Burger King Debuts Latest Biotech Food - The Impossible Whopper

Burger King recently partnered up with Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods to provide consumers the Impossible Whopper. Their latest menu offering features a plant-based patty instead of a beef patty, unlike anything they have ever offered before.

And Burger King is not the only fast-food restaurant to offer a meatless alternative. Other restaurants such as Carl Jr.’s, White Castle, and Dave & Buster’s debuted their own plant-based burgers in recent years.

Now with growing popularity and recommended to me by a friend, I had to try it out for myself!

My experience eating the Impossible Whopper:

• Initially the toppings were really flavorful, actually masking the patty. The pickle, onion, tomato, mayonnaise and ketchup definitely overpowered the patty.

• Then I tried the plant-based patty itself and found it actually tasted like meat albeit a very mild meat flavor.

As I was ordering, the man waiting behind me in line said, “That’s a rip-off, it costs more than a regular Whopper with real meat.” In fact, a regular Whopper is $4.19 and the Impossible Whopper cost me $6.45 in San Diego, CA. He made a good point, perhaps the Impossible Whopper should be cheaper than the regular Whopper. I imagine prices for plant-based patties will go down as they become easier to produce in the future.

I also wanted to know just how popular is the Impossible Whopper. So I asked the cashier and she said, “We get around 50 orders a day.” And that is with only a month on the market since it launched nationally on August 8, 2019.

I liked the Impossible Whopper, would recommend it to others to try, and would order it again. I walked away a changed man.

What is the Impossible Burger made of and how?

Through a process of bioengineering, Impossible Foods extracts ingredients from plants and via fermentation, and mixes them together and processes them to create the Impossible Burger. Ingredients include soy protein concentrate, several oils (including coconut and sunflower oil), and many other additives, according to the Impossible Foods website.

The key ingredient in the Impossible Burger is heme, a molecule found in all living plants and animals that provides meat flavor. Heme is created through fermentation of genetically engineered yeast.

Why the push towards plant-based meat?

Experts in Food and Agriculture are raising awareness that by 2050 the demand for meat will have surpassed what our planet is capable of producing from a land use standpoint alone, according to the article Plant-Based Meat Production 101 on gfi.org.

In addition, research led by Oxford Martin School has found that widespread adoption of vegetarian diet would cut food-related emissions by 63% and make people healthier too, according to the article Eat less meat to avoid dangerous global warming, scientists say on theguardian.com.

Furthermore, animal agriculture is a source of great concern about public health, worker safety, animal cruelty and climate change, according to the article From lab to table: Will cell-cultured meat win over Americans? on washingtonpost.com. The article also points out that the World Health Organization and the British medical journal the Lancet this year warned of the dangers of red meat. Moreover, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, also this year, announced that, for environmental reasons, he wanted to phase out processed and red meat served from city hospitals, schools and correctional facilities.

Therefore, I believe the sooner we make a shift from being dependent on meat-based foods to being dependent on plant-based foods, the quicker that we will be in harmony with the earth.

Is plant-based meat here to stay?

There is a growing appetite for plant-based meat substitutes. There are currently only two plant-based meat brands, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, making headlines.

Impossible Foods partnered with the world’s second largest fast food chain, Burger King, to offer consumers the Impossible Whopper also known as the Impossible Burger. The Impossible Burger is only available at select restaurants, and is not yet available in grocery stores. This is Impossible Foods’ signature product and was launched in 2016. The company also partnered with Little Caesars, providing a plant-based sausage for pizzas in 2019, according to Wikipedia.com.

Beyond Meat is becoming readily available at grocery stores across the country including Target and Whole Foods. The company’s first plant-based burger made it way to the meat section of grocery stores in May 2016, according to Wikipedia.com.

Therefore, yes, I believe this product is only the beginning of plant-based meat options. People want meat alternatives. And this satisfies the craving for meat.

Furthermore, I predict the creators of plant-based meats will experiment with ingredients and provide many more delicious plant-based meat options in the future. I imagine they could add different spices and perhaps increase the intensity of heme, the key ingredient that gives the patty a meat-like flavor.

Bottom Line

The Impossible Whopper is a flavorful meatless option that is one step in the right direction.

There are several life-changing benefits that may be driving the Impossible Burger’s popularity, along with its meaty taste. This is hopefully the beginning of change in society towards reducing meat consumption. We need to consume more plant-based meals including plant-based meats.

And do keep in mind, the Impossible Whopper is still fast food and you should enjoy it in moderation. It packs more than 40 percent of the entire amount of saturated fat you should have in an entire day and is high in sodium, according to the article Burger King Has a New Impossible Whopper—Here’s What Dietitians Think on Prevention.com.

I encourage you to try Beyond Meat at home. Dish it up and try experimenting with different healthy toppings. This way you avoid unhealthy toppings from your local fast food restaurant.

Cheers,

Vassili Demos

#burgerking #plantbasedmeat #biotechfoods