9 ms·

Mushrooms: coming soon to a burger near you

34 points by okket 9y ago

spodek 9y ago
Since we're mostly geeks here, I'll indulge in sharing that the term "plant-based" leaves out mushrooms, yeast, and other fungi. They're a whole other kingdom. > "Still, mushroom cultivation is not a green panacea." For one thing, they don't photosynthesize.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  You're technically correct, the best kind of correct.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  While the relationship isn't very close, fungi are actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants.
mythrwy 9y ago
FTA: "research has shown that substituting one-quarter of the beef in meals with mushrooms decreases caloric intake by about one-third" So what am I missing here? Substituting 1/4 of a burger with air shouldn't reduce calories by 1/3. (maybe they are talking about the entire sandwich, in which case meat had a relatively lesser quantity of calories anyway?)
- exprN 9y ago
  Perhaps people don't finish a mushroom-burger? :-)
- ape4 9y ago
  Yeah that doesn't make sense. Other articles mention the 25-30% mushroom but not the other claim. https://www.fastcompany.com/40539024/now-you-can-get-sonics-part-mushroom-part-meat-burger-everywhere https://www.fastcompany.com/40539024/now-you-can-get-sonics-...
- kbutler 9y ago
  ...so if you substitute all of the beef, you get negative caloric intake? Sorry, bulimia doesn't sound fun to me.
mangix 9y ago
The most unhealthy part of a burger is the bun. This does nothing to help that.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  No, that would still be the red meat and saturated fat (cancer risk increase and calories). Carbs have gotten an undeservedly bad rep, due to bro science. But there is still no actual proof of these assertions, only speculation.
  - Shikadi 9y ago
    Saturated fat got a bad rap because of butter. More recently studies have brought it into question how bad it is, and as it turns out, replacing saturated fats with carbs increases your risk of heart disease. Unsaturated fats are better, but saturated isn't necessarily bad for you. It doesn't help that there are hundreds of different types of saturated fat either. Not sure why you think carbs being bad is bro science, simple carbs are almost as bad as eating sugar. Eating carbs (preferably complex) is probably fine with a balanced diet including fats proteins and fiber and all, but most people don't do that. It's worth noting that general Mills basically makes the food pyramid (new and old) and it doesn't agree with modern science Edit: Decided to grab a quick source online that seems pretty unbiased since this is can be a pretty heated and opinionated topic. Other more in depth sources exist, feel free to dig in https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-about-fats-bad-and-good https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo...
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Carbs have been demonized, just like fats used to be, but both are wrong. Fats are calorie-dense, which is their primary danger (ignoring trans-fats here). Simple carbs give you plenty of calories too, and basically nothing else. People are quick to demonize all carbs, but it's only really the simple ones that are dangerous. Whole carbs are generally fine in moderation, like everything else. A lot of people are looking for foods they can binge on, with no guilty conscience, but no such food exists. It's not black/white, good/bad.
devmunchies 9y ago
> all of the flavor with none of the guilt No guilt? Because it’s less calories? How tone deaf do you have to be?
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Yes. Lower calorie intake is healthier. Simple. And less meat means less beef needs to be produced, which is better for the environment. Guilt free? Not quite. But less guilt.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    “Better” for the environment doesn’t justify eating it just for the flavor. It’s still a net negative for the environment. Just say it’s healthier. I didn’t think I needed to say it but I was mainly referring that you still need to slaughter the cow and calling it guilt free.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Less meat eaten means less animals need to be slaughtered, though.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >I didn’t think I needed to say it but I was mainly referring that you still need to slaughter the cow and calling it guilt free. There's no guilt in eating meat. Or shouldn't be. That's part of nature.
      - dh89 9y ago
        Ah, the classic appeal to nature fallacy. The most shallow and ignorant justification for animal abuse. I feel so sorry for humans addicted to animal products and who don't know why, then have to use fallacious and obviously illogical reasoning to pacify their own guilt and confusion. When it's simpler, more efficient and obvious we should be eating plants.
golergka 9y ago
Coming? I think that most of chain burger places around (above McDonald's level) have some sort of burger with mushrooms, I didn't even think it was some kind of novelty.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
Mushrooms are tasty, nutritious, very simple to grow, and they grow fast. The claims made in the article about the supposed fussiness of mushrooms does not fit with my experience. We should all eat more mushrooms, not necessarily as a meat substitute, just in general. They can bring their own fantastic richness and flavor to so many dishes, if you venture beyond the boring white button mushrooms. At least go for portobellos or something, they're so much more interesting.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bitumen 9y ago
  Emphasis on tasty! The savory “umami” nature of mushrooms complements and enhances meat wonderfully. I’ve blitzed up some dried mushrooms in a blender and mixed it into panko breadcrumbs, and it works like MSG only better. Mushrooms are basically culinary magic, and criminally underused (other than as you say, those nasty white ones) in this country. No really, I love mushrooms.
  - crowbahr 9y ago
    My new favorite mushrooms are ennoki. Local Asian food store has them insanely cheap and they're amazing pan fried with some garlic, bok choy and pepper.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    I much prefer mushrooms to tofu as a meat substitute, or as the umami component in stews or soups.
    - spodek 9y ago
      You may like nutritional yeast. I started putting a tablespoon in my bowls of soups and stews. I liked the taste enough to keep putting on more until I put in a cup or two to the whole stew.
      - 9y ago
portofcall 9y ago
Adulterating food with cheap alternatives is a way to disproportionately screw over poor people. Everyone else will just add beef to their “buy organic 100%...” list of products and pay a premium. If you want to help poeple, help them, educate them, don’t patronize them. If you want to help the environment there are economic (hold companies financially responsible for externalities) and scientific ways (additives such as seaweee to cow feed to drastically reduce methane emissions). It’s a nasty and unfair thing to assume that when someone gets a burger, they’re “overdoing it” every time. Plenty of people have an occasional burger and just want beef, not filler. For people living in food deserts, and people poorly educated or just poor, how about giving their kids healthy and edible school food? How about heavily subsidizing healthier foods for people on food assistance, and going out of our way to make those options readily available? How about bringing back Home Ec?
- testvox 9y ago
  Why not both? Not everyone wants to pay a premium for a 100% beef burger when they could be eating a cheaper, healthier alternative. Having more options is better not worse.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    I would certainly buy the 10% cheaper, healthier and less environmentally harmful burger, as long as it tastes as good as the all beef burger. It doesn't have to taste the same, just similarly good.
- kbutler 9y ago
  It was interesting to check out the marketing on the Sonic website: "Cheeseburgers Prepare to be delighted with 100% pure beef..."
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Eating beef is disproportionately bad for the environment (and your health) and should accordingly be priced at a premium. You can't fix it effectively through changing the feed or livestock farming practices, you have to replace the beef with a fundamentally less harmful alternative.
bad-joke 9y ago
I don't mean to detract from the scientific discussion, but would like to note that this is a wonderful example of the "submarine piece" as described by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Astute observation, and the cyclical nature of news reporting makes it even more common.
simonebrunozzi 9y ago
I've been living in San Francisco for almost six years now, and only recently discovered that people go "mushroom harvesting" (or mushrooming? How do you say it?), something that it's super popular where I come from (Umbria, Italy - "umbra" means shadow in Latin, as you can guess it's a forest area). More than eating mushrooms, I think we should all spend some time to harvest mushrooms ourselves, assuming we know what we are doing!
- crowbahr 9y ago
  Come si direbbe in Italiano? Fungicaccia?
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Absolutely! And please, bring someone who has mushrooming experience, don't take chances on unknown shrooms.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  I think I'll pass on letting anyone do it: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mushroom-sickness-20170602-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mushroom-sicknes...
- scruple 9y ago
  There are a number of things you can forage for in the United States, but edible mushroom hunting is generally pretty difficult because of the identification component as well as the time investment. I pick Bolete Mushrooms when I am out, sometimes, depending on where I am. Those are generally easy to pick, but there are poisonous look-a-likes you need to be aware of depending on where you are. I've also had luck with Chanterelles. It's hard, where I live (Southern California), because it is very dry in the mountains here, and even in the Sierra Nevadas. When I was in Oregon a few years ago, we stopped on our way home and picked 5 or 6 lbs. of Warabi from just off of the road at higher elevations. I think the reason it's not more common is also that you tend to need to always go a little bit deeper in to the mountains or forest than you expected to find what you're looking for, which can turn off the more risk-averse among us.
tyingq 9y ago
My son regularly cooks up a meatless dish of squash, mushrooms, zucchini, and enhancers like worcestershire that is crazy good.
jostmey 9y ago
So Nature, the most prestigious peer reviewed journal in science, might now be running paid articles for Sonic

34 points by okket 9y ago

Since we're mostly geeks here, I'll indulge in sharing that the term "plant-based" leaves out mushrooms, yeast, and other fungi. They're a whole other kingdom. > "Still, mushroom cultivation is not a green panacea." For one thing, they don't photosynthesize.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
You're technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
While the relationship isn't very close, fungi are actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants.

mythrwy 9y ago

FTA: "research has shown that substituting one-quarter of the beef in meals with mushrooms decreases caloric intake by about one-third" So what am I missing here? Substituting 1/4 of a burger with air shouldn't reduce calories by 1/3. (maybe they are talking about the entire sandwich, in which case meat had a relatively lesser quantity of calories anyway?)

exprN 9y ago
Perhaps people don't finish a mushroom-burger? :-)
ape4 9y ago
Yeah that doesn't make sense. Other articles mention the 25-30% mushroom but not the other claim. https://www.fastcompany.com/40539024/now-you-can-get-sonics-part-mushroom-part-meat-burger-everywhere https://www.fastcompany.com/40539024/now-you-can-get-sonics-...
kbutler 9y ago
...so if you substitute all of the beef, you get negative caloric intake? Sorry, bulimia doesn't sound fun to me.

mangix 9y ago

The most unhealthy part of a burger is the bun. This does nothing to help that.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
No, that would still be the red meat and saturated fat (cancer risk increase and calories). Carbs have gotten an undeservedly bad rep, due to bro science. But there is still no actual proof of these assertions, only speculation.
- Shikadi 9y ago
  Saturated fat got a bad rap because of butter. More recently studies have brought it into question how bad it is, and as it turns out, replacing saturated fats with carbs increases your risk of heart disease. Unsaturated fats are better, but saturated isn't necessarily bad for you. It doesn't help that there are hundreds of different types of saturated fat either. Not sure why you think carbs being bad is bro science, simple carbs are almost as bad as eating sugar. Eating carbs (preferably complex) is probably fine with a balanced diet including fats proteins and fiber and all, but most people don't do that. It's worth noting that general Mills basically makes the food pyramid (new and old) and it doesn't agree with modern science Edit: Decided to grab a quick source online that seems pretty unbiased since this is can be a pretty heated and opinionated topic. Other more in depth sources exist, feel free to dig in https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-about-fats-bad-and-good https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo...
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    Carbs have been demonized, just like fats used to be, but both are wrong. Fats are calorie-dense, which is their primary danger (ignoring trans-fats here). Simple carbs give you plenty of calories too, and basically nothing else. People are quick to demonize all carbs, but it's only really the simple ones that are dangerous. Whole carbs are generally fine in moderation, like everything else. A lot of people are looking for foods they can binge on, with no guilty conscience, but no such food exists. It's not black/white, good/bad.

devmunchies 9y ago

> all of the flavor with none of the guilt No guilt? Because it’s less calories? How tone deaf do you have to be?

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Yes. Lower calorie intake is healthier. Simple. And less meat means less beef needs to be produced, which is better for the environment. Guilt free? Not quite. But less guilt.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  “Better” for the environment doesn’t justify eating it just for the flavor. It’s still a net negative for the environment. Just say it’s healthier. I didn’t think I needed to say it but I was mainly referring that you still need to slaughter the cow and calling it guilt free.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    Less meat eaten means less animals need to be slaughtered, though.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I didn’t think I needed to say it but I was mainly referring that you still need to slaughter the cow and calling it guilt free. There's no guilt in eating meat. Or shouldn't be. That's part of nature.
    - dh89 9y ago
      Ah, the classic appeal to nature fallacy. The most shallow and ignorant justification for animal abuse. I feel so sorry for humans addicted to animal products and who don't know why, then have to use fallacious and obviously illogical reasoning to pacify their own guilt and confusion. When it's simpler, more efficient and obvious we should be eating plants.

golergka 9y ago

Coming? I think that most of chain burger places around (above McDonald's level) have some sort of burger with mushrooms, I didn't even think it was some kind of novelty.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

Mushrooms are tasty, nutritious, very simple to grow, and they grow fast. The claims made in the article about the supposed fussiness of mushrooms does not fit with my experience. We should all eat more mushrooms, not necessarily as a meat substitute, just in general. They can bring their own fantastic richness and flavor to so many dishes, if you venture beyond the boring white button mushrooms. At least go for portobellos or something, they're so much more interesting.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bitumen 9y ago
Emphasis on tasty! The savory “umami” nature of mushrooms complements and enhances meat wonderfully. I’ve blitzed up some dried mushrooms in a blender and mixed it into panko breadcrumbs, and it works like MSG only better. Mushrooms are basically culinary magic, and criminally underused (other than as you say, those nasty white ones) in this country. No really, I love mushrooms.
- crowbahr 9y ago
  My new favorite mushrooms are ennoki. Local Asian food store has them insanely cheap and they're amazing pan fried with some garlic, bok choy and pepper.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I much prefer mushrooms to tofu as a meat substitute, or as the umami component in stews or soups.
  - spodek 9y ago
    You may like nutritional yeast. I started putting a tablespoon in my bowls of soups and stews. I liked the taste enough to keep putting on more until I put in a cup or two to the whole stew.
    - 9y ago

portofcall 9y ago

Adulterating food with cheap alternatives is a way to disproportionately screw over poor people. Everyone else will just add beef to their “buy organic 100%...” list of products and pay a premium. If you want to help poeple, help them, educate them, don’t patronize them. If you want to help the environment there are economic (hold companies financially responsible for externalities) and scientific ways (additives such as seaweee to cow feed to drastically reduce methane emissions). It’s a nasty and unfair thing to assume that when someone gets a burger, they’re “overdoing it” every time. Plenty of people have an occasional burger and just want beef, not filler. For people living in food deserts, and people poorly educated or just poor, how about giving their kids healthy and edible school food? How about heavily subsidizing healthier foods for people on food assistance, and going out of our way to make those options readily available? How about bringing back Home Ec?

testvox 9y ago
Why not both? Not everyone wants to pay a premium for a 100% beef burger when they could be eating a cheaper, healthier alternative. Having more options is better not worse.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I would certainly buy the 10% cheaper, healthier and less environmentally harmful burger, as long as it tastes as good as the all beef burger. It doesn't have to taste the same, just similarly good.
kbutler 9y ago
It was interesting to check out the marketing on the Sonic website: "Cheeseburgers Prepare to be delighted with 100% pure beef..."
KozmoNau7 9y ago
Eating beef is disproportionately bad for the environment (and your health) and should accordingly be priced at a premium. You can't fix it effectively through changing the feed or livestock farming practices, you have to replace the beef with a fundamentally less harmful alternative.

bad-joke 9y ago

I don't mean to detract from the scientific discussion, but would like to note that this is a wonderful example of the "submarine piece" as described by Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Astute observation, and the cyclical nature of news reporting makes it even more common.

simonebrunozzi 9y ago

I've been living in San Francisco for almost six years now, and only recently discovered that people go "mushroom harvesting" (or mushrooming? How do you say it?), something that it's super popular where I come from (Umbria, Italy - "umbra" means shadow in Latin, as you can guess it's a forest area). More than eating mushrooms, I think we should all spend some time to harvest mushrooms ourselves, assuming we know what we are doing!

crowbahr 9y ago
Come si direbbe in Italiano? Fungicaccia?
KozmoNau7 9y ago
Absolutely! And please, bring someone who has mushrooming experience, don't take chances on unknown shrooms.
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
I think I'll pass on letting anyone do it: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mushroom-sickness-20170602-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mushroom-sicknes...
scruple 9y ago
There are a number of things you can forage for in the United States, but edible mushroom hunting is generally pretty difficult because of the identification component as well as the time investment. I pick Bolete Mushrooms when I am out, sometimes, depending on where I am. Those are generally easy to pick, but there are poisonous look-a-likes you need to be aware of depending on where you are. I've also had luck with Chanterelles. It's hard, where I live (Southern California), because it is very dry in the mountains here, and even in the Sierra Nevadas. When I was in Oregon a few years ago, we stopped on our way home and picked 5 or 6 lbs. of Warabi from just off of the road at higher elevations. I think the reason it's not more common is also that you tend to need to always go a little bit deeper in to the mountains or forest than you expected to find what you're looking for, which can turn off the more risk-averse among us.

tyingq 9y ago

My son regularly cooks up a meatless dish of squash, mushrooms, zucchini, and enhancers like worcestershire that is crazy good.

jostmey 9y ago

So Nature, the most prestigious peer reviewed journal in science, might now be running paid articles for Sonic