"they're lower in sodium and saturated fat than your average hamburger patty"
If you buy a Beyond patty, it has way more sodium than ground beef you'd buy at a grocerty store. Comparing it with a fast food burger isn't really fair.
>it has way more sodium than ground beef you'd buy at a grocerty store
We're not comparing fairly here. A finished hamburger patty is not pure ground beef. Did you ever make a hamburger patty yourself? You add salt and spices at a minimum.
A more fair comparison would be looking at store-bought hamburger patties. That's the same category of food.
I just compared Beyond (0.75g salt per 100g) and block house American Burger (0.88g per 100g). The patties are somewhat similar in weight, too (113g and 125g). So both in absolute, and weight relative amounts the Beyond burger has less sodium.
You can make an awesome burger pattie with beef, onion, garlic, a touch of finely chopped jalapeno and some herbs and spices etc. You don't need to add salt.
I believe the claim being made here is that "a beyond burger" is a thing which fast food chains and supermarkets will offer as an alternative to "a beef burger", that almost nobody will make their own burgers.
I have no opinion about the economics of the brand itself; as a vegetarian I've always thought they were over-priced, and also that it was a shame I don't have a huge range of alternatives, as I actually like spicy bean burgers and can't find them any more*. In fact, because of the limited alternatives in my local markets, I got a kit for making my own burgers from dehydrated soy mince and/or mashed kidney beans.
* I don't know how much of this is "bean burgers are no longer popular" vs. "I moved country and Berlin has never heard of them"; for Quorn I do at least know it's the latter.
People who make their own burgers will always make healthy burgers, whether meat or vegan.
People who buy burgers or eat out are likely to get less healthy burgers, if you look at highest selling supermarket burgers, both meat and vegan options are ALL high in salt for example.
That is just wrong. I'm not sure what to say. You don't really need salt in many things. Don't get me wrong, I like salt, but things can taste amazing without it.
This whole thread is talking about BeyondMeat burgers.
If you're comparing the healthiness of a premade vegan burger patty, you need to compare it to a premade (or equivalent homemmade) beef patty. You can't take salt out of the beef patty comparison and say "look it's better"
Edit: But you can compare it to actual products on shelves. The first frozen burger brand I can think of that would be a good comparison is frozen Bubba burger. If we compare the sodium content, Beyond patty is 3-4x higher in sodium. Beef wins! :) Although Beyond has half the fat.
You absolutely need salt for a good burger, and just about any meat. Almost anything, really. Salt is not optional. Beef tastes less like beef without salt.
You don't need salt and spices to make a burger, it can be 100% beef with no additives. A pinch of salt can be like 0.3g/burger and you're fine as well.
I don't eat that these days, my burgers are actually 25% beef and 75% lentil/seasoning. Still under 0.5g/100g
I remember working in a restaurant many years ago, where it was part of new hire training to demonstrate the importance of salt and pepper to a burger's taste. We would make 3 burgers, one no seasoning, one poorly seasoned, and one properly seasoned to the spec, and then we would taste test them all. The difference in taste was so night and day I was shocked the first time I participated in the test. Yeah I guess you don't technically need salt and spices, but not adding them or using just a pinch is not the same thing at all.
I think the problem is lot's of people here don't have much kitchen experience and underestimate the effect.
But anyway, I think a pre-seasoned vegan ready made burger patty should only be compared to a pre-seasoned meat burger patty. It's an Apples and Oranges comparison with little meaning.
If you compare the high sodium of a vegan ground beef replacement with ground beef, that's fair game. The one from Beyond here is actually a good example of too high sodium. I won't judge. I only care about the comparison, not the company.
I was going to edit the comment with this but in Canada we have a company called Metro(grocer) and they often sell 4x fresh beef patties for ~$4 which is 1lb(454g) of ground beef and exactly nothing else.
It's good to eat sans salt on bbq with your desired (typically salty) toppings.
I know people salt the patty while cooking, but the topic at hand is Beyond and their patties.
....which should be compared against other premade patties and how people make and serve beef patties, not against the theoretical option that people could choose to omit salt.
The whole "salt" angle is bikeshedding - no one advocated Beyond for salt, they pick it for all of the other health benefits (fats, cholesterol)
Salt, among the ingredients in the average burger is the most likely to cause you problems. Calling it bikeshedding is a massive stretch. In a talk of the importance of the contents of your diet related only to burgers, salt is the exact opposite of bikeshedding.
Nothing whatsoever is stopping Beyond from removing salt and allowing people to salt their own burgers, as they already do.
Still meat is very low sodium, it is weird to say plant based alternatives have less sodium since both have as much salt as you add since there is almost none naturally.
But then you're comparing apples an oranges: meat is low in sodium in its unprocessed form, but so are all the ingredients of the plant-based alternative before adding salt.
What matters is not so much the natural form, it is how the product is typically consumed.
But of course I see your point that with home made meat-based patties, you are in control of how much salt you want to add, while with factory made patties, you have to take what you get, it's typically not possible to "take away" salt. Mind you, though, the latter argument holds for both plant-based and meat-based factory-made patties.
The difference is you CAN'T get Beyond meat to make patties without preservative-levels of sodium. You CAN get ground beef and make patties without preservative-levels of sodium.
I have made burgers hundreds if not thousands of times and I have never done more than roll ground beef into a ball ans squish it flat. Salt and spices are completely unnecessarily, who am I, Gordon Ramsey? Sliced onion on top of the patty does plenty of work.
You are comparing a prepared product to a raw ingredient. Raw beef is pretty boring which is why every single restaurant add some combination of salt, pepper, mayo, ketchup, mustard, oil, butter, gochujang, etc to make it into food. If you want to convince the world to eat unseasoned beef and onion burgers be my guest but you have a tougher hill to climb than the vegetarians. Eat what makes you happy, but maybe acknowledge it's not actual cooking.
Pure soy doesn't taste too good in my experience. I tend to prep the dehydrated stuff I get with (ironically) soy sauce, which is quite salty, plus whatever else the recipe I'm using the soy in calls for. In the case of soy burgers, that mince needs some binding agent.
It's odd, as I generally agree that "pure soya" doesn't taste that great, but I do prefer the taste of edamame beans which are just young soybeans. Products like tofu generally need more flavour adding to it - and I personally like tofu and eat it fairly regularly, so I'm not biased against it.
Also, I like the taste of Natto (soybeans fermented in straw) though that's generally thought of as an acquired taste.
I've never eaten a beyond burger or anything like that at home. At home the improvement in flavour over tofu or just beans isn't worth it. I can get flavour from herbs spices and other ingredients. I've only ever eaten beyond burgers at restaurants.
"Loaded with sodium" is what the agrolobby wants you to think. If you knew what goes into supermarket burger patties I guarantee you would never want to touch them ever again. Look up nitrates for starter, which is used as a preservative in some meat products: burgers, hotdogs, cold cuts.
I think a lot of those here are likely warehouse club buyers- Costco doesn't add anything to their ground beef or frozen patties. Sams 'seasons' some of their patties, but no nitrates.
You asked "Who's buying Burger King more than grocery shopping?"
My point was that groceries in general don't matter, only burgers. Some people almost never eat burgers at home and eat them exclusively at places like Burger King.
We're not comparing fairly here. A finished hamburger patty is not pure ground beef. Did you ever make a hamburger patty yourself? You add salt and spices at a minimum.
A more fair comparison would be looking at store-bought hamburger patties. That's the same category of food.
I just compared Beyond (0.75g salt per 100g) and block house American Burger (0.88g per 100g). The patties are somewhat similar in weight, too (113g and 125g). So both in absolute, and weight relative amounts the Beyond burger has less sodium.