Impossible Foods, a Silicon Valley based startup food company founded by Dr. Patrick Brown, recently received $75 million in funding from leaders in the tech industry to manufacture the world’s first meatless burger.
These meatless burgers will be much different than the delicious Black Bean Burgers that we are used to eating because they will be manufactured with soy leghemoglobin which is a protein that carries heme, a molecule that carries iron and it found in every living creature, including humans and plants!
The main challenge posed to Impossible Foods was recreating the sensory experience of eating a burger – the texture, aroma, nutrition, and even the appearance of how it looks raw and how it sizzles on the grill – except using only plant based and natural ingredients. The burger is made primarily of wheat, coconut oil, potatoes, and heme. Their research developed a new way to extract heme from plants and ferment it, giving the plant based base a meaty texture and rich taste.
The burgers are completely vegan, but because they contain wheat protein, they are not gluten free. Each burger contains 20g of protein and 3mg of iron, levels which are comparable to a conventional beef burger.
The Impossible Burger is currently only available to try at select restaurants in New York, LA, Las Vegas, Texas, and San Francisco. Their latest round of funding will allow for expansion into grocery stores to be available at an accessible price throughout the country.
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