For some vegans and vegetarians who gave up meat, a juicy burger is a faint memory of the past. While there are a number of vegetable patties widely available, not many brands have been able to perfectly mimic the way a meat burger tastes and feels in your mouth.
Thankfully, two California-based companies have come up with incredible solutions to your burger woes: Beyond Meat of Los Angeles and Impossible Foods from the Silicon Valley.
Created in an effort to improve human health and animal welfare, address global resource constraints, and positively impact climate change, these flavorful and convincing alternatives have taken the world by storm. Here's what the companies are all about.
Beyond Meat
Using pea-protein, this burger is packed with protein: 20 grams of protein is in each patty, and red beets are used to give it a meaty look and mouthfeel. Beyond Meat is available at Whole Foods, Ralph's, Amazon, and a number of other retailers. Two patties cost about $5.99, and the company also offer other plant-based alternatives like sausages, chicken strips, and more.
For a full list of their retailers and restaurants that carry Beyond Meat, visit their website.
Impossible Meats
Impossible Foods' Founder Dr. Patrick O. Brown (M.D., Ph.D) was simple: make the global food system more sustainable. Guided by the question, "why does meat taste like meat?" Brown and his team spent years researching and answering this question. Using only plants, they managed to recreate the impossible: meat.
According to their website, an Impossible Meats burger uses only "1/20th the land, 1/4th the water, and produces 1/8th the greenhouse gas emissions" when compared to a burger made from cows.
The patties consist of wheat protein, potatio protein, coconut oil, and heme. Heme is a molecule that contains iron and is what gives beef burgers their distinctive taste, look, and scent. The patties actually "bleed" when you cook them, too, and the flavors are so similar to that of meat, even omnivores are fooled by Impossible Burgers!
Each patty contains 20 grams of protein and is currently not available at retailers, but can be enjoyed in dishes at restaurants throughout New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Texas.
See where you can try it here.
Another way of helping reduce your carbon footprint is to grow in an Urban Cultivator. Offering a wide variety of seeds for you to grow at home, it offers not only convenience and flavor, but also encourages a healthier lifestyle and positively impact climate change.
Have you ever tried one of these plant-based meat alternatives? What did you think? Let us know in the comments section!
