
What Gets to Be a 'Burger'? States Restrict Labels on Plant-Based Meat - pseudolus
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/07/23/744083270/what-gets-to-be-a-burger-states-restrict-labels-on-plant-based-meat
======
crazygringo
But language tradition is important here.

People have been calling it a "veggie burger" for decades now.

Saying it can't be a burger is ridiculous -- it's a _kind_ of burger.

 _But_ , I fully support packaging requiring word(s) beforehand in an equal-
sized font -- "burger" reserved for beef, while "black bean burger" and
"veggie burger" and "quinoa burger" are all fine.

What's bizarre is that beef burger makers see this as a threat worth
addressing... like, nobody's accidentally buying veggie burgers.

~~~
caymanjim
> What's bizarre is that beef burger makers see this as a threat worth
> addressing... like, nobody's accidentally buying veggie burgers.

I think that's exactly what they're worried about, though. There wasn't much
chance of confusion before, so it wasn't a big priority. Now that vegetable
alternatives like the Impossible "patty" are becoming indistinguishable from
beef, they're more concerned. If McDonald's or some other giant purveyor of
beef could switch and save money, they would. They're rightly worried about a
loss of market as the meat alternatives get better at mocking the real thing.

~~~
crazygringo
People keep saying "indistinguishable from beef" but oh boy... I literally
don't know what burgers these people have been trying.

I've tried them all, including the newest versions, and they're still not even
close. They're _fine_ , but still completely different... kind of like how soy
milk is fine but certainly doesn't taste anything like cow milk. And I'm
certainly not a supertaster or anything...

I'm personally of the opinion we'll have self-driving cars long before we come
up with a non-meat burger that is actually as satisfying, in the same ways, as
a beef one.

~~~
caymanjim
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.

~~~
crazygringo
I think people underestimate the quality of meat in fast food.

At least for McD's, for example, it's 100% beef and salt, no fillers or flavor
science needed, just browning reactions from a hot griddle. The quality bar is
actually pretty high for, say, a quarter pounder, and the flavor of the
sandwich is predominantly the beef itself -- flavors like American cheese, raw
onion, ketchup and bread are quite weak in comparison.

Taco Bell is a little different -- it's about 10% seasoning and 90% beef
because that's what taco meat is supposed to be, but again the browned beef is
the primary flavor component of the taco -- no amount of cumin will make up
for it.

I'm not sure where people get the idea that fast food beef is somehow
tasteless, low-quality, or engineered in any way that, say, home hamburgers
aren't. It seems like it's just this urban myth that perpetuates itself
because it's fun to believe.

------
jgwil2
Note the irony of these nominally conservative, pro-free-market states being
more than willing to introduce burdensome regulation when it tips the scales
in favor of industries they deem worthy of protection.

~~~
dooglius
Mis-labeled food laws have been around in all these states for a long time,
without, I think, much objection.

~~~
unreal37
I'm 100% in favor of consumers not being misled. Truth in labels.

But veggie burgers have been around for 20 years and nobody has been "fooled"
into thinking they are beef. The word burger doesn't mean "cow".

The purpose of these laws is transparent, and it's not "consumer protection".

~~~
dooglius
That's a pretty sweeping claim. I have accidentally bought "Chik'n nuggets"
before so it's not much of a stretch to believe some people might make
mistakes.

~~~
unreal37
I absolutely support the label being clear. There should be no pictures of
chickens on the label and no need to try to trick people into thinking there
is chicken in there.

But to say the word "nugget" is restricted to only chicken products is just
anti-competitive.

------
CannisterFlux
Perhaps labeling these non-animal products as something other than meat might
be a good thing.

Long term, I think we animal-eaters are on the wrong side of history.
Providing humans survive the climate crisis and collapse of civilization,
maybe a couple of hundred years from now the people will look back at us and
wonder how we could consider ourselves civilized while killing and eating
animals. A bit like Roman gladiator fights. It will seem very shocking to
them.

The alternatives, lab-grown meat and whatnot, will be the norm and only
psychopaths would kill and eat animals. With that in mind, if these products
start to distance themselves from real (killed-animal) meat now then they are
getting a head start on marketing. They won't have to remind people later that
they were the good guys all along.

~~~
skidd0
Not disagreeing, but providing a different perspective. By maintaining labels
that associate lab-grown or plant-based with the "real-deal" (not a "fake" or
new/different) meats, perhaps more people would be willing to try the
alternatives. People are resistant to change and many stick to what they
"know". It's part of why the milk industry is fighting for nut-milks to not be
labeled as "real" milk. If the alternative has that "other"/"outsider" label,
there's more resistance from the customers.

~~~
defulmere
That milk issue is ridiculous. Nut milk has been referred to as such since the
middle ages or earlier.

~~~
sametmax
In France you can't label nut milk as such, so they call it "nut based drink".

It doesn't matter. Customers call it nut milk. Recipes call it that.
Restaurant menus as well.

It will be the same with burgers. It doesn't matter, and it's just a waste of
time and resources.

When Napster came out with an alternative to the CD, the industry mocked it,
then attacked it, but never tried to learn from it. As a result, GAFAM arrived
and took the whole market.

When youtube came out, TV did the same. As a result, the Valley arrived an
took the whole market.

The meat industry is doing the same with vege alternatives. They first mocked
it. Now they are in the fighting phase. But these products are already as
tasty as the average meat (not speaking of high end steaks, but that's not
what people eats every week). The difference is that IF and BB can provide
consistent quality across the entire production. And since it's made from
plants, it will scale way better than real meat, from sourcing to production,
so it will get cheaper. Because of the green trend we currently got, not to
mention the ethics surrounding the topic, it will be an easy way to get a
guilty pleasure while feeling you are doing the right thing.

I understand why Gates has invested in it.

------
mikestew
To open, a few weeks ago I went to Fatburger to get another Impossible Burger.
It had been a while, but I remembered that it was good. Fatburger must have
gotten their grillin’ chops down, because the whole time I was eating it I
wondered if they didn’t mistakenly give me real meat. I didn’t remember it
being that good. Whatever, I’m not not _that_ much of a hard-core vegetarian.

But I need a repro, so I went back a week later. That’s when I saw the sign
saying, “Meat. Made from plants. <cutesy blurb>”. Vegetarian Me says “yea!”.
Truth-in-advertising Me says, “meh, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that”.
OTOH, I knew full what they mean.

Oh, and Fatburger didn’t make a mistake the first time. Impossible Burger is
just _that_ good.

~~~
unreal37
There's a vegan restaurant in town that has "pulled pork sandwich" listed on
it's menu. That's misleading when there is no pork in it.

No one needs to be tricked to eat these delicious plant-based proteins.

~~~
ssully
I think the problem is that they are trying to create an alternative to pulled
pork, but have no idea what to call it. I have a vegetarian in my family and I
have made "vegetarian pulled pork", which is using shredded jack fruit as a
meat substitute and cooking it in a pot or pressure cooker. Coming from a
family where "pulled pork" means slow cooking a pork shoulder for 8-12 hours,
cooking "vegetarian pulled pork" is absolutely nothing like real pulled pork,
but what else would you call it? I guess BBQ Shredded Jack Fruit is more
accurate, but it doesn't sound nearly as appealing (even though it's actually
really tasty!).

------
trentlott
Fuck 'em.

Call it a "Vurger".

Let lazy phoneme substitution take care of the rest.

~~~
syrrim
Visited one of these vegan restaurants. Took me a little while to realize
everything on the menu was misspelled. They didn't have cheese they had
"cheeze", they had "porc" instead of pork, etc. Immediately it felt quite
dishonest, but I admit it would be obnoxious to have to qualify everything in
a vegan restaurant.

~~~
xboxnolifes
> I admit it would be obnoxious to have to qualify everything in a vegan
> restaurant

For cheese I can understand, but pork is pork. How can you call a non-pig
product pork?

~~~
trentlott
Cheese is as specific as pork as far as constituent ingredients.

You're just attempting to replicate the sensory experience. Sweetness,
texture, moisture, etc. As in, say, beef vs pork barbecue. Beef vs pork steak.

Jackfruit probably mimics pork better than beef - not all substitutions are
equivalent.

------
merlincorey
> "If [plant-based makers] can't say that it's a black bean burger by using
> 'burger,' how are they to describe to the consumer what the product is?"

The same way meats intended for burgers are described -- patties.

That's right, you can buy "Beef Patties" right now.

------
nkoren
We're obviously moving from the "then they laugh at you" stage to the "then
they fight you" stage.

------
pseudolus
Related link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20511902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20511902)
("Tofurky takes Arkansas to court over the word 'meat')

------
ofrzeta
The meat makers must really be afraid of substitutes when they are lobbying
for regulations like these. In Germany they were successful in pushing a new
regulation that says that vegetarian sausages must not be called sausages.

------
pooya13
The ONLY factors that matter when it comes to food are taste, health and
price. You can call it a shit sandwich for all I care.

A lot of traditionally foreign foods that have been Americanized are not their
authentic version either. For example I’m pretty sure california sushi is not
“real” sushi. Such is culture and language. It is not static.

~~~
colinmhayes
I think the rise of plant based meat has shown that ethical sourcing is a huge
factor for many people.

------
WhatIsDukkha
We don't let margarine be called butter.

Why is it suddenly ok/desirable to let corporate interests randomly assign
words to highly processed* foods?

Today you think its a great thing that these magic mystery pastes can lie to
other people about their contents? Those other people are dumb so it's OK to
lie to them about the contents of their burgers?

Tomorrow? Oh we let words not have meaning because we wanted people to eat
more plants....now the word chickpeas can mean anything because... oooops.

Create unique product names that aren't lies. Let people seek them out because
they taste good and they are better for them.

* I've worked hard to get rid of highly processed food and I'm highly skeptical of adding back these highly processed industrial pastes that vegetarian startups are pushing.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Your post history shows that you do this a lot. Just wanted to let you know:

> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or
> phrase, put _asterisks_ around it and it will get italicized.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
WhatIsDukkha
Thank you, I'll watch that.

