The Impossible Burger 2.0 Is a Plant-Based Beef Replacement That Uses Soy Instead Wheat Protein To Take On New Forms (popsci.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: During a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Impossible Foods showed off its new plant-based ground beef replacement by offering a selection of foods from traditional sliders to the ambitious tartare. Thanks to a change in formula, the new Impossible Burger 2.0 goes beyond simple patties and aims to take on ground beef with every recipe, from lasagna to tacos. The first tastes are very promising. Back in 2016, the original Impossible Burger debuted as a veggie burger that could almost pass as beef. Its meaty secret was a molecule called heme, which contains iron and is largely responsible for the flavors we associate with cooked flesh. But, according to Impossible CEO Pat Brown, it requires a protein to bind it. The original Impossible Burger used wheat protein, which worked, but had some drawbacks. First, it meant the Impossible Burger wasn't gluten-free, but it also put some limitations on the meat's form factor. The wheat worked for burger patties that stayed in a relatively static shape, but it couldn't crumble or take on other shapes -- like meatballs -- without losing its integrity. The solution was a switch to soy.

The resulting Impossible Burger 2.0 product has 14 grams of fat and 240 calories in a single quarter-pound serving (whether it's a patty, ball, or glob of tartare). Impossible also claims that the Burger 2.0 has the same amount of bioavailable iron and protein as its cow-derived cousin. According to Brown, the levels of amino acids are "at least on-par" with typical ground beef and, in some cases, exceed what real meat can offer. As for taste, Popular Science's Stan Horaczek says "it works best as a burger with a thin patty so you don't get a whole mouthful of soy at once, but once you introduce a bun and some toppings, you might not even notice the differences with real beef."

The Impossible Burger 2.0 will be served at a few restaurants starting this week, with a wider roll out starting on February 8 when it will be available to all U.S. restaurants through food distributors. It's also planning to have its products in some U.S. supermarkets by later this year.

Comments

Soy?

[reboot246]

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:Soy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may joke, but when I eat a lot of soy based products (mostly miso soup) I develop man boobs, and I'm thin!

They grow within a week or two and it was very distressing the first few times it happened, I thought I had a form of lymphoma or something.

It took me a few months to figure out what the vector was, but it's definitely soy based products.

Too bad for me, because I love miso soup, and I sure won't be eating fake, soy based "meat".

I'm patiently awaiting for lab grown meat to become available, all the flavor without the environmental and ethical baggage, or man boobs.

Re:How long till this becomes mandatory?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until you get/solve a real problem in life? Probably never, you whiny q-anon bitches. "Help, I'm being oppressed by salad! First they tell me hating minorities is self-defeating, now this? Unfair!"

Re:Estrogen !

[Anonymous Coward]

That explains why there's always been so much fertility problems and population decline in China where tofu and other soy products are so big: the soy is turning all the men into....oh wait, my mistake, that's the exact opposite of true.

Re:I'd eat vat grown or irradiated beef before thi

[Gravis Zero]

Soybean Subsidies in the United States totaled $37.4 billion from 1995-2017

Corn Subsidies in the United States totaled $111.2 billion from 1995-2017.

Fun fact, guess what they feed lots of livestock? CORN! Most corn and soy goes into processed junk food. A lot of corn isn't for human consumption because it's explicitly for producing High Fructose Corn Syrup. So yeah, we shouldn't subsidize corn either (or at least not blindly)!

Livestock Subsidies in the United States totaled $10.8 billion from 1995-2017.

You have failed to include that grazing on federal land is $1/acre instead of the market price of about $20/acre.

There are a LOT of hidden subsidies with the livestock industry.

This has been debunked 8 ways from sunday

[rsilvergun]

See here

A few points for the TL;DR; crowd:

1. The claim soy turns you into a girl is based on a 1940s era study into sheep eating clover.
2. Estrogens are a _class_ of chemicals and plant estrogens behave very differently than the female sex hormone.
3. Alex Jones' supplements are chock full of soy (it's a cheap filler).

Feel free to watch the rest of the video above.

I'm not necessarily interested in defending soy, but I'm since and tired of junk science.

Re:Soy is garbage for humans

[AmiMoJo]

You don't have to eat exclusively Impossible Burgers, you can consume them as part of a balanced diet.

Look, I'm sure you can find some idiot online suggesting you eat a 100% soy diet, but let's not judge everything by the biggest idiot who happens to like it.

Re:Land usage on planet Earth

[Shotgun]

The "pastureland" you are so worried about using up is naturally occuring grasslands. Note that the reason most pastureland is pastureland is that it is useless for anything else.

I can fence off 1,000 acres in hilly terrain and set a heard of bovine loose in it. The wander around, collecting and storing naturally growing grasses over a season or two. Then I herd the bovine into a slaughter house and serve the energy up as tasty steaks.

Or I can send men on tractors out into that 1,000 acres during the spring, hoping that I get rain (but not too much rain), spread fertilizer and herbicides and hope that the plants stay on the side of the hill where I planted them. In fall, I send out more equipment to collect what has grown, if said equipment can navigate the terrain I have.