In the US, Burger King has been supplying veggie patties for some time, but I wonder why it took American fast food places so long to expand. For instance, why is there still an absence of veggie burgers in a typical US McDonald's? Is this a business decision or something else?
My sister is a vegan and on my urging she tried an impossible burger when it first came to San Francisco and she loved it.
But Burger King is cooking the impossible burger on the same grill upon which they're grilling the meat. I haven't asked her but I'm guessing most vegans won't be buying their impossible burgers at Burger King for that reason.
You only have to walk into a supermarket to see this is nonsense, meat vs veggie options are like 10 to 1.
You're referencing one widely debunked survey (this is about the vegan part of it, but it applied to the whole study and the vegetarian percentage claim (of 14%, not 20%), is discussed and debunked later in the article):
https://fullfact.org/health/vegans-uk/
I know 1 vegan and 1 vegetarian, but I know at least 6 ex-vegetarians.
I think it's a two-parter: There's a degree of social pressure within groups, but it's also a function of where you live. As part of a university-dense area there's a lot of eco-conscious vegetarians here - which makes it easier to market to vegetarians - so they have more options - which makes it easier to be vegetarian. Feedback loops.
I live in Nottingham, which has two big universities. There are a few vegan cafes and bars around. I don't know how old you are, but a lot of my ex-veggie friends stopped being so in their 30s.
Most people aren't going to worry about incidental "contamination".
Why is the corporate world so hopelessly stupid?
I can't say I agree with this sentiment. This sort of thing happens in other food service outlets and it's never bothered me. The one that comes to mind is grocery stores having separate slicers for meat and dairy to accommodate those who keep kosher. I'm not Jewish, and neither am I a vegetarian, but I wouldn't call those who do keep such lifestyle choices unreasonable.
Also, the word demand here commands more than one meaning. If there is demand for such a separation, and money to be made from accommodating that demand, those practices will find their way into the market.
Look it, no one is demanding anything. They're mis-representing their product. That's all that I'm saying. The end.
Everything else you're saying, your railing against the so-called "vegan moral framework," etc..., is, to me, just you grinding an axe.
They are flame broiled, not grilled. They aren't cooked in any type of grease.
Many fast food places (McDonald's, Wendy's) use a flat surface similar to this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Flickr_X...
Typical ground beef is 20% fat (80% lean), and if you cook it on that, the fat will melt, it will hang around on that surface, and whatever else you cook next will be cooked in animal grease left over from the beef patty.
If you flame broil, the burger sits on a wire mesh, and the grease drips away.
I'm not just picking nits. I'm really trying to make a sincere point that I think one method will have significantly less transfer (not zero) than the other.
They are fairly large and probably expensive, so a separate broiler may not be an option.
"Our World Famous Fries™ and hash browns are go-tos for our vegetarian and vegan guests. Since 2007, we’ve made them without any animal-sourced ingredients. We cook them in 100% vegetable oil, in a dedicated fryer separate from our meat items."
FRENCH FRIES Ingredients: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef Flavor [Wheat and Milk Derivatives]), Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (Maintain Color), Salt. Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients. Contains: WHEAT, MILK.
Source: URL -> https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/product/small-french-frie...
The Morningstar patties that BK has are pretty bad and taste very artificial and I'm not surprised meat eaters don't like them.
There are roughly half a billion vegetarians in India.
This entire thread is about a question that refers to the US so to be able to misinterpret my response so significantly is strange.
I do not believe it is linguistically possible for me to have been more dispassionate than when I wrote There are roughly half a billion vegetarians in India.
Comments like moate's, "Data or it didn't happen," do not strike me as overly emotional either. You might want to just lighten up.
> Only 5 percent of Americans identify as vegetarian and of that 5% most are liberal. If you can give me a good argument for why those liberal people should be evenly distributed around the US I am all ears.
Interesting thought. I have no data as to whether this is true but if fast food is more of a city thing (I believe it), what you're saying would seem to make rolling out something like a good veggie burger a lot more attractive in terms of marketing demographics than the simple "5%" figure alone would indicate, which speaks to the question you were originally responding to.
> This entire thread is about a question that refers to the US so to be able to misinterpret my response so significantly is strange.
The comment you were responding to literally begins "I lived in England..." I don't think a little misunderstanding is a big deal. Fair enough, you were talking about the United States.
This is why I'm so emotional. This isn't a fact. This is an assumption, and a really weird one at best. Here's what we have for facts:
About 5% of the US population identify as Vegetarian or vegan. "Most" vegetarians are liberal. Liberals are not evenly distributed among the general population.
Putting this together, your assumption is highly flawed at best. There's no logical reason we can't assume that while liberals aren't equally distributed, vegetarians are. Being a vegetarian means you're likely inclined to be liberal, it's a correlation not causation. There's nothing I've seen that shows anything about expected distribution of vegetarians based on where they live. The best thing anyone has come up with is the thanksgiving gallup poll below.
Also, your OG statement was that they aren't common outside of meto areas. This is so vague and meaningless. What's common? That 1/100 people are a vegetarian? That people know someone anecdotally that is a vegetarian?
My point is that your asserting that you know that vegetarians are uncommon in the Rural US. I posit that it's impossible to know that. That's not to say you're wrong or not (I'm not claiming I know either) but that making a statement of that type is problematic in a fact based discussion.
> In the US, vegetarians are not common outside of certain metropolitan areas
[1]https://news.gallup.com/poll/238328/snapshot-few-americans-v...
I mean my thoughts are the whole "Vermont Hippy" seems like a thing, and IDK that Vermont even has a meto area (/s).