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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

My vegetarian friends can now go to a restaurant (or better example yet, any event space like sports event or theme park, since having a veggie burger is pretty easy to check a box and satisfy dietary restrictions) and get any of the burger offerings on the menu with a beyond patty. Before that, the vegetarian option of only resort was often much more depressing and unsubstantial.

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Reading this somewhat reminds me how the Gluten Free trend led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac.

Still, one wonders does “buying a fake burger at the ball park with my friends” translate to actual fandom and further consumption or is it just a a captive consume picking the least-worst option.

The impression I’ve gotten is for the latter.

It is the latter. For a few of them they swear off impossible and tolerate beyond or vice versa. And of course some restaurants with their own bean burger formulations are sometimes whiffs but also other times completely blow any fake meat option out of the water.

I've had maybe one bean burger in a restaurant that was any good.

Sorry for your loss

> led to a lot more options for my friend with celiac.

Did it really? I have hear some complaints that before "gluten free" meant it doesn't contain those allergens at all and now it only means "there are no grains on ingredient list". And with amount of cross-contamination in food industry that is nowhere near enough for people with allergy.

It's definitely the "least-worst option", most of the time, but I'd rather be able to eat _something_ with my friends when we go out to do something. At burger joints the burgers are usually otherwise dressed to impress, dripping with cheese and some awesome sauce; those are quite good with an Impossible patty subbed in. But American restaurants in my experience offer a selection of very, very sad foods, because they simply don't know how to make food taste good without meat. Vegan and vegetarian restaurants and many ethnic restaurants make excellent food. It's a cultural problem.

i actually miss black bean burgers being more common. now it seems like all you can find are beyond/impossible burgers at restaurants. i don't mind em once or twice a year but they knock me out more than melatonin so i usually avoid them.

> but they knock me out more than melatonin

for a lot of people that could be a selling point

(not you, themselves!)

This. They can now eat more than french fries off the menu.

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