The vegan “bleeding” burger has won the heart of this meat-loving

Impossible Foods, announced that its Impossible Burger will be served for the first time on July 27 at the Momofuku Nishi restaurant in New York City. Chang, owner of the Momofuku Restaurants, expertly prepared a crowd of eager media folks what appeared to be a traditional hamburger, but was, in fact, entirely vegetarian.

No veggie burger has created as much buzz recently as the Impossible Burger, a plant-based burger perfected by science that has the look and mouthfeel of actual beef. Brown figured out that meat tastes the way it does because of heme, but many plants contain the molecule too.

Chang told Gothamist, “As a chef, I want to make stuff that is interesting and delicious and those are the products that we want to work with”.

I was so distressed by the salty aftertaste – how could a plant-based food taste like this! – that I checked in with Gruber, who said he did not notice it, confirming my response was psychosomatic. The patty has that textbook savory beefiness in both taste and texture. “The Impossible Foods team has discovered how to re-engineer what makes beef taste like beef”.

About 100 guests joined us on the VICE rooftop last night to feast on not only the beefless burger, but several other dishes that highlighted the magically meaty, umami qualities of Impossible Foods’ uncannily meat-like creation.

Until now, veggie burgers have left me green around the gills.

According to Brown, the recipe and its team of 80 scientists costs close to $80 million, but it could be worth every penny. Yes, you read that right, bleeding vegetarian burger patties. Impossible Foods is a private company funded in part by Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, Horizons Ventures, UBS, and Viking Global Investors. “We just wanted to make a great version of it”.

“Billions of people love to eat meat and the demand for it has sky rocketed”.

Based in Redwood City, California, Impossible Foods gives consumers a better choice: delicious, healthy, affordable meat and dairy foods made directly from plants. It comes topped with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and special sauce all on a Martin’s potato roll.

Brown says that the raw meat will eventually be sold in grocery stores for the comparable price of organic ground beef, but he hopes to eventually sell it for the same price as conventional ground beef. “The challenge is finding a way to produce these foods that don’t do as much damage to the global ecosystem”, he says.