Pirep: Carl's Jr. Beyond Star vs. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburg

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
Mission Statement: Do something you know isn't a great idea and that you don't particularly want to do just so you can say you did it and gloat about it on a pilot message board.

Should you aks, for those of you that ain't know, a Beyond Burger is a vegetable based faux hamburger patty. There is a previous thread on this, although, this is a fairly comprehensive review so I figured I would create a new thread. Really, the concept is solid, from a sales and production standpoint. Think about it, how is a hamburger patty made? Enormous soy mills in the midwest process plant grains, which are processed by cattle to form beef, and further processed to the formed ground beef stock. Someone had a brilliant idea. Let's eliminate the middle man. Why not. Why not just take all of that soy plant stock and process it directly in to a burger like patty, add some coloring, tallow, salt, and various and sundry maltodextrins and such and bam, there you are. So: How does it stack up?

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For starters, a Beyond Star is basically a single, quarter pound hamburger with the Beyond Burger patty. It is your basic stripped down, base model cheeseburger. On the other hand, a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger is what I would consider a premier burger, with two patties, some barbecue sauce, and a couple onion rings. Interestingly, they packaged the single base model burger in a box, as if it were a premier burger, yet the Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger is in a plain paper wrapper. Go figure that.

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So, here it is: For the record, I do not ordinarily cut burgers in half. I am doing it here for illustrative purposes only. As you can see, the coloring and texture is a bit off, but it's not that far off. Taste wise? It's... a veggie burger. Now, as veggie burgers go, it probably is about as close to a real burger patty as you are going to get, which is, not really very. The taste is hard to describe. It had a smokey meat taste, probably cause by a smokey meat flavoring admixture, but not really a taste that is identifiable as beef. I would have to be pretty drunk and buzzed to mistake it for such. As in passed out drunk.

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Okay so this is the real deal. The Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger. Two, flame broiled joyous bundles of bovine excellence on top of two onion rings, with cheese and barbecue sauce. Now, I really didn't care about cutting the veggie burger apart because, frankly, I didn't care about it. Now, arterially severing the DWBCB was painful. It felt wrong. I felt unwhole. Unclean. But, even cut, it was ten times more satisfying than the Beyond Burger.

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Now: Here is the thing. Two things about this Beyond Burger don't work. Well okay let me rephrase that - two of the things about this Beyond Burger that stand out as not working are, 1) the nutrition, and 2) economics. Nutritionally, all the specs on fat, calories, TFA's, etc. are similar and actually the beef patty appears better on paper, ironically. Maybe it's the stuff they have to add to make it try to taste like beef. Secondly, the economics. Remember, they didn't have to turn the soy plant material in to a cow first, they just directly made it in to a burger. Should be cheaper, right? Wrong. As you can see, a single Beyond Star is more expensive that a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger. How can this be?

Any way you break it down, the Beyond Star is a burger without a mission. If you are a vegetarian and you don't like beef, why are you trying to eat something that tastes like beef? If you are a vegetarian and you like beef, why don't you stop deluding yourself in to thinking that somehow the Beyond patty is better for you? If you are a vegetarian, and you are not eating beef for religious reasons, why not just change religions? If you are not a vegetarian, why the hell are you eating a vegetarian patty? (I already answered that, I took one for the team.)
 

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Interesting view on how real beef is made. I cannot argue with it. :D
 
Booyah!

(...on completing the mission, not on the Beyond Star)

One place where the Beyond Star works is if a meat eater accompanies a vegetarian. If the vegetarian picked their favorite restaurant then the meat eater would be unhappy. Vice versa if the vegetarian picked the restaurant. This place could be a neutral ground.
 
asicer said:
Booyah!

(...on completing the mission, not on the Beyond Star)

One place where the Beyond Star works is if a meat eater accompanies a vegetarian. If the vegetarian picked their favorite restaurant then the meat eater would be unhappy. Vice versa if the vegetarian picked the restaurant. This place could be a neutral ground.
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:confused2: it the veg picked the restaurant, unhappy company. But if the veg picked the restaurant, then the other way around???

No matter how you slice it (sorry, Sac!), ain't eating fake meat. A meal ain't comolete without both meat and veggies, and I'm learning about less bread. For meal purposes, all flesh counts as meat (land, sea and sky), as do large eggs (chicken, duck, ostrich, etc.) but not tiny ones like caviar (yech!!) because they aren't filling. Shellfish are meat just as much as the slice of beef they may accompany or replace.

Meat makes a meal. Veggies and fruit are side dishes . . . . and should nit masquerade as meat. Why would a dedicated meat non-eater want to look like they are eating meat? That would be like an athiest wanting to look like they're going to church . . . . or a dedicated non-flyer trying to look like they do fly. ????

P.S.--what can I do to chicken to make it look like I'm eating brocolli? Cause that's the onky way it'll work for me, unless I can fake it with beef, pork, mutton, duck, turkey, fish and / or shellfish. :p
 
Sac Arrow said:
<SNIP>
Any way you break it down, the Beyond Star is a burger without a mission. If you are a vegetarian and you don't like beef, why are you trying to eat something that tastes like beef? If you are a vegetarian and you like beef, why don't you stop deluding yourself in to thinking that somehow the Beyond patty is better for you? If you are a vegetarian, and you are not eating beef for religious reasons, why not just change religions? If you are not a vegetarian, why the hell are you eating a vegetarian patty? (I already answered that, I took one for the team.)
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The whole point of a veggie burger is to have something similarly convenient as a beef hamburger. Say you were going on a 17 day long motorcycle trip across the western United States, and you wanted to stop for lunch as someplace quick and convenient. After a while, you get tired of eating the veggies and cheese sandwich at Subway and the garden salad at McDonalds. You'd like something else and a veggie burger would do the trick. The mistake that the veggie burger producers make is to try to make them taste like meat. Fake meat is disgusting. It is possible to make good tasting veggie burgers as long as you give up on the idea that they need to taste like meat.
 
asicer said:
If the vegetarian picked their favorite restaurant then the meat eater would be unhappy. Vice versa if the vegetarian picked the restaurant
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My biggest pet peeve with militant vegetarians.. why do I have to suffer through a quinoauia (however the F it's spelled) concoction but you can't order a salad at a real restaurant...??
 
All I eat are veggie burgers. The methane from the cattle industry is a major contributor to global warming. Veggie burgers and no straws is the way to saving the planet.
 
Velocity173 said:
All I eat are veggie burgers. The methane from the cattle industry is a major contributor to global warming. Veggie burgers and no straws is the way to saving the planet.
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Drinking soda with no straw increases burping which results in higher co2 levels which are killing the planet.
 
FormerHangie said:
Say you were going on a 17 day long motorcycle trip across the western United States, and you wanted to stop for lunch as someplace quick and convenient. After a while, you get tired of eating the veggies and cheese sandwich at Subway and the garden salad at McDonalds. You'd like something else and a veggie burger would do the trick.
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Maybe a 17 day trip on a Vespa would justify that kind of eating.
 
FormerHangie said:
I did it on a Honda NT650 with a plastic windshield. You don't need a big touring rig to tour.
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You ate veggie and cheese sandwiches and McDs salads for 17 days?
 
TCABM said:
You ate veggie and cheese sandwiches and McDs salads for 17 days?
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For lunch, pretty much. A vegetarian breakfast is no issue, and dinners can be found at Chinese and Italian restuarants, among other places, but lunches are tough, especially in small towns out west.
 
When i think of Carl's Jr this always comes to mind first. Maybe they should do a veggie burger version...id watch it.

 
I, too, would go through the drive through to avoid the personal shame of having to order that "sammich" or whatever you want to call it. Neither one are made of beef, so ya know. Both are tasty, however. Meat o'f*cking-rama - Dennis Leary, NSFW I mean it, not. safe. for. work. But turn it up way loud if you can at work. People will love your charisma.
 
Hank S said:
:confused2: it the veg picked the restaurant, unhappy company. But if the veg picked the restaurant, then the other way around???
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Darned multitasking...
Carnivore's favorite restaurant= unhappy vegetarian.
Vegaterian's favorite restaurant = unhappy carnivore.
 
Not sure whey they call it a 'Beyond' burger. If it doesn't have meat it hasn't even made it to burger status yet, much less 'beyond'.
 
I've had Beyond Meat burgers a few times that I grilled myself. I don't think it's quite as bad as Sac makes it out to be. It's probably close to 4% beef, taste wise.

However, nutrition wise it doesn't make sense. It's WAY worse than 4% beef (290 calories vs. 140). It's pretty much on par with 20% beef, which is probably what their bar for success was.

But if you're in a healthy mood, 4% beef is going to be MUCH better for you. If you're in a taste mood, 20% beef is going to taste MUCH better.

Even if you follow a keto diet and don't care about calories, the Beyond Burger also contains 5 grams of carbs, which I'd rather be spending on something else.
 
Velocity173 said:
no straws is the way to saving the planet.
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Not true. The straws really help keep the aquatic sea life population in check.

Of course, I always wonder why in the hell the restaurants that care about the environment so much that they won't give out straws won't just have the ones they serve recycled. You mean you are going to punish me in the interest of environmentalism because you can't be bothered to recycle?
 
FormerHangie said:
....The mistake that the veggie burger producers make is to try to make them taste like meat. Fake meat is disgusting. It is possible to make good tasting veggie burgers as long as you give up on the idea that they need to taste like meat.
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Agreed. The best veggie burgers definitely do not taste like meat. Homemade is better. One with black beans or something similar can be pretty good.
 
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Velocity173 said:
All I eat are veggie burgers. The methane from the cattle industry is a major contributor to global warming. Veggie burgers and no straws is the way to saving the planet.
Click to expand...

Well if there is no straw to feed the cattle, I guess then there would be no beef. You just killed two birds with one stone.
 
deonb said:
I've had Beyond Meat burgers a few times that I grilled myself. I don't think it's quite as bad as Sac makes it out to be. It's probably close to 4% beef, taste wise.

However, nutrition wise it doesn't make sense. It's WAY worse than 4% beef (290 calories vs. 140). It's pretty much on par with 20% beef, which is probably what their bar for success was.

But if you're in a healthy mood, 4% beef is going to be MUCH better for you. If you're in a taste mood, 20% beef is going to taste MUCH better.

Even if you follow a keto diet and don't care about calories, the Beyond Burger also contains 5 grams of carbs, which I'd rather be spending on something else.
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I'm not saying it is 'bad' per se, just kind of pointless. And yes, I'd prefer the 5 grams of carbs spent somewhere else. If I were to actually eat veggie burgers, I'd rather go for something nut or mushroom based. Honestly, that Beyond Burger jacked up my stomach. But most bean based products do.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I'm not saying it is 'bad' per se, just kind of pointless. And yes, I'd prefer the 5 grams of carbs spent somewhere else. If I were to actually eat veggie burgers, I'd rather go for something nut or mushroom based.
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It's not a burger, and doesn't pretend to be, but grilled Portobello mushroom caps [the big ones] sure make tasty sandwiches! The bun can make it filling, but you'll still need to add some protein to make a complete meal.
 
Hank S said:
It's not a burger, and doesn't pretend to be, but grilled Portobello mushroom caps [the big ones] sure make tasty sandwiches! The bun can make it filling, but you'll still need to add some protein to make a complete meal.
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They aren't bad, grilled and with the right sauces.
 
Sac Arrow said:
They aren't bad, grilled and with the right sauces.
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True. But they aren't burgers, and don't try to pass themselves off as one. But AOC / OCA / the Idiot from Brooklyn says that we need to eat fewer hamburgers anyway, supposedly so that her staff can have them instead. It's all part of her plan to save the planet--no burgers, no more children.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Mission Statement: Do something you know isn't a great idea and that you don't particularly want to do just so you can say you did it and gloat about it on a pilot message board.

Should you aks, for those of you that ain't know, a Beyond Burger is a vegetable based faux hamburger patty. There is a previous thread on this, although, this is a fairly comprehensive review so I figured I would create a new thread. Really, the concept is solid, from a sales and production standpoint. Think about it, how is a hamburger patty made? Enormous soy mills in the midwest process plant grains, which are processed by cattle to form beef, and further processed to the formed ground beef stock. Someone had a brilliant idea. Let's eliminate the middle man. Why not. Why not just take all of that soy plant stock and process it directly in to a burger like patty, add some coloring, tallow, salt, and various and sundry maltodextrins and such and bam, there you are. So: How does it stack up?
Click to expand...
I think I found the flaw here. I'm pretty sure the cattle, at least in NE, are corn-fed, not soy-fed. Not that switching the soy to corn would actually make much difference in the "burger", IMO.
 
I can't figure out why vegetarians go to great lengths to create stuff that tastes like meat.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I can't figure out why vegetarians go to great lengths to create stuff that tastes like meat.
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Sure you can. Meat tastes good.

I love my vegetables. There are not many that I don't like. But meat is very tasty. I think for some of them, they want the flavor without the saturated fat and cholesterol. Right or wrong.
 
asicer said:
No coffee and no chocolate? Pity.
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Like I said, most, not all. Soy bean = bad next day, soy sauce = yummmmy. I lay low on chocolate for other reasons.
 
Hank S said:
True. But they aren't burgers, and don't try to pass themselves off as one. But AOC / OCA / the Idiot from Brooklyn says that we need to eat fewer hamburgers anyway, supposedly so that her staff can have them instead. It's all part of her plan to save the planet--no burgers, no more children.
Click to expand...

Right. Actually I wouldn't eat a portabella mushroom as a burger anyway, rather as a side veggie to a steak maybe. I don't think it would work out all that great lettuce wrapped.
 
And I have an open challenge to the Beyond Burger people:

Fake a steak.
 
I’ve never met a pilot who was a vegetarian.


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