Impossible or not: Do meatless burgers really taste like beef?

Whether a person has a philosophical distaste for eating things that were once alive, or they just want to eat something with an advertised smaller carbon footprint, meatless "meat" has long been the holy grail of new food development.

I remember trying my first meatless patty made by Morningstar 20 years ago, out of sheer curiosity rather than any sort of deep statement about food. I thought the taste was bland and though the patty looked like meat, it really tasted nothing like it.

Enter Impossible Foods.

Impossible Foods has really upped the meatless game with its Impossible Burger. For those curious like me, Impossible "meat" is actually made of soy and potato proteins. They mix in some coconut and sunflower oils so that the patty will sizzle as it cooks. But the ingredient revolutionizing the game is heme. Heme is a protein found in hemoglobin, that part of the blood that carries oxygen throughout the body. Heme is also found in plants, and serves the same purpose -- oxygen transportation. The heme used in Impossible Burgers has been extracted from soy roots and is what makes Impossible Burgers taste and have a mouth-feel like actual meat. Or so everyone on the internet keeps saying.

For a limited time, Burger King has started serving the Impossible Burger nationwide. What better opportunity than this to compare this manufactured patty to real beef? Side by side, with the exact same buns and toppings, would I notice the difference between beef and Impossible burger?

Submitted by Rebecca LaClair Head to head Whopper battle! The Impossible Whopper on the left and the 100% beef Whopper on the right.

Upon receiving the two Whoppers, I first looked at them. They looked the same, and were actually in pretty good shape for a fast food burger. No smashed buns; toppings well centered. Then I flipped the burgers over and removed the bottom bun to look at the patties. The Impossible patty was a perfect circle, with harsh bold sides that were straight up and down. The patty looked like meat, and was even browned a little nicer than the real beef patty. I reassembled the burgers and cut them in half. I pinched the Impossible burger between my fingers, and it actually oozed a clear meaty juice, just like a real beef patty would. For the record, when I compressed the real beef patty, it was also juicy.

Time to taste.

Of course, I took a bite of the Impossible Whopper first. There was the chewy bun, the pale red tomato, the bite of pickle, and the ketchup and mayo (no onions, thank you). Already, I could taste the patty didn't taste quite right. The texture was almost spot on, but the taste reminded me of an event in my childhood. My mother is an excellent cook, but maybe once every other month, she would just have a tired day and resort to a frozen meal from the grocery store. When I was about 10, she told me to put a Stouffers Salisbury Steak in the oven for supper, which I did happily. She was just teaching me to cook more, and I was excited about getting to use the oven. Well, 30 minutes or so later, we sat down to eat our fine frozen steak patties, which were really just ground patties with gravy. And man, did those Salisbury steaks taste weird. We figured out that I had forgotten to remove the plastic seal from the top of the cardboard dish, and it had melted all over the meat. And that's what the Impossible Whopper tasted like to me: frozen meat topped with a little bit of melted plastic.

When I took a bite of the real beef Whopper and then took a second bite of the Impossible Whopper, the difference was even more pronounced. The real beef was less dry, more flavorful, and had a slightly more grainy texture than the Impossible burger, which was smoother and more uniform.

In short, I'm not trying to make a philosophical statement here. I'm talking about taste. If you have decided to eschew animal products and are craving a burger, Impossible burgers are going to be a good fit for you. It looks like a burger, mostly tastes like a burger if you use your imagination and can be topped with everything you enjoy like a burger. But they have not perfected "meat" made from plants at this stage, and when I crave a burger, I want the real deal, rich and complex. People will tell the difference, and beef still tastes better.