The Impossible Burger: My 5-Minute Review

Hello everyone,

Staying warm? Enjoying the snow? I don’t know about you, but when it’s cold outside I crave comfort food. One of my favorite comfort foods is a hearty vegan “burger.” That’s right—a faux meat patty topped with gooey, melty vegan cheese, Heinz ketchup, banana pepper rings, and a dollop of Just Mayo. It always hits the spot! Well, I’ve been hearing buzz about the Impossible Burger for months and months, so I finally decided to find one nearby to give a try. Today I am here to finally provide The Impossible Burger: My 5-Minute Review.  

After years of research and $180 million in funding, the Impossible Burger debuted in the summer of 2016 in NYC at Momofuku Nishi. Now, this restaurant is not a burger joint. It’s an asian fusion restaurant. Possibly an odd place to launch a veggie burger, but it worked! People were lining up hours before the restaurant opened to get a bite of the Impossible Burger.

So why was everyone in a tizzy? Well, the Impossible Burger is a plant-based burger that looks and cooks like ground beef. These qualities are supposed to make it satisfy vegans/ vegetarians and omnivores alike. How does it achieve this? It includes heme—a molecule extracted from fermented yeast that mimics the same molecule that’s found in animal blood. This enables this meatless burger to “bleed” and sear, just like animal-based burgers.

Now, these qualities are off-putting for many vegans/ vegetarians, but considering I didn’t cook the burger, I didn’t mind it. The Impossible Burger looks like a medium cooked  regular burger, but so do many other veggie burgers. In fact, I found it to be similar to Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger in both flavor and texture. The Impossible Burger tasted juicy and a bit greasy, with a slightly crispy exterior and soft center. I ate mine topped with pickles, vegan cheese, lettuce and ketchup, and boy, did it hit the spot!

Aside from the fact that the Impossible Burger looks and tastes great and is cruelty free, it uses 75 percent less water, 95 percent less land, and emits 87 percent fewer greenhouse gases than a burger from cows. Plus, nutritionally, it has slightly fewer calories than a regular burger and more protein and no cholesterol!

The Impossible burger is now available at hundreds of restaurants across the country from five star restaurants to local burger joints. I traveled to Burgatory in Pittsburgh, PA for my review. But soon after getting my first bite, I looked around my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio and was pleased to see that the Impossible Burger is available at B Spot locations! I’ll certainly be heading there soon to treat my boyfriend to this awesome speciality.

So what do you think? Will you give it a try?

Cheers!

Jocelyn