A Stanford professor created The Impossible Cheeseburger made of veggies but tastes and looks like meat.
Patrick Brown, a professor from Stanford University, developed the burger under his company Impossible Foods. His team created a vegetarian burger that supposedly tastes like red meat. Though its made entirely of plant ingredients, the texture and appearance of the patty resembles ground beef patty.
Those who have tried the burger said the taste is a cross between beef and turkey. It's also moist the way you expect beef patties to be. When the meat is being cooked, it releases a blood-like substance reminiscent of real meat.
The veggie patty is made from heme, found in hemoglobin specifically the red blood cells. It's also found in roots of legumes like peanuts and soybeans.
"(Heme is) the reason meat tastes like nothing else. It's the reason why red meat, which has more heme, tastes meatier to people than white meat," Brown told The Wall Street Journal.
However, New Republic said that this isn't the type of burger vegetarians do not like. The taste and texture of meat turn most of the people who practice the diet. The more real-looking the veggie burger is, the more they do not want to eat it, such as The Impossible Cheeseburger.
"We don't want something that resembles meat in flavor, texture, or smell, and certainly not in taste or bloodiness," said Alice Robb, a New Republic writer.
Impossible Foods is an organization aims to develop a new generation of cheese and meat made from plants. "Our mission is to give people the great taste and nutritional benefits of foods that come from animals without the negative health and environmental impact," they said on the website.
The organization looks at the molecular level of plants and look for specific proteins in greens, grains, and seeds to create realistic meats and cheese.
For the past three years, the research organization has received $75-million funding from companies like Google Ventures and personalities like Bill Gates.
