Europe heroically defends itself against veggie burgers

While I too prefer dishes that are not "meat substitutes", I don't think the veggie X are always bad. Sometimes I just want a burger and then one of the newer vegan options is often good enough.

A rule of thumb I've stumbled across is to avoid anything that contains egg or egg white - it's a cheap filler some companies put to call things "veggie" while making no real change in the underlying suffering they create. But for this conversation more significant: these taste always really foul to me.

I do have to admit though that some of the vegetarian "cold cuts" (I hope google translate hasn't failed me here), are really, really good!

It's terribly processed stuff, but as far as I remember the taste of meat, it comes quite close.

Not all of them are created equal though, and I can only see myself eating a specific brand, but they are very enjoyable.

Yeah, it's dripping with sass and sarcasm. Weird and gross.

Hasn't got the style guide yet: https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guid...

One of the basic features of language is that meanings of words change over time, including a given term retaining is original meaning but adding another one (did you think, for instance that all of the different meanings of the word "scale" were invented at the same time?). That being the case, using traditional meat terms for vegetable products that are similar to meat is perfectly legitimate.

Nobody who buys a veggie burger mistakenly thinks they are made of meat. In fact their knowledge they are not is usually a key reason they buy them

Gatekeeping what can be a burger or not is strange. Are you randomly ordering burgers and expecting a single recipe? What about those with chicken or fish in them, they also don't match the original recipe, which means you have to inform yourself about what's inside a given burger if you want a specific one anyway.

What about Coconut milk? Peanut butter? Do you think we should change their names too?

"Veggie burger" is a pretty well defined term at this point.

Let's take the sausage for example.

If you have a clump of meat, it's not a sausage. If it's brought into shape by some kind of "skin", (which nowadays often is artificial "intestine"), then it's a sausage.

So, I'd argue that the word sausage for example describes the form factor, more than the actual content.

I don't think the case is much different in the case of a burger - if it's clearly declared as a veggie burger, one better assume that there's no meat in it.

The distinction between meat and veggie burger is probably even less difficult than the distinction between a veal and a pork burger. You wouldn't want to have to use different names for meat products if they were made from a Kangaroo, or Ostrich, would you?

Who is undermining the meaning? Veggie burgers have been called that for decades. The meaning of burger as a cooked patty between two round pieces of bread is well established (chicken burger, falafel burger, whatever).