There's a very weird asterisk about it not being considered vegetarian. I would understand it not being vegan with the bun and all, but how did they manage to incorporate meat products into a cauliflower sandwhich?
This article (https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/chick-fil...) says it is because they include milk and eggs, which doesn't make sense, because while vegans avoid those, vegetarians eat milk and eggs. However, the article also says they don't have any designated area for prep, so your cauliflower may touch chicken or may share a fryer with chicken.
As an aside, I can kinda understand vegetarians eating eggs because chickens will just lay them and you either eat them or they rot, but vegetarians who eat milk have no moral ground to stand on.
I have a friend who won't eat any animal which has died for religious reasons.
She eats plenty of dairy, as nothing died, and considers herself vegetarian. She has in fact never eaten meat once in her life yet you have entirely discounted her moral standing.
I just think that the condemnation of others who one considers less pure than is ideal is extremely counterproductive.
For example, I often imagine what our carbon budget (and theoretical karma budget) would look like if we could get more people who are pro-animal welfare (and people who are concerned with climate change,) to accept the idea that getting a few billion people to eat less beef might be more beneficial than getting a few million to eat no beef.
There is a really interesting paper on this topic which often comes to mind titled "The seductions of clarity." [0]
There is also an interview by Sean Carrol with the author of that paper titled "C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency" [1]
Not technically true, although the reality of how the industry works means that the offspring of dairy cows are often used to make veal.
A cow must get pregnant to begin producing milk, but because we breed dairy cows for milk they produce much more than the calf needs anyway. Male calves are doomed either way to be slaughtered by the realities of how the industry works, but there is no requirement that things be this way.
Eggs are similar in that they don't technically require any particular cruelty, but the realities of how the industry functions means that male chicks are killed shortly after birth. Again, it need not be this way.
One view of how this informs our diet is that eating eggs and dairy are not necessarily cruel, they are just cruel in practice. Whereas meat consumption necessitates the killing of animals.
I don't drink milk (I don't like it), but I do eat meat. But I totally agree that the dairy industry is pretty grim, even here in the UK where we have pretty good animal rights.
Loads of calves die to supply milk, and cows are kept in a near permanent state of either being in milk (and missing their calves) or pregnant.
I really don't mind what anyone eats or drinks - but anyone who claims to be vegetarian 'because of the animals' - but then consumes dairy, is on pretty weak ground.
It’s possible to do something for moral reasons and have some measure of hypocrisy in how consistently we apply those moral principles. That doesn’t mean the effort in doing so was a waste, or that it would be better to not have tried! Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Eggs aren't a good choice either by that reasoning unless you go way out of your way to ensure they come from a source that treats their chickens well. Chickens in general are very poorly treated.
“McPlant”, a 100% plant based burger from McDonalds (might be a Netherlands-specific thing) has the same caveat and it’s because they cook the plant burger in the same kitchen as all regular meat products and they don’t want to guarantee that there won’t cross-contamination.
I think that for many vegetarians, that’s good enough. But not for all of them of course.
UK BK Vegan Bakon King is a chickenoid thingy deep fried with the chips, hence vegan. It’s edible! and has supplanted ur-chicken on our occasional dinner-and-a-show car wash outings.
Why? Why not? Considering how mass food animals are treated, fed, medicated and processed. My understanding is the chicken flavor is exogenous anyway, the flesh a near-flavorless substrate for lab-made enhancement.
I believe the target market for this sandwich is larger than just vegan/vegetarian and should include the general health conscious crowd. I imagine there’s a number of people who don’t eat Chick-fil-A because it’s not healthy. This sandwich be a way to tap into that audience. I personally eat meat, but often eat veggie burgers and other plant based burgers because (most of the time) it’s healthier (and I enjoy the taste).
I don’t think many health conscious people would even be thinking of eating at this place. Highly processed white bread with unnaturally thick highly processed batter on a small amount of vegetable cooked in god knows what oil that has probably been heated so high it has hydrogenated and turned into trans-fat… it sounds like a glycemic insulin spike artery destroying nightmare death food.
Thank you for adding this. I should have included this in my original comment.
These fast food chains are using the meatless options as a marketing ploy for people
to believe there is a healthier option. It likely is healthier than the 840 calorie fried chicken with fries, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
People like to believe they are health conscious. That’s why they order a 1200 calorie salad when they go to Apple Bees.
That's not what your source says tho, eggs are vegetarian
The key part is:
> But it is not isolated in our kitchens. We have chicken all day, every day, and that's not going away, so we want to be very candid and open and honest with our customers."
First mainstream fast food restaurant to go back on this being a bad idea and offering “non vegetarian fries” is going to financially obliterate restaurants chasing the vegan meme.
Once you’ve tasted what you’ve been missing with tallow and dripping fries the rest taste like trash.
So what you're saying is that big corporations run by some of the greediest people on the planet have somehow failed to recognize this? Or do you just think they are using plant based oils out of the goodness of their hearts?
Plant based oils ARE the chase to the bottom you're implying about.
Shipping one inferior product so make sure vegetarians/vegans order your fries at the expense of taste for everyone.
My suggestion requires integrity/vision to know that either having to ship two products or forfeit the sales of a group of people for the betterment of the product will fill a gap in the market.
One of the reasons McDonald's fries used to be so loved was because they were fried in beef tallow. That went away in the 80s/90s, they're just not the same now.
They probably don't want to have to deal with all the animal rights ideologues nitpicking them and starting drama, so they're just saying they don't care about the politics, and they can mean that by saying it's not vegetarian, so eat it if you want, otherwise go somewhere else.
