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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: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Friday June 24 2016, @07:26AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Friday June 24 2016, @07:26AM (#364787) Homepage

    You're an idiot.

    Eating non-meat products that taste like meat is not "faking it." If anyone's being a hipster, it's you.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Informative=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @10:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @10:00AM (#364847)

    I Couldn’t Stop Eating Meat

    I was enthusiastic about becoming a vegetarian. My understanding was that certain foods, such as corn and lima beans, could be mixed together to form complete sets of protein – valuable proteins that would enable me to keep running my Unreal Tournament fan site without the frequent nausea and unconsciousness that accompanied my efforts to cease eating alltogether.

    The first day without meat was fine. I had a craving for a hot dog shortly after lunch, but I ate some yougurt and then licked the aluminum foil lid until the cravings passed some thirty minutes later. Dinner consisted of what vegetarians call “quiche,” which is pronounced “quiche.” It’s like a pie, but there’s no meat, not even the obvious choice of bacon – which seemed very strange to me.

    By the third day the traffic on my Unreal Tournament fan site was up. I think this is because, possibly while I was feeling faint in the late morning, I replaced my webpage background pattern with a brilliantly tiled .gif image of raw, tasty ground beef.

    The sixth day was almost my worst. I had taken some tofu and mashed and kneeded it until it was roughly the shape of a turkey leg. Then I inserted a curling iron into it, to pretend it was a bone. I forgot it was on. Tasty, though. Worth the pain. I had seconds.

    The seventh day I blacked out.

    My eighth day as a vegetarian was my last. I awoke covered in foam that seemed to be eminating from my mouth. I crawled to a soup kitchen and stole a barbecue fork from a man wrapped in a garbage bag. As if in a dream I watched myself standing on a table threatening passers-by. “Meat!” I shouted. “Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat! … Meat! Meat! Meat! MEAT! … Meat!” A woman in white was serving soup. It was potato soup. They had no meat that day. I had a fork.

    The woman in white was delicious.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @05:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 24 2016, @05:20PM (#365036)

      Strangest delicious sausage creepypasta I've ever read.