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posted by martyb on Friday June 24 2016, @03:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the Let's-get-Mikey! dept.

Several startups are trying to take plant-based meat alternatives to a new level. They include Impossible Foods, which has created a meatless burger that contains heme, a molecule that contributes color, taste, and texture to meat:

This summer, diners in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles will get their hands on a hamburger that's been five years in the making. The burger looks, tastes and smells just like beef — except it's made entirely from plants. It sizzles on the grill and even browns and oozes fat when it cooks. It's the brainchild of former Stanford biochemist Patrick Brown and his research team at Northern California-based Impossible Foods.

[...] It's not the only faux meat company selling bloody plant patties. Last month, Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat made headlines when it released the Beyond Burger, its pea protein burger that sizzles like real meat and "bleeds" beet juice. The burgers quickly sold out after debuting at a Whole Foods in Boulder, Colo. Beyond Meat's investors include Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates is also backing Impossible Foods. So is billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Google Ventures. All told, the company has raised some $182 million in seed funding. Last year, Impossible Foods turned down Google's offer to buy the company for $200 to $300 million.

The Impossible Burger is more than just peas and carrots smashed together: It's the result of some pretty high-tech research. Brown's team analyzes meat at a molecular level to determine what makes a burger taste, smell and cook the way it does. He wants his burgers to be squishy while raw, then firm up and brown on the grill. He believes everything from an animal's fat tissue to muscle cells can be replicated using plant compounds.

The true test? Making the plant-based substance carcinogenic.


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  • (Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday June 24 2016, @06:13AM

    by darnkitten (1912) on Friday June 24 2016, @06:13AM (#364761)

    Oh, some hot dogs are good--not many, and not often, I grant you.

    Usually, you eat hot dogs to remind yourself why you don't eat hotdogs.

    --like candy corn. or grape jelly. or Kool Aid--or any of the thousand-and-one so-called foods you loved as a kid and occasionally nostalgia-crave until you actually taste them again as an adult .

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @06:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @06:19AM (#364762)

    what the hell is wrong with you people? I love hot dogs.
    I know I shouldn't eat them very often because they're not healthy, but I love them.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:16PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:16PM (#367193) Journal

      I gotta say I find myself agreeing with anti-hotdog sentiments. I can't take store-bought, brand-name hot dogs like oscar meyer or ballpark. I don't know if they changed their formula or if my body changed, but eating them now makes me queasy. The last kind I could take were natural ones available at the Polish market down the avenue, but they're gone now.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 24 2016, @08:12PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday June 24 2016, @08:12PM (#365120)

    Except for the part where basically every single thing that you can eat is bad for you somehow.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"