These days I identify as a weekday flexitarian. No, that’s not actually an accepted moniker, but it’s the made-up name for my attempt to regularly eat less meat. I’m the person my friends send funny bacon memes to and was once even gifted a tank top with the phrase “Will wake up for bacon” emblazoned on the front. So yeah, I used to eat too much meat.
But as I’ve morphed into a much more environmentally conscious San Franciscan, I’ve realized that my heavy meat consumption isn’t so great for my health or the planet. I’m currently trying not to eat meat during the week but will let myself splurge for a meal or two on the weekends.
My quest is helped by all of the fake-meat products exploding onto the food scene. Don’t get me wrong—I love a good black-bean burger, but sometimes the intense salty, juicy umami flavor that comes only from beef is the only thing that can satisfy my cravings. Now that the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat products are so widely available—Burger King is releasing the Impossible Whopper nationwide release on Thursday—I’ve been eager to put them to the test.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve hit up a few fast-food establishments now carrying these plant-based meat substitutes — promising to make them mainstream in America — to see how the alternatives really stacked up against the originals when they went head to head.
My “scientific” method: order the fake-meat menu item and the same one with real meat at each fast-food joint, taste them blindfolded, and see how they compare and if I could tell the difference. I also tasted each product on its own without any toppings or sauces.
Carl’s Junior
Could I tell the difference? Yes
Which tastes better? Beyond Famous Star
Famous Star with Cheese: $4.65
Beyond Famous Star with Cheese: $8.49
Cost increase: 45% more
While I’d never tasted an Impossible Burger before this taste test, I once bought Beyond burgers at my local Safeway and cooked them in my household, only to get a mediocre response. I wanted to see if that had created some type of bias in my blindfolded test, but it didn’t. Which burger was which became immediately obvious when I tasted the Beyond Famous Star, as the texture was more reminiscent of a veggie burger than an actual burger. There was a lot of squish to it, and it was even more discernible since the Beyond patty seemed slightly larger than the traditional beef burger patty.
When tasted on its own, the Beyond patty delivered more intense umami notes than the beef patty did, but I’m less inclined to say that the Beyond patty is far superior because of it. Impossible Burger flaunts their hunt for the best meat texture and the meat’s ability to “bleed,” and it seems like Beyond Meat should be focusing more on that as well. Beyond Meat’s texture isn’t really anything like beef — it’s more like a squishy veggie burger.
Burger King
Could I tell the difference? Yes
Which tastes better? The Impossible Whopper, marginally
Impossible Whopper: $7.08
Whopper: $5.59
Cost increase: 27%
Burger King’s signature Whopper is a quarter pound of “flame-grilled” beef topped with tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles, and onions on a sesame-seed bun. Even with all that going on, it took only one bite to detect which Whopper contained an Impossible patty. The Whopper patties are among the thinnest of the fast-food burgers I tasted, so much so that Impossible Foods had to create a specific shape and size for the chain so that the patties worked with their cooking process. With such a thin patty, there was less of a discernible difference in texture between the two, but the Impossible patty seemed dry and probably overcooked, while the regular patty was its usual spongy, tasteless self. The signature grill marks and “char” on the patty remained the same on both, keeping things consistent and lending a mildly smoky flavor to each. But when tasted on their own, both came up relatively bland, with the Impossible patty edging out the original patty by a small margin.
Luckily, fast-food burgers like the Whopper have a lot going on between all that mayo and ketchup, so the chain’s been successful at covering up a terrible watery base for a long time. Without a blindfold on, you’ll be able to tell right away because the Impossible patty is so perfectly circular. But on a slightly unrelated note, have Burger King buns always been so aggressively buttered? It’s almost distracting.
Gott’s
Could I tell the difference? Yes
Which tastes better? Impossible Cheeseburger
Impossible Cheeseburger: $12.99
Regular Cheeseburger: $8.99
Cost increase: 44% more
While Gott’s definitely isn’t in the same class as Burger King or Carl’s Junior, it’s a local San Francisco chain that promises to deliver a fresher version of these fast-food burgers, so I figured their burgers warranted a taste. The patties at Gott’s are noticeably thicker than those at fast-food restaurants, but that’s not what gave it away. Perhaps because there was more Impossible patty to taste, the protein taste was very forward, with an almost discernible mushroom flavor that pops. I’m not so sure that Gott’s regular meat patty, when tasted on its own, was under-seasoned so much as the Impossible packed a bomb of flavor. It made the regular meat taste bland.
The Gott’s version was the best version of the Impossible burger I tasted in this taste test, and I suspect it’s due to the cooking method. The meat appeared to be cooked more to a medium level than its fast-food counterparts, but then again, so did the regular beef burger. Notably, Gott’s offers its Impossible Cheeseburger with all kinds of modifications — including bacon on top. What a wild contradiction.
Del Taco
Could I tell the difference? No
Which tastes better? Real meat, but barely
Del Taco: Two for $1.69
Beyond Taco: Two for $2.49
Cost increase: 32% more
I took my initial bite, and as the toppings tumbled out of their crispy shell and grease dripped down my chin, I — for the first time — had no idea which was which. Now this is something I could see incorporating into my at-home cooking and using to trick my meat-loving husband. With taco meat so liberally seasoned and piled high with cheese and tomatoes and lettuce, it’s more about the texture than the taste. The texture of the Beyond Meat pieces were slightly more doughy than the beef ones, but both meats were flavorful and satisfying on their own and as part of the taco.
If you’ve ever had Soyrizo, this will feel like a similar alternative to you, but better. Whereas Soyrizo usually feels greasy for no particular reason, the Beyond Meat crumbles feel uniform and appropriate in terms of texture, fat, color, and flavor.
White Castle
Could I tell the difference? Yes
Which tastes better? Original
White Castle Slider: $0.79
Impossible White Castle Slider: $1.99
Cost increase: 151% increase
Yes, you read that right, and no, there are no White Castles in the Bay Area. I was lucky enough to have a preplanned trip to my hometown of Chicago during this challenge, which boasts several locations of this burger chain. With my meat-loving, White Castle–loving brothers in tow, I bit into both versions of the company’s signature slider only to find that this part of the test was pointless. The Impossible Slider was much thicker than the original; with the excess meat, the Impossible patty didn’t melt into the pillowy bun like the original did. This size difference appears to be intentional, though, as it’s also evident in website photos and made even more obvious when you look at the caloric difference (the Impossible has almost twice as many calories). So was Impossible unable to mimic the thin, original White Castle patty, or did White Castle want there to be an obvious difference?
The intense onion flavor present in the original Slider was absent in the Impossible Slider, which led me to believe that the Impossible Slider is not “steam-grilled on a bed of onions,” like the original is. It was actually the most unflavored patty I found across the fast-food joints, even though it seemed to be cooked properly and maintained that beefy texture. The big takeaway here was that it had probably been at least 15 years since I had had White Castle, and dear God had I forgot how good the original Slider is. Do you think I can convince them to build a few White Castles in California?
All in all, these alternatives definitely help curb my cravings for burgers and ground meat. It’s clear that Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are going after an important market, and I’m excited to see what comes next.
Whether these fake-meat products are much healthier alternatives is questionable—the fast food versions still left me feeling sluggish and greasy every time I finished—but the environmental appeal is unquestionable. These alternatives use about 75% less water, generate about 87% fewer greenhouse gases, and require around 95% less land than conventional ground beef from cows does, according to the company’s sustainability report.
It seems that educating consumers about these benefits, as well as making the products as affordable as possible—expected over time—will be the only way to keep these “meats” from being another passing trend.
