Are you absolutely certain this is the case? The majority of my vegetarian friends would be upset to find their vegetarian dish was contaminated with meat if they ate out in a restaurant. I don't see why it would be any different in BK?
Wolt employee here - would be happy to help you with the Vegan/Vegetarian filter. We have a Vegan category of venues, and you can directly search for vegan/vegetarian restaurants as well. Is the issue in particular dishes?
This is an unusual point, and one that I've never heard before.
If anything, since veganism started becoming popular, the options in restaurants have increased. There are places that previously didn't offer any or many vegetarian options, and now have more options (Gregg's and KFC are two that come to mind).
I think the people who are concerned with this are familiar with how food is made at restaurants. For example, I worked at a pizza shop in high school and occasionally someone would request we wash our pizza cutter so that their veggie pizza would not be contaminated with meat from previous pizzas. We, of course, accommodated their request without issue. But I worked there for years and saw this request maybe 2-3 times. And that may have been the same customer. The people who take that level of constraint are a tiny, tiny fraction of the already smallish customer base seeking meatless/vegetarian food.
I may be wrong, but I don't think BK is advertising these as vegan or even vegetarian. They appear to be very careful to say "meatless" instead, which is not inaccurate.
They're certainly not advertising them as kosher/halal.
I am not vegetarian, but I have plenty of friends who are for a wide array of reasons (moral, religious, environmental). This burger has come up with a few of them, and so far they are just happy that there is vegetarian option. They see it as important that a company like BK is offering a progressive vegetarian option. Not one of them has complained that there is a miniscule amount of non-vegetarian contamination.
Of course I see why some would complain, and it is important that there are always people pushing for progress. But lets not pretend that _this_ isn't progress.
This is some of why it is important to distinguish moral food specifications from health-related specification: it takes work for me to eat out anywhere that isn't exclusively vegetarian because meat contamination makes me ill, and restaurants don't understand that, for example, labeling things "vegetarian" when they are fried in the same oil as meat is misleading. Sometimes the grill is well-cleaned and it is fine, and then other times I am in for a night of misery and it's just not worth the risk.
Does this sort of "status symbol" thing really matter to the average restaurant goer though?
I've never cared about it, with my only concern being if the place has something I'd be interested in eating and if it seems sanitary. Only reason I don't go to supercheap fast food places often is that their options for vegetarians tend to be pretty limited (particularly since I'm also not a big fan of vegan "meat", I want vegetarian food that's good through being vegetarian rather than despite it).
Thank you for the support! Being a strict vegetarian myself I understand the concern. We operate out of a shared kitchen space, so other clients in the space make a variety of dishes which include meat, wheat, and nuts. We use our own kitchen utensils, dishes, pots/pans, etc to avoid contamination as much as possible. Maybe one day we can share a video of a "day in the life" of our kitchen staff to show you, but rest assured that we take it very seriously to not cross-contaminate :) Per FDA regulations, we must include that information on our packaging.
Restaurants are a reflection of what the population wants, not the driver. In order for there to be more vegetarian choices in a restaurant there has to be more demand for those items. Restaurants that don't do that go out of business.
Same things goes for grocery stores. They will sell ANYTHING a large enough chunk of consumers will buy. (I had that with granulated honey, we bought a lot of it, but the store wasn't selling enough to make it worth the shelf space, so it got dropped).
I'm not vegetarian, but in my previous job my favorite nearby restaurant for lunch time was a vegetarian one. The food tasted incredibly good and it wouldn't make me drowsy during the afternoon.
I dated a vegetarian many years ago. It was my first exposure to that lifestyle. She was not against me eating meat even in front of her. She didn't politicize her choice, it was for her health and nothing more. Luckily some fast food places serve salads and so on trips across country we could stop at those places where I could eat a burger and she could eat a salad. Alternately I would go with her to a local Austin burger joint that had a vegetarian night on Wednesdays. I would eat and enjoy a veggie burger with her. We both were willing to meet each other half way.
options like a veggie burger at Burger King give options to people like her. Not every vegetarian is a vegan who makes all meals political. Burger King serving a veggie burger doesn't have to be political. Not every vegetarian surrounds themselves with only other vegetarians.
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