Yummyliciously Veg: The Veggie Burger that tastes like Meat
Who doesn’t love a burger?
But, vegetarians looking to get a burger fix have long been forced to settle for a substitute that bears little resemblance to a beef patty.
Now, the company Impossible foods has made a plant-based alternative that mimics the look, smell, texture and taste of beef.
What’s more! The company has found its first restaurant to actually serve its plant-based, lab-derived meat at Momofuku Nishi.
Patrick Brown, a biochemist, started the company, Impossible Foods, back in 2011 to create veggie-based burgers that “bleed”. Now, it has announced that it will introduce the Impossible Burger at Momofuku Nishi.
This is the first time the Impossible Foods “animal-free” burger will be regularly featured on a restaurant menu. It marks the commercial introduction of a new generation of delicious plant-based foods that promises to revolutionize the world’s food system.
The Momofuku chef actually heard about the burger about a year ago and decided to seek it out. Chang explains:
“I was genuinely blown away when I tasted the burger….The Impossible Foods team has discovered how to re-engineer what makes beef taste like beef. We’re always looking to support people who are making the best products in the best ways possible and to me, the Impossible Burger is one more example. First and foremost, we think this makes a delicious burger.”
The Impossible Foods burger is the product of years of research, more than $180 million in funding, and endless tinkering to try and make a plant-based product that mimics a meaty American staple. It will be priced around $12 at Momofuku (a reasonable price in the context of that menu), which should please the adventurous omnivores Impossible Foods is targeting.
The meatless burger’s magic ingredient is called heme, an iron-rich molecule that carries oxygen, found in all living cells. Heme makes animals’ blood red and gives meat its pinkish hue. By using plant heme instead of animal heme, the creators of this plant burger have been able to achieve much of the texture and taste of beef burgers, as well as a sizzling, browning, fat-emitting reaction to being grilled.
Compared to a burger made with meat, the Impossible Burger requires 95 percent less land and 74 percent less water, and it releases 87 percent less greenhouse gas emissions
“The burger is only the beginning,” Brown said. “With its introduction at Momofuku Nishi, we have begun the movement to build a new kind of global food system, one that creates new markets for farmers, supports a more resilient food supply, and offers consumers new choices for the meat and dairy products they know and love – ones that are equally delicious but made from plants.”
Early word about the taste of the burger is positive. “Two factors have made the Impossible Burger as good as it is,” said Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen and other works about food science and its history. “One is Impossible Foods’s ambition to make a plant-based burger that’s just as delicious as a beef burger, with the same satisfying flavors and textures. The other is its pursuit of a deeper scientific understanding of meat itself, and how cooking makes it delicious. This research effort has generated major new insights into the flavor of meat, and continues to drive the innovations that put the Impossible Burger in a category of its own.”
