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Comment by antonymoose | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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 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

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