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Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

Wow, what's wrong with burgers?

I mean, certainly you can get bad meat, and maybe it's easier to conceal in a burger than in a steak, but ... how about literally all other processed meat that is invariably processed more than burgers? Salami, sausages, hot dogs, ...

I personally love burger, and consider it one of the finest foods.

Fortunately, there's a very easy way to know the quality of a burger - if they ask you, how well you want it done, it's high quality! Shitty burger places like McDonalds and Burger King don't want to risk selling you a medium-done burger... Funny enough, UK is one of the better places for high-quality burger, much better than e.g. Switzerland or Slovenia! My favourite in London is (was? 2019) Honest Burger...

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> Also on the banned list are products such as chickpea or lentil-based crisps, seaweed-based snacks and Bombay mix as well as energy drinks, hamburgers and chicken nuggets.

The foods mentioned in the article are not an exhaustive list of all the foods for which the government has banned advertising. It's possible they've also banned ads for salami, sausages and hot dogs, but the article didn't mention it.

Probably because, compared to burgers, there aren't that many ads for salami, sausages and hot-dogs during daytime TV, so it's not seen as much of a problem, or as worth mentioning.

But because you mention it - how many daytime ads do you see for high quality burgers, like Honest Burger, as compared to ads for McDonalds and Burger King?

McDonald's burgers are 100% beef. What's the problem? If the bun and other parts of the burger are ultra processed, whatever that means, well, that's the same for their chicken sandwiches, right? If the problem is the salt or seasonings, why not ban ads for salty burgers over a threshold or burgers with the specific problematic seasonings?

Salt is not particularly a problem unless someone has a genetic predisposition to hypertension or doesn't drink enough water.

There is nothing wrong with most foods as part of a mixed diet. The problem is, a burger/box of chicken is ~£2-4 and fucking fast. A meal with vegetables either takes preparation, or is >£6

The issue here is that the UK is obese as fuck. Partly because of education, partly because of price, party because of supermarkets.

If we want to avoid spending billions upon billions tackling diabetes and other related conditions, the UK needs to tackle its diet. This is

In Canada, it's outright illegal to sell a burger medium done. If you get caught, your restaurant will be closed for a couple weeks minimum, along with a hefty fine. It must be fully cooked, or not served.

seriously? No medium well, just straight up well done? So, hockey pucks? Ahh, now it makes sense. It's a law endowed by Canada's love of hockey

It's perfectly possible to cook a burger such that it's not dry but also not raw.

Same in UK. Family members keep asking me when we travel there "will my burger be done right". Uhhh..there's only one kind of doneness for a burger in these parts.

It's ground beef. The rule is you must cook it to the proper internal temperature. This is reasonable food safety. This simply precludes medium as an option.

If they grind their own meat or use something like ground chuck or ground round you can get it medium.

Why is ground chuck safer than other ground beef?

Bacteria contaminates the exposed surface of foods. Pre-ground meat has a _lot_ of surface area exposed so the potential for contamination is high. If you get your meat as a chunk of chuck roast or larger primal cut, follow good food safety practices in how you maintain your workspace, and then grind the chuck and turn it into patties to be grilled the probability for serving a contaminated product is low.

The problem is that this is more expensive and time consuming so almost no one actually does this in a commercial setting. If you tell me you do this when I come over to your home cook-out I will possibly trust you to serve me a burger with some pink in it, but if your restaurant tries to sell a $6 burger that you let someone order medium-rare bad things are going to eventually happen...

For added safety, you can even sear the outside of the cut, then trim the seared part before grinding the rest.

There are small burger restaurant chains in Canada that grind their meat on the premises. Burger's Priest (they used to tout this, but since the franchising push, this link is the only mention about grinding their own meat - https://www.recipeunlimited.com/en/franchising/burger-priest...) and Holy Chuck Burgers - https://holychuckburgers.com/.

Some meat sellers mechanically tenderize (blading) their cuts of beef. This may cause E.coli on the surface of the beef to enter the interior of the beef. Costco was linked to E.coli cases in 2012 due to this practice. See https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/06/has-you...

That doesn’t make sense. It’s beef.

If you can serve a steak medium, then you can also grind the steak, cook it medium and serve it.

Then you get bacteria in the ground part, potentially, whereas a steak will be cooked on all the exposed surfaces.

Um, it’s beef. It can be eaten raw. Ever heard of carpaccio?!?

Only two reasons to ever cook beef: (1) taste (2) quality

The exterior of a cut can be seared and then trimmed off to get a safe chunk of raw beef.

A whole steak doesn't contain pathogens deep within, only on the surface, which is why ground beef is different situation entirely.

The burgers they show on TV are pure junk food, let's be real.

Hamburgers on whole wheat are a staple in my life. The war on saturated fat and red meat is ridiculous

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