Impossible burgers

[Poppy_Davis]

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 25 years, so I can’t really compare them to real meat products. For me, the patty is one of the least important components of a burger. If you have the best patty but put it on a crap bun with shredded lettuce and unripe tomatoes, it’s not going to be good. So, I’ve had the Impossible Burger, but only from Fatburger, which is a fast-food chain. All the other components are crap, so it’s just not good. That said, the chain Mendocino Farms has an Impossible Taco Salad made with Impossible fake chorizo. It is an amazing salad to which both my husband (a lifelong vegetarian) and I are completely addicted. I would buy the Beyond Meat burgers at the store, but my son really likes the Don Lee Farms veggie burgers from Costco which have a fair amount of vegetables in them, so I have no reason to switch things up.

[K_F_o_l_e_y]

CONGRATULATIONS BURGER KING: You managed to create the worst burger I’ve ever had, the Impossible Whopper

OK, I’m a bit late to the party, but I was driving home tonight, saw the sign and thought I might as well try one. As I noted below in this thread, I’ve previously have a gourmet Impossible Burger (1.0) prepared by 2 James Beard Award-winning chefs, which was entirely mediocre (especially for $16) and some Impossible Burger (1.0) meatballs, which were awful. But at least both of those were surprisingly meat-like in texture.

So tasted this side-by-side with a regular Whopper, which is bad (the mayo pretty much dominates everything). But the Impossible Whopper is PROFOUNDLY BAD.

If you think that is what meat is like, you need to stop eating your pet’s dinner. It wasn’t even very meat-like in texture.

[Joe_B]

I’m waiting for impossible veggies, made from meat but packed with healthy stuff.

[K_F_o_l_e_y]

I’m waiting for impossible veggies, made from meat but packed with healthy stuff.

Arby’s already came up with the “Meatable”:

Move over Impossible Burger. Here comes a carrot made of meat

Can’t say how healthy it is.

[Tom_G_l_a_s_g_o_w]

Sad really, you fell for a whopper?

[dcornutt]

CONGRATULATIONS BURGER KING: You managed to create the worst burger I’ve ever had, the Impossible Whopper

OK, I’m a bit late to the party, but I was driving home tonight, saw the sign and thought I might as well try one. As I noted below in this thread, I’ve previously have a gourmet Impossible Burger (1.0) prepared by 2 James Beard Award-winning chefs, which was entirely mediocre (especially for $16) and some Impossible Burger (1.0) meatballs, which were awful. But at least both of those were surprisingly meat-like in texture.

So tasted this side-by-side with a regular Whopper, which is bad (the mayo pretty much dominates everything). But the Impossible Whopper is PROFOUNDLY BAD.

If you think that is what meat is like, you need to stop eating your pet’s dinner. It wasn’t even very meat-like in texture.

+1 I am more upbeat on the regular whopper than you (edible to me) but this impossible whopper has tasteless meat. OK texture to me. I am sure that texture was their focus.

[Jim_Marmion]

CONGRATULATIONS BURGER KING: You managed to create the worst burger I’ve ever had, the Impossible Whopper

OK, I’m a bit late to the party, but I was driving home tonight, saw the sign and thought I might as well try one. As I noted below in this thread, I’ve previously have a gourmet Impossible Burger (1.0) prepared by 2 James Beard Award-winning chefs, which was entirely mediocre (especially for $16) and some Impossible Burger (1.0) meatballs, which were awful. But at least both of those were surprisingly meat-like in texture.

So tasted this side-by-side with a regular Whopper, which is bad (the mayo pretty much dominates everything). But the Impossible Whopper is PROFOUNDLY BAD.

If you think that is what meat is like, you need to stop eating your pet’s dinner. It wasn’t even very meat-like in texture.

+1 I am more upbeat on the regular whopper than you (edible to me) but this impossible whopper has tasteless meat. OK texture to me. I am sure that texture was their focus.

I had my first Impossible Whopper the other day, in fact my first Whopper of any kind. It was entirely tasteless and flaccid. The friend I was eating with, who had ordered the same, remarked: “It’s exactly the same as a regular Whopper”.

[AlexS]

Honestly, it’s completely baffling to me that any person of sound mind would ever expect a non-meat Whopper to be any less crappy than the meat version.

[K_F_o_l_e_y]

Honestly, it’s completely baffling to me that any person of sound mind would ever expect a non-meat Whopper to be any less crappy than the meat version.

Based on previous experience with Impossible meat, I wasn’t hopeful. But we scientists have to do experiments, we can’t just make assumptions. Even if it hurts.

[RichardFlack]

and while on the subject are they actually good for you?

In my opinion, no. It is not a healthy choice. I’m all for eating less meat, or eating none at all, if you prefer and are still getting your nutrients. But these meat alternatives are highly processed and contain questionable ingredients, some derived from soy (soy protein isolate, soy leghemobloin), and highly processed industrial oil (sunflower oil), that I prefer to avoid altogether, though there’s debate about whether they are “bad.” They are also quite high in saturated fat, if you worry about such things (I personally don’t, but that’s another debate), and very high in sodium. Furthermore, plant derived processed ingredients tend to end up being high in easily absorbed carbs, which can have negative metabolic impact.

I believe strongly in eating real foods, with as little processed food as possible, and thus I am inclined to be negative about things like the Impossible Burger; so I admit to some bias. Still, I think the reasons to be suspicious, at the very least, are strong.

Not to mention 5 times the sodium content of unseasoned hamburger and GMOs like Canola.

Glossing over the fact that the proper comparison would be to hamburger as actually seasoned for the grill, I would add that I have noticed that generally supermarket foods prominently advertised as LOW IN XXX (eg fat) tend also to be high in YYY (eg salt), but that is confined to the small print.

[K_F_o_l_e_y]

Honestly, it’s completely baffling to me that any person of sound mind would ever expect a non-meat Whopper to be any less crappy than the meat version.

Based on previous experience with Impossible meat, I wasn’t hopeful. But we scientists have to do experiments, we can’t just make assumptions. Even if it hurts.

Thinking about it (why am I still thinking about Impossible meat???), you know, if the patty from that “gourmet” Impossible Burger that I mentioned was subbed in for the patty in a Whopper, that would be way, way better than the regular Whopper. So it is possible to produces something edible. Probably wouldn’t make economic sense for BK to make a 100% IM burger, which is presumably why their current Impossible patty is so similar to dog food.