Burgers are a gimmicky way to present this. Most commercial burgers are made of low quality meat and slathered with sauces and served on an oversized bun. Unless they're really going to do meat-forward burgers that are served medium rare with minimal toppings, nobody is going to notice the meat in the burger.
They should imo be aiming at preparations that feature the flavor of the meat.
Exactly. Most burger chains don't use high quality meat for their burgers. You go to McDonald's, Burger King, or whatever and you are getting a greasy grey slab of ground "meat" (let's not think to long about where that comes from) that is 1) very thin 2) a bit rubbery 3) not that tasty 4) has some filler content in addition to meat and fat. To cover that up, most burger chains use lots of sauce, salt, and spices. It's called fast food for a reason. You eat it and you walk away mildly disappointed with the whole experience. Not that hard to compete with with a vegan option of any kind. It will taste different, and probably better by any objective standard. But when the baseline is kind of bland and boring to begin with, the benchmark for good enough isn't that high.
The beyond burger is actually fine for that segment. I've had a few. They are alright. But I don't crave a beyond burger any more than I do a big mac. It's just bland fast food to me. I'll munch it away if I'm hungry and there's nothing else but it's not particularly good or excellent.
It's miles apart from a good quality premium burger that is made of ground meat from a good cut of meat. You grill it medium, medium rare. Grease dripping all over the place when you eat it, etc. Much harder to compete with that. Now that's something I enjoy eating once in a while.
The problem is that things like the beyond burger are somewhat better than a cheap fast food burger but not really in the same league as a really premium burger. But they are priced like one. So that narrows down the audience to people that actually like meat but feel guilty about it and want to pay more to eat less of it. These people exist of course but it's a relatively small group of people. I just try to eat other things than meat to cut down on meat consumption. Works fine for me.
A Burger King hamburger sounds awful already. A Burger King hamburger with fake meat somehow manages to sounds even worse. It's not just shit food, it's shit food with a fake flavour.
I mean, can't we just try to push real food, that looks, smells and tastes like real food? It doesn't have to be meat. Just something that isn't made on a production line, from ingredients you can't identify and in a way you don't ever get to see?
honestly I don't really see the point of eating a burger that doesn't taste or feel like a burger. I'd prefer to eat meat less often than try a subsitute
I honestly think that meat eaters are missing out when they eat these fake meat burgers (or beef burgers for that matter). You can put so many things between these buns some of these are really delicious. The variety of the veggie patties is amazing. When I order a veggie burger at a new restaurant, experiencing a new kind of patty is part of what makes burgers such a great food.
Yes, I bet meat eaters say the same about beef burgers, there is difference in texture and flavor of each patty. Difference in quality of the meat, the coarseness of the ground, etc. But knowing that, makes me thing that meat eaters don’t actually like the meat part in their diet, and trying to replicate the meat part of a beef burger when making veggie patties just seems like a lack of imagination and an unnecessary limitation.
Why would you ever expect more than a well executed fast food style burger from, well, a burger. That’s literally what burger means as far as I’m concerned.
I had a similar burger at another chain. My biggest criticism, and from the picture I see the same issue here, was that the patty was too small for the bun and toppings. Put that thing on a small bun with a slice of American cheese, and you've got a tasty and viable alternative to a basic cheeseburger. Drown it in toppings and an oversized bun, and you've got something you can barely tell has a patty in it, meat or plant.
It almost seems like (and maybe the do) they want to target people who are used to eating vegetarian food that's just a bunch of vegetables and carbs. If they want to bring over meat eaters, make meat a central ingredient.
For those like myself who have a diet largely consisting of meat, this sounds great for the exact reasons you described; reduced environmental impact and possibly greater personal health. I agree that the original Impossible Burger was disappointing, but if they manage to incrementally improve to the point of being barely distinguishable, I think overall its a really good thing.
I was also underwhelmed by the Impossible Foods burger, which was a better imitation of meat than other patties, but not necessarily tastier.
The bigger surprise to me was that Impossible Foods does not apparently control how restaurants prepare their burgers—in fact, the restaurant where I ate it even had an Impossible Foods chili. I would have expected IF to put pretty close restrictions around how you cook and present their foods, to make sure that people don't have a bad experience and assume it's the fault of the "meat".
Weird that they concentrate on qualities that are absolutely irrelevant to a burger. When I'm eating a burger I'm thinking about the taste, smell, and it's nutritional qualities, maybe price. Not random environmental stuff.
From a marketing perspective, I'd suggest the way to shift perceptions would be to run taste test challenges similar to the ones Pepsi ran back in the day. If the burgers are as close to meat versions as they say then it could be good to have people who are reluctant to try it to at least give it a go. Even if they can still tell the difference, the difficulty in telling them apart may be enough to change the perception of the product.
The thing is that the faux-beef burgers are good, but different. I don't see them as being a beef replacement as much as another choice of food available. Many fast food restaurants offer other options beyond beef, like chicken, pork, and fish burgers. People also love those options, but beef remains a viable industry regardless. The faux-meat industry has a lot of potential to be viable, but it is not clear why that it is at the cost of another industry. There is room for both.
I bought a box of beyond meat burgers. They taste terrible compared to 4oz of beef with a little salt, and you have to keep them frozen and get the ones you want to cook out to thaw the night before.
I am probably not going to be able to finish the box.
Edit: Most veggie burgers that don’t pretend to be meat are better than these things in my opinion. They are in the uncanny valley.
I agree, it's not that Impossible is anywhere near a good real hamburger, but when it comes to fast food, the bar is low. With all the low-grade beef, fillers, and flavor science involved, I bet I couldn't tell the difference in, say, a White Castle burger or a Taco Bell burrito. They might not be there yet, but they're damn close. That's the market the industry is rightfully concerned with.
A decent burger tastes good, be it meat or non-meat. Burger-King appeals to the majority and is not going to be making the best burger of any kind, just a "standard" one.
I guess fast food burgers is where a lot of meat is consumed but ... oddly I find most fast food burgers to not taste like beef. Or maybe it is better said they taste "like" beef.
I'll be happy to replace meat with better alternatives when they come, but at least from my perspective it's not a huge step, although maybe it will make a big difference in the larger scope.
They should imo be aiming at preparations that feature the flavor of the meat.
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