You can make an awesome burger pattie with beef, onion, garlic, a touch of finely chopped jalapeno and some herbs and spices etc. You don't need to add salt.

Yes, and I can make a vegan burger from lentils, onion, garlic and a touch of finely chopped jalapino, herbs etc.

The comparison here is shop-bought burgers or those you would buy in a burger restaurant, which WILL have salt and likely more than a Beyond burger.

Why is that the comparison being made?

People who make their own burgers will always make healthy burgers, whether meat or vegan.

People who buy burgers or eat out are likely to get less healthy burgers, if you look at highest selling supermarket burgers, both meat and vegan options are ALL high in salt for example.

I believe the claim being made here is that "a beyond burger" is a thing which fast food chains and supermarkets will offer as an alternative to "a beef burger", that almost nobody will make their own burgers.

I have no opinion about the economics of the brand itself; as a vegetarian I've always thought they were over-priced, and also that it was a shame I don't have a huge range of alternatives, as I actually like spicy bean burgers and can't find them any more*. In fact, because of the limited alternatives in my local markets, I got a kit for making my own burgers from dehydrated soy mince and/or mashed kidney beans.

* I don't know how much of this is "bean burgers are no longer popular" vs. "I moved country and Berlin has never heard of them"; for Quorn I do at least know it's the latter.

> I got a kit for making my own burgers from dehydrated soy mince and/or mashed kidney beans.

Do you have a link or name for this? I also prefer black bean or lentil burgers, but I've been making them by hand really.

One of these, found in the discount bin in a nearby supermarket for about €10-20: https://www.discounto.de/Angebot/BESTRON-Hamburger-Maker-AMH...

There's probably also a cheaper source for the form and squasher if that's all you need, but it came with them so I didn't look for that separately.

Thanks, so the squasher is all I need I guess

Because beyond meat is junk food, whether it’s sold in supermarkets or restaurants.

Maybe awesome to you, but many people will find that exact same construction more flavorful if salt is added

But you're arguing something different now. Regardless of subjective opinion, the bottom line is salt IS optional.

This whole thread is talking about BeyondMeat burgers.

If you're comparing the healthiness of a premade vegan burger patty, you need to compare it to a premade (or equivalent homemmade) beef patty. You can't take salt out of the beef patty comparison and say "look it's better"

Edit: But you can compare it to actual products on shelves. The first frozen burger brand I can think of that would be a good comparison is frozen Bubba burger. If we compare the sodium content, Beyond patty is 3-4x higher in sodium. Beef wins! :) Although Beyond has half the fat.

It's also good for the texture if you let if rest in the fridge for a couple hours before cooking.

Yes but that would make it "unhealthy" for many Americans. So for the health-conscious eater, the real hamburger wins.

Salt is not a health concern unless you specifically have a specific subset of cardiac health problems.

The vast, vast, vast majority of people do not have any reason to restrict salt intake.

High salt increases likelihood of kidney stones

And high water increases likelihood of electrocution. And very high water increases likelihood of finding yourself with a wet T-shirt.

"Increases likelihood" is bullshit at best (manipulation more typically) without quantifying how much, and how much would it need to be to be remotely significant.

47 percent of adults in the US suffer from hypertension: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12196499/

which is much more easily explained by a garbage diet, no preventative medicine so to speak of, obesity, work/family/financial stress. there is a lot of space between 2100 mg of sodium for a 3 piece chicken w/ fries, and ~150 mg to put a little life into a patty.

> So for the health-conscious eater, the real hamburger wins.

The health-conscious are famous for their hamburger usage.

You absolutely need salt for a good burger. It is fundamental seasoning in every savoury dish at every restaurant (fast or fine) for a reason.

You may have a salt deficiency

That is just wrong. I'm not sure what to say. You don't really need salt in many things. Don't get me wrong, I like salt, but things can taste amazing without it.

You absolutely need salt for a good burger, and just about any meat. Almost anything, really. Salt is not optional. Beef tastes less like beef without salt.

Beef tastes less like salted beef without salt. Saying anything else is literally wrong.

No, because salt is a flavor enhancer. That's what enhancement is. That's why putting a pinch of salt in hot coco works.

It means one patty has around 45% of the optimal recommended sodium intake and 30% of the max recommendation.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...

You don't need salt and spices to make a burger, it can be 100% beef with no additives. A pinch of salt can be like 0.3g/burger and you're fine as well.

I don't eat that these days, my burgers are actually 25% beef and 75% lentil/seasoning. Still under 0.5g/100g

Let me assure you that you're in the vast minority if you add little or no salt at all to your home-made burger patties.

I was going to edit the comment with this but in Canada we have a company called Metro(grocer) and they often sell 4x fresh beef patties for ~$4 which is 1lb(454g) of ground beef and exactly nothing else.

It's good to eat sans salt on bbq with your desired (typically salty) toppings.

I know people salt the patty while cooking, but the topic at hand is Beyond and their patties.

....which should be compared against other premade patties and how people make and serve beef patties, not against the theoretical option that people could choose to omit salt.

The whole "salt" angle is bikeshedding - no one advocated Beyond for salt, they pick it for all of the other health benefits (fats, cholesterol)

Salt, among the ingredients in the average burger is the most likely to cause you problems. Calling it bikeshedding is a massive stretch. In a talk of the importance of the contents of your diet related only to burgers, salt is the exact opposite of bikeshedding.

Nothing whatsoever is stopping Beyond from removing salt and allowing people to salt their own burgers, as they already do.

The contribution of salt in hypertension and other issues is overblown in popular media.

I'm on blood pressure meds. I regularly check in with doctors on things. No, you shouldn't be eating unlimited salt, but sugar and cholesterol are killing (and debilitating) many more of us.

I avoided needing medicine by altering my diet to tone down salt, unhealthy fat, and sugar intake. My doctor was surprised as "everyone just takes the meds."

Still meat is very low sodium, it is weird to say plant based alternatives have less sodium since both have as much salt as you add since there is almost none naturally.

But then you're comparing apples an oranges: meat is low in sodium in its unprocessed form, but so are all the ingredients of the plant-based alternative before adding salt.

What matters is not so much the natural form, it is how the product is typically consumed.

But of course I see your point that with home made meat-based patties, you are in control of how much salt you want to add, while with factory made patties, you have to take what you get, it's typically not possible to "take away" salt. Mind you, though, the latter argument holds for both plant-based and meat-based factory-made patties.

Beyond sells a ground beef substitute which has about 3x as much sodium as lean ground beef.

Did you get the point about how you usually season meat (with salt) before you eat it? Beyond Beef has 230mg of sodium per 100g (according to their website), even a pinch of salt you add for seasoning easily contains 10x that amount.

Also, do you expect the vegan alternative to have exactly the same nutritional values as their meat counterparts?

Look, I don't even know why I'm defending Beyond here, I'm certainly not a fan (as a matter of fact, I don't like their beef patties). But I think the arguments you've made are not entirely fair.

The sodium content is about 3x higher. It doesn't taste 3x higher.

If you're salting your recipe with traditional ground beef, you're doing the same with Beyond. If not, same.

I do not expect or even encourage the content of any alternative to match the nutritional value of the real deal.

A typical pinch of salt is 300mg. Not 2300mg.

When the base product has 3x as much sodium, that is a problem. It doesn't need that much because as you stated, you can add salt during cooking. As a great example, let's take a use case for Beyond which is taco meat. I add taco seasoning (my own which is about 30% sodium compared to a traditional) and now the Beyond version is still roughly 250% the sodium content.

I can't remove the sodium they add. It's not a product I like or desire. It's more expensive. It's less healthy (note how often I mention reduced salt) for myself.

Also, I have been a strict vegan in life for about 5 years. I still didn't eat Beyond (aside from tasting it) during that period (it was available).

I'm not really trying to attack Beyond here, it's all personal preference at the end of the day. I make 95% of my food, from bread to tomato sauce to pickled peppers and hot sauce. When I am reaching for a vegan protein, I reach for lentils.

Yes, sorry, you're right - I made a mistake looking up how much salt is in a pinch.

The difference is you CAN'T get Beyond meat to make patties without preservative-levels of sodium. You CAN get ground beef and make patties without preservative-levels of sodium.

The GP is talking about health conscious folks

I remember working in a restaurant many years ago, where it was part of new hire training to demonstrate the importance of salt and pepper to a burger's taste. We would make 3 burgers, one no seasoning, one poorly seasoned, and one properly seasoned to the spec, and then we would taste test them all. The difference in taste was so night and day I was shocked the first time I participated in the test. Yeah I guess you don't technically need salt and spices, but not adding them or using just a pinch is not the same thing at all.

I think the problem is lot's of people here don't have much kitchen experience and underestimate the effect.

But anyway, I think a pre-seasoned vegan ready made burger patty should only be compared to a pre-seasoned meat burger patty. It's an Apples and Oranges comparison with little meaning.

If you compare the high sodium of a vegan ground beef replacement with ground beef, that's fair game. The one from Beyond here is actually a good example of too high sodium. I won't judge. I only care about the comparison, not the company.

I have made burgers hundreds if not thousands of times and I have never done more than roll ground beef into a ball ans squish it flat. Salt and spices are completely unnecessarily, who am I, Gordon Ramsey? Sliced onion on top of the patty does plenty of work.

You are comparing a prepared product to a raw ingredient. Raw beef is pretty boring which is why every single restaurant add some combination of salt, pepper, mayo, ketchup, mustard, oil, butter, gochujang, etc to make it into food. If you want to convince the world to eat unseasoned beef and onion burgers be my guest but you have a tougher hill to climb than the vegetarians. Eat what makes you happy, but maybe acknowledge it's not actual cooking.

That's quite a little rant, but I'm still going to just roll the meat up and squish it, and objections to this are the most retarded vegan rhetoric I've ever heard by a long mile.

Huh.