So I've been vegetarian for nearly 10 years. I tried an impossible burger for the first time last week. I liked it, but found it to be a bit disturbing because the texture reminded me of eating actual meat. I want to have vegetarian food which is nutritious, has good taste, has good texture, and doesn't remind me of meat. So I don't think I'll stick with the impossible brand, since it fails on that last measure.
Edit: To elaborate a bit, I think foods like this may fall in an unfortunate valley where they are too similar to meat to please some vegetarians but insufficiently similar to meat to please some meat eaters. I tried the impossible burger because I had heard some complaints from meat eaters that it was not "meaty" enough for them - meaning it might not be too "meaty" for me.
As someone who eats too much meat I think the appeal for me would be to replace part of my consumption. Making tacos or a quick spaghetti? Why not use impossible meat. For me it's not going to replace local grass fed ground chuck or a wagu steak I'd occasionally treat myself with, but it might make it so I only eat meat 1-2 times a week.
And imagine the impact if these just displaced 50% of beef patties at fast food joints.
I'd love to see a world where the bottom shelf of meat isle is completely plant based.
>Making tacos or a quick spaghetti? Why not use impossible meat.
Why not use beans, or mushrooms? Or quinoa? Or cauliflower? Or lentils? All cheaper and healthier. And if they don't make sense in your dish...why eat that dish? Food combinations are endless; find something you like made up of the food you want to eat.
I'm not lecturing. I also love meat, but I have trouble wrapping my head around "vegetables and other stuff smashed together to simulate meat". Seems easier to just eat the vegetables.
This is the food equivalent of "well why don't you just use rust or scheme to solve that problem?"
Because people like meat. It tastes good, it's comforting. People like meat, that simple.
> And if they don't make sense in your dish...why eat that dish?
For a lot of people, cooking and eating is something they have to do but don't particularly care for. Maybe homie just wanted to have spaghetti with meat in it like his mom made all of his life. And now you're telling him that he should just eat something else entirely because he doesn't use quinoa in his spaghetti.
I'd rather have a bit of ground beef in my spaghetti than anything you listed. I could do mushrooms but I just... Like meat more.
Because they taste worse. It isn't rocket science. People aren't putting meat in their dishes because its healthier than putting vegetables. They are putting them in there because they are delicious in a way that vegetables, heretofore, have not been able to replace.
Agreed. I like me an Impossible Burger now and again, but I eat lentils and beans every day and make my own burger patties out of them (using quinoa, like you mentioned). Some gluten free panko breadcrumbs to help it all stick together.
The best "ground meat" texture I make is made out of overcooked lentils combined with ground walnuts. The texture is terrific! All healthy fats, no animals or palm oil fat.
That makes sense, but the Impossible brand is not for us vegetarians and vegans. So evaluating it or calling it a failure on a measure that is not its objective isn't fair :/
I think I'm more of the target market, rather than current vegetarians. Meat is my primary source of protein, and the main source of flavor in meals that I cook. I have some ethical issues involving meat, primarily in terms of how energy-inefficient it is to produce meat. Impossible Meats are exactly what I want long-term, because they will let me make the meals that I enjoy at a lower environmental cost.
Right; the reduction of intensive animal farming is the primary benefit of this stuff. Replacement sourcing for people who eat meat and would like to continue doing so. As noted in another thread, it's not at all clear that there's much of a difference personal-health-wise: even if Impossible Meat avoids some of the dietary negatives of animal meat, it probably comes with its own. You still don't want to be eating cheeseburgers three meals a day. Rather, if you were going to eat meat anyways, substitute this.
Which is honestly a great way to do it. Treating it as a religion will only make people "fail" and feel bad and quit. I'm doing (vegetarianism) for environmental reasons so 80%ing it is a big improvement. It'll be much easier to convince most people to replace meat with an alternative half the time than converting people to full true-believer veganism.
I'm going to sound pedantic but it sounds like they are plant-based. Veganism is a belief system not to exploit animals - you simply don't see animals as food anymore. Been plant based for a year myself but I'd consider myself vegan the second half as I did more research. I get asked a lot "does being around meat at the holidays tempt you?" and my answer is along the lines of "as tempted as I am to eat the family dog".
I see this said a lot but I'm not clear who else it could possibly be for besides people who like trying novel things. People who care about quality aren't going to eat impossible brand because its strongest quality is tasting like average meat within a specific format. To the same end, it's not superior in price either in my area (and that includes fast food). So who is it for besides people who want to ride the hype train?
If I can get a burger that tastes just like a regular meat burger, but didn't require a cow to die, that's a win in my book, and I'll even happily pay a small premium for that. So there's the ethical perspective of it.
In the long term, plant-based meat substitutes should be cheaper to produce than actual meat, and if you can get a burger that tastes just like a regular meat burger, but is cheaper, that's also a win. Burger King already features the Impossible Whopper, but at a premium. If that becomes cheaper than a regular meat Whopper, a lot of people, and a lot of other fast food chains will follow. So that's the economical perspective of it.
It will be cheaper eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. The only reason meat is as cheap as it is at the moment is because government subsidies on corn keep it that way. If we really paid the true cost including all of the water used to produce the grain and all that, it would be far more prohibitively expensive.
I am a person who would eat these (and am a meat eater). I care about reducing my carbon footprint, have concerns about our food supply, and also the treatment of animals to some degree. I still eat meat, but as these products improve (and they are improving very quickly), I will have them more and more often as a change from meat. My wife is also vegetarian so it also means we can share more food together.
There is definitely a use case for this, I've had impossible stuff with a lot of non vegetarians. In fact most vegetarians don't care about this product.
Ok so obvious question here, why eat fake beef if you don't want to be reminded of beef?
Edit: this got asked a lot, so I'll all a related question instead. Is it possible for a burger to have "good taste and good texture" but also not remind you of beef?
Try a turkey burgers, a chicken burger, a black bean burger, ect... There's so much better variety in veggie burgers, (and they don't cause the run to the bathroom, if you know what I mean.)
And, if you ever find yourself in India, try McDonald's vegetarian burgers. Nothing like beef, but still delicious.
Think of a "burger" as a style of sandwich. Some of us are so used to "hamburger" that it's hard to imagine the patty being anything else.
Honestly, it's worth trying a veggie burger. (A lot of people order them with bacon on top.) As long as you stay away from the "I can't believe it's not meat" style, they're delicious.
I've heard plenty of anecdotes of recent immigrants / tourists to the US ordering a "hamburger" expecting it to be ham. It's a rather awkward surprise for Indians who will eat pork, but not beef.
> Is it possible for a burger to have "good taste and good texture" but also not remind you of beef?
Ever had a turkey burger? The meat has a different taste and texture from beef, but it's not bad.
Also see alligator, elk, deer, chicken sausage, etc. "Exactly like beef" is not the end-all-be-all of "satisfyingly meaty", even when you only include actual meat.
>Is it possible for a burger to have "good taste and good texture" but also not remind you of beef?
Yes! I had one today for dinner in fact. The one I ate today the patty was made with mushrooms, tempeh, and wheat berry. Greens, aioli, pickes & pickled vegetables on top.
And this is why you vegetarians and vegans aren't he target. I couldn't eat that. I don't like mushrooms or tempeh and I don't know what a wheat berry is. To be fair, I don't like most foods. I eat steak with salt and pepper and baked potatoes with butter and salt. Pickled anything is a non starter. I also don't like most cooked vegetables, almost no cooked fruit (no pie, thank you), dressing that isn't ranch or anything with a weird texture.
Impossible is a blessing because I can be a boring eater and still do ad little harm as possible.
(Being a picky eater sucks. I wish I liked food. I promise, it's not because I like being a pain. My policy is that I'll try anything twice, to avoid any initial bias. I'm just kind of broken.)
For what it's worth, before I became a vegetarian that would have also sounded gross to me. I avoided nearly all vegetables, most sauces (even on dishes like pasta), any kind of salad dressing (and most salads as well). I still only really drink water.
I feel like there's a really big hump to get over with expanding a pallet, where once you have even just one or two new foods under your belt it becomes easier to learn to like other ones. For me, it was (and still is) kind of a snowball effect. I'm eating more variety of food now than I ever ate before, but I'm still a lot more narrow than other people I know.
I spent a relatively large portion of my adult life trying to learn to eat vegetables, and it wasn't until midway through transitioning to a vegetarian that I suddenly discovered the magic of sauteing with a little butter and salt instead of boiling vegetables until they were all soft and waterlogged and horrible, or baking them until they just turned into hot mush. That was honestly kind of surreal -- years of not liking veggies, and occasionally trying them in different recipes to see if something had changed, and not having anything change. And then in the space of a few weeks suddenly very quickly realizing that crunchy string beans with a tiny bit of soy sauce were delicious and that I really wanted more food like that.
That's not to say you would like the same stuff. The point is, learning to eat more things is hard, and being a picky eater is hard, and just in case you're stressed about it, don't stress about it. Just keep trying at your own pace and don't worry too much. As long as you keep occasionally experimenting, eventually you'll find a few things you like, and your pallet will expand from there.
And even if you stay a picky eater, as long as you're still getting a decent nutritional intake, and assuming you're meeting whatever dietary goals you have, then you're fine.
I'm not nearly as picky as I once was, but there are still some foods that I just can't deal with, and mushrooms are one of them. It's not just the taste or texture, it's the whole idea of them!
I'm omnivorous, but have found myself in Ubud eating a lot of vegan food before. You can have an incredible burger that isn't a beef burger, if you're appreciating it on its own merits, rather than comparing it to how close it is to a beef-burger -- love me a tempeh burger, for example. Nut cheese is great _on its own merits_ if you can free yourself from it needing to taste just like cheese, and I've had some great Cauliflower Wings.
The Impossible Whopper tastes so much like I remember regular Whoppers tasting that I nearly went back to the counter to double-check that they hadn’t given me the wrong one. Main diff: absolutely no gristle/other weird bits you’ll occasionally encounter in ground beef.
So an excellent ground beef substitute for “utility” use. Nobody’s buying a fast food hamburger to savor the delicious, high-quality beef or as part of a carefully-planned fitness and nutrition strategy.
My problem with the Impossible Whopper, at least when I tried it, was that the texture was too much like the bread, so the mouth-feel was off. But maybe I'm so use to eating beef burgers that I expect there to be be gristle/other weird bits to give some texture. I thoroughly enjoy the Beyond Meat burgers, though, as their texture is more meat-like than my admittedly-limited exposure to the Impossible burger.
If you are not anti-soy, Morning Star Original Sausage patties are quite delicious. Probably the best meat substitute I've had. They've been at it for over 40 years.
Also, soyabean is mostly GM, which doesn't go down so well in EU either, though some varieties are approved for use - possibly due to further labelling requirements: https://www.fsai.ie/legislation/food_legislation/gmos/labell... and the association with the (over)use of glyphosate.
It does, and it can also lower thyroid function. I wound up on thyroid replacement hormone because I was drinking too much soy milk. Much of the soy processing is problematic if you're trying to avoid industrialized foods. There are a lot of sites that explain these issues, so it shouldn't be hard to find one if you're interested.
Soy does not increase estrogen and I wish people would stop spreading this misinformation. Also, your situation is anecdotal and thus insignificant for trying to prove some point. I drink a gallon of soy milk a week and tofu and tempeh almost daily. Never had a problem with anything, best shape of my life, and highest test levels ever.
"I drink a gallon of soy milk a week and tofu and tempeh almost daily. Never had a problem with anything, best shape of my life, and highest test levels ever."
^^^ "your situation is anecdotal and thus insignificant for trying to prove some point."
> There are a lot of sites that explain these issues, so it shouldn't be hard to find one if you're interested.
There are lots of sites that describe everything these days. 4chan being one example. I was looking for something that had some scientific credibility.
As a vegetarian or vegan, even if you don't like the taste or it's too meaty for you. I would imagine, you would want to promote the hell out of it.
The point being, the more people you get to skip a meat meal by eating a veggie alternative, the better it is for whatever your reasons for avoiding meat are.
Why do vegans/vegetarians have to promote/preach their diet restrictions to everyone else? Can't they just be happy with their lifestyle and shut up about it? I have nothing against vegans/vegetarian, they can eat whatever they like, but I can't stand those that have to impose their diet onto the rest of the world.
> I can't stand those that have to impose their diet onto the rest of the world
I hear this complaint a lot about "imposing" beliefs, but mainly when it comes to diet. Why does diet get singled out?
It's usually considered a good thing to campaign for changes in politics (e.g. for/against drug legalisation, for/against vote reform, for/against higher taxes). You may not agree with a particular argument, but I think most people agree that being allowed to persuade people towards a point of view is part of a healthy society.
Why does politics when it comes to diet get such a visceral reaction?
> It's usually considered a good thing to campaign for changes in politics
Not true in many contexts, and comes across as preachy and holier-than-thou, especially when using guilt. Campaigning upwards is fine, even for diet, but not downwards.
Australia is burning. Animal is not only reason for climate change and species extinction but one of the big ones that we need to eliminate if we want to have a chance at stopping this madness. I'd stand up for the future of my children and grand children, so why do you value your taste pleasure more?
If climate change is your worry, then you probably shouldn't have children and grand children, as overpopulation is the single greatest cause of climate change.
Well a company offers a food you’re not forced to eat and that was enough for you to state your discomfort of people simply showing you the result of your actions. Not much more to say really
And why is that? Is it because it's more people born.. that will consume meat?
What a nonsense argument. "I won't inconvenience myself because it's not the BEST way to help the environment and the human race." In that case, I can't afford a Tesla, so I'll keep driving my F-350.
You know absolutely nothing about how I do or do not inconvenience myself, it's your comparison that is nonsense. But if you can't understand why overpopulation is a huge problem, then there is no reason to continue this discussion.
i'd say more like you're give the choice between switching to the Tesla or stopping using plastic straws, and you're picking the plastic straws option. (and you're able to afford said Tesla. it's not like either option of eating different food or not having kids is unaffordable)
That's kind of like saying that the majority of people who get cancer are old people, so we can reduce cancer rates by dying young.
The issue isn't strictly overpopulation. Its overpopulation combined with the amount of consumption. You can solve this either by reducing the population, or reducing consumption, or both. For a lot of people, there are compelling ethical, economical, and personal reasons for wanting to have children or at least avoiding restricting other people's desire for children. So in that case it makes more sense to reduce consumption.
As with any diet, it's good to spread the diet if you want more dining options. If there are more vegetarians, then businesses will have more incentive to offer vegetarian options/products. So there is a component of self-interest involved.
However, many vegetarians believe there are societal or ethical benefits to promoting vegetarianism that don't necessarily apply to other diets. It might be because they believe they have an ethical responsibility to limit the suffering of animals raised for slaughter, for example. Or they may believe that the spread of vegetarianism will curb the number of livestock and growth of pasture, which will be good for the environment.
> It might be because they believe they have an ethical responsibility to limit the suffering of animals raised for slaughter, for example.
That sounds more like a religious argument. At the extreme, some people don't believe that it matters ethically how animals are treated, and there are certainly many people who adopt an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude, or try to only eat meat from animals raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible. People are of course free to make a value judgment on these attitudes, but preaching vegetarianism/veganism on those grounds sounds too much like religious proselytizing for my taste.
I think it's fine and useful to promote non-meat diets by arguing that meat production (as we currently do it) is devastating to the environment, but religious/emotional preaching is IMO what gives a lot of vegetarians/vegans a bad name.
I can't say I experience any preaching by vegetarians/vegans. Perhaps I see the odd advert on a website or TV, or occasional news articles but the vegan/vegetarian friends/associates I have, never have them preaching at me.
Where is everyone hanging out that vegans and vegetarians are constantly pestering them? And, if you're being honest to yourself, is it really an issue in your life?
I never claimed it was an issue in my life. I've definitely had the odd veg acquaintance who has been preachy, but those tend to be people who never make the acquaintance-to-friend transition for me. My veg friends don't care what I eat, or at least have the social graces to not pester me about it.
I don't think that applies here; I don't feel particularly guilty about my meat consumption. I would prefer that animals be treated humanely, but I don't lose sleep over it. I'm far more concerned with the environmental affects of livestock farms.
Is there nothing you believe in that you believe so strongly about that you'd like it if everyone else has the same belief?
Nothing? Or as simple as "I loved watching X tv program, you should check it out too"? Surely there is something you promote in your life? If so, same thing. Why should you impose your tv watching habits on other people?
So you have never imposed your view, like or dislike of something - be it a TV program, a video game, a piece of music, a political party/piece of legislation?
Here's the thing - you may not realize it, but your lifestyle of eating meat promotes _your_ diet on to hundreds of animals every year, and literally every human being on the earth via the environmental destruction it causes. When there are victims directly and indirectly involved, it's not just a personal choice. Your diet directly destroys the world and promotes the unnecessary suffering and torture of animals.
The tone of the post, makes you sound exactly like the run of the mill militant vegans, that I have been talking to many times before, so no reason to continue.
But I will let you know that I respect your choice of not eating meat, even though you won't accept that I will continue, like the majority of people, eating meat. Have a nice day.
>Why do vegans/vegetarians have to promote/preach their diet restrictions to everyone else?
This is fundamentally the way we talk about morality - not as a matter of attitude or personal preference, but as objective facts we believe are true. Whether any particular moral statement is true or false is what most people would question, not whether moral statements are in themselves motivating. In this way, most people seem to be (1) moral realists, (2) moral internalists.
Assuming you're a moral realist, it's easy to understand why someone would "promote/preach" their diet restrictions on moral grounds - because morality, to the realist, is a matter of fact (either an "objective" morality, or a "relative" (to a culture, time, or place) one). The assumption, also, is that unlike other facts, moral facts are inherently motivating.
To the moral realist, a statement like "eating meat is morally wrong" has a truth value, in the same way "the earth is spherical" or "the earth is flat" has a truth value. The moral internalist further states that this fact is enough to provide some motivation for action, so the statement "eating meat is morally wrong" necessarily implies and states to us that "one should not eat meat" - assuming there is no failure to motivate (as may the case with depressed people or people who face extreme exhaustion, or have some other mental malady).
That's OK, you're not really the target audience, I am. My wife is vegan and I'm not. We have pet pigs, so I gave up pork. We have pet chickens now, so I've mostly given up chicken. We never have meat in the house. It's nice to have a burger and damn do I miss pork. We buy a lot of impossible. I even ate the whopper, despite finding everything at burger king to be inedible. (It was OK. Tasted like a crap burger, so it was entirely convincing.). I'm very excited about this.
I see your point and I don't blame you. But for myself, it is the opposite: I've always been a meat eater, and I'm looking for a vegetarian burger that mimics the taste and texture of meat as closely as possible...for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is the sheer engineering novelty of it. I can't help but cheer on these efforts and I'm always eager to try the latest attempt.
I believe my meat-eating friends who say they can tell the difference, but as someone who didn't really eat burgers that often even before I became vegetarian, I can't. It tastes the way I remember meat tasting (though obviously I haven't done recent comparisons).
I've joked before that if I ordered an Impossible Burger and got served a regular one, I wouldn't know :)
It does feel kind of weird eating it. There's definitely a part of my brain that protests when I take a bite. But it's also kind of novel, and I do still occasionally miss meat -- there's also a part of my brain that feels really good while I'm eating it. I like what they're doing, and I'm happy to occasionally grab one when I see it offered.
The thing is, vegetarian food is already really good -- I don't feel like I have a problem finding tasty, nutritious non-meat dishes that are filling, satisfying meals. And that's getting progressively better, not because new foods are being invented, but just because restaurants are getting better at adding vegetarian dishes that aren't just token options. I don't think there's a need for a brand new breakthrough in that area. There is no need to swoop in and invent a compelling dish for vegetarians, we have plenty of them.
It's the space in-between vegetarian and carnivore that needs innovation.
There are vegetarian meat-substitutes that I already avoid because my aversion to feeling like I'm eating that specific meat outweighs the novelty, even though they're not that convincing. I still think it's fine to have these kind of weird "in-between" foods -- my "I don't want to be reminded of that" is someone else's "this is close enough that I could give up or cut back on the real thing." I first started down a vegetarian route once I found a taco-meat substitute that I liked; I might not have even made that initial decision to start cutting back on meat if that product hadn't existed.
Being pedantic here. You're an omnivore, and not a carnivore, since the parts other than the patty are made from plants in real Whoppers too. Carnivores are animals who eat only other animals (or animal parts). You can say you're a heavy meat eater instead, if you want to emphasize that behavior or preference of yours.
That is the entire purpose of the product though. Burger patties that cater to vegetarians have been around for a long time and taste nothing like meat.
I think this is a big issue for a lot of vegetarians and vegans. The few times that I've ordered Impossible burgers, I could not shake the feeling that the kitchen got my order wrong and gave me a meat burger.
>I want to have vegetarian food which is nutritious, has good taste, has good texture, and doesn't remind me of meat.
I'm not even sure it's "healthy". The entire purpose of the product is to taste and feel like real meat. Although, I'm with you in that I don't understand why anyone would want to eat a food with a mile-long ingredient list because it's "like the real thing". There are plenty of healthy vegetarian alternatives to hamburger, obviously.
Sweet Earth makes great plant based burgers. I try to avoid saying the phrase "veggie burgers" because it scares people into thinking of those frozen green hockey puck things of years past lol. But these days they are fantastic. Look for the ones with all vegetable ingredients and no oil.
It's owned by Nestle which isn't my favorite fact in the world, there are plenty of other brands though that make super healthy burgers out of things like lentils, quinoa, and black beans. Or of course, roll your own.
I think it’s ok to eat this stuff as long as people don’t believe that this is healthy food. I have been vegetarian for a few years now. I cook mostly Indian food which I love but I still miss stuff like fried chicken or a good burger from time to time. So occasionally I eat some soy stuff or behind burger. Just don’t think that this is healthy...
I've been a vegetarian twice as long as you. I'm at a point now where I'm enjoying the very "meaty" substitutes, but 10-15 years ago I felt the same as you, didn't want anything that reminded me of meat.
Edit: To elaborate a bit, I think foods like this may fall in an unfortunate valley where they are too similar to meat to please some vegetarians but insufficiently similar to meat to please some meat eaters. I tried the impossible burger because I had heard some complaints from meat eaters that it was not "meaty" enough for them - meaning it might not be too "meaty" for me.