Impossible Burger - Caveat I know Im out on a limb here !!!

[GreenBBQ]

At the risk of being shot down in flames by you guys has anyone tried this Impossible ( Non meat ) Burger. It is not available in Germany but I do plan on testing this as soon as I can since my wife is Vegan. Id be keen to hear anyones thoughts as to the "bloody, juicy" taste they claim is indistinguishable from the real thing. If it is then Im quite sure it will gain quick traction in burgers, chills and who knows what else they can fabricate from this scientific development. Perhaps not amongst this audience but certainly amongst the veggies et al as well as a good few meat eating environmentalists ( we are not all vegan though plenty argue we should be)
https://www.impossiblefoods.com/burger/

[Huskee]

Interesting. It sure looks like they're cooking a real ground meat burger. No experience, but I'd try just about anything once. Another things that makes me leery is can you really trust all their statistics? You know what they say, approx 85.4924% of statistics on the internet are made up.

[EdF]

Another one to check out, but which is not yet available in EU, is Beyond Burger. http://beyondmeat.com/

[HouseHomey]

Have three places around the corner from me who sell it on their menu.

[Mosca]

The only problem I have with it is calling it a burger, but if it tastes good I can rationalize that.

[DoubleUpOrQuit]

Hmm....the photos sure make them look juicy and delicious. I'd give them a shot.

[ComfortablyNumb]

Ever notice how they are always looking for ways to make plants taste like meat, however never try to make meat taste like plants?

This brings up so many questions. In this world of how bad 'Frakenfoods' are and we need to eat natural, how is turning plants into meat natural? The heme they use in the burger is GMO , so how can that be natural? They claim it is safe, yet it is unregulated. Isn't the rally cry against GMO is that we just don't know even if big Ag tells us it is safe? I'll wager if IB was a subsidiary of Monsanto perception would be far different.

[Barry Friesen]

I tell everyone that I BBQ for that my meat (hogs, chickens or cattle) were all vegan...

[Willy]

I find the stats they cite about the impact of livestock to be suspect--big time. Count me as a skeptic on this, even if the burger tastes fine. BTW, I'd certainly be willing to eat them if they tasted good.

We currently farm and raise livestock on roughly 40% of the earth's land (pretty much all arable land is now used for food, minus the tropical rain forests); this according to Nat Geo. This is approximately equivalent to Africa and S America. The burger folks claim 30% of land is devoted to livestock alone. Bunk, I say. Further, without animal manure or synthetic fertilizers (or "night soil"), veggies and grains can't be grown forever. You can't export nutrients off the farm without replacing them.

Grazing animals have been a part of life on earth "forever". The Great Plains did just fine when huge herds of bison roamed the plains. Whatever emissions they gave off were a part of the natural cycle of things, just like volcanic eruptions and such. The 50% increase in CO2 levels in recent decades is due solely to burning fossil fuels, which are released from very long term underground storage and HAVE NOT been a part of the CO2 cycle that has been predominant for many, many, many millennia.

None of this is to say that eating ever increasing amounts of meat is a net positive, or even neutral. Food animals, as currently produced, do indeed consume large amount of veg, grass, and grain that we might eat as part of a more efficient use of agriculturally produced calories--well, not the grass.

It'd be nice if Meat Head weighed in on this; I know it's a topic of great interest to him.

No hostility or flames intended GreenBBQ. I love these kinds of discussions.

[HorseDoctor]

A friend gave me a T-shirt that said: “If God wanted us to be vegetarians, He would have made broccoli more fun to shoot!” and another saying “If God didn’t want us to eat meat, why did He make it taste so good?” I returned the favor with one that said “Imitation is the sincerist form of flattery!”

The defense rests!🤔

[ribeyeguy]

It brings an interesting question to mind. Let's say they've succeeded and they've created a burger clone out of plants. If all things were equal in regards to taste, tenderness, juiciness, price, etc., the two are indistinguishable.....would you switch? For some reason I don't think I would. Even if there were no difference between the two I'm pretty sure I'd still opt for the real thing.

[DWCowles]

No plant burgers for me!

[Thunder77]

I would give it a go. I tried some veggie "scrapple" once, and it was really tasty.

[FireMan]

I wonder what would happen if you sous vided a veggie burger. What would it look like. At least it would be brought to the right temperature.

[Troutman]

Now I'm stating with a disclamer here that I am a declared meat eater and will NEVER not be a meat eater. I don't care if my colon explodes from being clogged with the stuff, I am a meat eater.

Having purged myself of that .... let's try to help the guy out. For purely scientific reasons, I once (it was only once mind you!) visited a vegan restaurant for lunch one day as a change of pace. I ordered the black bean burger. Had a bunch of other veggies and stuff on it, looked real good.....



... now my first reaction was .......



...but to be honest by the end of the burger it was pretty much like eating a bunch of veggies between two buns. Had no real feeling of satisfaction that this gives you .....



So sorry guy. I really have no help to give you or advice to lend. At the end of the day you can put a silk purse on a sow's ear and call her queeney but she's still always going to be a pig !!!

Just enjoy your schnitzel and a good dunkel and I hope your wife finds her burger ....