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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Are they cooked separately from the meat burgers? Some people don’t care, but some definitely do.

Carl’s Jr. doesn’t keep their Beyond Burgers separate, apparently.

Just out of interest, what's the reasoning behind a strict separation of the two? I understand it in the case of gluten free products because that can really have health implications, but when you are vegan for ethical reasons it shouldn't make a difference, right?

But I'd say this is great news either way. I like meat, but when there's a way to get the same taste and texture without the bad consequences for animals and environment I'm all for it, and I'm sure many others are the same.

If it's for religious reasons (kosher, halal, etc) then those rules apply

The majority of the world's vegetarians are Hindus, who regard cows as sacred and consider beef to be strictly taboo.

For some vegetarians and vegans, they are greatly troubled if they consume even any animal by-product. There was a point when I felt this way; I stopped after a while, and told people "Don't worry, I'm not religious about it."

I think there can be digestive concerns; eating a non-meat thing that was soaked in beef-grease may cause digestive trouble for someone who hasn't had beef in a very long time. But I've also heard of former vegetarians who had no trouble when they started eating meat again. Personally, I've suspected if some minor digestive trouble after various meals was caused by stray meat by-products making their way into my food, but I can't be sure what caused it.

Wouldn’t those same people want to avoid a place like Burger King in general? They’d be supporting the business of one of the largest consumers of beef in the world.

On the other hand, by purchasing vegan options at a fast food chain, they would be increasing the market signal for vegan food. Getting a massive chain to reorient its supply logistics so that 0.2% of inventory is vegan instead of 0.1% could have a huge impact on overall animal welfare and environmental welfare.

Some, yes, but not all. Everyone has to negotiate their personal principles versus practical and social constraints on a daily basis; this is just an instance of that phenomenon, and not everyone will do it in the same way.

There's value in supporting ethical businesses. There's also value in encouraging less-ethical businesses to be more ethical.

I can't speak to the situation in the US, but here in the UK, veggie burgers in fast food restaurants represented a fairly significant tipping point. In the late 80s and early 90s, it could be genuinely inconvenient to be vegetarian. Asking "do you have a vegetarian option?" in a restaurant often resulted in a blank look. If you wanted to buy meat substitutes, your only option was a health food shop.

By the 00s, being a vegetarian had become a complete non-issue. Every restaurant had at least one reasonable vegetarian option, every supermarket had a decent selection of meat substitutes and vegetarian ready-meals, every product that was suitable for vegetarians was labelled as such.

For would-be vegetarians, that ubiquity removed a significant barrier. The sheer convenience of vegetarianism induced a lot of people to give it a try and took away an excuse for not trying. Perhaps equally significantly, it normalised vegetarianism - when McDonalds and Burger King offer a vegetarian option, you can no longer argue that it's some weird hippie fad. The same thing is now happening for veganism.

I’m not clear that this makes Burger King any more ethical, or less unethical. You wouldn’t praise a prolific serial killer for letting the odd victim go. Besides, fast food has a lot to answer for besides animal welfare.

You could say there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but then where would you go out to eat at all?

Some people seem to go vegan because they're emotionally off-kilter. I'm in a few vegan Facebook groups and I've seen posts where people are way over-reacting to food cooked on the same surface, or talking about their emotional breakdown over the suffering of animals. I'm vegan almost two years and I'm pretty sure I ate mayo on a burger two weeks ago. I ordered it explicitly without, but sending it back would just create waste and no benefit.

Interesting. Speaking as a carnivore, I find eating human flesh morally wrong, and would be quite insulted if someone cooked my burger next to some 'man' burger.

So I can understand their point of view.

You are not the target audience for the Impossible Burger.

I was responding to the parent, who despite being an ex vegan, can't understand why other vegans wouldn't want their food cooking with meat based food.

I'm not a vegan, or vegetarian, and I can understand that point of view.

So I don't understand how your comment is at all relevant.

Eh, even with the lengths this comment went to present a working framing I still don't accept it.

Either cannibalism is so objectionable that I'd refuse to patronize a restaurant that served human flesh, or I'd probably not mind them being cooked side-by-side.

That might be a bigger things for vegans, by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of actions you find unethical - that is logically consistent at least.

Interestingly I don't think it'd be the only logical stance for an ethical vegan - purchasing beyond meat products would signal the company of the increased relative demand of vegetarian substitutes potentially leading to that company investing more in beyond meat products and lowering their meat purchases, decreasing the market stability and liquidity for real meat products.

I'm struggling to think of suitable analogue that would work for someone who eats meat. If you have a better suggestion ill go with that.

You're trying to bring logic into a moral decision. While I agree that that's the way I would approach it, it isn't the only way to approach it. As I said I'm a meat eater so I don't follow all the logical steps to being vegan, but that logical step I do understand.

I think the closest analogue you can find is peanut allergies, but (as far as I've ever seen) no body has that sort of anaphylaxis reaction to meat or the taste of it.

Cooking the burger in beef/pork fat would likely be noticeable, but that is pretty trivial to avoid and _usually_ grills are crudely scraped down between different grillings, that will remove everything but trace amounts.

An allergy isn't a moral choice. Not eating meat is, for many people at least.

This isn't complicated. Many vegans would prefer to never eat where meat is being served, but recognize the practical reality that if you want business to start providing more ethical alternatives, you need to actually patronize those businesses. So they compromise by providing that revenue, while still trying to avoiding cross-contaminating what they're eating with what they see as murder-byproducts.

So I don't disagree with anything in this statement, but what is it about cross-contaminating that's an issue here specifically? Is there a health reason to avoid any intake of meat products or an ethical/moral one?

For the later case... I'm on board with sane things (don't fry veggie burgers in animal fat) but less with (don't prepare this food where meat products were prepared) simply because... I feel like the same amount of effort should be taken with each meal and vegetarians shouldn't require separate processing things.

To draw a parallel, I'm lactose intolerant myself, but I've always felt it's a bit silly that <GENERIC COFFEE PLACE> has separate blenders for milk/soy/other (except almond, due to the factor of nut allergies).

For the particular extreme religious community (almost cult) I grew up in, meat eating was a sin (more or less). Financial support for a company wasn't really a big deal, it was more about keeping their bodies "pure" for God. I even knew a rancher who raised cattle to sell, but wouldn't eat any kind of animal products himself.

which religion is this ? I know many Hindus & Jains are strictly vegetarian.

My parents are Christians. There are a few Christian denominations/groups/cults with strict food rules, but definitely fringe.

>... by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of actions you find unethical...

Vegans say this all the time. You can choose to be 100% consistent with ethics but how far do you take it? Do you shut out your family and close yourself off from most of society?

Yeah, I’m a happy meat eater and will actively defend having meat options at workplace cafeterias for example, but that is exactly the analogy that pops to mind. I would be grossed out eating meat cooked on the same grill as human meat, and expect vegans to be grossed out the same way by food cooked on the same grill as animal meat.

> Some people seem to go vegan because they're emotionally off-kilter.

And a lot of people have religious reasons for not eating meat.

Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive. Some are religious, some are off-kilter and some are both.

I definitely agree with your reasoning about sending things back. I've been a vegetarian my whole life, but I don't see the point in making a stink if people didn't know or made a mistake.

I've eaten meat a few times just to avoid making a scene. Got invited out to dinner by colleagues on several different occasions (diff people) and they were sushi and steak places. No vegetarian options. Such is life.

I manage to have positive impact with 99.9%.

Cross contamination. You don't want your veggie burger to be prepared/fried/grilled/microwaved/burnt on the same surfaces with the same fats that are being used for the dead animal products.

Some of this is to do with pathogens, some of it is due to taste.

There are many vegetarian products designed to taste like meat, e.g. fake bacon, but plenty of vegetarians do not actually like the taste of meat even if that is acquired second hand by using the same grill or utensils.

even using the same knife to cut a meat sandwich and then a vegetarian sandwich with no washing in between is a cause of concern as far as contamination with 'animal germs' is concerned.

Quality establishments get these details right. They also tend to do better when the food inspectors come round.

> some of it is due to taste

Isn't the burger designed to taste like meat?

This is too extremely silly for me. I can understand the taste angle (my wife isn't a fan of red meat, she can tolerate it but doesn't enjoy it), I can understand the religious angle (people are silly) and I can understand the ethical angle... Lastly, I have heard of people who have gone full vegan and react poorly to a soup that surprised them by being a beef broth base which causes indigestion.

But!

Using the same knife to cut a meat sandwich and then a vegetarian sandwich, that sounds like some "wifi allergy" level BS to me. If that's actually a thing I'd like to see a well designed double blind study that could back it up - depending on the knife thickness there's a decent chance that the knife has been implicitly wiped down through the action of cutting before it gets anywhere near the vegetarian sandwich - I'd find it more concerning if the same cutting board was reused as that would give a decent chance that some left-over meat is pressed into the bottom of the sandwich, though in that case a quick dry wipe down would suffice.

It is actually basic food hygiene and nothing to do with your wifi.

In the UK we have the Food Hygiene Act 1995.

In it you are supposed to have different colour knives and chopping boards specifically for this matter of cross contamination.

Sounds to me like someone wouldn't pass their Basic Food Hygiene Certificate 1 here. And no, a basic dry wipe down does not suffice.

Catering is about being inclusive as well as hygiene. Lousy hygiene - that goes against the law - should not cost a business customers just because staff don't respect the rights that vegetarians have to not have their food tainted by meat.

Can't speak for others but I've seen vegetarians for whom it evokes disgust. Unlike folks who choose later in life not to stop eating meat, these folks have never consumed any meat in their life. For them, eating something cooked on the same pan as chicken would be as repulsive as eating chicken itself.

I'm not vegetarian myself, but I imagine their revulsion is similar to what mine would be to dog meat. Even the sight of dog meat would likely make me lose my appetite.

It makes some of us vomit and then get diarrhea.

A double blind test would be interesting

I don’t know if this is what OP was referring to, but an allergy to red meat is a real thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy

Oh, I agree that a double blind test would be interesting, certainly sometimes it could be psychosomatic.

> what's the reasoning behind a strict separation of the two?

Some observant Jews choose a vegetarian option because vegetarian things are kosher by default. But if the veggie patty is cooked on the same grill as both meat and cheese, then the veggie patty becomes (according to some views) non-kosher. This is because kosher stipulates strict separation of meat and dairy: separate grills, separate sinks to wash any dishes afterwards, etc.

Vegetarian is not always “kosher by default”. Grape juice and wine--and products made from them--aren’t kosher by default, for example. And many people hold by cholov or pas yisroel, which means that milk or bread will need special supervision.

Furthermore, the requirements for cleaning vegetables to make sure they're free of insects and insect parts is usually more stringent that what many vegetarians and vegans are used to.

I don't think that Burger King is getting a Kosher certification any time soon, so I would think that those who don't require a restaurant to be properly certified understand the risks that they are taking.

Religious reasons, for one.

Some vegetarians are just very grossed out by it (I'm one of them).

I generally look the other way at very minor cross contamination, its probably going to happen once in a while, especially if I don't know about it, but if I taste meat juices in my food I completely lose my appetite. I once bit into sausage that found its way into my pizza (I suspect it fell into the cheese) and I couldn't eat pizza for a while after that. (of course, for a burger that's supposed to taste exactly like beef, you wouldn't know...)

If you think that makes me crazy or whatever, then so be it.

> (of course, for a burger that's supposed to taste exactly like beef, you wouldn't know...)

Funny thing, that: http://archives.quarrygirl.com/2009/06/28/undercover-investi...

Fascinating study, it looks like they really did their best to control all the variables.

Makes sense that dairy and eggs were the most commonly found non-vegan ingredients-- they are both such a huge part of cooking. As someone who has tried to go vegan in the past, I can tell you that cheese was probably the hardest thing to fully cut out for me, and eggs were right behind it. I'm glad the liars are being called out, though, that is some despicable behavior.

Have you tried follow your heart vegan cheese?

Not yet, but I will attempt to do so soon, thank you.

My wife has a similar distaste for red meat, she can stand it in food but just doesn't enjoy the taste so, when we eat, it's never center stage in the meal.

Amusing to me is that frozen pizza meat (and some delivery pizza meat) is seriously bottom shelf and can be disgustingly greasy. I've gotten very picky about my frozen pizza preference because some of the brands have a meat with a terrible aftertaste (looking at you, Delissio).

Hmm, I think I understand your viewpoint to a degree. I myself have similar experiences when a meal contains alcohol, its taste makes the food inedible for me. There have been cases where other people ate the same thing and didn't even notice it while I couldn't eat it.

The taste and texture aren't anything at all like ground beef. What they have created is something that DOES taste good in a 'hamburger bun with hamburger-style toppings'

You can prove this by trying to make meatball or spaghetti or a taco with the 'impossible burger', and it's nothing like it should be.

Actually I used the Field Roast burger patties a lot to make spaghetti bolognese sauce and it tastes exactly right.

Haven't tried the Impossible patties yet though

Most of fiance’s family is vegetarian and when we go out to dinner we make sure to separate the utensils and plates between the veg and non-veg people. They are very sensitive to the scent of meat and consider a utensil that has touched meat to be contaminated. Usually, when we’re at her parents house, we aren't allowed to cook meat (unless her mom is out of town). In short, anything that has been used in the preparation of meat is to be avoided.

There is a health concern about bacteria (even dead bacteria) from meat causing endotoxemia in the gut.

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