Round 1: grilled
Imo impossible meat is superior to beyond although nutritionally it’s a mixed bag. It introduces a decent amount of carbs (9g per 4oz) and has over 5x the sodium of beef. But it also has a bit of fiber and a either comparable or more vitamin/mineral content than beef. Protein is comparable to 80% ground with 20% less caloric content
Beyond is similar.
They’re both basically vegetable proteins with binders and fats and some flavorings. The big game changer flavoring is leghemoglobin which both use. It’s a protein isolated from soy that is very similar to certain enzymes from bovine muscle. Impossible got the fda to approve it in 2019 and it was challenged; there are some concerns on whether it is safe to eat. I’m not super well read on the issue but from what I’ve perused the issue is one of a lack of long term testing and not of any direct concern.
The textural difference between the two is because beyond uses isolated pea protein, which gives it a texture that’s a bit chunkier and imo more sausage like, and impossible uses soy protein, which imo is more like a cheap burger patty you’d get at McDonald’s.
The fats are typical fats like coconut oil or sunflower oil to recreate the fatty part of beef and this is the current weakness of the products imo. Coconut oil is used because it tends to stay solidified at room temp so when you’re making patties it feels like there are chunks of beef fat. In practice this is weird because they are far too hard and aren’t dispersed enough throughout the product; I believe this is why these fake meats tend to stick to the pan much easier than actual burgers cooked in a skillet.
The binders are big scary words like methylcellulose which is also a source of fiber and can be used as a laxative so people latch onto that and freak out. But it’s only used as a binder to help it hold everything together here so it’s like a tiny amount that just provides a bit of fiber that you probably desperately need if you’re having burgers for dinner. Fun fact: Certain preparations of methylcellulose (a4c) turn into gels when heated so you can use them to make hot ice cream! It’s pretty weird to eat, like a normal ice cream base that solidifies when you put it into boiling water
The other ingredients are stuff like beet juice for coloring
Final fun fact: technically impossible meat is not vegan because animal testing was done during its development.
Thanks for reading my unprompted essay on the composition of modern vegan meat substitutes. This was brought to you by my failed interest in becoming a food scientist. Also you may note I don’t really discuss how they compare to meat and that’s because I don’t eat meat which by law I am required to mention in all posts about food
I do eat meat, quite frequently.
Impossible is the only meat substitute I’ve had that I couldn’t immediately tell the difference with, in either flavor or texture. If the price is ever on-par with hamburger (ideally cheaper), I will switch without hesitation. I will highly recommend it to anyone that’s vegan (yes, yes, I know) or vegetarian.
I’ve also had some soy wings that are very, very good, better than real wings. Then again, I don’t actually like real chicken wings that much.
The meat alternatives will only get better as time goes on and market demand grows. A burger or nugget is really not an impossible (lol) to recreate item; most of the meat texture is lost by the processing involved.
A burger is obviously ground and a nugget is usually chicken that’s ground to almost a paste then shaped and breaded. At that point it’s finding something that can approximate the texture of the mushed up meat goo and then finding something that can convincingly flavor it. That’s why impossible was so adamant to get leghemoglobin cleared by the fda, it really is by far the best option. If not that your other options are basically trying to recreate a “meaty flavor” with spice blends and msg which is how the older meat alternatives worked
The much bigger challenge is finding something that can texturally approximate intact muscle (eg wings or steak). As you’ve said there are decent soy wings and there are steak strip things and such but these are generally passable. They taste good and are fine as a meal but they aren’t the same in the way an impossible burger is reallllly close to a burger. Lots of people trying though! Jackfruit, tvp, seitan, pea and soy protein, etc. but none of them come close to the mouth feel and texture of a wing or steak. Someday, maybe. I hope someone figures it out; I haven’t had meat in like 20 years or so but I do miss the texture of steak from time to time and wish I had something that could recreate that
Not as experienced as you, but I find ground meats can be substituted out no problem. I’ve got jackfruit, soy, and mushroom alternatives on the menu that all have specific niches, but can still work across the board.
My current testing is sausages. Breakfast ones in particular make a large part of my diet, so I’m hoping to find off the self instead of making them.
Only thing stopping me from buying Impossible over beef is the cost. Soon as it’s comparable in price I have no problem switching.
Since I don’t usually eat steak tartare, the raw appearance isn’t relevant to me. The cooked appearance is close enough to not be noted.
(I like tartare, but finding a butcher that is fully trustworthy is difficult where I live.)
Seems like an absolute process. I’m not a vegan but it’s nice you guys have options when you’re craving a burger. I can’t wait until that lab grown meat hits the markets.
Honestly I think Beyond Meat/Impossible style burgers are aimed at meat eaters who want to reduce animal cruelty/their carbon footprint. It’s actually kind of annoying they’re so popular now, as restaurants that used to have creative vegan options now sell Beyond Meat as the only choice.
Vegans don’t tend to care if a veggie burger is “realistic”. Some find the idea of meat gross and don’t want to roleplay eating it (my wife says they make her feel sick). Even if you don’t mind, the longer you give up meat the less interesting it is as a flavor. I’d take one of those shitty frozen veggie burgers that are 90% potato over an Impossible burger.
I get impossible burgers often and can confirm. Not vegetarian, but I’ve massively reduced red meat consumption and impossible/beyond really hits the spot when I want a burger. It’s an option at tons of restaurants now which is amazing. I also get 10 packs of impossible burgers at costco for like $10, honestly incredible deal.
Even if you don’t mind, the longer you give up meat the less interesting it is as a flavor.
I think there’s a curve to this.
When I first became vegetarian there were no fake meat options. If you got something that looked or tasted like meat it was because there was meat in it. Gross and nobody wanted that.
But after 20+ years being vegetarian, it’s REALLY nice to have some other options. I still enjoy a garden burger or black bean burger if it’s the only non-meat option but I can’t remember the last time I bought it in the store. The rise in popularity of vegetarian foods and all the fad diets have made it so there’s tons of options now.
My meat eating friends all love both Beyond and Impossible. A few actually prefer it to a standard burger.
Now if we can just teach restaurants how to cook them properly…
I mean a nice portobello grilled up is a great alternative without the hassle.
has over 5x the sodium of beef
I’m curious, I’ve never cooked with Impossible meat before, is the “meat” just already salted/seasoned well? When I make a burger I definitely add quite a bit of salt while cooking, wondering if that sodium is just it being pre-seasoned or if that’s before a (needed) good pinch of salt
It’s probably from the yeast extract which is part of the heme
To be clear tho it still doesn’t have all that much salt. It’s more that raw beef just barely has any. Both impossible meat and raw beef pale in comparison to the salt content of the final burger, where the sodium content skyrockets from things like ketchup, pickles, seasoning the patty during cooking, the salt content of the bun, etc
And imo you should still salt/pepper an impossible patty after formation. As mentioned, while the salt content is higher, it’s still not terribly high, and imo it benefits from a bit more. In my experience it’s not like meat and you can salt whenever you want (whereas with beef you generally want to salt patties absolutely last minute to avoid giving the meat a lightly cured texture)
Oh yes it does have enough salt to stand on its own. I never add salt to either Beyond or Impossible brands. I might add other seasoning if I’m trying to hit a flavor profile (liquid smoke, cajun spices, curry, etc).
You can just plop it out as-is and it’ll cook up nicely. Just don’t squish all the liquid out of it. I’ve had some nasty versions because people get away with poor cooking skills with reql meat and these don’t tolerate the same abuses.
I wanted to very badly but then life happened and now I have a whole other career!
I still cook a lot though and I have a lot of weird powders and additives and machinery for stuff. I have a whole ass refrigerated centrifuge that can spin 3 liters at a time so I can isolate my own pea and soy protein in quantity! It weighs like 350 pounds and it’s from the 80s but fuck it, it’s super cool and I was able to get it for $25 from a lab I interned at. I can’t make soy leghemoglobin at home though at there’s no commercial supplier I’ve found so far so I have to still buy impossible or beyond meat if I want it, bummer
Hopefully there will be more food nerds on lemmy. I am only an amateur food nerd, there are way better ones out there
Man that’s so cool. Have you tried cooking anything else with it (if you can’t make patty)? Also is there any interesting reading material you could recommend me?
How do you know someone is a vegetarian? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
Just kidding, most vegetarians I know are really cool and non-judgmental about others’ eating habits. I’ve actually reduced my meat intake just by hanging out with a vegetarian friend that always went out of their way to make me something with meat when we ate together, and to return the favor I would always make vegetarian dishes when they ate at my place. And then I just sort of got into the challenge of making tasty veggie dishes! I would say I’ve halved my meat consumption over the last year because of it.
Methylcellulose is also used as an egg white substitute in vegan cocktails! It foams up in a very similar way to egg whites and has little.to no effect on the flavor. It’s often prepared as a syrup to make portioning easier as you only need small amounts to achieve the foaming effect
It’s an excellent foaming agent! Methocel f50 foams will last a lot longer than egg foams too
Just make sure you get the right kind though. Usually if you get “methylcellulose” it’s f50 but there are a lot of different types with different properties. The a4c variety I mentioned for hot ice cream will make foams but won’t work as well and is better for gel applications. But there are a lot of varieties of methocel and many are only subtly different from each other
Thanks for the interesting write up.
Why are you required by law to say you don’t eat meat?
What defines ultra processed? Are chicken nuggets ultra processed if I simply purée a chicken breast, add salt, shape, bread, and fry? I’ve turned it into something that is completely irrelevant to its original form. Is sausage ultra processed because I added nitrates? Is nitrate free sausage not ultra processed because I used the loophole where I added celery juice for its natural nitrate content instead of adding them directly?
When exactly does it become ultra processed? When a chemist gets involved and gives things proper names that freak you out?
Are you one of the kooky types that freak out when they see “sodium stearoyl lactylate” on the label of their sandwich bread even though it’s safe to eat and objectively makes your bread better and last longer? If so I’m sorry that you insist on eating bread that is not as soft and goes stale in 2 days
unlike the not disgusting animal farming process: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23817808/pig-farm-investigation-feedback-immunity-feces-intestines
If there’s one dish where I feel it’s a waste to eat animal meat, it’s hamburgers. Vegetarian alternatives have come a long way and in a burger they’re often the superior option.
There’s a small difference for sure, but the BM patties are far from inferior. And much of the difference is masked by condiments anyway.
Nothing pisses me off more than seeing “wagyu beef burger” on a menu. What’s the fucking point if you’re gonna grind it up and shape it into a patty
They still use the burger parts for burger. They’re not taking a ribeye and grinding it up and selling it at a loss.
Is it a dumb thing for dumb people? Maybe. You would think the extra fat would just cook off and it wouldn’t go very far vs uncooked weight.
I wouldn’t buy one but I wouldn’t want that meat to go to waste either.
Because there’s other cuts on the cow and it would be shameful for that to go to waste. They aren’t using ribeye to male it.
Still silly to pay more for it. If you’re mincing meat you can just add whatever fat ratio you want to it without having to overpay about 10x for the privilege.
I personally think like the complete opposite - if there’s anything that’s a waste, it’s a beyond meat burger, because veggie burgers are like, really fucking good. Why on earth would you settle for an inferior pretend product when you can instead have a really good thing that’s not pretending to be something else?
Miss me with that fake meat stuff and bring back actual veggie burgers! I got a real nice sweet potato and refried black bean one I’ve been working on for a while now
100% agree. The imitation methods used in all of the vegan “meat” products just are not near good enough. My ex made me try a bunch, they varied from a little off to just plain gross. Even though I approached each one with an open mind, not a single one was enjoyable. It was actually really hard to keep an open mind after a while, having been either disappointed or disgusted 100% of the time in the past.
However, chickpea patties? Delicious. Black bean burgers? They’re usually pretty decent too. There was one veggie burger we tried that had portobello mushrooms as the main ingredient, and it was the most delicious veggie burger I’ve ever had, hands down. It was so savory and juicy, and the texture was excellent.
I just wish these companies would just focus on plant based products with great taste as their main goal rather than trying to imitate meat, because they’re just so astonishingly terrible at it.
I’ve just realised that most people kinda just add the beans in direct which isn’t what I meant. Whoops - yeah nah I turn them into refried beans and add them in. Directly throwing in black beans never seems to work in my opinion. Also a big fan of just like, making a really big aloo Tika (an Indian potato cake) and using it as a burger. They’re really good and the burger king where I live used to actually sell them as their main veggie option before BM muscled all the decent veggie options out. Falafel burgers are also really good, but alas they’re kinda a lot of work because of all the soaking and deep frying.
My holy grail of veggie burgers is this one spinach burger I had all the time as a kid because they always had leftovers of them at school sausage sizzles and I’d get the extras for free. It was probably some deep freeze bulk thing but goddamnit one day I’ll make a spinach burger that doesn’t taste like some sort of goddawful diet thing.
Also honestly in general fake meat in general just does not do it for me. I’d rather eat a dish that’s veggie and works with that to make something different and good instead of trying to make a subpar copy.
It’s def subjective but I’ve never been a fan of the blackened bean burger as a hamburger replacement. I wasn’t that impressed with the bm burgers but the impossible burgers are a fine replacement imho.
This isn’t a hamburger replacement this is a homemade burger where the beans taste like beans and are mainly there because I like homemade refried beans and thought they’d be good as a burger
Also impossible burger beyond meat sale difference. It’s all fake meat that could be better replaced with something that just isn’t pretending to be anything
Meh, I don’t like mushrooms and really don’t like the black bean burgers and haven’t liked any other veggie burger I’ve tried, but the Impossible ones I can hardly tell the difference from cow, so … why wouldn’t I choose the impossible when given the opportunity?
So, for me, I guess the answer is that if I want a burger, I want a burger, why would I go for something that doesn’t taste anything like a burger?
Because there’s like a difference between a beef burger and the platonic idea of a burger. Like if I say I want a burger, you’re not going to fault me for buying a chicken burger are you? Even though it doesn’t taste anything like a regular beef burger? Same deal with veggie burgers. Meanwhile if I order a burger that looks like beef with the expectation that it will taste like beef, I’m going to be upset when it doesn’t taste like a nice beef burger but instead a rather shitty one
Also there’s tons of veggie burgers out there, maybe you just gotta try some that aren’t like, the weird “healthy” options that dominate the search results. Stuff like a big ol’ falafel in a bun or deep fried aloo tika.
…also I don’t actually like beef burgers that much
because veggie burgers are like, really fucking good.
In what world are veggie burgers good? I don’t want quinoa in my fucking burger.
…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a quinoa burger that’s like making a burger out of rice or couscous.
Also man, there’s tons of good veggie burgers.
I was with you until you mentioned Beyond Meat. BM is just nasty, and bears no taste or texture resemblance to meat at all. That might be ideal for vegans, but it won’t win over any omni or carnivores.
Impossible is a different story. I can make smash burgers with that stuff that are utterly indistinguishable from a real burger. It won’t trick anyone in a meatloaf but for a burger, it’s pretty impressive.
I mostly agree. The impossible burgers are great, much better than I expected! I wanted to try the Beyond Meat burgers to compare… yeah they aren’t as good. I wouldn’t cal them nasty, but for sure inferior to the Impossible burgers.
Impossible burgers taste better, look better, and could easily be mistaken for real meat. I also really like the at they are meant to be cooked from frozen. Just 4min per side in the skillet and it’s about perfect. I cook it with some Worcestershire sauce and that kicks it up a notch!
The BM burgers say they need to be defrosted before cooking. I’m not about to do that because it’s a lot of time and planning. I cook them from frozen and they kinda turn out a bit mushy.
Exactly.
Beyond is just a slightly better evolution of the old Boca burgers. Still meh and you know in one second it’s not beef. If beef like was what you were going for, you’re boned. If not meat and it doesn’t matter, it’s fine
My first impossible burger was in a real burger restaurant (that’s all they cooked) and I had to verify that it wasn’t a regular burger
I’m genuinely baffled at the idea that beyond meat can be seen as remotely as good as a beef burger. It is VERY different. Albeit an okay replacement in a lot of senses, it just can never be as good as a traditional beef burger. Generally I wish I could be vegetarian but beef burgers would be by far the worst part for me if I had to give up meat…
Beyond burgers suck. Have you tried an impossible burger? Those are pretty fucking close
IMO how things taste varies wildly from person to person. To me Beyond burger has a weird flavor that I dislike that never goes away.
Impossible burgers are a much better meat replacement to my taste buds. They’re still not 100%, there’s always a bite or two at the start were they taste off, but after that they taste pretty much like a cheap hamburger.
While I agree that beef burgers are great and that beyond meat just isn’t the same, I think it’s also important to remember that the second best thing to going vegetarian is eating less meat.
The difference is most certainly not small. It’s very noticeable. I also love the veggie options, but your position is kind of like saying:
If there’s one dish where I feel it’s a waste to eat animal meat fusilli, it’s hamburgers pasta. Vegetarian alternatives Spaghetti has come a long way and in a burger pasta dish, they’re often the superior option.
At least this is a minority opinion. I rely on the availability of meat products to eat. I cannot process carbs or sugars and they make me incredibly sick even legumes and tubers, whole grains etc. Fruit also. It triggers insane inflammation that I can only hold at bay with benadryl and that’s not safe to use habitually.
It’s meat, low lactose dairy, fish, eggs, greens for me and when I do break my diet to have a delicious slice of my boyfriend’s pepperoni pizza I am disabled for a day or more. I need to be able to work otherwise I wouldn’t care if I were bedridden from including carbs and sugars in my diet. I personally don’t believe there’s anything wrong with eating meat as I was raised along side sheep eating lamb and baby birds. No question about it that any other predator on the planet wouldn’t think twice about eating me ass first. I’m OK being part of the food chain.
Lemmy has a different ides of what counts as food porn.
I think that’s more a reflection on amount of content producers than anything else.
I don’t mean any disrespect to OP because that looks good and I can’t cook for shit, but I agree with you that this isn’t the sort of content I would expect.
I think your post was mostly well received. I wouldn’t worry about it man. Hope you didn’t take my comment the wrong way. I don’t think lemmy should be/doesn’t need to be a reddit clone. Communities will figure themselves out.
I feel like a lot of you never had a good hamburger in your life
I’m gonna need an explanation of your bun situation. From here that looks like you’re using extra wide english muffins or something.
Are we just glossing over the colour and plasticity of the cheese too?
Nothing is that orange and shiny
