NY Times Wonders If The Burger Is Nearing Extinction

See, I blame you quite often for your choice to cause the Earth to eat a tasty burger instead of having lettuce (raised organically without GMO’s, of course), beans, and water, or a plant based burger, which is pretty much the same thing, right? Along comes Frank Bruni, who wastes his opinion column with this

Is the Burger Nearing Extinction?
Meat has more competition — and less justification — than ever before.

I liked my patties thin and then I liked them thick. There was the Cheddar period, followed by the Roquefort interregnum. Sesame-seed buns gave way to English muffins as ketchup traded places with special sauce or even, God help me, guacamole, which really was overkill.

But no matter its cradle or condiment, the hamburger was with me for the long haul — I was sure of that.

Until now.

A few days ago I tripped across news that McDonald’s was testing a vegetable-based patty, coming soon to a griddle near you. The McPlant burger, they’re calling it — a McOxymoron if ever I’ve heard one. And McDonald’s is late to the game. Burger King has been selling a meatless Impossible Whopper since 2019. Dunkin’ has been serving a Beyond Sausage Breakfast Sandwich for nearly as long. (snip through other nasty meatless options)

This is the future: not a meatless one — not anytime soon — but one with less meat. I’m now sure of that. It’s the inevitable consequence of alarm over climate change, to which livestock farming contributes significantly. (Gates’s meatless musings were in the context of his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”)

When does the NY Times ban burgers at their giant building which has a massive carbon footprint?

Nature’s Fynd, which has attracted almost $160 million in funding, belongs to the third track: fermentation-derived proteins made from microorganisms, like fungi, that can be coaxed in a meaty, cheesy, creamy or milky direction. This track is arguably the most exciting — in terms of affordability, versatility, environmental gentleness and untapped possibility. There are microbes out there just waiting to feed us.

This opinion piece is actually looking more like an advertisement for Nature’s Fynd, because it spends a lot of time on the company.

Last month, Nature’s Fynd unveiled a direct-order breakfast combo of faux-sausage patties and a mock cream cheese for $14.99 and quickly sold out. It’s restocking and expects to have those products plus others — maybe the yogurt, maybe meatballs — on store shelves later this year. If all goes well, it will expand from there. A burger can’t be too far off.

Wait, what? $14.99? I can get a Big Breakfast (no pancakes) with a chocolate milk at McDonald’s or head to Bonjangle’s for a steak biscuit with egg, fries, and sweet tea, both under $5 before tax. This “eco-friendly” stuff looks expensive.

But given the long love affair that many humans, including this one, have had with animal meat, is there really a chance that these substitutes can make all that much headway in the near future? Thomas Jonas, the chief executive of Nature’s Fynd, said that a conspicuous change in America’s beverage-scape suggests so.

“Ten or 15 years ago, if you were looking at soy milk or almond milk, you were looking at something that was considered to be for health stores and tree-huggers and hippies, right?” he said. Now, both take up considerable space in every supermarket I visit, and there’s nary a coffee shop without one or the other. Nobody, Jonas argued, would have predicted that.

Both soy and almond, especially the latter, use immense amounts of water to produce their product. They’re fads. And, per the tenets of the Cult of Climastrology, bad for climate change. These people are all nuts. They’re aren’t eating or drinking this stuff because they like it but because their cult tells them to.

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14 Responses to “NY Times Wonders If The Burger Is Nearing Extinction”

  1. CT Ginger says:

    The plant based meat substitute is essentially kibble. No thanks.

  2. Kye says:

    “But given the long love affair that many humans, including this one, have had with animal meat, is there really a chance that these substitutes can make all that much headway in the near future?”

    Is this guy serious? That “long love affair” of which he speaks is literally as old as mankind. But like manufacturing fictitious genders, there is no limit to how the left can manufacture sustenance out of grass and beetles. Yum.

    BTW, gas prices here have gone up to 2.99 (up from 2.25) since the fake leader seized power.

  3. Professor Hale says:

    “Burger King has been selling a meatless Impossible Whopper since 2019.”

    Selling is a bit of an overstatement. It sold a few when it was a novelty but people don’t go to a burger place to get a fake burger. Long before the fake burgers, fast food places had non-meat alternatives in the form of salads. The fact that people keep trying to formulate a meat alternative that looks and tastes like meat tells you everything you need to know.

  4. Hairy says:

    Beef consumption has been dropping since 1960 both for health and other reasons
    I myself choose to eat beef usually only once a week
    Fish 2x
    Chicken 2x
    Pork 2x

    • david7134 says:

      John,
      Please tell me how eating less beef is healthy. I have researched this concept for the last 30 years, and guess what, there is no link between eating less beef and a healthy life style, in fact the exact opposite is true. Now want to know why you believe that crap, well one of the politicians got on the idea in the 70s and it snow balled from there. Shows the destructive influence of big government.

  5. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    Teach turns it up to eleven!

    Banning burgers – no way.

    BTW, the NYTs building is a sustainable, green building. Not perfect, but what is?

    If you don’t want meatless products don’t purchase them! Those that want them DO purchase them, for either reasons of improved health or an improved environment.

    Anyone who tries to tell you that humans didn’t evolve as meat eaters is wrong. If one wants to be a vegan or vegetarian for health or environmental reasons, OK – as a moral decision, that’s a personal choice – but evolutionarily, nope.

    • Dana says:

      The esteemed Mr Dowd got something right:

      If you don’t want meatless products don’t purchase them! Those that want them DO purchase them, for either reasons of improved health or an improved environment.

      The problem is that everyone seems to be ignoring the subtitle:

      Meat has more competition — and less justification — than ever before.

      The honorable Mr Bruni, and the editors of The New York Times, are saying, in effect, that people have to justify the consumption of meat. If you have to justify your consumption of meat, then it means that your decision to consume meat must be approved by someone else!

      We get it: the left believe that individual choice must be subjugated to the will of the state. Everything the left say screams that, except they just can’t quite bring themselves to say it directly.

      • Elwood P. Dowd says:

        The estimable Mr Dana implies that criticism of choices is equivalent to subjugation by the state.

        • Dana says:

          The esteemed Mr Dowd fails to understand that criticism of choices has frequently led to restriction of choices.

          He should know better: that’s what the ‘woke’ are all about! People used to criticize those who had a Confederate flag; now displaying the Confederate flag can lead to job losses, and words and symbols the Special Snowflakesâ„¢ find hurtful are now being weaponized against normal people.

  6. Joe says:

    “if you were looking at soy milk or almond milk”. I wonder if the dipshit who wrote this article knows that soy beans and almonds are “water intensive crops”? The freaking environazis already whine about the overuse of water ( I wonder if they know it recycles itself). These two factions should battle it out and get back to us later, much later.

  7. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    Regarding fake “milks”, there are 2 questions. Are they healthier than real milk? Is the carbon footprint more or less that of real milk production?

    Water is not the issue, it’s the energy expended to get the water on the crops. I bet “they” do know that water is recyclable.

    Fake “milk” is probably not significantly healthier than skim milk. But studies show the carbon footprint of soybean “milk” is much smaller than for cow’s milk.

    • Joe says:

      You obviously don’t have to put up with the yearly whine fests put on by your ilk here in Californistan. BTW most of the almonds are grown here.

  8. Yoshi says:

    Drew Curtis wrote a book on this type of “news” He calls it “fark. Advertising masquerading as news.

  9. RebeccaH says:

    Possibly the hamburger is on its way to extinction in New York’s tonier places, partly because they will never ever let up on COVID restrictions, and partly because New York’s tonier people view eating hamburgers (and meat in general) is akin to shopping in Walmart, something that is just not done by the right people.

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