We Tried It: The Impossible Burger

The Impossible Burger‘s tagline is simple thus: “Made entirely from plants for people who love meat”– so goes the forthright marketing for a new veggie burger that “tastes, looks, and bleeds like beef”.

While “bleeding like beef” isn’t exactly a compelling reason for us to try this burger, the fact that eating an Impossible Burger uses 95% less land than a real beef burger and causes a 87% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions while using 74% less water than beef, is.

The Impossible Burger is made primarily from wheat and potato protein, fat from coconut oil, and fermented heme (the source of the meaty flavor) that allows its makers (Impossible Foods, who aim to make foods that are “high on taste, low on impact”) to make a realistically meat-like burger that contains no animal products. The burger is completely vegan, and, to us, still tastes like beef. In a blind taste test between this and a real burger, only half the testers could tell the difference– crazy!

While we don’t love that this burger is made with soy (which causes environmental and health problems in its own right), we like the fact that it uses significantly less soy than competing “meat-like” veggie burger brands like Boca Burger.

While it doesn’t taste any better than our personal favorite Superiority Burger, the Impossible Burger does taste more like real meat, if that’s something you’re interested in. Our verdict: if you’re looking to ditch meat but can’t seem to live without it, the Impossible Burger is definitely worth a try.

Plus, unlike other respected veggie burger brands like Dr. Praeger’s and Hilary’s Eat Well, the Impossible Burger is being fried up at respected burger joints across the country, from Bareburger to Umami Burger and beyond. In this way, you can have your burger and eat it with your carnivorous friends, too.