Impossible Burger

[DLgal]

People should learn to appreciate vegetables that taste like vegetables instead of pretending that they are meat.


Does this sound good to you?

Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.

Not to mention the negative health effects on women who eat too many soy based foods.

 

[Turn the Page]

I’ve never tried one, nor any of the Beyond products and I likely never will, unless it’s served to me at someone’s home. I am a meat eater and have a hard time seeing the nutritional benefit of such a highly processed product over some simple, locally sourced ground beef, which is what our fast-food chains boast of serving.

Non-meat eaters I know are glad to have these products as options and I’m glad for their sake. It doesn’t matter one iota to me what others eat or why they eat it. I am slightly wary of some of the public commentary regarding plant-based or even synthetic foods (lab grown meat) being the ultimate way to save the planet though.

I have a health condition that studies have suggested would benefit from a plant based diet. The goal of which, in my case, is to be super low in fat and especially saturated fat.

I have been slowly moving towards a more plant based diet but I do have a tendency to cheat....quite a bit sometimes. I'm getting better though.

I haven't tried the Impossible burger but I did try the Beyond burger and it was....fine. It tasted, felt, and acted more like a regular beef burger than any other plant based burgers I have had. The problem is that the Beyond burger has just as much fat as ground chuck so, for my purposes, at that point I might as well just get a regular burger.

 

[Turn the Page]

I do have a funny anecdote on this topic.

So DH manages a grocery store. He had told me about the Beyond Burger everyone was just raving about so he brought some home for me to try one night. We thawed them out, as the package instructed, and when we opened the package we both felt that the thawed patties smelled overwhelmingly like canned dog food. They tasted fine after they were cooked but we just could not stop laughing at that.

The next day, he mentioned that to his meat manager and he said that apparently the first ten ingredients on the Beyond Burger label were the same as on Alpo canned dog food. So my husband, being the kind, sweet, caring spouse that he is, informed me that had he known that he would have just gotten me a can of 88 cent Alpo and sliced it to order for me lol.

Just to clarify, he would not have actually fed me dog food. But it is a funny story.

 

[vacationer1954]

Not saying there aren't cows that are abused (I mean, veal, come on, that's pretty indefensible) but MOST cows live a very cushy life on large plots of land, where their diet is SUPPLEMENTED by other grains.

According to Dr. Dale Woerner, assistant professor with the Center for Meat Safety & Quality at Colorado State University, 97% of the beef produced in the U.S. is grain-fed feedlot beef, while the other 3% is grass-fed. And remember, the problem with CAFOs is not only the abuse of the animals, but the pollution of the land as well. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/docs/understanding_cafos_nalboh.pdf

 

[ChrisFL]

I don't understand why people would want a burger that doesn't taste like a burger. Otherwise you're just getting a sandwich of something else

 

[RamblingMad]

I don't understand why people would want a burger that doesn't taste like a burger. Otherwise you're just getting a sandwich of something else

It’s part of the slow transition to soylent green. We will reach a point, where there isn’t enough beef, or income equality gets so bad that folk won’t be able to afford it.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

People should learn to appreciate vegetables that taste like vegetables instead of pretending that they are meat.

Do you ever eat cake? Why don’t you just learn to appreciate wheat and baking soda in their natural state instead of making them into something they’re not?

Does this sound good to you?

Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.

How about this one?

Whole grain oats, sugar, oat bran, corn starch, honey, brown sugar syrup, salt, tripotassium phosphate, canola oil, natural almond flavor, Vitamin E (mixed tocopherosis), Calcium Carbonate, Zinc And Iron (mineral nutrients), Vitamin C (sodium ascorbate), A B Vitamin (niacinamide), Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (thiamin mononitrate), Vitamin A (palmitate), A B Vitamin (folic acid), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3.

I see a lot of overlapping ingredients between the two lists. The one I posted is for Honey Nut Cheerios. Perhaps not the absolute healthiest thing one could choose for breakfast, but also not generally seen as grossly unhealthy either. Plenty of people consider it a decent breakfast option for themselves and their children.

And look at this abomination of an ingredient list I found:

Marine Lipid Concentrate, Gelatin, Purified Water, Glycerin, Ethylcellulose, Calcium Carbonate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Magnesium Oxide, Ferrous Fumarate, Ascorbic Acid, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Oleic Acid, Sodium Alginate, Stearic Acid, Beta-Carotene, Biotin, Cholecalciferol, Croscarmellose Sodium, Cupric Oxide, Cyanocobalamin, D-Calcium, Pantothenate, FD&C Red #40 Dye, FD&C Red #40 Lake, FD&C Yellow #6 Lake, Folic Acid, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Niacinamide, Polyethylene Glycol, Polysorbate 80, Potassium Iodide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Silicon Dioxide, Stearic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Titanium Dioxide (color), Vitamin A Acetate, Zinc Oxide.

Whew! Who would ever put all that garbage in their body? Oh, that’s the ingredient list for One A Day Prenatal Vitamins. Prenatals, considered essential for mother and baby’s health and universally recommended for daily consumption by doctors across the board.

Long ingredient lists and big words are par for the course with processed and fortified products (and it doesn’t automatically indicate something is evil or unhealthy either). If you wish to avoid that and take a more unrefined, whole foods approach to your diet, that’s fine. But for comparison’s sake, make sure you’re comparing like items — the issue is processed vs. unprocessed, not plant-based vs. animal product.

What is all the vitamin fortification for? Are the products trying to simulate the nutritional content of meat too?

It’s not uncommon for foods to be fortified — milk, cheese, yogurt, juice, rice, cereal, bread, pasta, flour, margarine, cooking oils, table salt. They all routinely have additional vitamins and nutrients added. Even our drinking water is fortified with fluoride. It’s generally seen as something done in the interest of public health, not evidence of over-processing or “frankenfood.”

 

[bcla]

It’s not uncommon for foods to be fortified — milk, cheese, yogurt, juice, rice, cereal, bread, pasta, flour, margarine, cooking oils, table salt. They all routinely have additional vitamins and nutrients added. Even our drinking water is fortified with fluoride. It’s generally seen as something done in the interest of public health, not evidence of over-processing or “frankenfood.”

It's easy to criticize products with names that can't be pronounced easily. I remember back when that was the goal of Breyer's ice cream. Now one can look at them (after being purchased by Unilever) and they have those long hard to pronounce ingredients.

As for vitamins, I mentioned the radio ad that talks about "clean" ingredients. Apparently the manufacturer's definition of not "clean" included GMO ingredients. And way back, I remember some weird pairing on a talk show (I think Donahue during the 80s) where they had Linus Pauling and Jack LaLanne talking about vitamins. Both were proponents of megadoses of vitamins for health reasons. LaLanne believed that they had to be "natural" but Pauling (being a scientist) said there should be no difference in how the body processes them if they're in supplement form.

 

[Hikergirl]

I don't understand why people would want a burger that doesn't taste like a burger. Otherwise you're just getting a sandwich of something else

Anything that is pressed into a patty shape and grilled is a burger. It doesn't have to only be beef.

 

[bcla]

Just to clarify, he would not have actually fed me dog food. But it is a funny story.

I've tried pet foods before. I remember a relative kept some dry cat food for a fish pond. They had large goldfish that apparently at it and it was cheaper than fish food. I even tried some canned dog food once. It frankly tasted like very little of anything. If anything it tasted like wet flour - kind of bland.

There is canned dog food flavored jelly beans. I've had it before. A bit odd and I'm not sure what they compare it to.

 

[mrodgers]

I get my grass fed, grass finished beef from a local farmer (as in about 5 miles from my house. It is pasture harvested (meaning the animal is dispatched in the pasture), and then processed at a local butcher. There is nothing "cleaner" in the food chain than that. Seriously. The animal eats nothing but native prairie grasses it's entire life. And, at a price that is very competitive with (if not cheaper than) the impossible burger. There are advantages to living in exurbs on the prairie.

This, plus my children watch my beef get born, name them, feed them, and pet them for many months before we eat them.

 

[mrodgers]

I'll save the corn/corn syrup subsidy ridiculousness for another thread, but that's where things get REALLY crazy! Safe to say, cows aren't the only problem - far from it.

I just got done riding my bicycle through Ontario around Lake Ontario. It was a blessing to see no high fructose corn syrup in anything I bought while in Canada. Everything was real sugar. Even the same brand stuff we have here (aka, Heinz Ketchup since I'm from the Pittsburgh area and have worked there) was sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

Another off-topic observation, everywhere while in Canada we found garbage cans and recycle cans. I don't ever see that anywhere here in PA. Instead, I just see garbage all over the ground here.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I do have a funny anecdote on this topic.

So DH manages a grocery store. He had told me about the Beyond Burger everyone was just raving about so he brought some home for me to try one night. We thawed them out, as the package instructed, and when we opened the package we both felt that the thawed patties smelled overwhelmingly like canned dog food. They tasted fine after they were cooked but we just could not stop laughing at that.

The next day, he mentioned that to his meat manager and he said that apparently the first ten ingredients on the Beyond Burger label were the same as on Alpo canned dog food. So my husband, being the kind, sweet, caring spouse that he is, informed me that had he known that he would have just gotten me a can of 88 cent Alpo and sliced it to order for me lol.

Just to clarify, he would not have actually fed me dog food. But it is a funny story.

I can’t believe I’m even taking the time to do this, but...

While that might make for an amusing anecdote, a quick Google search will show you it’s not even remotely true.

The first ten ingredients of a Beyond Burger: Pea Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Coconut Oil, Water, Yeast Extract, Malodextrin, Natural Flavors, Gum Arabic, Sunflower Oil, Salt.

First ten ingredients of Alpo canned dog food: Water, Chicken, Liver, Meat by-products, Beef, Soy Flour, Rice Flour, Added Color, Natural Flavor (source of roasted chicken and top sirloin flavors), Guar Gum.

ETA: After posting, I realized I used the ingredient list from the original Beyond Burger. Below are the ingredients from its current incarnation:

Water, Pea Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch.

 

[Turn the Page]

I can’t believe I’m even taking the time to do this, but...

While that might make for an amusing anecdote, a quick Google search will show you it’s not even remotely true.

The first ten ingredients of a Beyond Burger: Pea Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Coconut Oil, Water, Yeast Extract, Malodextrin, Natural Flavors, Gum Arabic, Sunflower Oil, Salt.

First ten ingredients of Alpo canned dog food: Water, Chicken, Liver, Meat by-products, Beef, Soy Flour, Rice Flour, Added Color, Natural Flavor (source of roasted chicken and top sirloin flavors), Guar Gum.

ETA: After posting, I realized I used the ingredient list from the original Beyond Burger. Below are the ingredients from its current incarnation:

Water, Pea Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch.

I think it was a meme he saw on facebook or something. Not googling those always gets you in trouble. According to snopes it is similar to the ingredients list on a can of vegan dog food.....because apparently some dogs are vegans.

 

[ChrisFL]

.....because apparently some dogs are vegans.

that's a whoooole other discussion

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I think it was a meme he saw on facebook or something. Not googling those always gets you in trouble. According to snopes it is similar to the ingredients list on a can of vegan dog food.....because apparently some dogs are vegans.

Nope, that’s not true either.

“In sum, there are shared chemicals in vegan dog food and plant-based burgers. In our view, two shared ingredients out of a combined 46 (in the case of Beyond Meat) or 10 shared ingredients out of a combined 48 (in the case of the Impossible Burger) do not meet the threshold for being “indistinguishable,” and as such we rank the claim mostly false.”

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/impossible-burgers-dogfood/
The overlapping ingredients were peas and salt, and in the case of Impossible, added vitamins and minerals. I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to find a dog food ingredient list that included chicken, chicken broth, carrots, peas, celery, wheat flour, and salt, but it would be disingenuous to then claim grandma’s pot pie is similar to dog food.

 

[ronandannette]

As far as I understand, yes. According to the below article, they are virtually identical (the impossible burger has 30 more calories and 1 less gram of protein)

The sodium can be an issue if you have sodium-linked high blood pressure.
https://www.cookinglight.com/news/is-the-impossible-burger-healthy

Thanks. I assumed the main goal was just the taste/texuture.

They also aren't readily available all over the country. Most people don't know or care where their meat even comes from. I know where I live there is at least one local farm that sells beef to consumers as well as local restaurants. The restaurant will specify when it comes from that farm. But that farm feeds its cows grain, not grass. If I go to my local grocery store, I have no idea where my beef is coming from. Interestingly, the fish is labeled as whether it's wild caught or farmed, and where the farm is or where it was caught. But beef? No idea.

I can look it up. And I'm going to. But standing in the meat section, trying to buy ground beef? No signage.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_does_beef_come_from_part_1_a_geographic_perspective

Personally, I am very concerned about food-labeling laws here at home and always thought yours were somewhat superior. I strongly believe that consumers have the right to know what's in food, the source/location/origin of the major components and the location of any processing and packaging. I also think voluntarily including this information on labels (none of it other than ingredients are required here) would be good marketing. Many of us would make buying decisions differently; even choosing to spend more for products that are sourced in ways that suit our ideals, if only we had ready access to the necessary information.

Do you ever eat cake? Why don’t you just learn to appreciate wheat and baking soda in their natural state instead of making them into something they’re not?

How about this one?

Whole grain oats, sugar, oat bran, corn starch, honey, brown sugar syrup, salt, tripotassium phosphate, canola oil, natural almond flavor, Vitamin E (mixed tocopherosis), Calcium Carbonate, Zinc And Iron (mineral nutrients), Vitamin C (sodium ascorbate), A B Vitamin (niacinamide), Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), Vitamin B1 (thiamin mononitrate), Vitamin A (palmitate), A B Vitamin (folic acid), Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3.

I see a lot of overlapping ingredients between the two lists. The one I posted is for Honey Nut Cheerios. Perhaps not the absolute healthiest thing one could choose for breakfast, but also not generally seen as grossly unhealthy either. Plenty of people consider it a decent breakfast option for themselves and their children.

And look at this abomination of an ingredient list I found:

Marine Lipid Concentrate, Gelatin, Purified Water, Glycerin, Ethylcellulose, Calcium Carbonate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Magnesium Oxide, Ferrous Fumarate, Ascorbic Acid, dl-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Oleic Acid, Sodium Alginate, Stearic Acid, Beta-Carotene, Biotin, Cholecalciferol, Croscarmellose Sodium, Cupric Oxide, Cyanocobalamin, D-Calcium, Pantothenate, FD&C Red #40 Dye, FD&C Red #40 Lake, FD&C Yellow #6 Lake, Folic Acid, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Niacinamide, Polyethylene Glycol, Polysorbate 80, Potassium Iodide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Silicon Dioxide, Stearic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Titanium Dioxide (color), Vitamin A Acetate, Zinc Oxide.

Whew! Who would ever put all that garbage in their body? Oh, that’s the ingredient list for One A Day Prenatal Vitamins. Prenatals, considered essential for mother and baby’s health and universally recommended for daily consumption by doctors across the board.

Long ingredient lists and big words are par for the course with processed and fortified products (and it doesn’t automatically indicate something is evil or unhealthy either). If you wish to avoid that and take a more unrefined, whole foods approach to your diet, that’s fine. But for comparison’s sake, make sure you’re comparing like items — the issue is processed vs. unprocessed, not plant-based vs. animal product.


It’s not uncommon for foods to be fortified — milk, cheese, yogurt, juice, rice, cereal, bread, pasta, flour, margarine, cooking oils, table salt. They all routinely have additional vitamins and nutrients added. Even our drinking water is fortified with fluoride. It’s generally seen as something done in the interest of public health, not evidence of over-processing or “frankenfood.”

Ha! This post made me laugh - thanks!

As for vitamin fortification, yes, I'm aware and I didn't imply it was a negative about Beyond/Impossible. I'm not sure why it surprised me but I guess I assumed replicating the nutrition was secondary to taste/texture in these "almost meat" products.

 

[mnrose]

According to Dr. Dale Woerner, assistant professor with the Center for Meat Safety & Quality at Colorado State University, 97% of the beef produced in the U.S. is grain-fed feedlot beef, while the other 3% is grass-fed. And remember, the problem with CAFOs is not only the abuse of the animals, but the pollution of the land as well. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehs/docs/understanding_cafos_nalboh.pdf

I was going to say the same thing. The myth of cows cruising around large pastures is just that...a myth. Drive yourself down I-5 in the Central Valley of California and see what a large feed lot looks like. Awful places. And, bear in mind that grain makes them SICK. Cows were not designed to eat grain. Grass, yes. But corn? Never. Yet, in these large feed lots, it's nearly all they eat.

 

[Quartz01]

Interestingly, I was googling Beyond Meat Burgers ingredients because of the rampant Facebook memes claiming that that the burgers have the same ingredients as dog food. Talk about an agenda. It’s like the telephone game. My uncle told me that his wife works with a woman who told her that this fake burger has the exact same ingredients as dog food. She saw it in a meme on Facebook that her friend posted. True story and I made sure to pass it along so my friends and family weren’t duped into eating a dog food sandwich.

I’ve never understood the vitriol against vegans against eating animals. So much anger from my family and friends when I started politely declining their food.

Animals are still sent to the slaughterhouse in the prime of their lives whether you believe your meat is ‘clean’. They love their young just as much as we love ours.

 

[bcla]

I was going to say the same thing. The myth of cows cruising around large pastures is just that...a myth. Drive yourself down I-5 in the Central Valley of California and see what a large feed lot looks like. Awful places. And, bear in mind that grain makes them SICK. Cows were not designed to eat grain. Grass, yes. But corn? Never. Yet, in these large feed lots, it's nearly all they eat.

The Harris Ranch feedlot? That stench carries for miles. However, they do make a good steak. However, the Harris family sold out the cattle ranching but are keeping the inn and restaurant.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-harris-ranch-sold-20190415-story.html
Still - I can see plenty of pasture raised cattle all around me. There are no factory farms around the San Francisco Bay Area. But every county (except San Francisco) has relatively small-scale dairy and cattle ranching. There are dairy cattle grazing in the hills around me. I can drive through Marin and see cows everywhere. Even a place like Silicon Valley is only a few miles away from cattle ranches.

Still - this is probably just a blip. It's the big ranches in the Central Valley that produce the majority of beef in the state. And they're not always the same grass fed cattle.