You may have heard of Beyond Meat by now, a vegan meat company founded in 2009. Since they keep them in the meat section, it took me a long time to discover them, but they were becoming hard to ignore when they started showing up at fast food restaurants like A&W and Tim Horton’s and mainstream Canadian grocery stores like Safeway and SaveOn Foods.
These 100% vegan, gluten-free, soy-free burgers made from non-gmo ingredients are not your 90s vege burger. They aren’t just pressed mashed vegetables, these are made from bean and pea protein and taste identical to beef. The nutrition isn’t identical though: these bad boys have fibre plus even more protein and iron, with less fat and cholesterol than beef! These burgers also use less water and land space and emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions than beef.
This is amazing but it feels 10 years too late! 10 years ago I would’ve eaten beyond burgers with cheese and a gluten bun, but since no fast food outlets currently offer vegan cheese now that the Beyond Burger is finally availableyet at any of the fast food restaurants nor a gluten-free bun, I’ll get just the patty for now. Yes, you can get a lettuce bun at A&W, but it’s the same price as the full burger ($6.99) but it’s just a piece of iceberg lettuce wrapped around it.
The first time I got “just the patty” at A&W, the bewildered cashier charge me $1.30 plus tax (I think that’s the price of a beef patty). The price went up to $1.49 plus tax with a sticker on the menu advertising to switch any burger patty with a beyond patty for that price. Eventually when they caught on to me, that started charging the $1.49 in addition to the beef patty for a total of $3.40 plus tax…I don’t know how that adds up, maybe there’s a vgf tax lol.
Anyway, when these burgers started showing up at Tim Horton’s (their first non-breakfast burger, I was happy to see a completely vegan sandwich (despite no cheeze), and I thought the cross-over of vegan patties but egg pucks and cheese interesting (from a marketing and converting carnivores perspective).
Timmy’s burger is just $5.69 compared to A&W’s $6.99 without cheese, but I dunno if Timmy’s does a lettuce wrap. But they do just the patty for $3.00 (40 cents cheaper than A&W and a dollar cheaper than buying them frozen in the store). @Drutter and I like to take these home and eat them with daiya cheeze, and sometimes with our own gluten free bread or buns, they’re also good with hashbrowns lol.
Tim Horton’s also has cheaper prices and more options for the beyond breakfast sausage sandwiches and wraps. Just the breakfast sausage at Tim Horton’s is $1.70 compares to $2.80 at A&W. Although fast food is usually wasteful, getting the patties at a fast food restaurant yields much less packaging (just some paper wrappers) compared to the patties from the store come with lots of thick plastic and cardboard.
Canadians were stupidly eager to invest in Cannabis stocks with legalization coming, as if they understood it lol! All the while pretending that veganism is not rising to mainstream and ignoring the stocks they should’ve been investing in.
🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔
🍔 Tim Hortons puts burgers on the menu for the first time, but they’re not made of meat
🍔 Beyond Meat expands availability of Beyond Burger in Vancouver and across Canada
🍔 Tim Hortons is adding Beyond Meat sausages to its menu
