Lawsuit claims Burger King's Impossible Whoppers are contaminated by meat
Burger King was sued on Monday by a vegan customer who accused the fast-food chain of contaminating its meatless "Impossible" Whoppers by cooking them on the same grills as its traditional meat burgers.
In a proposed class action, Phillip Williams said he bought an Impossible Whopper, a plant-based alternative to Burger King's regular Whopper, at an Atlanta drive-through, and would not have paid a premium price had he known the cooking would leave it "coated in meat by-products."
The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court seeks damages for all U.S. purchasers of the Impossible Whopper, and an injunction requiring Burger King to "plainly disclose" that Impossible Whoppers and regular burgers are cooked on the same grills.
[...] Its website describes the Impossible Burger as "100% Whopper, 0% Beef," and adds that "for guests looking for a meat-free option, a non-broiler method of preparation is available upon request."
Also at Boing Boing.
Previously: Meatless "Beyond Burgers" Come to Fast Food Restaurants
Burger King Adds Impossible Vegan Burger To Menu
Plant-Based "Impossible Burger" Coming to Every Burger King Location
Related: Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat that 'Bleeds'
FDA Approves Impossible Burger "Heme" Ingredient; Still Wants to Regulate "Cultured Meat"
Following IPO of Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods Plans Launch of its Own Meatless Products
Impossible Burger Lands in Some California Grocery Stores
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:08PM (12 children)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:16PM (2 children)
Dust mites go in with air; breathing isn't vegan.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:20PM
Fuck. There goes my commitment to breathairianism [rationalwiki.org].
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:31PM
So we're all murderers in the dust mite court of law!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:05PM (3 children)
Don't forget drinking water... just because drinking water chlorination genocided helpless bacteria and protists, that doesn't magically mean they didn't identify as animals. I'm sure vegans drink a considerable mass of microscopic animal corpses per year.
Worse in areas with surface water. Little bits of decayed fish bodies and fish eggs and insect eggs in water.
If I were somewhat worse of a person I'd try to whip vegans into a frenzy to only drink and bathe in bottled RO filtered water thats provably vegan, not merely chlorinated to safe levels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @11:17PM (1 child)
I imagine vegans are a lot more likely to drink RO water than non-vegans just because they are more conscientious about that stuff.
I'm non-vegan but I try not to drink tap water unless I'm in a situation where I don't really have any reasonable alternatives.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:03AM
I'm very much non-vegan, but I try to only drink RO water, or filtered at the very least. There's good reasons for this: 1) municipal tap water has been found to be contaminated at times, and 2) tap water tastes terrible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @07:23AM
By the way many of those tiny creatures don't really seem much stupider compared to some larger animals.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @11:43PM
Worse than that, I kill quite a number of animals by accident with my various farm equipment, especially the combines, each year. In addition, "ethical vegans" don't like the exploitation of animals at all, which not only means no honey or silk, but also no entomophily or zoophily crops because we are reaping the benefits from the labor of the pollinators.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:24AM (1 child)
I think Vegan does mean that there are no traces of animal parts actually. You've got a great point about the bug protein because the rules regarding our food are actually quite fucking disgusting if you look. There are actual amounts of rat, insects, and feces allowed per tonnage of material. The FDA isn't even guaranteeing anything is going to be completely free from contaminants, but setting acceptable levels.
This situation is more about false advertising than reasonable expectations. Replace vegan with gluten-free. Gluten-free is actually pretty damn important for some people. I feel tons better without it, but a relative needs a damn EPI pen.
The real question may be if it is reasonable to expect food to be cooked without cross contamination. I think it is a reasonable expectation if they're saying gluten-free, but it's also reasonable to default to contaminated surfaces unless stated otherwise.
For the Vegans, they need to assume the worst at all times, unless it is specifically stated there is no cross contamination and non-Vegan cooking products involved.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:51AM
And if you look at ingredient lists of lots of things where gluten etc is unexpected, often at the bottom of the list is a section, may contain, with wheat, nuts, peanuts and such, all due to the possibilty of cross-contamination.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
WTF?! That is EXACTLY what Vegan means. It means no bones, no fur, no meat, no bonemeal, no milk, no eggs, no fish meat, no fish scales, no insects, no Red 4 / E120 (it's made of insect shell), etc.
That is LITERALLY the definition of Vegan. Dust in the air which might be off of skin from an animal (eg. a human) doesn't qualify, but literally if I cut a steak with a knife and then cut a cabbage with it, that cabbage cannot be used in vegan food.
When I have bbqs at work, if afterwards I said "we cooked the veggie burgers on the meat grill" (or worse yet in the meat juices!), I'd probably get fired.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:11PM
Just as there is an acceptable amount of lead and arsenic in food and drink, there is an acceptable amount of animal bits.
https://www.livescience.com/55459-fda-acceptable-food-defects.html [livescience.com]