indeed marginalized, even if you’re kind to you coworkers and try to compensate for it.
They aren't marginalised as people, they're marginalised because the world does not have to adjust to people's arbitrary diet restrictions.
If I decided that I only wanted to eat blue M&Ms and took offense at getting a packet with them mixed with the other colours (sorry, cross contaminated), it would be unreasonable to expect the manufacturer to make blue only packs to suit me, or to expect shops to start stocking them.
> The fact that many restaurants don’t have menu items suitable for vegan means that vegan are indeed marginalized, even if you’re kind to you coworkers and try to compensate for it.
I disagree with this. A steakhouse is expected to serve steak, a Korean BBQ, korean bbq, and a those juice bars are expected to serve fruit smoothies etc.
I follow the keto diet, and we need to make sure any places we go have options for me too (a lot don't).
That doesn't mean I'm marginalized though.
The thing I do have a problem with (on behalf of vegans, even though I'm not one) is when a restaurant says they have "Vegan options" or are "Vegan Friendly", and then it's just a disgusting garden salad.
> Do you encounter this sort of thing outside of the internet? I've certainly seen online trolls mock vegans, etc but I haven't witnessed it IRL.
I'm a vegan. I've been invited to eat at steak houses in work related setting. And people know about these limits. And I'm not alone in that camp here.
I get “the talk” multiple times per week from coworkers. I don’t tell people what I think about their dietary choices if I were to eat them. That’s an endless fight that I don’t want nor seek to win.
Though I will get opinionated if they microwave fish or shellfish in the microwave that’s less than 10 feet from my head! That’s a shared space thing though and they have multiple microwave options. They’re just lazy.
This would be an interesting way for the meat lobby to try to kill the Impossible Whopper.
If you have to also purchase separate capital equipment to cook the food, then it will kill the product. (Microwaves have residue just like stove tops).
its just about wording ... is "Vegan" copyrighted. Its sounds like wrongful marketing at this point, but you cant "stop" BK from serving a product no matter how they want to create it as long as its illegal. Maybe it will be "Vegan(tm)".
And who cares, these people are crazy for not consuming amino acids and it shows.
Food labeling laws generally allow for a margin of error around reported numbers, even zero. Printed calorie amounts, for example, are rounded to the nearest calorie— something reported as having no calories can in fact contain up to 0.5.
By extension, anything less than 0.5% can reasonably be reported as 0% but not 0.1% or 0.0%. This is the shorthand for plus-or-minus that has been used for a long time, and gets taught in middle school[1].
[1] At least the one I attended; your curriculum may vary
I know for Australia at least, wine can be labelled as just one varietal if it's only 85% that grape. So "chardonnay" actually means "somewhere between 85-100% chardonnay". Same with regions.
I was shocked by that one. Absolutely humongous margin.
They are saying the patty is 0% beef ingredients, which is factually correct.
I don't think that they were intending to be misleading, and they never attempted to even say the word vegan or vegetarian.
Even the article starts off with the premise that the intended market are vegans and vegetarians, which is presumptuous.. there's a whole class of people that just want to cut down on their meat consumption (myself included).
This whole thing just seems like more of the holier-than-thou / all-or-nothing approach taken by many of the vegan crowd that end up doing more harm than good for their cause.
This seems like a misunderstanding in advertising that's easily resolved, not a "shut it all down" sort of thing.
Even the hot dog stand near me (UK) has separate equipment to cook vegetarian hot dogs. I don't think it's a big deal, that's just one of the obligations of selling food to the public, to honestly label things.
Yet restaurants in UK (including burger king) do sell food labeled as vegetarian or vegan, and UK commercial kitchens are definitely smaller on average than in the US. So either enforcement is lax or compliance is just not a big deal.
The meat lobby group has one objective, keep eating meat the preferred choice as long as they can. A difference of 5 years is trillions of $ in the US.
You can do this by making Vegans look bad.
Making sure this case is publicised as much as possible will help that. Burger King can adapt. Making the burger look lame is the objective.
And I'm also going to say: If Burger King is forced to get a separate stove(or whatever it's called in the industrial-sized context they're in) just for that 1 burger, they will cancel that burger.
That's my prediction. Because it's too much of an up-front cost.
I'm very glad that this burger has entered the chain and is getting both the vegan/vegetarian community, as well as regular meat-eating people, like myself, in on it.
If people who eat meat start choosing this over a regular burger, it's a win. If this drives previously non-existing traffic to burger king, all of which uses this one product, it's a win.
This is about changing the industry at large. About creating big orders and showing the industry that this is worth investing in. And eventually: normalizing it.
We can solve the problem of the not-yet-vaporized grease particles later.
I'm not saying we should ignore it. I'm saying it's not a current priority. But it will be later.
I've tried the burger, and I liked it, I'll definitely pick it again.
> And I'm also going to say: If Burger King is forced to get a separate stove(or whatever it's called in the industrial-sized context they're in) just for that 1 burger, they will cancel that burger.
They will not kill it, it's too popular to make that decision, and has gigantic growth potential. From business perspective they will do everything to keep those few milion vegans getting into BK.
For me biggest problem is meat smell inside of their restaurants. Most vegans don't like that. ;)
It's popular enough to double the square footage devoted to grills (at, generally, a hefty monthly lease cost per square foot), double the energy consumption, and double the employee time for grill cleaning and maintenance?
> It's popular enough to double the square footage devoted to grills
Why would they need the vegan grills to be the same size as the meat grills, unless they’re selling the same number of them? And if they are, doing so seems a no-brainer.
If Burger King is forced to get a separate stove...
It seems more likely that they'd just have to tweak the way it's advertised, with some fine print making it clear that it's cooked on the same grill as meat products (as with "processed on equipment that also processes nuts" type disclaimers).
A problem is ultra-orthodoxy along with less than truthful advertising. As someone commented in line, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I know in other cultures I've worked in abroad this would not be a problem. People presume best effort with these kinds of things and don't take it literally --some people might but they'd be a tiny tiny minority. It was usually the foreigner who got upset that something wasn't 100% vegan even if in spirit things were and locals were okay with it.
There is no requirement of a separate grill, BK can use a microwave and/or advertise that while the impossible Burger contains 0% beef, it is cooked on equipment that also cooks beef (just like we do with peanut allergy warnings.)
> If Burger King is forced to get a separate stove(or whatever it's called in the industrial-sized context they're in) just for that 1 burger, they will cancel that burger.
I'm not a fan of regulation obstructing experimentation, but in this case, I think requiring proper cooking process for something that is purportedly vegetarian is absolutely necessary.
I don't see the problem with fine-print like "may have touched real meat". The impossible whopper should be marketed towards omnivores who:
1. Understand the personal/environmental problems with eating meat.
2. Are interested in alternatives.
This market seems to be increasing. If this is profitable, then it makes sense to support a fully vegetarian pipeline for producing fake meat.
My experience is they don't have enough room for two grills without melting some ceiling tiles because the kitchen ventilation is made for one. They used to (may still) cook the chicken sandwich on the same grill and claim it was gluten free.
I agree. I'm as vegan as I can be and still be a digital nomad but this seems like the lesser of two evils to me. I'd rather see this product stay on the market and introduce more people to the idea of eating less or even no meat.
I understand why some vegans are put off by the idea of eating something cooked on the same grill as actual meat but I think we need pragmatism more than anything right now.
If you care about animal welfare at all and you know what goes on in factory farms it can be hard to take pragmatic positions. All the same though I think it doesn't help to come across as too uncompromising if you're trying to win people over to your cause.
This is a common argument, but backwards. The more important an issue is the more pragmatic you need to be, because results actually matter more than your gut feelings of discomfort, right?
> I understand why some vegans are put off by the idea of eating something cooked on the same grill as actual meat
I genuinely have never met a vegan who would be bothered by this, and I know quite a few. If there were still bits of meat on the grill it could still be kind of gross if they came off on the burger I guess, but most would have no problem with it. This strikes me as an extremely rare case, and I don't see any obvious grounds for a lawsuit.
I stopped eating meat long enough ago that I've lost the taste for it and I'm aware of how dirty factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses are so this does gross me out a bit. Would it bother you to eat food that was cooked on a grill that was also used to barbecue dogs? That's how some vegans feel about this.
But like I said I think getting some meat alternatives in front of the general public is important enough that I'll live with it.
Wouldn’t bother me. Dogs, franks, sausages, burgers, steaks, whatever. If they scrape clean the cook surface and make an effort to keep things separated I’m happy.
Not the parent and not taking any side in this discussion, but I was interested in looking this up, so here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#As_food "Dog meat is consumed in some East Asian countries, including Korea, China and Vietnam, a practice that dates back to antiquity. It is estimated that 13–16 million dogs are killed and consumed in Asia every year."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat "In the 21st century, dog meat is consumed in some regions of China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Nigeria and it is still eaten or is legal to be eaten in other countries throughout the world. [...] It was estimated in 2014 that worldwide, 25 million dogs are eaten each year by humans."
I guess if what you took exception to was the "a lot" part, then three Asian countries might indeed not qualify as "a lot".
Yes, my point was that 3 is not a lot and it's not even that mainstream there. I don't know if there was an additional undertone in the original comment, but either way it was factually wrong. Dog meat consumption is really not that high.
Why be defensive about facts. I don’t think anyone here would look down on those countries for it. The criteria for which exact species of plants animal and fungi is ok to eat is entirely arbitrary and regionally specific.
Exactly. I don't understand why Americans, for example, eat pigs every day and think nothing of it but are horrified by the idea of eating a dog. What's the difference?
Fact is that it's actually not that many countries. I also don't look down on the practice. I hear that in Korea therr are specific dogs bred for consumption and quite tasty.
At its core, the reality is that all Burger King restaurants are franchises, and with that comes spotty coverage of some of the more punishing details for any canned preparation of their menu items.
I think the Impossible Whopper will stick around, but the sacrosanct vegan preparation was just a promotional gimmick to stimulate sales, with no intention of adherence to strict practices. My suspicion was always that the vegan options would be promoted for the initial release, but then it would be quietly walked back to typical preparation steps after the hype died down, and the rate of sandwich sales peaked and leveled off.
With that, you get shift managers of individual locations, hamfistedly claiming whatever they think passes for customer service, whether that be keeping the customer lines and drive through windows moving at a brisk pace during lunch and evening rushes, or bending over backwards for the squeakiest wheels in search of grease.
Meanwhile, dog meat analogies aside, the cult of the complainiest customers will only win so many victories. The patty might be vegan, and the last mile falls upon the 16 year-old kid behind the counter. Disgust, revulsion, and so on, at the thought of giving any money to a meat selling business that moves titanic quantities of animal carcass should give a vegan pause, before even stepping through the front door, if they're that serious about their belief system.
It's fine to level the argument that the tiniest drop of raw sewage is unacceptable in any glass of water, but the reality is that the consumer's physiological fragility remains unharmed and unthreatened in a scenario such as this. The comingled vegan and animal byproducts are a reality, evident by virtue of the very nature establishment itself.
You get what you pay for. It's fast food. They won't stop selling the burger, but they might annotate Vegan* with an asterisk.
I'm not vegan, just vegetarian, but I have some vegan friends and none of them have any problem with eating something cooked on the same grill as meat either. Like the previous poster, I can understand the concern, but I don't think it's a common one.
Bits of meat sticking to the vegan burger would be a big no-no for me and the vegans that I know!
I'm not personally bothered by using the same tools to handle both meat and vegan options, as long as I can't taste it, if we're talking about backyard barbecuing with friends. But I expect more from a company.
I had an unpleasant experience a couple of years ago at Subway. I ordered a vegan sub, and the person behind the counter asked if I wanted them to switch their plastic gloves. "No need," I said, because I thought it was a moral question. But when I started eating the sub I could smell meat along the whole bread as I ate it. It was not pleasant when it was two decades since I last had meat, but I was drunk and hungry and finished it anyway.
I had a co-worker who was litterally allergic to meat. She would avoid eating even vegan options in favor of food she packed herself for fear of cross contamination.
>I think we need pragmatism more than anything right now.
Why? What’s the emergency? BK raising their profits? They laughed at us not so long ago now they just realize there’s an opportunity here, i’d rather support local vegan eateries. It was as simple as putting a disclaimer in the ad “vegan burgers are cooked on shared equipment and can contain traces of meat”.
What's the emergency? Climate change, animal cruelty, piss-poor management of resources for the production of our food. Good grief, we're _well_ behind the curve for getting things changed in our society and world.
I agree with Burger King is doing it for profit, but that's the point of capitalism: we if want change, we vote with our dollar. I have no huge love for impossible burger. It's too much like the real thing now that I'm years out from eating beef; however, I'm going to be buy some now and then because I want to see the product being sold.
I remember reading about vegetarians mitigating this very concern years ago when Burger King put out its first veggie burger.
In 2002, the company already had a response for this situation. "'The Burger King VeggieBurger is not positioned to be a vegetarian or vegan burger. It was designed to be a meatless alternative.' These were the words VIP heard when we called Burger King headquarters in Miami, Florida."
2005: "The VIP tasters sampled the original BK Veggie Burger that was warmed slightly in the microwave to avoid contamination by the animal products cooked on the grill."
2002: "Vegetarians who order the BK VEGGIE should specify that they want it cooked away from the Whoppers. To make certain, they should request it be microwaved."
I also recalled hearing exactly this. In fact, in my recollection Burger King had a vegetarian burger option for some time before dropping it due to complaints of it being prepared on the same grill as the meat patties. Meanwhile McDonald's also offers vegetarian options which apparently aren't prepared separately to avoid cross-contamination. Only their options seem to vary quite a bit by region, so maybe they've just cleverly avoided the scrutiny that comes with a global marketing offensive like this.
In Australia I noticed it was in the promotional material that the patty is cooked with meat and that there is some other vegetable patty for people who find this a problem. I guess there are different audiences for the product. The meat is murder fanatics and the people who are looking for more sustainable meat alternatives.
I was going to ask about this. They already have a veggie burger here which (to my knowledge) isn't cooked with the meat patties. Why would you cook an otherwise-meat-free burger with the meat patties?
I'm a vegetarian, and there are only two foods that I miss eating: burgers and sushi. I tried the Impossible Whopper and it was better than I remember the regular Whopper tasting. Offering it could be a really powerful force in pushing the food industry away from meat. I think Burger King is helping the cause enormously by offering it, and I'd be sad if its efforts were blocked by a frivolous lawsuit.
I'm married to a Vegetarian, if we have a BBQ I'll just stick some tinfoil does the centre and use one side for Veg one side for meat. The little tinfoil barrier prevents any meat juices spitting onto the vegetables. It doesn't seem to me like it'd be that difficult to have a small divider and ensure a 1-burger-width space for the impossible burger is retained if necessary. Can anyone explain why that wouldn't solve the problem cheaply?
Expecting vegan orthodoxy in a Burger King is strange. If they're cooked even in the same room your vegan Impossible Burger almost certainly covered in tiny grease droplets from the real meat burgers. No vent hood is perfect.
I'd been thinking about this for several years, but now I'm even more convinced: somebody will develop an all-vegetarian quick serve restaurant at national scale soon.
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[ 0.34 ms ] story [ 82.9 ms ] threadFor me, it's both. For others, it's religious. For far fewer, it's health (allergies, intolerances, etc). In all of those cases, if a restaurant advertises their product as meat free, it should be or else it's false advertising.
Further complicating the issue is that burger king has for years sold a veggie patty that is heated in the microwave - using separate tools and is "contamination free".
So anyways, if they want to advertise meat-free, then it should be a meat-free product that is served to you.
Some of those include discomfort with eating animals and their byproducts, as you mention -- for others, it's based on a desire to encourage more sustainable environmentally-friendly food options.
For some subset of the spectrum mentioned, cross-contamination is an important issue - and for the rest, it may be acceptable under some circumstances, but there's no downside to removal of contamination, so they'd likely support it given the choice.
There may be a downside, if the cost of compliance is too high and the business decides to stop offering the product.
If they'd used their own cutlery there would not have anywhere near as much animosity.
I see this sort of behavior as irrational. But I dont live these peoples lives and dont believe what they believe.
I just liked their food :-P
ie, could never be cleaned enough to be "vegan" again...
bloody bonkers really.
Edit, yes it was metal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism
I find it hard to believe that such a person would willingly go inside a Burger King in the first place.
I mean, every surface in one of those places is eventually coated with a layer of grease, right?
They cant claim Vegan if there is animal product in and on it.
Then there's really no such thing as "vegan". All fruits, vegetables, grains, flours...have a certain number of insects in or on them (especially if they're organic).
It would be possible to have some definition like the one for Kosher rules (fundamentally, less than 1 part in 60 doesn't count, though there are many nuances on top of that), but 100% absence of animal products is simply not possible.
You may well fid it hard to be believe, but vegans actually have meat eating friends and may be accepting of other people's dietary choices, and may want to socialise with them - without putting meat products in their mouths.
Wouldn't vegetarians, religious folks, and alpha-gal syndrome sufferers also want a zero animal-product burger? The market is pretty diverse for this demand.
I did address alpha-gal by saying that those who have allergies should be mindful of cross contamination in restaurants that serve the stuff they are allergic to.
This "impossible burger" isn't the result of vegans picketing BK HQ - it's a marketing ploy by BK... how are vegans being painted as the bad guys here?
It's not just offering the product it's requiring a separate process for it that costs money to each franchisee
The impossible burger is a product. The demands are the result of these people not impossible burger
This is a problem between BK management and the franchises. You can't blame the consumer for expecting to receive the product as advertised. If it's too complicated to produce, don't offer it.
You can put 0 grams fat per serving on a product that actually has 0.01 grams of fat.
If a vegan restaurant advertises 0% animal products I guarantee that is also incorrect. There is some small percentage of insect parts in almost everything.
Obviously there is some margin.
Clearly there is some threshold. What is it? 1 part per thousand? 1 part per billion?
In one case, the result is occasional accidental contamination, in the other, the product is intentionally placed on a contaminated surface.
I don't think anyone is expecting perfection, but there is no reasonable effort being made to avoid this problem for a product that BK advertises as "0% beef".
Adding an extra grill to the restaurant isn't reasonable. Apparently they will microwave it if you ask.
However, the entire kitchen is covered in grease, it's a burger king. There's going to be some amount of cross contamination no matter what they do. They may be able to reduce it from 0.01% beef to 0.001% beef, but who cares? Who is ok with 1 part in 100,000, but not 1 part in 10,000?
There's no functional difference unless you have an allergy and that happens to be the threshold.
If you aren't OK with eating something to that touched meat and may contain trace amounts of beef, don't eat at a Burger restaurant.
The downside here is that maybe it stops vegan products from getting more popular and becoming more readily available. That's my only concern. I'm otherwise not opposed to suing companies for false advertising, and I wish that happened more often because if it did, this problem wouldn't have come up in the first place.
Although I can see the ridiculous side to this. If I were a hardcore vegan I wouldn't be trusting BK to do the right thing. On my occasional shameful forays to BK I'm looking for a very specific combo - salt, animal protein, empty carbs and a sugar hit. If I'm looking for a healthy choice BK doesn't even cross my mind.
BK chose this product and marketing specifically to cater to a special interest group with dietary restrictions. No one is demanding that BK must serve vegan food other than by usual consumer pressure.
The problem is that BK really doesn't give one iota of damn about the strict vegans. They're not coming to BK no matter what as only an idiot would believe that there exists any surface in a BK that isn't contaminated with meat. What BK cares about are the "sorta-vegan" folks who happen to be tagging along when the whole group hits BK. However, "Vegan enough that you can be a poseur and rationalize it" doesn't have the same ad copy quality.
However, bringing this back to specifics, someone who is halal should not be able to complain about going into a BBQ joint. However, if said BBQ joint claims to be halal, then it better comply. And if a someone halal decides to sue for your restaurant not being compliant, they deserve to win.
(And, what you forget, is that a lot of the "anti-pork" proscriptions came about as a way to avoid trichinosis. So, if it weren't for modern meat handling, this would be a health issue as well as a religious one.)
No idea if it was there a few days ago. No idea if it exists on the menu in stores.
This is very common for traces of nuts and fish. I imagine all vegetarians have this routine for products they haven't bought before. Some vegans/vegetarians care about it a lot, some don't. Both are acceptable stances in my opinion. It's all about transparency.
We also all know insects were likely crushed while harvesting plants and cereals we eat, and probably ended up in our food. But you do develop a certain disgust at the idea that a dead mammal/bird/fish was processed along with your food, so it makes the food less enjoyable. In this case, you would likely simply not go to Burger King, just like you wouldn't buy the pre-processed food that has traces amount of whatever you don't want to sponsor.
It's a Burger King for god's sake - what do you expect? If you want the mainstream to embrace your values you don't want to damage the chances of increasing acceptance just because the ad copy wasn't a 100% accurate.
Would you say "Oh, it's fine!" to someone religious who doesn't eat beef or pork but consumes trace amounts despite a sign saying Halal/Kosher Patties? (As mentioned in the article)
Consider if instead they were allergic -- would they accept something with trace amounts of their allergen?
Restaurants, fast food or otherwise, have an obligation to handle food in a safe manner.
Misleading customers with false advertising is wrong, and potentially dangerous. (I'm told some vegans develop an intolerance for meat over time)
Personally, I'm with you that using the same grill is too much contamination, but it's a fine line. The only way to be sure is to have separate restaurants, which is what they do in Israel to keep kosher. They serve meat or cheese, not both, in any given restaurant.
I'm not vegan, or vegetarian, and am probably pretty guilty of "marginalizing vegan choices" in general. I eat a lot of meat and don't intend to stop, and enjoy making fun of "rabbit food" and those who voluntarily subsist on it.
To me, it seems pretty terrible for BK to advertise something which we all know of as "vegan food", and then not have it be vegan. This may sound melodramatic, but to my mind, tricking someone with some dietary restriction (kosher/halal, say) into violating it (by sneaking pork into a dish) is a sort of physical assault. That's pretty much what BK, presumably unwittingly, did here. They should suffer financially for that.
as someone who has had to be confined to celiac and vegan diets for health reasons, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone would assume that any single ingredient in a meal that can be vegan, produces a vegan meal.
If we were to use the criteria of 'food that's known as X but isn't' as a way to judge whether or not we should sue restaurants, celiacs would be having a field day. Celiac-neutral ingredients are used throughout the food industry in ways that will harm celiac patients that are too ignorant to inquire about preparation and contamination.
I guess having been a part of that struggle made me realize that a) food preparation, as an industry, is exceedingly vague both about what you're receiving and how it was prepared, and b) that my food consumption is no one elses business, and that to make informed decisions about it requires personal legwork and investigation -- folks who want the industry to do it for them are going to have a real hard time of things.
I'm a idiot who should have read TFA before commenting --- because then I'd have been able to make a slightly stronger case. The burger was advertised as "0% beef". Now that, coupled with the "everybody knows the impossible burger is vegan", screams to me that it's a vegetarian meal.
The task of eating shouldn't be a hellish chore for people with reasonably common dietary restrictions. I don't know much about celiac disease, but my understanding is that a large part of it is "gluten = bad". If I see something advertised as "0% gluten", it should be safe to assume that it's celiac-safe!
Even disregarding the "0%" part, though... the news has been trumpeting the "impossible burger" for months now. Suppose there had been some "impossible bread" in the news, because it was specially invented to avoid needing gluten. Then, ordering an "impossible burger on impossible bread" from BK, I'd expect it to be gluten-free! Not because it happens to be made with a single gluten-free ingredient, but because the form of the advertising, in the context of the last year of news, would lead any reasonable person to the conclusion that yes, this burger was made with the intention to be gluten-free and vegetarian.
You're absolutely right that, if you have celiac disease, or strong moral dietary restrictions, and you take the attitude of "BK better get it right", then you're gonna have a bad time. But, to me, that's clearly wrong, and we should seek to change it.
Gluten-sensitive folks (Celiacs especially) don't trust anything that isn't shrinkwrapped in a sturdy package. It doesn't matter what the menu says, because life gets veeery messy compared to picking stuff up from supermarket shelves.
Plus, 0% is not 0.0000000%, it's one significant digit. Sure, on the other hand it should have been "0 + epsilon % beef", but ... there's probably some beef in the air too in burger fast food joints / restaurants.
And so it might be that "vegan" means "no animals harmed during the making of this nor does the sale of this contribute to that", so you can eat animal meat after the animal naturally died and it's not in a factory, ugly farm setting.
Or it might mean that no meat or animal products added/used, except reasonable contamination. After all in lactose-free milk there's still some 0.09% lactose, etc.
Or whatever.
For example frying oil has a big impact on taste, so that might be important, because if it's contamination easily detected by humans then it means it should be contamination easily prevented.
Grills/stovetops? I have no idea, probably not much.
“””
The Certified Vegan Logo is a registered trademark, similar in nature to the kosher mark, for products that do not contain animal products or byproducts and that have not been tested on animals. The certified logo is easily visible to consumers interested in vegan products and helps vegans to shop without constantly consulting ingredient lists. It also helps companies recognize a growing vegan market, as well as bringing the word Vegan—and the lifestyle it represents—into the mainstream. (Please keep in mind, however, that the logo is not yet on every vegan product.) The Certified Vegan Logo is currently on thousands of products manufactured by over 1000 companies.
“””
https://vegan.org/certification/
I think people want it to be vegan. That doesn't make it so.
You say "do the legwork", but this isn't possible if companies are allowed to outright lie to you. Sure we keep a list of "known lies" like the mushroom D3 advertised as vegan that is just non-vegan D3 fed to mushrooms. But such deception should not be allowed or it will get much worse as the number of vegans increases. IMO, anyone who wants to ever be able to select products based on anything but a few common criteria should support a hard line on complete ingredient lists and accuracy in advertising.
For health reasons, like gluten, a perfect separation makes sense. But as long as people know this is what’s up, I think it’s okay. (And, specifically, they are not ridiculous for reusing it he same steel)
I think we're actually saying the same thing.
Do you encounter this sort of thing outside of the internet? I've certainly seen online trolls mock vegans, etc but I haven't witnessed it IRL.
At work for example, we always make sure we go to places which accomodate those on Vegan diets.
> If you want the mainstream to embrace your values you don't want to damage the chances of increasing acceptance
Is this what Vegans want though? For the Vegans I know, they don't try to get us to embrace vegan values, they simply stick to their diets quietly.
If I decided that I only wanted to eat blue M&Ms and took offense at getting a packet with them mixed with the other colours (sorry, cross contaminated), it would be unreasonable to expect the manufacturer to make blue only packs to suit me, or to expect shops to start stocking them.
I disagree with this. A steakhouse is expected to serve steak, a Korean BBQ, korean bbq, and a those juice bars are expected to serve fruit smoothies etc.
I follow the keto diet, and we need to make sure any places we go have options for me too (a lot don't). That doesn't mean I'm marginalized though.
The thing I do have a problem with (on behalf of vegans, even though I'm not one) is when a restaurant says they have "Vegan options" or are "Vegan Friendly", and then it's just a disgusting garden salad.
I'm a vegan. I've been invited to eat at steak houses in work related setting. And people know about these limits. And I'm not alone in that camp here.
Though I will get opinionated if they microwave fish or shellfish in the microwave that’s less than 10 feet from my head! That’s a shared space thing though and they have multiple microwave options. They’re just lazy.
If you have to also purchase separate capital equipment to cook the food, then it will kill the product. (Microwaves have residue just like stove tops).
And who cares, these people are crazy for not consuming amino acids and it shows.
We can ignore that last bit of your comment.
By extension, anything less than 0.5% can reasonably be reported as 0% but not 0.1% or 0.0%. This is the shorthand for plus-or-minus that has been used for a long time, and gets taught in middle school[1].
[1] At least the one I attended; your curriculum may vary
I was shocked by that one. Absolutely humongous margin.
I don't think that they were intending to be misleading, and they never attempted to even say the word vegan or vegetarian.
Even the article starts off with the premise that the intended market are vegans and vegetarians, which is presumptuous.. there's a whole class of people that just want to cut down on their meat consumption (myself included).
This whole thing just seems like more of the holier-than-thou / all-or-nothing approach taken by many of the vegan crowd that end up doing more harm than good for their cause.
This seems like a misunderstanding in advertising that's easily resolved, not a "shut it all down" sort of thing.
You can do this by making Vegans look bad.
Making sure this case is publicised as much as possible will help that. Burger King can adapt. Making the burger look lame is the objective.
And I'm also going to say: If Burger King is forced to get a separate stove(or whatever it's called in the industrial-sized context they're in) just for that 1 burger, they will cancel that burger.
That's my prediction. Because it's too much of an up-front cost.
I'm very glad that this burger has entered the chain and is getting both the vegan/vegetarian community, as well as regular meat-eating people, like myself, in on it.
If people who eat meat start choosing this over a regular burger, it's a win. If this drives previously non-existing traffic to burger king, all of which uses this one product, it's a win.
This is about changing the industry at large. About creating big orders and showing the industry that this is worth investing in. And eventually: normalizing it.
We can solve the problem of the not-yet-vaporized grease particles later.
I'm not saying we should ignore it. I'm saying it's not a current priority. But it will be later.
I've tried the burger, and I liked it, I'll definitely pick it again.
They will not kill it, it's too popular to make that decision, and has gigantic growth potential. From business perspective they will do everything to keep those few milion vegans getting into BK.
For me biggest problem is meat smell inside of their restaurants. Most vegans don't like that. ;)
It's popular enough to double the square footage devoted to grills (at, generally, a hefty monthly lease cost per square foot), double the energy consumption, and double the employee time for grill cleaning and maintenance?
I'm skeptical.
Why would they need the vegan grills to be the same size as the meat grills, unless they’re selling the same number of them? And if they are, doing so seems a no-brainer.
It seems more likely that they'd just have to tweak the way it's advertised, with some fine print making it clear that it's cooked on the same grill as meat products (as with "processed on equipment that also processes nuts" type disclaimers).
A problem is ultra-orthodoxy along with less than truthful advertising. As someone commented in line, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I know in other cultures I've worked in abroad this would not be a problem. People presume best effort with these kinds of things and don't take it literally --some people might but they'd be a tiny tiny minority. It was usually the foreigner who got upset that something wasn't 100% vegan even if in spirit things were and locals were okay with it.
I'm not a fan of regulation obstructing experimentation, but in this case, I think requiring proper cooking process for something that is purportedly vegetarian is absolutely necessary.
I don't see the problem with fine-print like "may have touched real meat". The impossible whopper should be marketed towards omnivores who:
This market seems to be increasing. If this is profitable, then it makes sense to support a fully vegetarian pipeline for producing fake meat.I understand why some vegans are put off by the idea of eating something cooked on the same grill as actual meat but I think we need pragmatism more than anything right now.
I genuinely have never met a vegan who would be bothered by this, and I know quite a few. If there were still bits of meat on the grill it could still be kind of gross if they came off on the burger I guess, but most would have no problem with it. This strikes me as an extremely rare case, and I don't see any obvious grounds for a lawsuit.
But like I said I think getting some meat alternatives in front of the general public is important enough that I'll live with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#As_food "Dog meat is consumed in some East Asian countries, including Korea, China and Vietnam, a practice that dates back to antiquity. It is estimated that 13–16 million dogs are killed and consumed in Asia every year."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat "In the 21st century, dog meat is consumed in some regions of China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Nigeria and it is still eaten or is legal to be eaten in other countries throughout the world. [...] It was estimated in 2014 that worldwide, 25 million dogs are eaten each year by humans."
I guess if what you took exception to was the "a lot" part, then three Asian countries might indeed not qualify as "a lot".
I think the Impossible Whopper will stick around, but the sacrosanct vegan preparation was just a promotional gimmick to stimulate sales, with no intention of adherence to strict practices. My suspicion was always that the vegan options would be promoted for the initial release, but then it would be quietly walked back to typical preparation steps after the hype died down, and the rate of sandwich sales peaked and leveled off.
With that, you get shift managers of individual locations, hamfistedly claiming whatever they think passes for customer service, whether that be keeping the customer lines and drive through windows moving at a brisk pace during lunch and evening rushes, or bending over backwards for the squeakiest wheels in search of grease.
Meanwhile, dog meat analogies aside, the cult of the complainiest customers will only win so many victories. The patty might be vegan, and the last mile falls upon the 16 year-old kid behind the counter. Disgust, revulsion, and so on, at the thought of giving any money to a meat selling business that moves titanic quantities of animal carcass should give a vegan pause, before even stepping through the front door, if they're that serious about their belief system.
It's fine to level the argument that the tiniest drop of raw sewage is unacceptable in any glass of water, but the reality is that the consumer's physiological fragility remains unharmed and unthreatened in a scenario such as this. The comingled vegan and animal byproducts are a reality, evident by virtue of the very nature establishment itself.
You get what you pay for. It's fast food. They won't stop selling the burger, but they might annotate Vegan* with an asterisk.
Surely anyone who thinks meat is that bad would never step foot in a restaurant that cooks meat in the first place, regardless of grills?
I am quite bothered by it, to the (IMO reasonable) point of not eating what I'm served and not coming back if I suspect that's the case.
I'm not personally bothered by using the same tools to handle both meat and vegan options, as long as I can't taste it, if we're talking about backyard barbecuing with friends. But I expect more from a company.
I had an unpleasant experience a couple of years ago at Subway. I ordered a vegan sub, and the person behind the counter asked if I wanted them to switch their plastic gloves. "No need," I said, because I thought it was a moral question. But when I started eating the sub I could smell meat along the whole bread as I ate it. It was not pleasant when it was two decades since I last had meat, but I was drunk and hungry and finished it anyway.
Isn't the whole point of this burger to taste like real meat ?
Why? What’s the emergency? BK raising their profits? They laughed at us not so long ago now they just realize there’s an opportunity here, i’d rather support local vegan eateries. It was as simple as putting a disclaimer in the ad “vegan burgers are cooked on shared equipment and can contain traces of meat”.
I agree with Burger King is doing it for profit, but that's the point of capitalism: we if want change, we vote with our dollar. I have no huge love for impossible burger. It's too much like the real thing now that I'm years out from eating beef; however, I'm going to be buy some now and then because I want to see the product being sold.
In 2002, the company already had a response for this situation. "'The Burger King VeggieBurger is not positioned to be a vegetarian or vegan burger. It was designed to be a meatless alternative.' These were the words VIP heard when we called Burger King headquarters in Miami, Florida."
2005: "The VIP tasters sampled the original BK Veggie Burger that was warmed slightly in the microwave to avoid contamination by the animal products cooked on the grill."
2002: "Vegetarians who order the BK VEGGIE should specify that they want it cooked away from the Whoppers. To make certain, they should request it be microwaved."
Source: https://www.vegparadise.com/news15.html
“ *For guests looking for a meat-free option, a non-broiler method of preparation is available upon request.. ”
So looks like that’s their answer.
I hope this fella loses.