Impossible burger thoughts and comments

Last week I sent out a query to MN350 members eating and cooking Impossible Meat products. I got a wide range of responses from about a dozen people. Some people talked about Beyond Meat products which are Impossible’s competitor. The responses are below. I’ve edited some for brevity and kept out peoples names because I didn’t have permission to publish them. They are sort of in the order I received them. “I personally would not recommend eating or selling such as GMOs are not food but amalgamated mutant crops that defile the land and harm the environment not improve it.” ———— “I LOVE the taste and texture of Impossible ground beef, which I've been using at home and impossible sausage which I ate at the Duluth Grill.” (This person later realized the product in her home freezer was Beyond Meat.) ——————- “Glad to offer my 2c on this subject, as we are frequent and happy consumers of meat alternatives, especially Beyond Meats products.  They are made from pea protein material; available as Beyond Beef patties or as Beyond Sausage -- spicy or mild. We prefer Beyond products to Impossible ones, in part because we understand Impossible products to be more likely made from GMO-derived plant material.  Our reasons for using plant-based products: primarily the avoidance of GHG emissions and water consumption associated with beef.” ———————— This is from a college student. She is responding, in part, to a claim by Impossible Meats CEO that animal agriculture will be eliminated by 2035. Bill Gates, an Impossible Meats backer, made a similar comment. “I’m a Latina woman who glorified tacos and other traditional Mexican meat foods her whole life. Living in a country with incredible amount of diversity that is so vital for our growth, I see consideration for cultural diversity unequivocally necessary if we’re trying to completely erase the use of animals in our food industry.  I believe Impossible Foods is a solution for meat lovers, but not a complete solution for our diverse country, where meat is more than food - its culture. Certainly, there are other factors such as affordability, that our communities consider, knowing that plant-based options are more expensive.  Anyway, that’s kind of just an opinion I wanted to share. Regardless, I’m a big fan of Impossible burgers. Whether I order it again a restaurant or cool it at home, the meat is always juicy, full of flavor, and substantially filling.” ———————- This person had written earlier and said she’d been eating them for years. “Regarding the taste - sometimes it’s been nearly identical to a beef burger in flavor/texture, other times a little more different. They’ve had two formulations over the years, a 1.0 and 2.0 version. The 2.0 definitely was an improvement in texture from the 1.0. The times where I’ve thought it was most identical to a beef patty were when it was in a cheeseburger and the greasiness of the cheese helped it resemble more of the beef mouthfeel. I think its better when it’s a thinner patty, while the thicker patties tend to be more plain and dry. “I can also see the classic shortcomings of their approach (venture capital, Big Ag/Big Soy, Big Tech’s sustainability solutions without community involvement, etc.)” ———————- I ate an Imposssible burger once and thought it tasted pretty good and looked pretty good too. I enjoyed it. Later that night I ended up getting really sick. Don't know if it was food poisoning or the Impossible burger??? That’s my experience. ————————— Check out the queerbrownvegan on Instagram’s breakdown on the Impossible burger vs Beyond burger environmental impact. We eat both. They are excellent vegan options.  ———————— I think that thus far impossible meat has achieved a very successful state whereby it could be significantly beneficial to the isolated sector of fast food. I know nothing about it’s production process, so I will just acknowledge I have no insight on if this is actually a net positive.  Finally, I will offer a bit of tempering to this optimistic outlook. I think that this is the way pro-impossible people always portray the product, and it is reasonable to think that a majority of people might share this experience and be won over by impossible meat.  The problem is that this to me is the very bare test of “can we replace animal protein.” Firstly because while the whopper comparison is pretty successful, a whopper is an extremely bland form of hamburger. They are fine and satisfying for a $3 hamburger but I wouldn’t want to eat it without ketchup or mustard.  I am still quite dubious that impossible meat could compare to say the Parlour burger.  Secondly, hamburger is surely going to be the easiest meat to substitute. Much of the flavor of hamburger dishes comes from seasonings or mixing in fats (which could come from plant sources), and the texture is deliberately broken up. The true test for impossible meat would be, can you make a synthetic sirloin or peking duck or Thanksgiving turkey?  I think impossible meat will be able to play a significant role for us but I think we are far away from even Bill Gates goal because of how central and long developed cooking traditions are to all human cultures. ————— I haven't tasted the Impossible Burger. I don't eat meat, though I don't object to others eating it. The idea of artificial "meat" doesn't appeal to me. However, a few months ago, I read a book by Amanda Little, The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, which contains, among other things, accounts of the author's visits to labs/factories where they make the Impossible Burger and some other brand of meat substitute.  Although the author talks about climate change, I was somewhat disappointed that she seems a little wide-eyed in her admiration of very high tech solutions, with less attention to things like regenerative agriculture.   —————- I eat Impossible Burgers. It's between those and Beyond Meat patties and just depends on what's on sale that week at Target. What I've been doing as of late is making vegan Juicy Lucys with them, and they're absolutely delicious. With some Follow Your Heart gouda or regular Chao in the middle, they're amazing. —————— Authors Note: I generally don’t eat meat and for twenty-five years had a meatless diet. During those years I had the rare black bean burger in a restaurant but at home we had, and have, a wide array of home cooked meals that utilize beans and grains to provide us with all the proteins we need in tasty ways. I don’t understand the attraction of these highly corporatized food preparations. Why not cook for yourself rather than have Bill Gates do it for you. As an organic farmer I’ve thought about who owns seeds a lot over the years. In my opinion, people not corporations, should be seed owners and care takers. The same goes for food. If we let Bill Gates feed us patented food there will be no food sovereignty and no food justice.  Finally, the Center for Food Safety has sued the FDA for not holding Impossible Foods to a rigorous food safety standard. They suspect Impossible’s genetically modified yeast and soy, which has not been eaten by humans before, may be an allergen. The person who thinks she had an allergic reaction probably did. Tim PS: These comments came in response to the above post: I won’t touch the impossible burger with a 10 foot pole. It’s an estrogen bomb for one. (a chef) ------- I am a person with allergies, so I am nervous about these vegan burgers. I eat a lot of legumes, whole foods etc., but having to pore over ingredient lists on these veggie burgers is troublesome for people like me. For the times I want a burger, I would rather have humanely raised and butchered turkey, chicken or more rarely, beef ones from the farmers market here, but I realize this isn’t an option for everyone. I also wonder about the disconnect with the Indigenous folks we want to ally with, who love their meat and have an Indigenous relationship with the animals who give them nourishment. ------------