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
Related Stories
From Wired:
WIRED wants to take you on the deepest dive yet into the science behind the Impossible Burger.
Biting into an Impossible Burger is to bite into a future in which humanity has to somehow feed an exploding population and not further imperil the planet with ever more livestock. Because livestock, and cows in particular, go through unfathomable amounts of food and water (up to 11,000 gallons a year per cow) and take up vast stretches of land. And their gastrointestinal methane emissions aren't doing the fight against global warming any favors either (cattle gas makes up 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide).
This is the inside story of the engineering of the Impossible Burger, the fake meat on a mission to change the world with one part soy plant, one part genetically engineered yeast—and one part activism. As it happens, though, you can't raise hell in the food supply without first raising a few eyebrows.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved soy leghemoglobin as generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for human consumption:
Last August, documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that the FDA hadn't stomached the company's previous GRAS application. The agency concluded that soy leghemoglobin—a protein found in the roots of soybean plants that Impossible Foods harvests from genetically engineered yeast and uses to simulate the taste and bloodiness of meat—had not been adequately tested for safety.
In the application, Impossible Foods argued that the iron-containing protein is equivalent to hemoglobin, an oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells and commonly consumed in meat. Thus, the protein was safe, the company concluded. It went as far as conducting studies in rats to back up the claim. But the FDA noted that soy leghemoglobin had never been used as an additive before, and the organization wanted data showing that the protein was safe and not an allergen specifically for humans.
[...] At the time, the decision was a searing blow to Impossible Foods, which up until then had fired up the appetites of investors and top chefs alike and savored glowing publicity. Since the company's founding in 2011, big names such as Bill Gates and Google Ventures served up more than $250 million in startup funds, and the impossible patty sizzled on the menus of such high-end restaurants as Momofuku Nishi in New York and Jardinière in San Francisco. The soy leghemoglobin was a big part of that hype, with the company touting it as its "secret sauce."
But the FDA's gut check didn't knock Impossible Foods off the market; it just left a bad taste. In fact, the company wasn't even required to submit its GRAS application to begin with due to the controversial way in which the FDA oversees food additives and GRAS designations. Under the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the 1958 Food Additives Amendment, the FDA allows food companies and their hired consultants to internally test and determine a GRAS designation of a potential new additive all on their own. They can start using it without getting approval from the FDA or even notifying the agency. The FDA only steps in after the fact if problems arise.
Impossible Foods' FAQ says "the heme molecule in plant-based heme is atom-for-atom identical to the heme molecule found in meat". Heme is a component of soy leghemoglobin consisting of an iron atom bound in a porphyrin ring.
Meanwhile, the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are continuing to fight over which agency will have jurisdiction over "cultured meat" (i.e. lab-grown animal cells for human consumption):
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Meatless 'Beyond Burgers' come to Carl's Jr. restaurants
The competition in lab-made veggie burgers is heating up. Beyond Meat has brought its burgers to more than 1,000 Carl's Jr. locations in the US, marking its Beyond's largest restaurant deal to date. Order a $6.29 Beyond Famous Star and you can eat a vegetarian (sorry vegans, there's American cheese) burg that tastes much like its conventional beef counterparts. You can also pay $2 to add a Beyond patty to other burgers on the menu. [...] You can already eat Impossible burgers of various sizes at White Castle, Hopdoddy, [and] Umami Burger
The veggie burgers won't be available at Hardee's (a nearly identical fast food chain operated by the same parent company). Sorry, "flexitarians".
Big Beef Prepares For Battle, As Interest Grows In Plant-Based And Lab-Grown Meats
The U.S. meat industry is gigantic, with roughly $200 billion a year in sales, and getting larger. But the industry faces emerging threats on two fronts: plant-based meat substitutes and actual meat grown in labs. Plant-based meat substitutes are a lot more, well, meaty than they used to be. They sear on the grill and even "bleed." They look, taste and feel in the mouth a lot like meat. Savannah Blevin, a server at Charlie Hooper's, an old-school bar and grill in Kansas City, Mo., says the vegetarian Impossible Burgers on the menu are popular with the meat-eating crowd. "I had a vegetarian actually turn it away, because it reminded them so much of meat, they sent it back," says Blevins. "It's delicious," she adds.
The industry that makes these products is taking off, growing 20 percent a year. "Business is booming," says Todd Boyman, co-founder of food company Hungry Planet. "We just can't keep up. We're actually having to expand our production facilities to keep up with the demand that's out there for this type of food."
[...] The meat industry is focused on shaping the regulatory environment for its new competitors, taking into account lessons learned from the rise of plant-based milks.
Previously: Would You Try Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger(s)?
Impossible Foods Just Raised $75 Million for Its Plant-based Burgers
Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat that 'Bleeds'
FDA Approves Impossible Burger "Heme" Ingredient; Still Wants to Regulate "Cultured Meat"
Related: U.S. Cattlemen's Association Wants an Official Definition of "Meat"
Missouri Regulates Use of the Word "Meat" by Food Producers
After a vegan cheeseburger crashed and burned Burger King has successfully rolled out a true alternative to meat burgers for vegans working with Impossible Foods to make the vegan Impossible Burger. First thought to be an April Fools joke, the Impossible Burger is now on the menu at St. Louis with one carnivore inclined customer saying that he would not have known that it was plant-based.
Finally, the last barrier to mankind heading for the stars has been reached.
After exiting Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods will launch meatless products this summer
After exiting Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods said that it will roll out its own plant-based meat substitutes beginning this summer.
The Jimmy Dean owner sold its stake in Beyond before the company went public, citing its desire to produce vegetarian meat substitutes under its own umbrella of brands. CEO Noel White told analysts on the quarterly conference call Monday that the plant-based product will launch this summer on a limited basis, with a wider rollout in October and November.
[...] Beyond made the strongest market debut so far this year on Thursday, surging 163%. The stock has a market value of $3.97 billion, dwarfed by Tyson's own market value of $22.66 billion. Tyson shares gained more than 2% Monday.
Despite the difference in market value, Beyond and other makers of plant-based meat alternatives — such as Impossible Foods — pose a threat to Tyson. Beyond Meat's CEO, Ethan Brown, told CNBC that the company is trying to capture the meat industry's customers. Its gluten- and soy-free products are meant to more closely resemble and taste like meat than previous iterations of veggie burgers.
Also at CNN.
See also: Beyond Meat goes public with a bang: 5 things to know about the plant-based meat maker
Competitors Sink Their Teeth Into The Meatless-Meat Industry
The Impossible Whopper is coming to every Burger King in America next week
Burger King will start selling its meatless Whopper across the United States on August 8, the biggest rollout for Impossible's plant-based product.
The burger chain has been selling the Impossible Whopper, featuring a meatless patty made by Impossible Foods, in a few markets in the United States since April. It first tested the product in St. Louis before announcing in May that it would offer the Impossible Whopper nationally this year.
Interest in plant-based protein has surged as many people try to reduce their meat intake for health or environmental reasons. US retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 11% in the past year, according to a July report from trade group Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that supports plant-based businesses.
Previously: Meatless "Beyond Burgers" Come to Fast Food Restaurants
Burger King Adds Impossible Vegan Burger To Menu
Related: Impossible Foods Just Raised $75 Million for Its Plant-based Burgers
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
The Impossible Burger, a meat-free burger that's previously only been available in restaurants, will be available to buy in grocery stores for the first time this week. Starting tomorrow, September 20th, you'll be able to buy the plant-based burger in 27 Gelson's Markets stores in Southern California. Impossible Foods says it will bring the burger to more grocery stores — including some on the East Coast — later this month, and it plans to reach every region of the US by the middle of next year.
The launch brings Impossible Foods into even closer competition with Beyond Meat, which already sells its own meat-free burger in grocery stores in addition to restaurants. When it announced its latest burger back in June, Beyond Meat said that it was available to purchase in stores, including Whole Foods, Kroger, Safeway, Publix, Wegmans, Target, and Sprouts. Compared to this list of chains, Impossible Foods is lagging behind in selling its burgers directly to home cooks.
It's a 12 oz slab of fake ground beef, not yet shaped into patties.
Impossible CEO says it can make a meat 'unlike anything that you've had before'
Plant-based meat products are bigger than ever, with the fast-food industry, grocery stores, and upscale restaurants coming on board. A recent Nielsen report found that plant-based meat alternative purchases went up 279.8 percent last week after Americans were instructed to stay home during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Impossible Foods, a company that develops plant-based meat products, says its mission is to someday replace the incumbent meat industry entirely, stating that, from a mission standpoint, a sale only has value if it comes at the expense of the sale of an animal-derived product.
But what if plant-based meat wasn't just a substitute for an already-existing marketplace, and instead, it started to make meat that has never existed?
On this week's Vergecast podcast, Impossible Foods CEO Patrick Brown talks to Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel about how this impossible meat could be a possibility in the future, even if it doesn't make sense for the company right now.
https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-04-08
Previously: Impossible Burger Lands in Some California Grocery Stores
Burger King Grilled by Vegan Over Impossible Burger "Meat Contamination"
Related: 'Soylent' Dawkins? Atheist Mulls 'Taboo Against Cannibalism' Ending as Lab-Grown Meat Improves
Meatless "Beyond Burgers" Come to Fast Food Restaurants
Swedish Behavioral Scientist Suggests Eating Humans to 'Save the Planet'
Discriminating Diets Of Meat-Eating Dinosaurs
Meat Industry PR Campaign Bashes Plant-Based Meat Alternatives
Unilever Pushing for Plant-Based Meat
Judge Serves Up Sizzling Rebuke of Arkansas' Anti-Veggie-Meat Labeling Law
(Score: 3, Disagree) by VLM on Tuesday November 19 2019, @12:50PM (20 children)
Take away legal enforcement of religious dietary laws like Kosher, and its human nature that a zillion people will spring to action demanding to be enslaved by new imaginary dietary purity laws.
Honestly its the same thing with speech and lifestyle issues. Marriage, higher ed, new urbanism... A small, unfortunately too large, fraction of humans LOVE to be enslaved and demand we all be enslaved along with them. Its unimaginable to those of us who don't want to be enslaved. Then the "crab bucket mentality" of punishing anyone who doesn't deeply desire enslavement. And you get one guess which group the corporate legacy media exclusively supports.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @01:36PM (14 children)
I also have to guess what your position is on this lawsuit.
You've gone on about enslavement, and about food, but this is about someone suit because they believe 'advertised' != 'delivered' product.
I frankly think the whole super-veg thing is nuts, but at the same time, if someone advertises something -- deliver, or suffer!
Now I haven't seen all of the commercials. Suggestive advertising has cost money in court before. And loose lips, from execs, twitter, and other BK representatives can also cause issues, if they said the wrong thing, in the wrong way. I imagine something like "NO MEAT AT ALL!", and then the thing is covered in meat juice.. well....
Frankly, I want the REVERSE! I don't want my burger coated with crappy vegetable seasoning.
(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]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:55PM
I have ordered a “Garden Burger” countless times in the past and never under any circumstances believed that to mean “prepared in a hermetically sealed environment reducing probability of contact with non-GardenBurger substances to zero” because I’m not insane, stupid, or as evidenced in this case, insanely stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:10PM
Old crazy cult goes out of fashion, crazies go and invent a dozen new crazier ones.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:27PM
Ah yes, racist VLM trying to bring back cultural acceptance of slavery. Does your depravity know no bounds???
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:55PM (1 child)
What about my own FREEDOM to make informed choices about the food I eat.
If they advertise something then they damn well better provide it or that's FRAUD.
It's up to the courts to decide whether they did, in fact, advertise a completely vegan product. And that's how it's supposed to work...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:35PM
>If they advertise something then they damn well better provide it or that's FRAUD.
- burgerking
- what
- you fraudsters, your burger is not vegan, has traces of meat
- so what
- you advertised it as vegan
- no we advertised it as "impossible"
well played burgerking well played
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @11:53PM
In principle, there are legitimate concerns in this lawsuit. For people with food allergies, preparing or cooking their food where it could come in contact with foods they're allergic to, can be a very real health concern. Let's say I cook food in peanut oil. That could be a problem for people with peanut allergies. Now if I advertise an alternative that's doesn't contain any peanut products, but I cook the food in the same equipment that I'm cooking with peanut oil, I might be exposing those people to allergens that are very dangerous to them.
To be clear, I think veganism is batshit crazy. However, there are other situations like this where the issues raised could have much more significant consequences for people.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @01:05PM (4 children)
Leave the crazies alone. Do not talk to them, do not make eye contact, DO NOT TRY TO SELL TO THEM!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:20PM
FTSFY...
Burger King was sued on Monday by a vegan twat who accused the fast-food chain of contaminating its meatless "Impossible" Whoppers by cooking them on the same grills as its traditional meat burgers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by number6x on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:31PM (2 children)
Yes it is weird, If things that animals excrete are included in 'animal byproducts' (like Milk and honey), why isn't Carbon Dioxide included in animal by products?
Taken to its extreme...
Animals breath in oxygen. Their metabolism combines the oxygen with carbon, and the animals exhale Carbon Dioxide.
Plants breath in the Carbon Dioxide, separate the Carbon from the Oxygen and exhale the Oxygen, The Plants use the carbon as a building material for their growth.
That's right! Plants are,basically, animal by-products! Plants are using animal sourced CO2 as a basic component of their structures!
If you are a vegan who only eats plant based food, you are eating only animal by-products. Sure, there are some vegans that draw an imaginary line between the CO2 excreted by animals and other animal byproducts like milk or honey.
These vegans imagine that this imaginary difference between one animal byproduct and another makes everything OK.
True vegans need to avoid all animal CO2 contaminated plant based foods in order to stop eating animal byproduct based foods. They must grow all plants from volcano based CO2 in a sealed hothouse!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:32PM
Fertilized with what?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:45PM
True vegans need to avoid breathing air because air isn't 100% vegan. You're breathing molecules of animal skin, hair, and feces.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 19 2019, @01:22PM (9 children)
More food preparation space? More cooking space? More workers/time to clean the more equipment after use? Sure, if you're willing to pay for it, someone'll be willing to supply it, that's how a free market works. Your moldburger now costs $50, but that's what you asked for.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:33PM
Basic economics shows that this is a probably a bad idea from a business perspective, because the extra cooking space, staff, and equipment can instead be used to produce more $10 burgers, which you will almost certainly sell more than five times as frequently as the $50 burgers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:36PM (4 children)
Agreed. I cannot eat wheat. I will occasionally pay $20 for a gluten free sub at Jersey Mike's, where they wipe everything down and take considerable care to avoid cross-contamination.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:41PM (1 child)
Really? With all due respect to you and your dietary intolerance, you pay $20 for a sandwich that you could make for yourself for $3-5 of ingredients and the same amount of time waiting in line for the special sanitary preparation?? I'm not picking fights here but I find that...looking for the right words...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:47PM
Yeah he's a real dick for wanting to do things in public, maybe even fraternize with other humans while participating in their bonding rituals, without being attacked by the very food he eats. What an asshole.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @02:14AM
Make your own food from scratch. It's the only way to be sure.
Wild edibles is a better culinary avenue to explore than all these contortions around meat substitutes and entomophagy. We've been adding them in as staples to our diet, and they're crazy delicious. Purslane is regarded as a weed, but it should be a delicacy; it has a great crunch and a citrus-y finish. Clover, the kind that grows in your lawn, has the texture of alfalfa sprouts and the pop of lime. Dandelion greens (which are sometimes sold in grocery stores in New York) are a great addition to salads, and they're super abundant. Acorns, which carpet the ground of the Northeast in the fall, makes terrific flour that's full of protein and carbohydrates.
Studies have been popping up in the last decade that report Indians practiced permaculture in addition to regular agriculture; scientists have determined that the distribution of trees, understory species, and ground plants in the Americas are not natural. That means it's all still around us, and all we have to do is literally stretch out our hands and eat it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:00AM (2 children)
It's the advertising, they just need some small print, "may contain animal products" like so many ingredient lists have, though usually wheat, nuts and such, usually due to the possibility of cross contamination. Cheap and honest.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @05:20AM (1 child)
Already there. Just checked my coupons I got in the weekly coupon mailer and the Burger King ad has this on the bottom of their ad:
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @05:35AM
Good. Then if this Burger King had similar, they shouldn't have a problem besides the hassle and possibility of bad publicity.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:00PM (5 children)
I guess I figured that the things would go through the same broiler (as they only had that, the friers and the microwave to cook with).
I guess I never considered that other people wouldn't know...
That said, Corporate had lawyers that should have known.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:40PM (1 child)
Amusing...
You think lawyers, especially those that Corporate employ, would know anything about what goes on at the business end of a BK?
As to the story, I say this as a vegetarian, the vegan freakazoid behind this who expected a non/un-meat product to remain uncontaminated by any traces of meat at, what is primarily a place of business devoted to the preparation and sale of meat based produce, is either a fucking moron, or a chancer on the make (or both).
FFS!, I very rarely eat out, when I do, it's at places which I know do not handle *any* meat/fish/dairy (even though I'm not a vegan) produce, cross-contamination being the devious bitch that she is and all that (in my case, a bitch leading to anaphylaxis if my old twin nemeses chicken and eggs get in on the act..).
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:22PM
Tom Cruise worked his way through law school waiting tables, I saw it! [wikipedia.org]
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:35PM
Lawyers don't eat at Burger King mate... they eat cash.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:36PM
I am fairly sure the menu at the drive through at the BK I tried an impossible whopper at said this explicitly, and that you could request a different preparation. Or perhaps the person at the drive-through asked me. I said normal is fine, though it still took extra long to prepare.
Burger tasted the same as every other thing I have had from BK. Thoroughly meh, but it is BK, what do you expect?
Also, got a random onion right with my order of fries, so at least that is standard for BK.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:36AM
For people whom it matters, such as those who are gluten free, they know. For the crazy people who are doing it because of the fad or because of misplaced belief it's better for the planet they won't know and will become outraged when you question their preconceived notions and expectations.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:02PM (12 children)
Vegans are extremists, and they display all the classic signs of extremism: Absolutism, black and white vision of the world, excessive emotionality, irrationalism, logically inconsistant beliefs and behaviors.
They strongly oppose all forms of animal exploitation, yet 99% of them own pets, which is essentially the use of an animal for personal pleasure, i.e. animal exploitation. And when they argue that it's not true, that their pets are happy and well treated, I tell them so are my free range chickens. They are well fed, happy, and they can go wherever they want, whenever they want. But I eat their eggs, and somehow that makes me "evil".
When a wolf or a bear hunts for food, it's ok. But when I do it, I'm "evil". When a polar bear tears a seal pup to shreds, it's ok. But when seal hunters do it, they're "evil".
Fuck vegans.
(Score: 5, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:18PM (7 children)
VERY nice tarring you did there. Where are your feathers?
No, not all vegans are extremists. But then again, you've already admitted you wanted to be lumped into a category where you are no smarter than a wolf or bear, so I guess that's understandable.
This sig for rent.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:25PM (1 child)
Yes, that are. ALL vegans are skinny jeans wearing, Apple loving, U2 listening, judgemental, preachy morons.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:29PM
Found the regular moron!!
(Score: 4, Funny) by EvilSS on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:33PM (1 child)
(Score: 5, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:22PM
Impossible Feathers are (tm).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)
We evil eaters of tasty animals do even know how and why you are losing your marbles. Enjoy:
http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2012/06/youre-vegetarian-have-you-lost-your.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:30PM
Didn't say I was vegan or even vegetarian, dude. Nice try.
And you need to read that article a little more closely in addition to my original post, too!
By the way, Jeffery Dahmer was a meat eater. So was Charles Manson. They had mental problems. So what does that say about you?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @10:51PM
And you're just trying to sound smart on the Internet by making completely irrelevant and pointless associations about intelligence and choice of diet. Fuck you too.
And by the way, I have more admiration and respect for creatures like wolves and bears than for little fucktards like you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:52PM
How dare people eat different food that me! EXTREMISTS!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:29PM (1 child)
Or...you can fuck right off and worry more about what *you* eat. That's right. Don't be sticking your nose in other people's business. If someone wants to eat healthy, that's their choice. If someone wants to stick shit in their mouth, that's their choice, too. What's it to you anyway?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @10:46PM
I'll stop sticking my nose into vegans's business when they stop sticking theirs into mine.
I have many vegetarian friends. Throughout the years, they've served me the most delightfull meals I've ever had. I have no problem with them. But they are vegetarians, not fucking vegans. They don't throw a fit about my chickens (in fact, they play with them more than I do). They don't call me evil for eating meat.
And no, they don't have pets either. They believe all animals should be free, and they're actually consistent about their beliefs.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:05AM
When the bear broke into my freezer last spring, first thing he went for was my gluten free cupcakes rather then the chicken right beside them. Just goes to show what even bears prefer
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:32PM (2 children)
Chicken fries get cooked in the same fryer as regular fries ... I'm pretty sure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:01PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:25PM
What if the field the crop was grown on was fertilized with animal shit?
Heck, what if a bird flew over the field and disposed of such?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:17PM (11 children)
I wondered if the veggie burger was cooked side-by-side with real meat. But, I didn't care enough to ask. Still don't, really. You bought a burger, and you got a little beef flavoring with it? Cool. Sounds like an added benefit to me.
But - people allergic to peanuts - to seafood - eggs, milk, or dozens of other items that most of us eat without a thought. Those people are entitled to consideration when they order a meal. At the least, they deserve a warning, such as "We process eggs/peanuts/chocolate/whatever in our kitchen. If you must have an egg-free product for health reasons, please let us know when ordering!"
I mean, maybe this guy got a transfusion from a cow when he was a kid, and eating beef makes horns grow out of his forehead, or something weird? Come on, people, work with me. Is there such a thing as allergy to beef? Or is all that stuff just so much mind-jerk bullshit? Then, there's religion. There's a whole bunch of people in this world who think cows are holy. We don't want them to lose karma, or something, just because some slob cooked their veggie burgers on the same grill as real meat!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:27PM
Yes, yes there is. [stopallergyguide.com] More specifically it is an allergy to one of the subcomponents found in all red meat. And it has been somewhat linked to tick bites. [acaai.org] And like most any allergy, it requires exposure and maybe several exposures to the source to form the antigens which trigger the histamine responses. (i.e. the first bee sting you ever get is almost certainly not going to put you into anaphylactic shock... the next time sometime down the road might.) And yes, some people with red meat allergies are severe enough to carry an EpiPen or similar.
All that said, if one actually had that level of allergy one would be a fool to eat at Burger King. Too much risk of cross-contamination too many different ways. It is not dissimilar to how if one has a *really* serious peanut allergy one should avoid almost all fast food places, period, because such places aren't into guaranteeing that what they sell you was made in plants where peanut products weren't processed too.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:15PM (5 children)
Well, I'm allergic to something related to beef. It can't be to beef itself, because I eat and enjoy hamburgers, etc. But I can't wear a leather belt or shoes where the leather touches my skin. Fortunately, shoes are now often plastic and rubber, and I can use suspenders instead of a belt.
That said, I have a sister with celiac disease, and even a slice of meat that's been cut with a knife used to cut bread is enough to send her to the emergency room. So dietary rules can be important. So if they make false claims about what's in the food, they should suffer strong penalties. A short web search shows that beef allergies exist...though it's not clear how common they are, or whether an impossible burger would be inherently dangerous to a person with such an allergy. (One site called it "mammalian meat allergy", but most seemed to think it was likely restricted to a few closely related species, such as chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Perhaps there's more than one causal mechanism.
All that said, I've another sister who's a rather extreme vegetarian, but not so extreme that she made her kids be vegetarians. Just enough of one that she won't (as opposed to can't) wear leather. (E.g., I am currently wearing a canvas and plastic based shoe with a leather outer surface, and she wouldn't wear that.) But she's never sued anyone. And my mother became lactose intolerant when she was in her late 80's or possibly early 90's. But she was quite willing to drink lactose free milk.
So. There are dietary requirements, dietary preferences, and dietary "it's not a requirement, but if I eat this I'll regret it"'s. All are important, though to varying degrees. So if they advertise something about food, it should be mandatory that they fulfill the promise. Because they don't know which it is.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by slinches on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:43PM
It's still accurate to the number of significant figures stated. The beef "contamination" by cooking the fake meat on the same grill as the real meat is almost assuredly less than 0.5%. Unless the plaintiff can prove that, it isn't false advertizing.
(Score: 4, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:51PM (2 children)
You can acquire a beef allergy from a tick bite [mayoclinic.org].
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:52PM (1 child)
This was already posted -- d'ough.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 20 2019, @12:25AM
meh, your source was better than mine. :)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @09:45AM
What's in a food and what the food touches when you handle it are two different things. Look at the gluten labels. There's the label for whats in the food and often a label for how the food was handled. When you're in a public place, there's the assumption that whatever you're getting may have contacted anything else which gets sold there.
If it really matters to you, then you ask before you purchase, just like everyone with severe health issues does. I'm glad us GF people aren't as stupid as this person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:19PM
At the Burger King near me, they have signs that state that the vegetarian patties do get cooked in the same devices as the normal stuff. I didn't think anyone would assume otherwise. I don't recall seeing them advertising it as full vegan. Did they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @08:29PM (2 children)
No one is actually allergic to peanuts. It's actually something that was invented by millennial mothers so they could be a nuisance to other people.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:10PM (1 child)
> No one is actually allergic to peanuts
Not quite. In the old days last century there were almost no adults fatally allergic to peanuts, because they all _died_ suddenly early in life.
_Now_ that we've been diagnosing it and have a chance of preventing death from it for a few decades we now have a couple of generations who have lived to breeding age, with the result that prevalence has increased...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:53PM
The more effort is spent to shelter expectant mothers and then their progeny from Evil Allergens, the more hysterical and over-the-top the reaction of an untrained immune system of said progeny when the inevitable contact does happen at last.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4617537/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:34PM (2 children)
I would have thought that as long as you clean the grill, or keep a designated space for the veggie patties, that would have been sufficient.
Not only that, it seems odd that this person is targeting only BK. Literally any and every restaurant of all kinds, unless explicitly designed to be vegan, is going to have to somehow share the grill with meat. Either that, or the veggie patties need to be precooked, shipped, and then microwaved or steamed or something.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by EvilSS on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @08:30PM
having worked at BK, the stuff on the chain the meat is on as it goes through he broiler doesn't really accumulate anything on it except carbon and ash. perhaps the one part that does is the bit that gets the cooked product off the chain after the cooked product is coming out of the fire. that fucker is an absolute pain in the ass to clean. and the expectation of course is down to the shiny stainless steel.
the burnt on crust is bad, but what is worse are the layers of not-quite carbonized fats/oils on that and the other interior pieces of the broiler.
(Score: 1) by oumuamua on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:53PM (5 children)
complete turn around from 2000
https://www.genolve.com/design/socialmedia/memes/veggie-burger-2019 [genolve.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday November 19 2019, @05:19PM (4 children)
How about "There's lots of different people, and they don't all have the same opinion about anything.".
You're responding as if "vegan" were a unified whole. It's probably less unified than "soylent news poster".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:32PM (3 children)
Yes, but that's the key takeaway from lunatics: they're fucking crazy idealogues. You can never please a vegan or have a normal conversation with one, even, because they will always bend every topic around to their dietary idiosyncrasies; I once lost 45 minutes of my life to a vegan who delved into excruciating detail about why she will only eat peanut butter made from peanuts grown in one special valley in Peru.
The only thing worse than that is finding yourself trapped at a party with more than one vegan doing the same thing, who round on each other and wind up throwing glasses of wine because one's a strict fruititarian who abhors the base exploitation of regular vegans who enslave plants to do their bidding, because, um, it's been, like, scientifically *proven* that plants can feel pain. So...
My advice? If you ever meet one, back away slowly.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @09:43PM (1 child)
Watch out for bacon worshipers too.
I mean, bacon is good food, but people developing an entire cult around it is silly.
Also I can't imagine you getting out of your house long enough to actually meet someone with a differing opinion to you.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @01:47AM
You blaspheme the holy name of Lord Bacon! Burn him!
I live in Brooklyn, New York. I casually run into more people with differing opinions than mine when I walk to the top of my block than you have likely ever encountered in your life.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @10:40PM
And if you don't know how to spot one, don't worry they'll tell you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @06:45PM
They should put in the disclaimer, or cook it on a separate grill. Now if I could just get the coffee shop to use a separate knife for slicing onions. You may not be able to taste real meat in fake meat, but you can definitely taste onion on a bagel that's supposed to be plain. I'm not going to sue over it though. You always have to "break in" the preps if you're a regular, and management doesn't care. Oh, and a quick rinse may not be enough. Onion is powerful. Use a separate knife.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday November 19 2019, @08:11PM (2 children)
Who read TFS?
From TFS:
All the plaintiff had to do was ask.
I don't see advertisements (on the 'net or on the telly), so I have no idea what BK's advertising claims or doesn't claim.
At the same time, if I were to eat at BK (yuck!), and was a vegan (https://www.livescience.com/24875-meat-human-brain.html) that would be the first thing I'd want to know and would ask about.
Regardless of any other arguments, the fact that BK's statement on their website, quoted above (unless *directly* contradicted by advertising), puts the plaintiff on shaky legal ground IMHO.
N.B. IANAL
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:27AM (1 child)
Why did you cite that?
It says humans wouldn't have evolved without meat...
...but then again humans wouldn't have an evolutionary history without dinosaurs, and nobody says humans today can't survive without dinos. So... brainfart I guess?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday November 20 2019, @06:19AM
Nope. The inclusion of a link to that article was absolutely intentional. I'll explain, and I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand.
The very beginning of the article I linked says:
Did you miss that part, or just ignore it?
I'd add that comparing the very thing that allowed us to grow our big honkin' brains to the the demise of the dinosaurs isn't just dumb, it's downright asinine.
If the dinoasaurs hadn't been killed off, mammals might well have evolved into primates and then us *anyway*. But without eating meat and cooked foods, wouldn't have allowed us to shrink our jaw muscles and make room for bigger brains, and the ready calories from easier to eat/digest wouldn't have been available to feed those growing brains.
There's a direct evolutionary link between eating meat and cooked foods and our big brains.
If we hadn't been eating meat, then we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation as we'd be too busy foraging and hiding from predators to do so. What's more, we likely wouldn't have language or the base of technology that language made possible.
I included the link as a subtle (if inaccurate, and yes, I did/do realize that) dig at the intelligence of vegans/vegetarians.
That you didn't figure that out makes me wonder if you might be a vegan/vegetarian. That would make your comment much more understandable.
Heh. Heh. I put the laugh there to make sure you realize I'm having a little joke at your expense, as you appear to lack the requisite intellectual capacity to pick up on such things.
Right. Now compare the above to my inclusion of the link you asked about. The intent/meaning of both are exactly the same.
I *hope* you get it now, but I'd appreciate confirmation, with an actual confirmation, or just getting mad because I made fun of you once -- or if you're a vegetarian/vegan -- twice.
Have a lovely evening!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:06AM
This is *Burger King*. Is he expecting 5-star restaurant service or something?