EU parliament votes to ban meat names for plant-based foods
(www.bbc.co.uk)
from FelixCress@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 10 Oct 2025 07:08
https://lemmy.world/post/37144130
from FelixCress@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 10 Oct 2025 07:08
https://lemmy.world/post/37144130
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/37144126
#world
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Dumb ploy in favor of the meat lobby. Consumers aren’t confused, they clearly know it’s a different product than meat. Stores put it in a separate section. We have hundreds of products with non-literal names to help consumers understand what they are trying to be.
The reality is that meat agriculture is bad for the environment, bad for public health (both individual health and for how it spreads disease), and is less shelf stable. It isn’t going anywhere, though, so stop trying to put barriers in front of better choices.
Even the picture used in the thumbnail highlights how hard it is to ‘accidentally’ purchase a veg patty over a beef patty. There’s variations in the type of meat patties available like Angus, wagyu, smash, etc. but that’s not being regulated. No one is accidentally buying ‘sparkling protein’
Obviously, true Hamburgers can only be made from humans born and raised within the Hamburg city limits.
Just like meat from vegans could technically be sold as ‘vegan meat’
And in the end, nothing changes except the packaging soon says “vegan burger alternative” instead of “vegan burger”. Then the meat industry jacks up the price and people buy more and usually cheaper vegan alternatives.
I wonder if sausages with skin not made from intestine will still be allowed to be called sausages, since that’s what a sausage is supposed to be made from.
I guess they’ll have to come up with a new name for blood sausage too.
Like haggis? Or black pudding?
Strictly speaking, black pudding is a kind of blood sausage, but we'd probably use the former term for the entire category in Britain.
Some people classify haggis as a sausage, but it's definitely not a blood sausage.
Interestingly, those names carry different meanings in different languages. For example, a “Wurst” in Germany (which now has to be meat) is either the meat based food product or alternatively a sausage shaped object. So the whole EU ruling makes even less sense because it removes long established meanings from words or makes those illegal.
Honestly I think that this might be a good thing for veggie prosucts
Some vegetable products make for pretty bad versions of their meat based counterpart but would be great products on their own accor
Yes, but also why does the government need to be involved?
I understand wanting clarity in good naming and standards, but I’ll never confuse a tofu burger or reconstituted mycelium protein nuggets with actual meat.
There is no real risk to the consumer in having language like tofu burger and veggie steak
Because consumers should not be misled by deceiving manufacturers.
Yeah I know my comment was 3 whole paragraphs and you can’t read gud, but I actually managed to address that
Nope
Stupid reason. Burger used to mean pork and beef. There were laws for this. Now we have chicken burgers?? Yeah nobody cares.
Would it be OK to sell some cheap dog meat burgers as “vegan”? I meant taste would be probably the same but still misleading, don’t you think?
Straw man argument. That’s not what’s happening here.
This is exactly what is happening here. Heavily processed plant pulp being named like meat to deceive the customers, otherwise almost nobody with even a shadow of good taste would eat this shit.
Lol wtf are you talking about dude?
No vegetarian/vegan sees this packaging as tricking them into eating meat.
No meat eater is seeing this packaging as meat. And if they do get tricked into eating this product, holy shit they accidentally ate a plant.
God forbid you have some fiber in your diet.
Can you read?
Ok bud.
If you see “plant burger” and you are misled to think that it must be made of beef, that says a lot more about you than the manufacturer.
There is no such thing
I ate one last night. I assure you that plant burgers exist.
*heavily processed plant pulp discs
as opposed to heavily processed animal pulp discs
I’m very much against the self righteous types of vegans that go around reminding everyone like they’re an Arch user.
But… This is a stupid waste of EU time and resources. We have a lot more pressing matters to concern ourselves with than something literally nobody is confused about.
Some people in certain positions must be incredibly petty to even suggest this.
In my 2 decades online ive seen vastly more posts bitching about vegans than actual vegans preaching. Such a fucking big-meat psy-op
I’ve had militant vegan neighbours when I was a student. I don’t know how they did it, but they found ways of turning every conversation about them and their “superior” life choices.
Then there are the vegans I sometimes meet during my summer work ours; the ones standing on the street and bothering everyone walking past them in a very persistent manner. Like a jehova’s witness.
I’m not saying every vegan is like this. I think I’ve met more vegans that didn’t rub it in everyone’s face than ones that did. But consider yourself lucky that you haven’t met anyone like that in twenty years.
I’m wondering if this is because of regulations like, “it has to have X amount of peanuts to legally be called peanut butter.”
This would be the silliest version of it.
A burger or a sausage is more like a format of food rather than a specific ingredient of food. It would be like saying things sold as a “loaf” can only be made of wheat.
So there is nothing better for them to do? No bigger problems? Seriously.
Yeah, these are our biggest problems. Perks of living between but not under Putin and Trump. It’s stupid though, but at the same time a big issue. Mega corps (in the meat and dairy industry) having too much influence, pushing these dumb laws. It sounds innocent, but there’s a much bigger issue behind it. Same as in the US, how it all started and how it created the country’s current downfall: Mega corps destroying society for their own profits.
Next up, no labeling “hot dogs” as such, unless they include dog meat in them!
Don’t forget that squirrel, raccoon, and possum meat. That’s where the magic flavor comes from!
Yeah, except they’re deciding to ban the word “burger” from veggie-burgers??
“hamburger” is named what it is, because it wasn invented in Hamburg.
This is politically-correct type idiocy.
_ /\ _
It’s not about being politically correct, it’s about appeasing the meat industry lobbies and helping them keep market share.
Is it just me or do the burgers smell like cat food?