For those of you thinking past holiday indulgence toward a fresh start, we tried the new nonmeats that might help you shift to a more plant-based diet.
Columbian food writer and meat-lover Rick Browne was pleasantly surprised by the flavor and texture of an Impossible Burger he tried at Burger King. So he enlisted me to try Impossible Burgers at several restaurants in the area to see how they compared to beef burgers.
Browne is a well-known pit master and barbecue judge who has written a stack of books on meat preparation. He hosted a PBS barbecue cooking series and an Outdoor Channel series where he cooked up wild game.
As for me, I’m a tofu-loving former vegetarian.
We went to a variety of eating establishments to sample Impossible Burgers, which seemed to be the most prevalent nonmeat option on restaurant menus. At each stop, we ate an Impossible Burger and a beef burger similarly prepared. We went to Burger King and Red Robin in Vancouver, as well as Jackrabbit and Irving Street Kitchen in Portland.
The Impossible Burger is extremely meatlike. It bleeds, it has the right flavor and texture, and it can be prepared to simulate a medium-rare burger.
“I’m amazed by this moisture,” Browne said. “There’s no way people can tell the difference.”
I’ve had my share of plant-based meat products, but nothing quite like this burger. Impossible is a very convincing re-creation of juicy red meat.
In most of our visits, the Impossible Burger either was better than the beef burger (Burger King) or tied with the beef burger (Red Robin and Jackrabbit). The outlier was the Irving Street Kitchen beef burger. It’s a masterpiece of choice cuts carefully ground and perfectly medium rare — heaven on a soft potato bun with Benton’s ham, pecorino fresco and house-made pickles. The Impossible Burger didn’t have a chance.
In terms of taste, the Impossible Burger does well against most burgers. We both thought that even the most tofu-fearing of carnivores wouldn’t be able to figure out that the Impossible Burger is plant-based unless it was compared to an exceptional beef burger.
A better burger?
While chomping on burgers, we kept wondering about the overall benefit of eating a plant-based burger versus a beef burger.
Is there a health benefit to eating an Impossible Burger instead of a beef burger? Jendy Newman, registered dietitian at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, doesn’t think so. Impossible Burger is a processed food (with more sodium and less protein than a beef burger) and restaurants are likely to add things to it to make it even less healthful.
“I would rather eat a whole-food vegetarian burger or, on a rare occasion, a small grass-fed burger,” she said.
Is it better for the environment for someone to eat a plant-based burger?
Heather Carpenter, who teaches environmental studies at the University of Portland, thinks so.
“I’m a wary fan of the Impossible Burger. It’s got some issues, but it’s better than feedlot beef,” she said. “Cows are so bad. There’s so much water, so much methane, and so much poop. Impossible Burger compared to feedlot beef is so much better.”
She noted that the worst thing about the Impossible Burger is that it uses genetically modified soy, but feedlot beef also has GMO soy.
“People need to not only think of the good things they get from food, but the bad things,” Carpenter said.
Feedlot beef is filled with antibiotics and a higher proportion of fat. It has less healthful omega-3 fat because the cows eat grain and not grass. In addition, there’s a new field of scientific study examining how ingesting animals that have experienced stress affects humans. For these reasons, she thinks an Impossible Burger is better nutritionally than feedlot beef. If she chose to eat a burger, she would eat locally raised grass-fed beef and limit her consumption to a few times a year.
A perfectly medium-rare burger made of carefully chosen and expertly ground beef without a gratuitous mass of toppings is one of life’s great pleasures.
In terms of taste, the Impossible Burger can’t beat an extraordinary beef burger. It can compete with most burgers. The environmental benefits of plant-based meats are worth considering and Impossible has provided a tasty option.
