Impossible Burger – All That or All Hype?
Impossible Burger – All That or All Hype?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard a lot of talk about the Impossible Burger created by Impossible Foods – this vegetarian meat-imitation foodstuff that claims to mimic the taste of ground beef so closely that it will fool even the most ardent, die-hard meat-eating fans. Or so the commercials would have you believe. I decided to try it for myself and see.
But first of all, why eat a glorified veggie burger when you can eat the real thing? Well, there are many reasons to switch to a more plant-based diet. I am not a vegetarian myself, but I am trying to cut back on the meat I consume for environmental and sustainability reasons. Among some of the many consequences of eating meat are the astronomically higher carbon emissions created by a meat-based diet. A study published in Nature showed that emissions per gram of protein for beef and lamb are about 250 times those of legumes! And the destruction of the Amazon rainforest is being done to clear room for raising more cattle, which compounds the greenhouse gas problem even more.
I have never been a big beef eater anyway, but I do enjoy a hamburger on occasion, so I was intrigued by the buzz around this new Impossible Burger. So far we don’t have this product available in any local grocery stores, so I headed over to Burger King to order up an Impossible Whopper.
Taste Testing the Impossible Burger
Did it taste like a delicious, juicy, beef burger? Umm…not exactly. It seemed slightly dry and not super flavorful. But did it taste like a typical fast food burger? Yeah, pretty much. I don’t eat fast food very often, but when I do have a burger from one of those places, they frankly don’t taste much different than this one did. The dryness could have easily been because it sat under the heat lamp too long. And if someone had handed me this burger and not told me it was a meat substitute, I don’t think I would have suspected.
The real test will be when they start carrying ground Impossible Burger in the grocery store and I can see if I can slip it by my significant other without him noticing. He has far more discerning tastebuds than myself. He will wax poetic about the “notes of persimmon and apricot in this excellent Shiraz,” while I enjoy the “nice red winey-ness” of it. If I can fool him, that would be the ultimate endorsement. I’ll post an update if that happens.
