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Comment by hjek | Hacker News Reader

I'm cooking and eating burgers often, and they smell and taste quite real (as opposed to imaginary burgers made out of air).

Have you yourself tried a non-flesh burger, and did you genuinely find it bad? Was it from a shop or a cafe or was it homemade? Or do you have a dogmatic belief that there has to be real suffering and murder for a burger to be real?

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It appears to be an issue with expectations for some people (including me). "Burger" is associated with a certain flavor, texture and appearance, so when I eat a veggie burger my subconsciousness is disappointed because it's too different. The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish. This is the main reason why I dislike so many "vegetarian alternative" dishes on our kitchen's menu like chili sin carne, while some "standalone" vegetarian dishes are among my favorites like pasta with spinach, tomato and feta in cream sauce.

I hope artificial meat will be introduced as a 'luxury' product and replace mass-produced fast food ground beef after it is well established as a genuine alternative and not some inferior knock-off like artificial cheese.

> The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish.

I can understand why some people can be put off by the taste. Having previously eaten non-human animals, I can say that I prefer the taste of veggie burgers and sausages, although most vegan cheese tastes absolutely disgusting (especially the ones pretending to be parmesan). But I really, really wish that more of us would be willing to accept a reduction in the tastiness of certain dishes to help prevent antibiotics resistance, non-human animal suffering, climate breakdown, dead zones and starvation.

And other times I really can't tell the difference, and to be honest it kind of scares me. Some brands go so far as to make the minced "meat" look red and bloody[0]. Then, I have to take someone's word that this thing that really looks like a shrimp and is all crunchy really isn't a shrimp[1]. It's like a whole new art form.

[0]: https://www.naturli-foods.dk/produkter/aertefars/

[1]: http://vegetarian-plus.com/product/vegan-shrimp/ (Note: The ones I tried looked more convincing)

I absolutely love this one particular brand (Linda McCartney) of mozzarella-riddled vegetarian burger they sell in the UK. I'm a lifelong meat eater, past redemption really, but my wife is vegetarian and introduced me to them.

I would rather eat these textured soya protein burgers than even the best beef burger I've ever had. They are that good.

Also, upvoted because a difference of opinion isn't what down voting is for, surely ?

> I absolutely love this one particular brand (Linda McCartney) of mozzarella-riddled vegetarian burger they sell in the UK.

Yea, and on top of that Linda McCartney products are cheap, free from plastic packaging and pretty much available everywhere.

> Also, upvoted because a difference of opinion isn't what down voting is for, surely ?

I've also wondered about the semantics of the voting arrows (because I'm working on a HN-like[0]). In the guidelines[1] it says how voting/karma works, but not what a vote is supposed to mean. Within the (rarely used) polls[2] the meaning is a bit clearer. Lobsters[3] requires you to pick a reason for down-voting (and "I disagree" is not one of those), which makes its purpose a bit clearer.

[0]: https://gitlab.com/hjek/undebatable

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

[3]: https://lobste.rs

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