Hacker News Reader

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.

In my experience most of the vegan evangelists are not pragmatists

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.

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.

  * at participating locations

Same here, "only" a vegetarian but when my falafel/döner place use the same fork to pick meat and my falafel I cringe a bit (and still eat it, yes).

So you are saying you would go to a restaurant that barbecues dogs, provided the dogs were barbecued on a different grill?

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?

If you’re surrounded by a culture that eats dog with every meal you might not have a choice?

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.

> I genuinely have never met a vegan who would be bothered by this, and I know quite a few.

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.

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.

> as long as I can't taste it

Isn't the whole point of this burger to taste like real meat ?

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.

If she had such a serious allergy, a separate oven probably won't solve the problem for her, but a separate restaurant.

>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.

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).

I agree with this.

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.

"Meat-friendly" burgers, like "gluten-friendly" food that has a little gluten in it.

"Don't Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good"

> 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.

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.)

> 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 too popular to make that decision

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.

> 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.

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.