<story><title>McDonald&apos;s is adding plant-based burgers to the menu</title><url>https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/11/09/mcplant-mcdonalds-plant-based-burger-crispy-chicken-sandwich/6187977002/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>no_wizard</author><text>The reality is, the appeal to eating a vegan pizza to &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; is that they know it will be cruelty free, and I admire that, to be sure.&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to win over the average consumer, or someone who has developed tastebuds over twenty years, or really anyone who doesn&amp;#x27;t already eat a vegan diet, you have to overcumb 1 crucial thing:&lt;p&gt;It needs to taste good or better than whatever you are trying to replace.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t come across a vegan pizza that doesn&amp;#x27;t taste like the way I have come to expect pizza to taste, the cheese just isn&amp;#x27;t right. All the food science in the world can&amp;#x27;t seem to solve this problem (I&amp;#x27;ve tried it homemade, by several skilled professionals, I&amp;#x27;ve tried what was rated as some of the best vegan pizza in my city, mutiple times of the years, and the list goes on).&lt;p&gt;Until it tastes like the pizza I have fundamentally come to expect pizza to taste like, it just isn&amp;#x27;t worth switching for me.&lt;p&gt;If you can solve this problem, nobody is going to care if its vegan or not, because it just taste good.&lt;p&gt;I wish PETA and the like would focus their time and money on this, since it would actually yield the net benefit results they&amp;#x27;re looking for without the air of hositility some of their followers have.&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can debate whether its right or wrong to even think this way. The truth is, people in large already do, why not meet them where they are at?</text></item><item><author>dandare</author><text>The appeal of vegan pizza is that no animals were industrially farmed to make it. If you think your cheese is suffering free you are lying to yourself.</text></item><item><author>markdown</author><text>What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?</text></item><item><author>elif</author><text>The price of animal agriculture products is artificially lowered by direct subsidy, price controls, and indirectly lowered by the unaccounted ecological costs. It is largely a matter of policy rather than a reflection of market forces.&lt;p&gt;On a level playing field, the cost competitiveness is there. For instance, in New Zealand, one of the largest dairy export markets, I can buy a vegan pizza for the same price. In fact, I can buy it from Dominos, a US brand that doesn&amp;#x27;t even offer it in the US.</text></item><item><author>Nbox9</author><text>I think it’ll be a big win when plant-based burgers are cheaper than animal based burgers.  From a raw ingredients standpoint plant based food should almost always be cheaper than animal based food because the costs associated with farming plants is lower than the costs associated with farming animals.  Hopefully, with McDonald’s scale and with their vertical integration they can make affordable, tasty, and comparably healthy veggie burgers a reality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jedberg</author><text>&amp;gt; It needs to taste good or better than whatever you are trying to replace.&lt;p&gt;Or just cost less.  At scale (notwithstanding government subsidies), vegan food will be cheaper than animal based food.&lt;p&gt;People don&amp;#x27;t go to McDonald&amp;#x27;s because their burgers taste better than at the steakhouse, they go because it&amp;#x27;s cheaper.</text></comment>
<story><title>McDonald&apos;s is adding plant-based burgers to the menu</title><url>https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/11/09/mcplant-mcdonalds-plant-based-burger-crispy-chicken-sandwich/6187977002/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>no_wizard</author><text>The reality is, the appeal to eating a vegan pizza to &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; is that they know it will be cruelty free, and I admire that, to be sure.&lt;p&gt;However, if you want to win over the average consumer, or someone who has developed tastebuds over twenty years, or really anyone who doesn&amp;#x27;t already eat a vegan diet, you have to overcumb 1 crucial thing:&lt;p&gt;It needs to taste good or better than whatever you are trying to replace.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t come across a vegan pizza that doesn&amp;#x27;t taste like the way I have come to expect pizza to taste, the cheese just isn&amp;#x27;t right. All the food science in the world can&amp;#x27;t seem to solve this problem (I&amp;#x27;ve tried it homemade, by several skilled professionals, I&amp;#x27;ve tried what was rated as some of the best vegan pizza in my city, mutiple times of the years, and the list goes on).&lt;p&gt;Until it tastes like the pizza I have fundamentally come to expect pizza to taste like, it just isn&amp;#x27;t worth switching for me.&lt;p&gt;If you can solve this problem, nobody is going to care if its vegan or not, because it just taste good.&lt;p&gt;I wish PETA and the like would focus their time and money on this, since it would actually yield the net benefit results they&amp;#x27;re looking for without the air of hositility some of their followers have.&lt;p&gt;Yes, you can debate whether its right or wrong to even think this way. The truth is, people in large already do, why not meet them where they are at?</text></item><item><author>dandare</author><text>The appeal of vegan pizza is that no animals were industrially farmed to make it. If you think your cheese is suffering free you are lying to yourself.</text></item><item><author>markdown</author><text>What is the appeal of a vegan pizza? Is it even pizza without cheese?</text></item><item><author>elif</author><text>The price of animal agriculture products is artificially lowered by direct subsidy, price controls, and indirectly lowered by the unaccounted ecological costs. It is largely a matter of policy rather than a reflection of market forces.&lt;p&gt;On a level playing field, the cost competitiveness is there. For instance, in New Zealand, one of the largest dairy export markets, I can buy a vegan pizza for the same price. In fact, I can buy it from Dominos, a US brand that doesn&amp;#x27;t even offer it in the US.</text></item><item><author>Nbox9</author><text>I think it’ll be a big win when plant-based burgers are cheaper than animal based burgers.  From a raw ingredients standpoint plant based food should almost always be cheaper than animal based food because the costs associated with farming plants is lower than the costs associated with farming animals.  Hopefully, with McDonald’s scale and with their vertical integration they can make affordable, tasty, and comparably healthy veggie burgers a reality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ceras</author><text>For anyone curious, the largest non-profit focusing on exactly that (cheap &amp;amp; delicious vegan alternatives) is the Good Food Institute: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gfi.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gfi.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>