MEET THE IMPOSSIBLE BURGER
The future of food looks (and bleeds) like meat.
- 01Impossible Foods is taking on the multi-billion-dollar meat industry with its newest creation—which looks, feels, tastes, and smells like ground beef. It even bleeds like a medium-rare burger.
- 02This patty is all plant, though—a feat of genetic engineering.
- 03The sensory magic of a traditional burger is in part due to the protein myoglobin, which contains a compound called heme; when you cook a piece of meat, the myoglobin opens up and the heme comes out. That catalyzes a bunch of reactions, many of which create the volatile compounds that give the meat that compelling smell and flavor.
- 04Why can't your usual veggie burger get that meaty taste right? There's no heme at home. Impossible Foods’ secret weapon is a protein called leghemoglobin, found in the root of the soy plant. It helps ferry oxygen around—and more importantly, it contains that sweet, sweet heme.
- 05Since the scientists would need an outlandish amount of soy roots to get the right amount of heme, they engineered a yeast to do the job instead. Basically, they invented a tiny heme machine, and its meat-free heme forms the foundation of a stunning not-beef burger.
- 06Impossible’s scientists isolate and recreate meat-like components with the help of this machine. After cooking a sample, all of the released aromas bind to a piece of fiber, which the machine then uses to identify the compounds responsible for those aromas. Then they can check just how closely the Impossible Burger compares to the real thing.
- 07There’s a similar process for simulating the texture of meat: Impossible’s scientists characterize and identify beef’s specific proteins, then look for plant proteins that share those same properties. In order to do that they need to be able to take a whole plant and separate it into each of its components.
- 08The Impossible Burger’s main ingredients include the heme, wheat and potato proteins for texture, and coconut as a stand-in for fat. Mix it all up and it starts to look more and more like a beef patty.
- 09The result is a meatless burger that’s so convincing, it may as well be meat. And it tastes pretty good—a lot better than meat eaters think it will. But why does a veggie burger need to bleed? Because these are designed to convert meat eaters, not vegetarians and vegans.
- 10While humans eat plenty of soy, they don’t eat the bean’s roots, where the leghemoglobin is found. Leghemoglobin is structurally similar to proteins that we consume all the time, and Impossible says it’s had experts confirm its meatless meat is safe. After the company asked the FDA for an independent review, the agency didn’t deem leghemoglobin *un*safe, but it also didn’t recognize it as safe. (Impossible can still sell the burger, and plans to re-petition the FDA.)
- 11In the meantime, Impossible is scaling up its production from 300,000 pounds a month to more than triple that, in a bid to completely replace animals as a technology for food production. After all, meat production is inefficient and environmentally destructive; as our population expands, we’re going to need more sustainable foods to meet the demand.
Matt Simon was a senior staff writer covering biology, robotics, and the environment. He’s the author, most recently, of A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies. ... Read More
TopicsAMP Stories
Handy Chart Organizes Fast Food Chains by Calorie Count
The calorie distribution of Carls Jr.'s menu items looks very different from Subway's.
Megan Molteni
Brrrr. The Secret History of Frozen Food
Hint: Move fast, and don't forget the calcium chloride spray
Michael Ruhlman
How a Food Blog Shaped the Way We Use the Internet
20 years ago, Epicurious built a site on a very different Internet.
Liz Stinson
Navigating the Uncanny Valley of Food
In the food industry, innovation frequently means imitation. But that's not the best thing for your taste buds, or the planet.
Ali Bouzari
Artificial Nose "Smells" When Food Is About to Go Bad
Cameras gave computers eyes. Microphones gave them ears. Now a startup has invented a tiny chip that gives computers a sense of smell.
Klint Finley
One Way or Another, Most of Our Electricity Comes From Solar Power
That’s good news, since the forecast is sunshine for the next 5 billion years.
Rhett Allain
A New Implant Aims to Rewire the Brain to Help Stroke Patients
Epia Neuro’s brain-computer interface will include a motorized glove to help stroke patients recover movement in their hand.
Emily Mullin
5 Mysteries That the Artemis Missions to the Moon Could Finally Solve
The moon is not just a barren rock orbiting the Earth. The Artemis missions could answer the great unknowns that the satellite holds.
Jorge Garay
Your Art Can Go in This San Francisco Alley
A trio of tech pranksters have launched a website where you can submit artwork and vote on which pieces belong in the final design. Of course, AI will scan for dick pics.
Boone Ashworth
Scientists Have Made a French Fry Breakthrough
Researchers have developed a method of making french fries that results in a healthier bite without sacrificing crispiness.
Marta Musso
A Single Strike Won’t Shut Off the Gulf’s Desalination System
The Gulf’s water system is built with layers of backup, but it relies on continuous operation to hold.
Dana Alomar
The Future of the Artemis Program Is Riding on Reentry
Entire space programs have been canceled after a failure in the reentry phase. In the final test for Artemis II, astronauts will travel at 32 times the speed of sound as they return from the moon.
Jorge Garay