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I really enjoy both BeyondBeef and Impossible Burger. My thoughts are that BeyondBeef has a kind of plastic-y smell, but is almost exactly right in terms of co

I really enjoy both BeyondBeef and Impossible Burger. My thoughts are that BeyondBeef has a kind of plastic-y smell, but is almost exactly right in terms of color and texture. The smell is not concerning to me, but it is distinct for my palette. I still eat it, and don't mind. Aside from the burgers, I also really enjoy the spicy Italian sausages. There is a slightly different taste than pork-based sausages, but I would never complain about a Beyond Meat spicy sausage in my Italian food. The sweet Italian version tastes almost like a breakfast sausage to me. For Impossible Burgers, I feel like the taste is virtually 100%. I don't actually know, if I were eating an impossible burger on a bun with the fixings, if I could tell you it was an impossible burger. The only thing they would lose on is the texture and maybe the color. The texture is more... chipped(?) than ground beef, so looking at a patty (probably easier with an 8oz than a 4oz) is pretty obvious, but man, the flavor is great. Like I said, I eat either one of them as my first choice whenever they're sold at a restaurant.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Totally agree on Impossible Burgers. Like the GP, I also try to avoid eating meat due to animal welfare concerns. That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. With Impossible Burgers, though, it really tastes and feels like I'm eating a real burger. It completely satiates my desire for meat, and it makes my body feel "good" from an energy perspective.
- atweiden 5y ago
  > That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. The same thing happened to me when I first tried going vegan. It wasn’t until I went through a major effort at planning my meals — to the point of making an outright diet plan for myself — that I was able to make veganism work for me. From your description, it sounds like you were eating too little calories.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    Could also have been b12 or iron. You're right about meal planning. I also think that if you're going to cut out an entire food group you should phase it out. You eat food every single day. You have to find something that works long term for you. A key thing is that some folks have boring "meat and potatoes" taste, with no interest in moving beyond that. My parents are old-timers living in the Irish countryside. When I was growing up in the early 80s, you couldn't get one-tenth the stuff I now eat a daily basis. I became a vegetarian by first developing a love for cooking (especially Indian). When you have a wide range of tastes, and the supermarkets stock everything you need, it's easy to find alternative to meat. Otherwise, it takes a long time to expand your tastes and learn what to actually do with ingredients. My mother walks around the supermarket at the weekend, and still picks up the same old things she used to get in the 80s. She wouldn't know what to do with 90% of the herbs and spices on my shelf. So asking her to cut out the one tasty part of her daily meal is pointless, not to mention unhealthy (she would have low b12 and iron). If I were a meat eater planning to go vegetarian I would avoid cold turkey (not a pun). Phase it out. Maybe start with the biggest greenhouse emitters (cow), or the most intelligent (pig). Maybe give up fowl and fish last. Rather than see it as a limitation, start by learning how to cook one new meal every week that is nutritious, tasty and also meat free. Also, if someone else is doing all the hard work (ie: you're in a restaurant or ordering delivery) use that as an opportunity to try different things that don't have meat. Indian food is great for this because it's not just "meat and potatoes without the meat" or their vegetarian food is amazing. But you might need to develop a taste for it. For some people it might take a year, but if you think about it as expanding your tastes, perhaps it won't feel like a chore, and you won't feel like you've given up anything (especially now that you can fall back on the decent meatless burgers/sausage you can get nowadays).
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      It's funny to me how people talk about iron being a problem on a vegetarian diet. I've been a vegetarian for a decade or so now and my iron level is consistently at the very high end of the normal range. I don't do anything special to achieve this.
DistressedDrone 5y ago
As a vegetarian, I really don't get why people are so focused on realistic meat replacement. Like, there are other things to eat. I especially don't get why people want the texture of red meat like beef patties. So you like... soft food? There's no arguing tastes, it's just weird to me that that's what other vegetarians would care about.
- rbg246 5y ago
  My thought is it's for people who are meat replacing rather than being vegetarian. I agree with you about so many foods to choose from. For me as a vegetarian it's an absurd thing wanting to eat something that tastes like animal but it's a taste thing so it's just a subjective view of mine.
- rallison 5y ago
  I thought this way too until the Beyond/Impossible burgers. Before them, the garden burgers and similar options mostly got a "why bother?" reaction from me. Give me a dish that is meant to be vegetarian, not something trying and failing to replicate a meat dish. But I also love a good burger. To each their own, of course, but a well cooked burger (well cooked, not well done) made with quality meat.. it's hard to top. And that's the thing with Beyond and Impossible - while they don't hit the level of top tier burgers, they're actually "close enough" to the taste and texture of real beef that I actually enjoy them as a burger, not just as a burger substitute. And being close enough is massively important. You aren't going to get the world to go vegetarian on ethical appeals. But plant-based meats that are able to get close enough, especially if they can end up priced cheaper than meat, will provide a much easier transition to less meat consumption. And hey, it doesn't even need to mean that people go to 100% vegetarian; significant reductions would help a lot.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    Yes, I agree that the price is a very big factor for mass adoption.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  As an omnivore it’s because burger is delicious. If I can get the burger without the cow I’m down. Frankly forget about what they’re replacing, they just taste pretty good. Just a round puck of yum.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
FWIW, I thought the Impossible Burger clearly tasted like heavily processed legumes, not like meat. I grew up in one of the major legume growing regions of the US and was raised on them in a part of the world where the local food culture knows how to get the most out of them. It is very satisfying when done right, and I eat far more than the average American to this day, but no one would confuse it with meat. Impossible Burger etc tastes like overly processed legumes with some chemical-y overtones. Ironically, I think it would be far more appealing if they didn’t try to make it simulated meat and leaned into its strengths. Vegetarian burgers that don’t pretend to be meat taste better. Legumes that are expertly processed as a protein, without trying to be meat, taste better. The Impossible Burger falls into the same category as “fat-free mayo”; trying to maintain the pretense ultimately produces a poor experience. I am an accidental vegetarian most days but I won’t eat Beyond Beef or Impossible Burger. The products taste unpleasantly synthetic. If I wanted to eat legumes, I can create something far better tasting for much less money. If I want a burger, I’ll eat a burger — marketing aside, the gap is still very wide.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  To each their own. I completely disagree, in that the Impossible Burger, and to a lesser degree the Beyond Burger, are the first vegetarian products I've eaten that completely satiate my desire for meat, and I really like the taste with good seasoning, ketchup and mustard. I've eaten many veggie burgers previously, whether they be bean, soy, or mushroom based, and always after eating one I felt like it tasted OK, but I was left wanting a steak even more.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    The preparation may matter. For example, I don’t put ketchup and mustard on my burgers, which will probably disguise a lot of the processed legume taste. I don’t use strongly flavored sauces. For reasons I don’t understand, some of the most satisfying unintentionally vegetarian food I’ve eaten has been in the agriculture regions of the US, like the Palouse, where legumes are ubiquitous local crops. Popular vegetarian cooking has never picked up those recipes, which are much better to my taste than what passes as a lot of vegetarian fare. I’ll go for months as a vegetarian but I cook my own food, leaning heavily on the cuisine of regions that aren’t vegetarian per se but nonetheless produce surprisingly satisfying vegetarian dishes based on legumes. I’ve convinced far more meat eaters with these dishes than with fake meat. It’s a marketing gap. A lot of vegetarian cooking is biased towards a sweet/sour/starchy flavor profile; people that don’t like those flavors in their food generally are on their own, the alternatives are not well represented.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Totally agree on Impossible Burgers. Like the GP, I also try to avoid eating meat due to animal welfare concerns. That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. With Impossible Burgers, though, it really tastes and feels like I'm eating a real burger. It completely satiates my desire for meat, and it makes my body feel "good" from an energy perspective.

atweiden 5y ago
> That, said, I've tried going vegetarian multiple times before and honestly I felt awful - I'm naturally very slim and not particularly energetic to begin with, and when I was on a vegetarian diet I felt totally lethargic. The same thing happened to me when I first tried going vegan. It wasn’t until I went through a major effort at planning my meals — to the point of making an outright diet plan for myself — that I was able to make veganism work for me. From your description, it sounds like you were eating too little calories.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  Could also have been b12 or iron. You're right about meal planning. I also think that if you're going to cut out an entire food group you should phase it out. You eat food every single day. You have to find something that works long term for you. A key thing is that some folks have boring "meat and potatoes" taste, with no interest in moving beyond that. My parents are old-timers living in the Irish countryside. When I was growing up in the early 80s, you couldn't get one-tenth the stuff I now eat a daily basis. I became a vegetarian by first developing a love for cooking (especially Indian). When you have a wide range of tastes, and the supermarkets stock everything you need, it's easy to find alternative to meat. Otherwise, it takes a long time to expand your tastes and learn what to actually do with ingredients. My mother walks around the supermarket at the weekend, and still picks up the same old things she used to get in the 80s. She wouldn't know what to do with 90% of the herbs and spices on my shelf. So asking her to cut out the one tasty part of her daily meal is pointless, not to mention unhealthy (she would have low b12 and iron). If I were a meat eater planning to go vegetarian I would avoid cold turkey (not a pun). Phase it out. Maybe start with the biggest greenhouse emitters (cow), or the most intelligent (pig). Maybe give up fowl and fish last. Rather than see it as a limitation, start by learning how to cook one new meal every week that is nutritious, tasty and also meat free. Also, if someone else is doing all the hard work (ie: you're in a restaurant or ordering delivery) use that as an opportunity to try different things that don't have meat. Indian food is great for this because it's not just "meat and potatoes without the meat" or their vegetarian food is amazing. But you might need to develop a taste for it. For some people it might take a year, but if you think about it as expanding your tastes, perhaps it won't feel like a chore, and you won't feel like you've given up anything (especially now that you can fall back on the decent meatless burgers/sausage you can get nowadays).
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    It's funny to me how people talk about iron being a problem on a vegetarian diet. I've been a vegetarian for a decade or so now and my iron level is consistently at the very high end of the normal range. I don't do anything special to achieve this.

DistressedDrone 5y ago

As a vegetarian, I really don't get why people are so focused on realistic meat replacement. Like, there are other things to eat. I especially don't get why people want the texture of red meat like beef patties. So you like... soft food? There's no arguing tastes, it's just weird to me that that's what other vegetarians would care about.

rbg246 5y ago
My thought is it's for people who are meat replacing rather than being vegetarian. I agree with you about so many foods to choose from. For me as a vegetarian it's an absurd thing wanting to eat something that tastes like animal but it's a taste thing so it's just a subjective view of mine.
rallison 5y ago
I thought this way too until the Beyond/Impossible burgers. Before them, the garden burgers and similar options mostly got a "why bother?" reaction from me. Give me a dish that is meant to be vegetarian, not something trying and failing to replicate a meat dish. But I also love a good burger. To each their own, of course, but a well cooked burger (well cooked, not well done) made with quality meat.. it's hard to top. And that's the thing with Beyond and Impossible - while they don't hit the level of top tier burgers, they're actually "close enough" to the taste and texture of real beef that I actually enjoy them as a burger, not just as a burger substitute. And being close enough is massively important. You aren't going to get the world to go vegetarian on ethical appeals. But plant-based meats that are able to get close enough, especially if they can end up priced cheaper than meat, will provide a much easier transition to less meat consumption. And hey, it doesn't even need to mean that people go to 100% vegetarian; significant reductions would help a lot.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  Yes, I agree that the price is a very big factor for mass adoption.
arcticbull 5y ago
As an omnivore it’s because burger is delicious. If I can get the burger without the cow I’m down. Frankly forget about what they’re replacing, they just taste pretty good. Just a round puck of yum.

jandrewrogers 5y ago

FWIW, I thought the Impossible Burger clearly tasted like heavily processed legumes, not like meat. I grew up in one of the major legume growing regions of the US and was raised on them in a part of the world where the local food culture knows how to get the most out of them. It is very satisfying when done right, and I eat far more than the average American to this day, but no one would confuse it with meat. Impossible Burger etc tastes like overly processed legumes with some chemical-y overtones. Ironically, I think it would be far more appealing if they didn’t try to make it simulated meat and leaned into its strengths. Vegetarian burgers that don’t pretend to be meat taste better. Legumes that are expertly processed as a protein, without trying to be meat, taste better. The Impossible Burger falls into the same category as “fat-free mayo”; trying to maintain the pretense ultimately produces a poor experience. I am an accidental vegetarian most days but I won’t eat Beyond Beef or Impossible Burger. The products taste unpleasantly synthetic. If I wanted to eat legumes, I can create something far better tasting for much less money. If I want a burger, I’ll eat a burger — marketing aside, the gap is still very wide.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
To each their own. I completely disagree, in that the Impossible Burger, and to a lesser degree the Beyond Burger, are the first vegetarian products I've eaten that completely satiate my desire for meat, and I really like the taste with good seasoning, ketchup and mustard. I've eaten many veggie burgers previously, whether they be bean, soy, or mushroom based, and always after eating one I felt like it tasted OK, but I was left wanting a steak even more.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  The preparation may matter. For example, I don’t put ketchup and mustard on my burgers, which will probably disguise a lot of the processed legume taste. I don’t use strongly flavored sauces. For reasons I don’t understand, some of the most satisfying unintentionally vegetarian food I’ve eaten has been in the agriculture regions of the US, like the Palouse, where legumes are ubiquitous local crops. Popular vegetarian cooking has never picked up those recipes, which are much better to my taste than what passes as a lot of vegetarian fare. I’ll go for months as a vegetarian but I cook my own food, leaning heavily on the cuisine of regions that aren’t vegetarian per se but nonetheless produce surprisingly satisfying vegetarian dishes based on legumes. I’ve convinced far more meat eaters with these dishes than with fake meat. It’s a marketing gap. A lot of vegetarian cooking is biased towards a sweet/sour/starchy flavor profile; people that don’t like those flavors in their food generally are on their own, the alternatives are not well represented.