Summer is a great time to serve up some burgers. But what options are there for those who don’t eat meat? When I met my husband in 1993, he told me that he was an ovo (eats egg) lactic (eats milk products) vegetarian, This carnivore foodie slowly learned how to cook for him. Cheese or whey made without animal rennet (from calf stomachs) and meat analogues that provided all the nutrients our bodies needed were hard to find then. In the last thirty years, the availability of these things have improved, though it can still be hard to eat out in restaurants.
The use of plant-based, meat alternatives dates back longer than one might think. Tofu (fermented soybean) has been associated with Buddhist cuisine from at least the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE). In Medieval Europe, meat analogues were popular during the Christian observance of Lent, when the consumption of warm-blooded animals was forbidden.
As modern agriculture moved to industrial meat production, it was shown to be very damaging to the environment, in terms of land use and water. In 2009, Patrick O. Brown, professor emeritus of Stanford University in biochemistry, took a sabbatical from his academic career to consider what he wanted to do with the rest of his time. He decided that the biggest impact he could have was the use of animals in the production of food and, in 2011, founded Impossible Foods. He theorized that he could create a meat analogue that looked, smelled, and tasted like meat, and set about creating what we know now as the Impossible Burger.
Humans need nine essential amino acids to build and repair their bodies. While an animal body will provide them all in one hit (known as complete proteins), few plants have all of them available, with soy and quinoa being two exceptions, so Professor Brown started with soy. Soy also makes leghemoglobin, a heme-containing protein. Heme is the iron carrying protein that gives blood its red color, and heavily influences the volatile compounds that give red meat its distinctive flavor profile. It is notably missing from plant-based burgers.
Professor Brown’s unique idea for the Impossible Burger was to genetically engineer yeast to produce heme from leghemoglobin, so Impossible meats have the flavor profile of animal meat, with no involvement of an animal. He has stated that he wants the Impossible Burger to be considered meat, even though it is entirely plant derived, getting us used to the idea that meat doesn’t require an animal.
Bareburger was the first restaurant chain to sell the Impossible Burger, beginning in their branch near New York University in 2017.
Ariadna Jimenez, general manager of Bareburger Ridgefield says, “People did like the Impossible burger for a long time, but now they also frequently order our other plant-based burgers, such as the sweet potato or the cilantro black bean.” Patrons who are meat eaters also regularly choose the Impossible burger because they will often add bacon to it, notes Jimenez.
To keep his mission on track, perhaps Professor Brown needs to work on making an Impossible bacon alternative too! •
