What a wild ride vegetarianism and veganism has had. There was a time when the plant-based diet condemned you to bread, chips, or strange tomato bean stews (if you were lucky). People would make shit jokes about hemp, and you had to deal with stupid questions about whether you’d sit in an Uber with leather seats. Now, vegetarianism and veganism is on a mad one. Cheese? Vegan! Mayo? Vegan! Pizza Hut? Vegan! A nugget? Vegan!
Indeed this week, the beef-centric, beef-loving, beef-shagging Burger King has announced that it will be trialling a vegetarian burger. According to the Guardian, the “Impossible Whopper” will be rolled out in 59 stores in the US city of St Louis, but could become available in 72,000 sites across the US if the initial launch is successful.
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The fast food restaurant’s new Whopper contains the Impossible Burger, a bleeding fake meat patty produced in California by Impossible Foods. The burger, already sold in stores and restaurants across the US and UK, is apparently so realistic that the company claims its founders can’t tell the difference.
“We’ve done sort of a blind taste test with our franchisees, with people in the office, with my partners on the executive team,” North America president Christopher Finazzo said in a press release, “and virtually nobody can tell the difference.”
Keen to see whether the burger is something anyone outside the city of St Louis can try, MUNCHIES reached out to Burger King’s UK office. A spokesperson for the brand told us over email: “Following the launch of our meat-free Whopper trial in the US, we know there is a huge appetite for alternative options to meat here in the UK. We are currently exploring opportunities to bring a meat-free burger to the UK.”
While this is cause for celebration, it won’t come cheap. Veggies will have to dish out $1 more for the burger, as fake meat companies struggle to match the alarmingly low price point of mass-produced meat in the US.
But hey, you can’t put a price on morality.