They did the impossible! It’s a veggie burger that actually tastes good!
Hey everyone, it’s Jeff, and here we go, starting another week of practicing English today on this Monday morning. That’s for you anyway; for me, it’s Sunday, and it’s time for my favorite part of the week, when I get to turn on all my devices, connect all my cables, press “record” and talk to all of you for a little bit. I hope you have as much fun listening as I have making the program. This is episode 184 and that means you can find all the episode resources online at PlainEnglish.com/184, courtesy of JR, the producer.
I never thought I would say it. I never thought I would say that a veggie burger is actually good, but I’m here to tell you: the Impossible Burger is a good burger and its 100 percent meat-free. On today’s episode, we’ll talk about the new meatless craze and I’ll share the results of my veggie burger taste test. The phrase we’ll talk about today is “in keeping with,” and since it’s Monday, I have a quote for you.
Meatless burgers mimic the real thing
To most carnivores, the word “veggie burger” provokes a range of reactions, none of them very good. We generally think of a dry, flavorless patty that crumbles apart in your mouth—or even between the bread. In fact, if you can get a traditional veggie burger in your mouth, you might not be able to tell the difference between the patty and the bun.
Throw all that out, because now two new companies have re-invented the whole idea of a veggie burger. The market leaders are Beyond Meat, which recently debuted on the stock market, and Impossible Foods, whose showcase product is the Impossible Burger.
The Impossible Burger is starkly different from the typical veggie burger usually made from soy and a variety of other vegetables. It’s the result of years of research and thousands of tests, as the company tried to use any and all kinds of plant products to reproduce the flavor and sensation of eating a beef burger.
The Impossible Burger patties are made from soy and potato protein, coconut and sunflower oil, flavor and binder. (More on that in a minute.) In place of animal protein, the patty contains potato and soy protein. Animal fat is what gives a grilled beef patty its tantalizing sizzle but the Impossible Burger substitutes animal fat with sunflower and coconut oils, which still allows the patties to sizzle up when grilled or pan-fried. The beefy flavor is courtesy of heme, an iron-rich compound found in every living organism.
Methylcellulose holds all the ingredients together. This fiber-rich chemical compound extracted from cellulose helps to bind the burger together; without it, the ingredients would just fall apart. The result is a burger that, when cooked well, has a slightly pink middle, grill marks on the outside, and a beefy texture. With a few caveats, I can confirm that the Impossible Burger does mimic the sensation of eating a beef burger.
Impossible Fever has swept the nation. The burger is available at restaurants and bars around the country, with each restaurant lending its own take on the patty. It’s on the menu in 9,000 restaurants and the company’s revenue has increased 50 percent in just the last year. Katy Perry dressed up as an Impossible Burger for a gala fundraiser at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then, it struck gold: a partnership with Burger King. In fact, the nation’s third-biggest burger chain took down a huge chunk of the supply of Impossible Burgers. I originally wanted to write this episode in early May, and after visiting several restaurants in three states—that is not an exaggeration—I gave up.
A delicious, Instagrammable, celebrity-endorsed burger that’s not meat: is there anything not to like? Well, whether or not it’s healthy is still up for debate. In terms of calories, there isn’t much of a difference between a classic beef burger and an Impossible Burger patty. The caloric range is about 240 and 300 calories. The vegan burger contains healthier fats, comparably less sodium and cholesterol, and has more fiber than a beef patty. However, real burgers—I’ll still call burgers made from meat “real burgers”—they have more protein.
The biggest objection to the Impossible Burger is the feats of chemical engineering necessary to make them. Remember that thing called methylcellulose, the binder? And all of the extracts and substitutes used to make the burger? That’s not exactly in keeping with the movement toward more-natural, less-processed food.
The Impossible Burger is not for everyone. First, ironically, many vegetarians don’t like it. Why? It tastes too much like meat! A lot of vegetarians gave up meat because they don’t like the sensation or the idea of eating an animal’s flesh: a product that mimics that very thing is not their idea of gourmet. Second, if you really love good beef burgers, the Impossible Burger is not going to measure up to your favorite. But it’s a good stand-in, if you’re looking for a good meal and not an exact replica of your favorite burger.
Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat either are producing or have plans to produce meatless breakfast sausage, Italian meatballs, turkey, even fish.
So are we ready for the results of my taste test? I went with a friend to the Old Irving Brewery on Montrose Avenue close to my house here in Chicago and got an Impossible Burger. It had lettuce, tomato, and onion on it—the classic toppings. But it also had vegan cheese and a vegan bun. I forgot to order it with regular cheese and a regular bun, unfortunately.
The patty was surprisingly thick—I was expecting something the thickness of a McDonald’s burger, but it was much thicker than that. And the flavor and consistency is pretty much what I remember from back in March. Here’s how I would describe it: it’s like a beef burger in every way, except it doesn’t have that delicious beef taste. I know it sounds weird, but that’s what I mean. It looked right. It felt right. It had grill marks. The texture was right. It was pinkish on the inside. And it didn’t taste like anything else. It’s not like I was tasting vegetables. Its taste was more than neutral—almost like a low-quality burger. Like something that might have been frozen and just thrown on the grill. The vegan cheese was a big mistake. That really took away from the experience; the vegan cheese tasted awful. I almost want to go back and get another one, only without cheese and on a regular bun. Maybe someday soon.
The second item on the taste test is the Beyond Meat burger, which I bought in the grocery store and cooked myself. Since I prepared this myself, I had a much more complete experience with it. This one was more burnt-orange in color. It cooked up well on the grill, I must say. It got some good grill marks on it. As for the taste, it was different than the Impossible Burger. I didn’t put gross “cheese” (air quotes) on it, so there’s that. It had a bit more of its own flavor. I put ketchup, lettuce, tomato, and onions on top. And my verdict is, it wasn’t a bad sandwich; it just wasn’t a burger, to me.
To be fair, I wasn’t really expecting either of these to taste like a real beef burger. If I had to choose one, I would say the Impossible Burger. Now also to be fair, while most veggie burgers taste like cardboard, there is one type that I genuinely like, and that is a black bean burger. If I could choose between an Impossible Burger and a black bean veggie burger, I’d go with the latter.
Time to say hi to a few listeners. I had never heard of the Calabria region of Italy before, and then I heard from two listeners from this part of southern Italy in the span of about three days—they would be Antonio and Domenico. Grazi to Antonio and Domenico for saying hi from beautiful southern Italy.
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