Its kinda misleading, there's still animal products in this because of how the food is prepared...
Of course I see why some would complain, and it is important that there are always people pushing for progress. But lets not pretend that _this_ isn't progress.
They're certainly not advertising them as kosher/halal.
From the sounds of it I'm nowhere near as sensitive to it as you and bifrost.
I believe some (or all?) of them use a Nieco ( https://nieco.com/ ) brand broiler that basically has a metal conveyor belt that carries the patty through a flame.
See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSuLWkBt5MI
They could, if they wanted, designate one lane solely for Impossible patties (and other non-meat products).
If they don't, looks by the time the belt makes it way back through the flame, whatever residue on it will have been mostly reduced to ash. I would guess the belt wouldn't transfer meat grease and crumbs onto a veggie patty as much as a grill would. But, after it leaves the belt, it slides down to a holding area, where it would come into contact with whatever else was on the belt before it.
Were Burger King to actively seek to compete in Israel, they might adopt a kosher policy (and might also enforce it on franchisees, in order to protect the brand image). But since they aren't doing that, why bother with extra restrictions on who can pay them money to run a franchise?
Yes, you didn't ask for meat but you got some anyways and if you're fine with that, thats cool.
If there's meat juice on your vegan burger even by accident its not vegan, I don't think thats too weird of a concept. I'm sure people will bikeshed about this, but if you go look up the definition of "vegan" you'll generally find its "doesn't consume animal products" and there won't be too many mentions of "its ok if there's a little bit of meat in something". Interestingly I found out that there IS an exception for eating Halal; If you eat something that is Haram by accident, you're not at fault. This transpired because a buddy of mine went to a BBQ and was going off on how delicious the chicken and brisket was, and then I pointed ou the rib slabs and sausages hanging over it and then he turned a bit green....
Oh, hell, no. I'm not looking to Webster's to define my lifestyle choices. You want to get all legalistic about it, knock yourself out. But don't set up a legalistic strawman and then proceed to beat the stuffing out of him.
Frequenting an establishment that profits off of animal products is, of course, a valid issue but that's different than meat juice contamination.
I get your argument, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We hired a new dev who was a vegan from birth, and had never eaten food intended to taste like meat. In an effort to be inclusive, our manager took us to this restaurant for the welcome lunch, so that everyone would be able order freely.
The new hire gave it a try, but it turned out to be too much like the real thing, and he couldn't stomach eating more than a couple of bites of it.
That was what made me realize that fake vegetarian meats were not really intended for vegetarians. They are intended for current meat-eaters and meat-eaters who are trying to reduce or eliminate their meat consumption.
I hope these things don't crowd out other veggie alternatives and make them harder to find. Things like portobello "burgers", which I'd much rather have than a real burger or something imitating one.
A more general definition of a vegetarian food is food whose ingredients do not purposefully include any product that requires killing an animal to extract it.
Note that the homeopathic definition of vegetarian means that essentially no food is vegetarian, because basically all grains and vegetables include small fauna that are inadvertently incorporated into the ingredient during harvesting.
Edit: Most vegetarians you happen to know. I personally don't like the fluidity with which the term is used expressly because it leads to confusion. You want to eat meat, cool you do you, but don't make it harder to explain for people who choose to actually follow the definition by making it meaningless. It's like the term "green" when people guest started using it it had a definition that was understood, now it's meaningless. If someone is comfortable with meat intentionally being in their food for to preparation to the point that they don't mind if there's meat in their food, they probably consume far more meat products than they realize and I doubt that they are as vegetarian a they intend to be, which again is fine, I just dislike claiming to be something that, by definition, one isn't and trying to torture the definition to your preferences.
If you adopt a definition of vegetarian that excludes any product that has a microgram of animal meat in it, you rapidly run into the problem that there is literally no vegetarian food, because dead animals end up unintentionally incorporated into pretty much all products in the processing stage. There's not even vegetarian water, because (animal) rotifers are present in it.
I say this all as a vegetarian who avoids fish sauce and animal-based broths, meaning effectively large swaths of Japanese and Southeast Asian cuisines are effectively off limits to me. The attempt to one-up the majority of vegetarians by demanding convoluted purity rituals for the right to claim membership in the One True Vegetarianism doesn't help anyone.
As an example of this issue in action, if you're taking your company out for food, it's a huge mistake to go to a place that only offers meat-like stuff for vegetarians and vegans.
I work in vegan food industry (own company and invested in others) and the market research we've done has always been consistent here that most vegans enjoy eating plant meats (ie- beyond / hungry plannet / impossible / gardein etc). Granted that research has been mostly in Australia and Hong Kong which is where I focus on
And this upsets people to the point the entire product is dismissed and labelled a lie ? No wonder the world is not at peace.
Where is this line drawn ? After all farmers like to fertilize fields using manure from animals - which ends up in the plants. Animals breathe and exhale CO2, which plants might take up. Plants might have been in contact with or partially eaten by birds, butterflies, deer etc. "contaminating" the plant we later eat, but this does not seem to bother people.
When I became vegetarian I thought about this a lot but came to the conclusion that if I ever wanted to go out with friends that it's something I'll have to accept. You'd be surprised at the number of places that use chicken broth in otherwise vegetarian fare as well. It's a compromise, but one I'm willing to accept; some people are not.