‘Veggie burgers’ could be off EU menu as MEPs back renaming plant-based foods

9 comments

1. I mean, ultimately it’s a good thing. Veggie patties will stay, they’ll have their own distinct name

   No more “vegan chicken nuggets” or whatever, just how there’s no “cheese sauce” in EU because it doesn’t contain enough actual cheese to be labeled as “cheese”

   Simply because corporations would be the first to feed you paper and call it vegan. They’d be 100% selling us water with chalk and call it “^(can’t believe it’s not) MILK” if it wasn’t for regulations

   Oh btw the same way you can’t use word “butter” anywhere on the pack that is not, you know, butter. None of these sneaky “brands”.

2. It’s okay, we have now properly taken into account the extremely fragile feelings of some subset of meat lovers and I personally don’t care what the veg products are called when buying them. Here in Finland we typically just change a few letters and call it a day (e.g. for sausage “makkara” becomes “maggara” or something), and the vast majority of people don’t give a fuck.

   The only questionable part is why the meat industry has this much lobbying power – that is, why they get to make the EU spend time and resources on this nonsense instead of more important matters.

3. How much is this lunacy going to cost us tax payers? Secondly, aren’t there any other, more pressing matters that need to be solved at EU level than what to call the items in the goddamn cantine?

4. Something about the fact that beef burgers are hamburgers makes this feel particularly silly to me but I can’t quite explain why. Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to be called by their original name as it could be argued as misleading lol

5. I get the “hamburger” can be seen as beef-exclusive, but then that would make mixed mince burgers not hamburgers?

   Extend it to the whole “burger” term and then that makes “chicken burger” ineligible as well. A bit weird honestly.

   Thinking that “sausage” needs to be meat-only is absurd unless the change also requires a certain content of meat. Without that, it’s hardly about “protecting a good name”; if you can call an abomination with less than 50% meat a “sausage” then a “veggie sausage” is honestly way clearer of a name which at least tells you what’s inside.

   I agree with some of the changes already passed (eg. vegetable fat products cannot be called “butter” and such) but these need to be thought out and not based on lobbying crybabies which throw slogans around that their own campaign then promptly goes against.

   If this included limits onto quality and/or meat and other ingredient contents, I’d be more for it (eg. don’t call a mostly wheat product a “sausage” unless meat content is X%) but at this point that seems just like a meat industry lobby that aims to strengthen their position, *not* protect consumers.

6. This will make the loonies who voted for brexit look like rational and sensible people.

   How much money and work hours went into doing this? Who does it benefit? No one is going to look at a vegan sausage or tempeh ham and assume it’s not vegan (the green leaf/colour would give it away). Vegan products are made for vegans/vegetarians and are kept away from meat products. What was even the need for such a ruling?

   Is this the most pressing matter of the day?

7. Why stop there? Ban the name *Buffalo wings*! Buffalos don’t have actual wings! *Fish fingers*? Preposterous! Ban it! *Garlic bread with butter & herbs*? Call it for what it is: Elongated baked grain matrix containing dairy emulsion and plant matter.

   Fucking idiots.

8. If someone is mislead by “veggie burger” or “vegan soy sausage”, they probably shouldn’t do their shopping without assistance. The companies that make these products have no interest in misleading customers, as they market towards people who actually want vegan or vegetarian food.

   This is a case of industry lobbyists trying to discourage people from buying more vegetarian food instead of meat. The EU should be against this, not only because it’s stupid (and it’s implicitly calling Europeans stupid), but also because reducing meat consumption is good for cutting down greenhouse gas emissions

9. Let’s be cynical or not. There are as many lobbyists in Brussels as people working for the EU.

   They talk about democracy and defending the citizen but they pass laws for lobbies written by lobbies.

   They waste our money and taxes on legislating on this when several pollings showed that people didn’t give a fuck if a veggie burger had the word burger in it. This was never a problem, nobody ever mistook a veggie burger for a beef burger nor was misled into doing it.

   The fact they made such a show of this decision and spread it wide and far as if it was meaningful shows how far removed from reality they are given what concerns people.

   It’s a fucking shame.

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