Burger King is now offering an Impossible Whopper that is 100% vegan, as long as you don’t get it with mayo or cheese.
Impossible Products is a line of food products that are available widely outside of just Burger King. In addition to a bunch of unpronounceable things, the Impossible website says their product contains wheat protein, coconut oil and potato protein. Something called “heme” a soy derivative that produces their notable pinkness (their best-known competition, Beyond Burger, “bleeds” using beets).
The VOICE conducted a taste test to determine if all the witchcraft that goes into the burger actually works.
Out of ten VOICE staff members, 80% thought the burger was good, while the other 2 people did not have a strong reaction one way or another.
The consensus was that the burgers were perhaps less juicy than most, and that might have made the pickles and iceberg lettuce a bit more prominent, but the smell, appearance, texture and taste were generally true to what you’d expect in a typical Whopper.
Alex Santos, a second year Digital Arts major, said, “It fooled me. If I didn’t know it was an Impossible Whopper I wouldn’t have been able to say ‘Hey, you just gave me something different from a Whopper!’”
Kristina Hontz, a first year art major who describes herself as more of a chicken person, said “I don’t eat at Burger King a lot, but they did a good job.”
One person enjoyed the burger but was skeptical about its intent. Vegetarian Donny Neuls, a first year Liberal Arts major, said he felt the Impossible Whopper is “More for meat-eaters who want to try eating vegetarian but still like to eat meat.”
Neuls’s perspective is backed up by fact, as a recent New York Times article notes, “The market research firm NPD Group says that 90 percent of the customers purchasing them are meat-eaters who believe the products are more healthful and better for the environment.”
The same article provides specifics about how Impossible “meat” compares to beef nutritionally saying, “Compared to a beef patty, the Impossible and Beyond burgers have similar amounts of protein and calories, with less saturated fat and no cholesterol. They also contain fiber; real meat does not. But compared to real beef, the two plant-based burgers are considerably higher in sodium, containing about 16 percent of the recommended daily value. An uncooked four-ounce beef patty has about 75 milligrams of sodium, compared to 370 milligrams of sodium in the Impossible Burger and 390 milligrams in the Beyond Burger.”
Multiple sources report an intense conflict between the beef industry which claims Impossible (and its cousin Beyond) are unhealthful poseurs, and Impossible saying that the beef industry is just riled up because they don’t like what’s coming for them.
In this fight, Impossible seems to have an edge, at least in terms of taste.
Media adviser Holly Johnson remarked, “It’s like the weird people you wouldn’t usually hang out with but who turn out to be cool after all.”
Ben Levitt, a first year Advanced Manufacturing Technology major said “I started out skeptical. I left confused. How it is not bad? This feels wrong.”
