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Comment by ChrisArchitect | Hacker News Reader

purely driven by curiosity, not vegan or health-concerned or anything, it still took me a very long time (years) to one time take a chance and try an Impossble burger somewhere (think it was A&W). One night I just decided to take the plunge.

It was 'fine'. But nothing is really incentivizing me to have it regularly. I kind of want to be mislead -- don't tell me it's a plant-based burger. If the studies are consistent, I'll think it's fine.

McDonalds finally taking the plunge into this is big for markets as is anything they get into. I suspect that they finally see the numbers working as far as consumer-readiness and competitors all selling them now also. So that indicates it must be working somewhat at the other places like Burger King etc. Has anyone you know said they eat plant burgers regularly tho - other than veggie/vegan friends??

Maybe McNatural would be a better name, less focused on the Plant aspect which I agree will turn ppl away.

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I would say one in three of the burgers I consume is plant- based, I do it to reduce meat consumption. If I find myself at BK, for instance, I always get the impossible whopper. Same at home--1 lb beyond beef for every 2 lb ground beef. Eventually the veggie stuff will get even better (and cheaper), and the ratio will flip.

Same - I’m not too ideological and want to take a pragmatic approach to it while still recognizing that I want to eat junk food every now and then. My main pet peeve is that in my usual spot they slap $4 extra to sub impossible instead of real meat. The burgers are great so I take it but it just shouldn’t be more expensive than an animal that’s been fed the veggie patty ingredients times a hundred to make that patty.

No, I'd rather have them tell me its fake meat. The vegetable oils are most likely carcinogenic, amid other health issues (GI, heart) [0]. Red meat is not [1]

Further, these fake meats, Impossible Burger namely, have been linked to kidney failure in mice studies [2] (one commissioned by the Impossible Foods manufacturer). In particular:

" * A rat feeding study commissioned by the manufacturer Impossible Foods found that rats fed SLH [soy leghemoglobin] developed unexplained changes in weight gain, changes in the blood that can indicate the onset of inflammation or kidney disease, and possible signs of anemia * Impossible Foods dismissed these statistically significant effects as “non-adverse” or as having “no toxicological relevance” "

I understand these aren't as good test subjects as human studies, however it seems under the guise of the green movement, this evidence has been willfully ignored, or just not known. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[0] - https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/why-vegetable-oils-are...

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/sep/30/research-red-me...

[2] - https://www.gmoscience.org/rat-feeding-studies-suggest-the-i...

Do you just copy and paste this text in different places?

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