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Impossible Burgers' Key, Bloody Ingredient Wins FDA Approval (cnbc.com)
The FDA has approved the key ingredient used in the vegetarian-friendly Impossible Burger. "The ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, releases a protein called heme that gives the meat substitute its distinctive blood-like color and taste," reports CNBC. The burger comes from a company aptly named Impossible Foods, which started raising millions of dollars in 2015 to pursue a plant-based burger that truly tastes like meat. From the report: In a letter to Impossible Foods released Monday, the FDA deemed soy leghemoglobin GRAS, or generally recognized as safe, in its most recent review. "Getting a no-questions letter goes above and beyond our strict compliance to all federal food-safety regulations," Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick O. Brown said in a statement. "We have prioritized safety and transparency from day one, and they will always be core elements of our company culture."
...I can't say that I've ever missed that specific meat-like taste (even less so the color) in any of the many meat facsimiles I've tried. I suppose the reason why one becomes a vegetarian plays a big role in this.
It's weird... after having been vegetarian for 17 years, the concept of making a vegetarian burger taste more like meat only strikes feelings of "eww, gross" in me. And I imagine that's a pretty common reaction.
But I guess it's good for non-vegetarians and maybe people who are newly vegetarian.
On the upside, I imagine this product is a good source of iron, since heme iron is well absorbed.
"Lock and load, Brides of Christ!"
Reading TFA (I know), it turns out that new food ingredients don't actually require FDA approval, since food companies can simply state that their novel ingredient is safe, and then the FDA probably won't challenge that. ~10% of all food ingredients haven't been FDA tested/assessed, due to this self-approval loophole, and a concerned party is suing the FDA to close it.
Reading elsewhere on the net, the Impossible Burger tastes/looks/smells remarkably like a real hamburger. The Beyond Burger smells closer to real beef, but doesn't taste/feel as similar. If vegetable-based burgers can get this close, it makes me wonder if there'd be any market for lab-grown meat, which would presumably cost more to produce. Both veggie burgers seem to have the same amount of protein as beef burgers. One hitch: the impossible burger's heme is from GMO yeast, so the anti-GMO people will have a problem with that (probably a significant fraction of vegetarians).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I wonder what the sodium content of this is though? I've tried a few vegan fake meats before out of curiosity, and lot of them seem to be 30%+ of the daily value per serving.
I'd rather just eat natural stuff like nuts, avocado, mushrooms, beans, etc for protein and not bother with imitating meat (I'm not even a vegetarian, just try their stuff sometimes).
Why do we never see reports that steak is being processed to taste like tofu?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
people consuming less meat means less rain forest cleared for cattle farms in the Amazon. That's worth giving Impossible Burger a try and you may even like it.
I these days steer away from foodstuffs that are heavily processed (vegetable and animal sourced). My diet consists of mostly vegetable matter as it comes off the plant and animal protein as it came off or out of the animal/bird - preferably pasture fed.
As a male, I also avoid soy.
I'm not convinced that one can make something with a concoction of chemicals that is even closely as healthy to put inside your body than it is to just get it how nature has made it for millennia and our bodies are finely tuned to utilize through generations of selection?
I actually agree with other vegetarian posters: the likeness to meat of fake meat is actually a detractor, not a good selling point. If you make a choice to eat vegetables, you want your food to taste like that.
Does anybody have any figures for the nutritional value of this burger? Is it healthier then a real-meat-burger? It's not because it contains no meat that it is always healthier.
And then we ofcourse of the environmental impact, meat has a very high impact on the environment - cows just demans a lot and turning those cows into burgers as well, how does the production process of this burger compare?
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
From the letter it actually looks like the FDA said that they see no reason not to take the manufacturers word for it that it's safe, not that they have actually concluded for themselves that it is safe. I don't know if that counts as "approval", but I think the distinction is important.
Based on the information that Impossible Foods provided, as well as other information available to FDA, we have no questions at this time regarding Impossible Foods’ conclusion that soy leghemoglobin preparation is GRAS under its intended conditions of use to optimize flavor in ground beef analogue products intended to be cooked. This letter is not an affirmation that soy leghemoglobin preparation is GRAS under 21 CFR 170.35.
... to get the meat junkies off their fix. The eco-balance of meat is truely abysmal. Like just a few notches short of plutonium or something. If we could switch to a substitute without anybody noticing, that would be awesome and also finally get anti-biotics out of meat production and back into healthcare, where they belong. That would also get agriculture back into sane waters.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It took companies a couple of decades to perfect the texture of ground beef which, all things considered, isn't too far off from ground up beans or mushrooms in emulsified plant-based fat, probably oil. The secret of the impossible burger is getting the emulsifier right.
Getting the texture of unprocessed meat, which is closely packed muscle fiber interspersed with fat, is probably impossible using plant-based structures.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
This had better be called Soylent Red or I'm not eating it.
Avoiding animal products. People who do not eat any meat, fish, poultry, or dairy products are at risk of becoming deficient in vitamin B12, since B12 is only found naturally in animal products. Thatâ(TM)s why vegans should make sure to include B12-fortified foods or a B12 supplement in their diets. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n...
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
If this stuff is still believed to be safe in 3 decades of actual use, then I'll give it a go or at least evaluate the dangers.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Oh my god, so much wrong with this sentence:
source: I am a biochemistry lecturer and wikipedia
What?...they didn't want to call it Soylent Red, or Frankenburger?
Just another day in Paradise
Meat's not Murder, as much as I enjoy Morrisey; It's slaughter. And I admire meat-eaters who address sustainable farms to address factory farming and respect any perspective to appeal to HOW animals are raised and rendered after I had read Diet for a Small Planet (https://www.smallplanet.org/diet-for-a-small-planet) and Robbins' book (the Baskin/Robbins heir who was conned by Madoff) in 1990. I went lacto-ovo vegan and made soy "milk", and my own gluten (ashamed I couldn't master tempeh cultures) and supplemented my diet with nutritional yeast for B complex vitamins and explored every meat substitute available and can claim I was spared seasonal flus for years. Fifteen years later, friends half a generation younger, mocked my preferences to seek out substitutes with the same texture and "mouth feel" as akin to wearing a fake fur. It was my first experience with shifts in generational perspective, I think. (The second is a pervasive belief microwave appliances are dangerous.) Anyway, Morning Star brand was some of the best commercially available (and affordable) product (but used egg whites for texture) and leveraged by the growing market of baby-boomers reduction of cholesterol consumption: Tinfoil Advisory-- Morning Star's "Prime" product was the best I had ever experienced and disappeared from the market for over two decades because (I believe) it was TOO Good. At about this time, Oprah took on the Beef trade associations and was summarily silenced on the subject, the only topic from which I believe she has EVER backed away. Supply/Demand arguments have been the reason given for the 3-4X cost of livestock for three decades. Qorn was prevented from North American shelves for over a decade for reasons ignored when it came to Frito-Lay's potato chip products...end of Advisory...
In 2010, I returned to being an omnivore, but I miss the days of chasing down "mouth feel" substitutes because the science is interesting, and the business angles are very intriguing. Textured vegetable protein (a fantastic substitute in Chile adopted by Hormel a loooong time ago) is the best example of an affordable substitute and industrially compressed gluten that simulated a roast beef that I experienced in Oakland and LA's Whole foods deli sections is the most expensive (5X that of steak), but truly a delicacy.
In 1990, Robbins' claimed that, without government subsidized water rights, a dollar hamburger in the US would cost $6. I don't know if that's factual because there aren't many sources or studies to cross reference, but such an estimate goes a long way in explaining why the market is, in my humble opinion, so controlled.
Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
This is a GMO product, in case everyone is wondering.
Take a look in the mirror, and smile. The Incisors and Canines in your mouth evolved primarily for eating meat, and the premolars and molars evolved for grinding vegetable matter. I go with what my biology is optimized for.
I will add that almost every animal source is edible, and the vast majority of plant life is either inedible or actually toxic in some way. I stick with what works. . .
You're just jealous that I get to fondle some nice tits!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
yey, more soyboys to come.
let me just preorder no man sky 2
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I may have a bit of a conflict of interest here since I'm allergic to soy, but its one of the most common food allergies. I wish the food industry would stop their obsession with it. They put it in literally everything now days and the FDA says they dont even have to put it on the allergy list if they only use lecithin or the oil which is some BS because it still makes us sick.
Nice hairy tits.
The estrogen should take care of that too, your chest will look like it's been waxed 10 minutes ago.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've tried their product at a few places; some restaurants now serve Impossible Burgers and other Impossible Meat versions of their dishes.
That's great that the FDA agreed that their data showed it's safe for human consumption. However, based on my personal FDA, my taste buds, I cannot agree with this finding.
Impossible Meat tastes like the ass of a cardboard cut-out man. As an unashamed meat eater I was open to trying it, and I can conclude that it tastes and feels AWFUL.
Yep, bacon is the gateway drug.
My first ~ year as a vegetarian, I liked to point out that bacon is crispy. Meat isn't crispy. If you cook some meat and leave it sitting out on the counter all day, it'll spoil in a few hours. You can cook bacon and leave it out for days, weeks even if you cover it to keep the dust and flies off. Therefore bacon must not be meat, I can eat it, I said. :)
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I enjoy a vegetarian meal but I've never understood the search for a meat substitute. When I want meat I eat it, when I want vegetarian I eat that way. There are plenty of vegetarian dishes that I would choose to eat purely because of the taste. I personally think the idea of a gene moded wholly artificial key ingredient sort of defeats the purpose of a vegetarian, or raw diet I wonder if it would qualify as Halal or Kosher ? I think of Soylent : Green when I consider stuff like this...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
After all, look at the target market.
Good for them! Now they just need to shame us into buying that — the way we are shamed for not preferring electric cars, and refusing to date "transsexuals".
And, of course, getting government's help — such as a subsidy or a mandate for governmental institutions (like schools) to offer this fake "meat" — would go a long way too...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is for people that want to eat vegetarian for other reasons
I found that funny that vegetarians (and vegans) said that they want to help animal with one hand and found initiative like Impossible Foods with the other.
"Wait, those two things both help animal" you might say.
Well, let's take the hypothesis that in 200 years this succeed and eventually all meat are replace with "laboratory" meat. That would be wonderful for the ~ 800 million pigs and the ~ 1000 cattle, right?
Oh wait, they don't exist anymore, except in zoo. After all, extinction sound a lot better than husbandry don't you think?
Elok
It's for people who refuse to consider anything that doesn't taste like meat. You may legitimately not be one of them, but they are *extremely* common which is why so much money is being poured into this market now.
First world problems and attitude all in one post. Very humble brag of you.
Why is a cow's life worth more than a cute bunny's?
The same cute rabbit is called either a bunny or a frier depending only on the buyer's intent.
...not meat that looks and tastes like meat. I guess if the ethical conundrum of meat consumption is what drives you to be a vegetarian, I can see how this would be welcome.
Social Media Mgr at Bluefield Identity
I think if a few more kids saw an animal being killed it would make a big difference)
Yes, there would be fewer vegetarians. It is only the hiding of the natural cycle of predation that causes some adults to be disgusted and turn vegetarian. Learning that we eat animals at a young age leads to more rational adults. Now some of these rational adults may still turn vegetarian but they will more likely be motivated by health aspects than squeamishness. Squeamishness is a result of being sheltered and separated from the realities of nature.
... no icky ... did I sit down at the table and think yummy. You bet I did.
Think of history for a moment, over the millennia of farming where young children saw fowl and livestock turned into dinner. What effect did that reality have on them? To go vegetarian, no. More likely is to be thinking "this is going to taste good" and they do their chore of plucking the chicken for Mom.
Hell, vegetarianism due to squeamishness is a very modern phenomena even in towns and cities. We are only a small number of decades removed from taking a whole chicken home for dinner. Plucked and partially processed but it still unmistakably looked like a chicken to any young children seeing it and Mom having to removed the inner organs was a common sight too. I recall seeing this at my Grandmother's. Did I want to stick my hands in there to remove the heart, liver, etc
Meat is healthy. Processed vegetables are not only unhealthy but destructive to the environment.
This is just so sad.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Food preparation is not sport, its part of sustenance. Slaughtering livestock is an ordinary part of 10,000 years of farming.
If you have problems killing the pig it only tells me one thing. You haven't tasted farm raised bacon.
Actually I wouldn't eat meat that was fed soy all it's life, that would taint it.
You vegecucks are ridiculous; your so-called 'moral choice' can't override millions of years of evolution that has been steadily making us into omnivores, all it'll do is make you health shitty, your brain substandard, and turn you into a gigantic weak-willed ineffectual pussy.
Eating meat and other animal products is NORMAL and NATURAL and HEALTHY and it makes you STRONG. It's what our entire civilization has been built on, and you'd turn your back on that so some dumb animal gets to live a few more years? LOL amazinging retarded.
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But I loved the comment "Maybe you need to do some work on your parser."
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
I like eating meat, I don't eat a lot of it, but I do like some meat with my meals. My wife is almost a vegan (again) but bacon is her one weakness. I find food without a meat portion to be bland and unfulfilling. That's my choice, just as it's my wife's choice to no longer eat meat. I don't give a fuck if the cow takes up more space, it also produces more poop and contributes to the glue you use to stick your kids poster to something. I can also wear it on my feet (the leather, not the steak, or the whole cow). How about finding a substitute for decent leather, there are NONE that come close.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Now the bloody ingredient's been approved, when's the fucking product coming out?
... if you don't eat your meat.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Constantly making accusations without proof is commonly called paranoid schizophrenia
is high protein, low fat, plant based food that is not soy based, that i can use as a meat substitute occasionally. i dont need it to taste or feel like meat. i just want it to be cheap and edible. i can make it taste good. maybe soylent would be good.
Enough is enough. I have had it with the first goddamned post in every conversation about every goddamned story that has nothing to fucking do with Donald Fucking Trump being ABOUT Donald Fucking Trump.
If you do not fix this by setting the lameness filter or some other technology to stop this shit, you are losing another reader.
Yes, I am well aware I can adjust viewing settings to show only score 1 or 2 or higher messages, but unfortunately, not every message worthy of being read has been moderated up yet, and if you grant me mod points, (as you periodically do,) and expect me to spend them browsing at 0 or -1, so I have to keep reading this bullshit every goddamned time I am simply not going to do it anymore.
It has nothing to do with how I feel about Little Donny McDipshit, (or how guilty he obviously is, how stupid, etc.,) it is simply the fact that the world does not revolve around his big, fat, stupid, ugly, cavernous, shit-filled HEAD... and I am sick and fucking tired of reading about him. Fix this shit or I am gone.
Gosh! It's a bleeding hamburger!
No it isn't. It's called religion.
I finally got to try an Impossible Burger recently. First, make sure that it's not overcooked. It arrived thoroughly "well done" and one bite was, well as tasteless as well done beef burger. I sent it back and asked for it to be a red and juicy, which was the way it came back. I'd say it has about 70% of the flavor and feel of beef. But comparisons aside, taken on it's own it was very, very good. The problem was the price: $16 (this included fries).
Bottom line, I'd definitely eat one again, for about $9 max. Would I still miss beef burgers if I only ate the Impossible Burgers? Yeah, but a lot less than I thought I would before I tried it. If for some reason it came down to only being able to east Impossible Burgers instead of beef burger, I'd be OK with it.
Welcome to a future where what looks like a chair is really a garbage disposal, what looks like vitamins is really rat poison, what looks like meat is really reconstituted soy conglomerate. You looking for mouthwash ?grab the bottle with the label that says furniture polish? The one that says mouthwash is toilet cleanser. We won't rest until nothing is what it appears to be.
Sounds nasty. But remember: "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian." - Linda McCartney