GMO: Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger Smells, Tastes And Sizzles Like Meat

[Independent voter]

Would you eat this GMO product?








more at link

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...zles-like-meat



The burger looks, tastes and smells like beef — except it's made entirely from plants. It sizzles on the grill and even browns and oozes fat when it cooks. It's the brainchild of former Stanford biochemist Patrick Brown and his research team at Northern California-based Impossible Foods.

The startup's goal is like many in Silicon Valley — to create a product that will change the world.

"The demand for meat is going through the roof, and the world is not going to be able to satisfy that using animals — there's just not enough space, not enough water," says Brown, Impossible Foods' founder and CEO.

Global meat production is expected to increase by 612,000 tons, or 1 percent, this year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

So Impossible Foods has developed a burger that it says is less resource-intensive, healthier and will eventually be cheaper to produce than red meat.

It's not the only faux meat company selling bloody plant patties. Last month, Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat made headlines when it released the Beyond Burger, its pea protein burger that sizzles like real meat and "bleeds" beet juice. The burgers quickly sold out after debuting at a Whole Foods in Boulder, Colo.

Beyond Meat's investors include Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates is also backing Impossible Foods. So is billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Google Ventures. All told, the company has raised some $182 million in seed funding. Last year, Impossible Foods turned down Google's offer to buy the company for $200 million to $300 million.

The Impossible Burger is more than just peas and carrots smashed together: It's the result of some pretty high-tech research.

Brown's team analyzes meat at a molecular level to determine what makes a burger taste, smell and cook the way it does. He wants his burgers to be squishy while raw, then firm up and brown on the grill. He believes everything from an animal's fat tissue to muscle cells can be replicated using plant compounds.

Before starting the company, Brown had a hunch that a certain ingredient made meat taste different than other foods. "I had a very strong suspicion early on that heme would be the magic ingredient for flavor," said Brown.

Heme is an iron-containing molecule in blood that carries oxygen. It's heme that makes your blood red and makes meat look pink and taste slightly metallic.

It's highly concentrated in red meat, but it can also be found in plants. And that was the trick to giving Brown's meat-free burgers that blood-pink look when raw and meaty taste once cooked.

[Deleted]

The burger looks, tastes and smells like beef

Yeah yeah. So they say. I've heard the same being said about soy products by vegetarians and vegans.

[ParanoiD84]

Looks delicious to me and i like trying out new stuff so yeah i would eat it.

[Turtlewithnoshell]

Yeah yeah. So they say. I've heard the same being said about soy products by vegetarians and vegans.

Hell, I've had burgers I wouldn't eat again.

[Ripster42]

Hell, I've had burgers I wouldn't eat again.

To be fair, I'm never going to eat the same burger twice.

[Deleted]

I'd try one, they look pretty decent.

[Deleted]

So where in this fake burger is the animal fat and animal protein that my body needs?

[Elim Garak]

I try to eat only GMO products because they are superior.

[unfilteredJW]

So where in this fake burger is the animal fat and animal protein that my body needs?

It's a burger. Put it on top.

[Zantos]

I get that he thinks it wont be sustainable, but that isn't until we can stop wasting so much food. Look at how many tons upon tons of food goes to waste each year. We have to lower that amount Long before this is needed. How does he expect to make it viable? Animals are generally raised in areas where planting crops isn't viable anyway. I think this guy hasn't figured out all of its problems. Sure, its neat that he can make this out of plants, but there are several huge hurdles its got to over come at the moment.

[Deleted]

Why can't they, instead of making fake burgers out of peas and beet juice, come up with beef plants. There's already a flower that smells like rotting corpses. Can't be that hard. Just splice cow genes with corn genes and there ya go. Cow corn.

[PosPosPos]

Have no problem if they label it as such and provide info somewhere so people can make informed decisions.

[Deleted]

Sounds tasty, definitely.

[Cthulhu 2020]

So where in this fake burger is the animal fat and animal protein that my body needs?

What is missing from plant proteins and fats?

[Deleted]

What is missing from plant proteins and fats?

The soul of the cow, infused into the meat.

The above is humor, of course. Bad humor or not, it is a joke. I had to edit this in, because I know certain people on these forums won't get it.

[anon5123]

Why is there no "yes" option on the poll? It's all negative or slightly negative choices.

Nice bias, OP.

[enragedgorilla]

When I can try one , I will let you know what I think of it ,"being just like beef"...been lied to many times before.
There is more to "it is just like beef" than taste.

[Dezerte]

If it tastes good, yes. I don't know what to vote so I went with "If it saved a cow".

[Jotaux]

I'd be interested in trying it out. It says that its healthier in the article but I would like to see the nutritional value compared to beef. I have such a hard time getting enough protein as it is and I can't have whey protein so I have to have this vegan crap which tastes like crap.

[Zantos]

What is missing from plant proteins and fats?

B12 for starters. It is only found naturally from animal products. Zinc is believed to be found in a form that is easier to break down in meats then plants. There is a list of things that a vegan diet is missing or is getting an inferior version of. Thus they have to typically take vitamins.