ON NUMEROUS occasions, I’ve tried a vegetarian diet, but have always given up because of the lack of interesting veggie dishes.
I am, however, mindful that a vegetarian diet is healthy being lower in saturated fat and cholesterol and higher in plant nutrients than most meat-based diets.
I have tried various meat substitutes, but they’ve not been very nice – some barely edible.
But now, there’s a new product in the market that might be a major breakthrough for meat lovers who want a more healthy diet.
Last month, Impossible Foods, a US fake-meat start-up, launched the Impossible Burger, a meat-free burger substitute designed to convince meat eaters to choose plants over animals.
The burger is not meant for vegetarians. It’s meant to sway carnivores towards a healthier, environmentally friendly, plant-based product.
The company, founded in 2011, is one of the best-funded food start-ups of the decade, with $182 million over four rounds from top venture-capital firms and Bill Gates, who joined the latest round in 2015.
CEO and founder Patrick Brown works from a nondescript office, just a few miles from Stanford University in California, where he spent 30 years as a top biochemist.
His team of 125 top scientists, nutritionists and techno-marketing experts are all working to perfect a vegan version of the all-American ground-beef patty.
“Our challenge was to make a product that would deliver all the pleasures that people get from eating meat without any of the baggage; no cholesterol, antibiotics, hormones or E. coli,” said Brown
The fake-meat burger was launched at Momofuku Nishi in New York City, a part of chef David Chang’s trendy Momofuku empire.
Momofuku Nishi presented the burger, which is $12 (P600), in a classic 1950s style – wrapped in paper topped with tomato, pickle, American cheese, and special sauce.
The servers asked customers if they wanted pink or cooked through. If ordered rare, the burger is not bloody, though spurts of a ruby red fake blood were mixed into the muscle-like fibers.
How did the Impossible Burger fare?
One New York burger aficionado said it was “close enough and good enough” to a meat burger. “Absolutely, I would eat it again,” he said.
Another fan also gave the new fake meat burger the thumbs up. “If I could have this without eating an animal, that’s great,” he said.
But not everyone was impressed.
A food critic from The New York Post said the sandwich was “a burger I wouldn’t pay 80 cents for,” adding that the “crumbly, thin patty” had “a slightly gristly texture, and scarcely more bogus-beef quality than that of common veggie burgers made from grains and legumes.”
But the majority of diners, who tried it, were pleased with the taste and texture. The chatter inside Nishi was about what the company could make next. And Chef Chang told reporters that he had also experimented with the fake meat in dumplings and meatloaf.
And if Impossible Foods were to successfully expand its culinary offerings, would carnivores be happy to choose a more sustainable, healthier diet over real meat items?
If they could make a juicy steak, I’m sure most meat-eaters would be sold.
