Sorry vegans, Burger King's Impossible Whopper won't do anything to save animals

The hope that if we buy enough vegan products that capitalism’s merciless exploitation of the vulnerable will magically end is fairy-tale stuff

The Impossible Burger patty, which is in the vegan whopper, was tested on animals according to PETA (Getty)

Burger King is launching a new product – the vegan whopper. The fast food giant says that, in blind tests, few people could tell the difference between the new burger and its meaty cousin.

The chain becomes the latest to tease vegans through its doors with a plant-based product. It is set to be snapped-up by vegans who believe that spending money this way will “show demand” and eventually transform the planet into an animal-loving haven.

Well, this vegan thinks that’s a whopping great mistake. The new burger may have no meat, dairy or eggs in it but I think it’s about as vegan as foie gras.

Veganism is not a diet – it’s a lifestyle and a philosophy. It is about more than what we put on our plates: it is a daily endeavour for compassion towards animals in all aspects of our lives.

Sometimes we will make mistakes, but we shouldn’t knowingly stray from the path just to satisfy our tastes buds for a few minutes. Spending money at huge companies that kill cows can never be part of a truly ethical lifestyle. In fact, spending your money that way only feeds the beast that says it’s okay to exploit animals.

The hope that if we buy enough vegan products that capitalism’s merciless exploitation of the vulnerable will magically end is fairy-tale stuff. Talk of "ethical capitalism" is as laughable as the meat industry’s claims of "humane slaughter".

The number of vegans in the UK has grown fourfold in the past four years from 150,000 to 600,000, according to the Vegan Society. We are a regular feature in the media. The shelves of supermarkets and menus of restaurants increasingly cater for us.

But veganism’s recent successes could also be the movement’s undoing. It’s a tragedy that veganism, once a byword for compassion and rebellion, has instead become so consumerist and conformist. Neither approach will help the animals.

The green pound is being seduced and handed over indiscriminately. Big businesses know a credulous consumer group when they see one. They’ve noticed that many vegans will absolutely pelt through the doors of any chain that offers a plant-based option, regardless of how badly that chain treats animals.

The Impossible Burger patty, which is in the vegan whopper, was tested on animals. According to one campaign group, Impossible Foods tested one of its burger ingredients – soy leghemoglobin – by feeding it to 188 rats in three separate tests, killing them, and cutting them up. Absolutely horrific stuff – no vegan should go within a mile of this product on that basis alone.

The patty bleeds as you bite into it, to imitate the blood that oozes out of beef burgers. You have to wonder whether a vegan who wants to pay cow killers to cook them a burger that bleeds has really left behind the bloodthirstiness of the whole meat racket.

Businesses like Impossible Foods may have some re-labelling to do in the near future, as the EU looks set to revise the rules so that veggie and vegan burgers are re-named "veggie discs" for accuracy. There are suspicions that meat industry lobbyists are behind this move, which shows that while vegans are having some effect on the market, the slaughter bosses remain all-powerful.

It’s great to be around at a time when being vegan is so much easier than it used to be but vegans must remember what it’s about. I can’t put it better than the Unoffensive Animal group did at an animal rights march in London last summer: "We're not here to make the vegan food aisles bigger, this is about animal liberation."