New Meat-Free Hamburger: White Castle & Burger King Offer Plant-Based Option

  • News
  • Thread starter BillTre
  • Start date
In summary, the article discusses a new type of fake meat hamburger that is being served at White Castle and soon at Berger King. It is apparently difficult to tell from a real hamburger and they attribute it success at least in part to using heme (derived from beet roots) in it.
  • #36
Burger King's Impossible Whopper is to go on sale nationwide (US) for a limited time https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/restaurantsandnews/burger-kings-plant-based-impossible-whopper-is-coming-to-restaurants-nationwide/ar-AAFaTQK?li=BBnbfcL
 
  • Like
Likes BillTre
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #37
Update.
Here is a NY Times article on the meatless burger and related markets.
They review:
  • what companies are selling what, where
  • do meatless burgers reduce greenhouse gas emissions (they think so)
  • what about nutrition (more salt, a bit more fat and protein and a slightly fewer calories).
 
  • Like
Likes newbiegirl
  • #38
Very surprising to see scientifically minded people falling victim to this push for plant based fake food.
Eat some steak and thrive like a human should.
 
  • #39
MyoPhilosopher said:
Very surprising to see scientifically minded people falling victim to this push for plant based fake food.
Safe to assume you think the science around veggies is fake? Do tell.
 
  • Like
Likes BillTre
  • #40
DaveC426913 said:
Safe to assume you think the science around veggies is fake? Do tell.
Considering the fact that in any given diet, 99%+ of toxins are coming from plant foods and not from animal foods. Vegetables are not anything magical.
 
  • #41
MyoPhilosopher said:
Considering the fact that in any given diet, 99%+ of toxins are coming from plant foods and not from animal foods. Vegetables are not anything magical.

Source of this stat?
 
  • #42
gleem said:
Source of this stat?
Considering the facts that a plant's only form of defense is, quite literally, chemical warfare, does that actually surprise you? Imagine being a plant that is in constant danger of being eaten, the only form of defense it to make yourself toxic. Hence why we often see "organic" vegetables containing more toxins than regular vegetables. Even when we don't use pesticides, vegetables produce harmful chemicals to survive.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2217210Please read the above study.
 
  • #43
From the paper cited.

part of plant pesticide paper.png

An what make meat safer with the consumption and concentration of these chemicals in their flesh along with the steroids and antibiotics that are fed them as well as those substances created in the preparation (cooking) of meats as Heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons?
 

Attachments

  • part of plant pesticide paper.png
    part of plant pesticide paper.png
    8.2 KB · Views: 156
  • #44
Wrt, to plants toxicity for survival. You need to recast your thinking as follows:

Plants evolve from generation to generation in an environment where animals are eating them. Their toxicity varies across the genome. However, toxic varieties are less likely to be eaten and so thrive better in that specific environment than the less toxic varieties until finally the less toxic ones perish and are no more.

Meantime, animals now needing to eat the more toxic varieties are evolving too. Those animals that can eat the toxic plants thrive over the animals that cannot and so once again evolutionary forces some to go extinct.

and a balance is reached until...

The key point is plants don't decide on their toxicity, it happens through random genome changes from generation to generation. Some thrive some do not.
 
  • Like
Likes Klystron and WWGD
  • #45
Animals also adapt to conditions. Before preservation techniques then refrigeration became common, our ancestors enjoyed meat so putrid to send a gourmet screaming. Humans seem to be colonized by or develope a gut biome suitable to digesting local food sources.

Has not the small appendix been found to be a source for replacing beneficial bacteria after the host survives famine or disease?
 
  • #47
What will happen to the populations of cows, pigs, etc, "edible" animals once viable vegetarian or otherwise substitutes have been found and accepted? Won't their numbers blow up once they are not killed for consumption?
 
  • #48
Feral pigs are already a huge problem. Feral cows probably won't be as hardy, nor do cows breed prolifically like pigs
 
  • #49
WWGD said:
What will happen to the populations of cows, pigs, etc, "edible" animals once viable vegetarian or otherwise substitutes have been found and accepted? Won't their numbers blow up once they are not killed for consumption?
Guessing that most agricultural animals are bred for consumption. Without the market, the supply will dry up.
Most are probably not/will not become feral.
 
  • #50
Yeah, I think numbers will diminish as the market drops down to some lower level although I'm sure there will be a backlash or a "back to nature" kind of movement that can keep a portion of the farms still raising pigs and cows.
 
  • #51
  • Like
Likes jedishrfu
  • #52
gleem said:
From the paper cited.

View attachment 250973
An what make meat safer with the consumption and concentration of these chemicals in their flesh along with the steroids and antibiotics that are fed them as well as those substances created in the preparation (cooking) of meats as Heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons?

Ok let's deal with it issue by issue.
Steroids and hormones injected into animals: This would cause no difference in concentration of hormones in hormone free animal products. This means cows injected with estrogen output the same amount of hormones in their milk as cows raised without exogenous hormones.
Antibiotics: In the USA, no beef sold commerically has any antibiotics.
Yes, burning your steak is not a good idea.
 
  • Like
Likes russ_watters
  • #53
Klystron said:
Animals also adapt to conditions. Before preservation techniques then refrigeration became common, our ancestors enjoyed meat so putrid to send a gourmet screaming. Humans seem to be colonized by or develope a gut biome suitable to digesting local food sources.

Has not the small appendix been found to be a source for replacing beneficial bacteria after the host survives famine or disease?
You are not making any specific claim here. Are you implying animals make natural pesticides we eat?
The matter of the fact is; 99.99% of all pesticides we ingest come from the plants themselves, and not the pesticides we spray.
 
  • Skeptical
Likes Klystron
  • #54
Now, major meat and food companies (Tyson, Smithfield, Perdue, Hormel and Nestlé) are getting into making meat substitutes.
NY Times article here.
 
  • #55
NY Times article on a taste test of different fake meat burgers.

Order of finishing (best first):
Impossible Burger (4.5 out of 5)
Beyond Burger (4 out of 5)
Lightlife Burger (3 out of 5)
Uncut Burger (3 out of 5)
Field Burger (2.5 out of 5)
Sweet Earth Fresh Vegie Burger (2.5 out of 5)
 
  • Like
Likes berkeman
  • #56
BillTre said:
NY Times article on a taste test of different fake meat burgers.

Order of finishing (best first):
Impossible Burger (4.5 out of 5)
Beyond Burger (4 out of 5)
Lightlife Burger (3 out of 5)
Uncut Burger (3 out of 5)
Field Burger (2.5 out of 5)
Sweet Earth Fresh Vegie Burger (2.5 out of 5)
What, no Control Burger?
 
  • Like
Likes Klystron, MyoPhilosopher and gleem
  • #57
russ_watters said:
What, no Control Burger?
Or Hamilton Burger. Compared to Perry, he amounted to a vegetable.
 
  • #58
These new "burgers" are not a healthy as one might expect. check out the nutritional stats.

Beyond Burger

Four ounces delivers 250 calories, 18 total grams of fat, with 6 grams of saturated fat, 390 milligrams of sodium, only 2 grams of fiber, 20 grams of protein, and 25% of your recommended daily value for iron

Impossible Burger

One 4-ounce patty contains 240 calories, 14 grams of total fat, with 8 grams of saturated fat, 370 milligrams of sodium, 3 grams of fiber, and 19 grams of protein, plus 1 gram added sugar, and weirdly 5.3 milligrams of the B vitamin thiamine — 2,350% of your recommended daily value (a high intake is 50 milligrams a day) — and 130% of B12.

compare to a 4 oz Beef burger (10% fat),

260 calories, 14 grams total fat, 8 gms saturated, 70 mg sodium, 0 gms fiber, 31 gms protein, sugar0 gmsCost: Veggie burgers $11/lb, Beef $5-$8/lb.
 
  • #59
BillTre said:
They attribute it success at least in part to using heme (derived from beet roots) in it (red meat contains lots of heme).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetroothttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef
The red color in beets is produced by betanin, not heme. Iron in beets is present in other compounds. 100 grams of beet root will give you about 6 percent of your daily iron requirement, where 100 grams of beef will give you about 20%.

https://living.thebump.com/should-eat-beets-iron-6916.html
The iron in food isn’t all created equal. Iron in meats, such as beef, poultry and fish, called heme iron, is easily and well absorbed by your body. The iron in vegetables such as beets, as well as in grains and legumes -- called non-heme iron -- is not as well absorbed as heme iron. Eating foods high in heme iron or in vitamin C -- such as citrus fruits -- at the same meal as vegetables like beets can increase the absorption of iron.
 
  • #60
It would be very interesting to see who exactly falls for ("errr I mean pays for and consumes") these fake meat products. I wouldn't imagine it is the die hard vegans, but more likely the average uneducated and unaware person that buys into the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad. The truth is the moral argument for veganism does not hold any weight past an initial, understandable position of respecting animals, to which I as a meat-eater(thriving human) actually agree with at its very core. If you want to kill the least amount of animals, follow a diet that is predominantly made up of large ruminants.
 
  • #61
DEvens said:
The red color in beets is produced by betanin, not heme. Iron in beets is present in other compounds. 100 grams of beet root will give you about 6 percent of your daily iron requirement, where 100 grams of beef will give you about 20%.

Opps, got that part wrong:
The Impossible Burger contains heme from the roots of soy plants, in the form of a molecule called leghemoglobin. Food scientists insert DNA from soy roots into a genetically modified yeast, where it ferments and produces large quantities of soy heme.
from here. So, it recombinant, which would bother some people, but not me.

Personally, I find the meatless burgers interesting only slightly due any personal health reasons (since I find it is easy to reduce the amount of meat I eat), but mostly due to the reduced cow methane production, which I considered an environmentally good thing.
How the production methods for these non-meat burgers affect overall carbon footprint (per pound of product with respect to cows) is something I would be interested in, but do not know.
MyoPhilosopher said:
The truth is the moral argument for veganism does not hold any weight past an initial, understandable position of respecting animals, to which I as a meat-eater(thriving human) actually agree with at its very core. If you want to kill the least amount of animals, follow a diet that is predominantly made up of large ruminants.

I can not make any sense of this statement other than as part of your ongoing disparagement of vegetarians or vegans. I am neither of those, but it seems obvious to me that you can kill fewer animals by not eating any than by eating only large ones.
 
  • #62
[/QUOTE]

Cattle contribute under 2% of methane in terms of greenhouse emissions in the USA. Transport account for over a quarter last time I checked.
Anyway, since you can't make sense of the statement, let me try bring up a couple of ideas.

BillTre said:
but it seems obvious to me that you can kill fewer animals by not eating any than by eating only large ones.

I find that response erroneous. At first I agree it may appear contradictory however: how many insects and other animals have to die to create vegan/vegetarian staples... the answer is a lot more than cows considering the shear volume of vegetables and non-animal products one would need to consume to simply attempt to replicate the nutrition from animal foods. I have seen a huge push of vegans that do not care about their health but rather purely operate on the intent to save animals. To me, this is hypocrisy.

I would strongly recommend looking at Alan Savory's work.

Out of curiosity, without any insult intended, is this something you have considered scientifically?
Looking at a lot of health "science" and government recommendations, the system was designed to fail, Ancel Key's pseudoscience (bullsh..) is a decent place to start asking questions.
 
  • #63
@MyoPhilosopher, you make a lot of statements without any links to support them.
If you want people to look into Alan Savory's work for instance, you, as the person making the argument, should provide a link to it.
Its your argument.
You should do the work to support it.

MyoPhilosopher said:
how many insects and other animals have to die to create vegan/vegetarian staples... the answer is a lot more than cows considering the shear volume of vegetables and non-animal products one would need to consume to simply attempt to replicate the nutrition from animal foods.
Where is the support for this "answer"?
How many insects die to produce cows? This seems more of a rationalization than any sttement supported by fact.

MyoPhilosopher said:
I have seen a huge push of vegans that do not care about their health but rather purely operate on the intent to save animals. To me, this is hypocrisy.

There are many vegans and vegetarians. They can have a variety of motives. You seem to want to lump them all into a group you can attack.
If someone does something for some purposes of their own and which seems to cause no harm, where is that hypocrisy in that?
Are they saying they are dong it for some other purpose? Certainly not all of them do that.
 
  • #64
I tried the Impossible Whopper today and the patty was real good, the problem was everything else. It's just a bad pathetic burger in general.
 
  • Haha
Likes OmCheeto and BillTre

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top