Impossible Burger
If you are looking for a sustainable replacement for ground beef look no further. The Impossible Burger is the best vegan plant-based alternative for ground beef or lamb no question. It is truly a marvelous food that is already a huge part of the sustainability solution. Overall, its carbon, land, water, and energy footprint is much smaller than the production of any common animal-derived protein.
Not only is it more environmentally friendly, it is delicious too! It is the vegan alternative most similar to beef in my opinion. It smells, feels, and looks like beef with a browned exterior and a“bleeding” effect of iron-rich heme that is produced through yeast fermentation like a lot of new food ingredients these days. This completely safe and controlled fermentation practice prevented them from needing to extract the plant-based heme ingredient (Soy Leghemoglobin) from soybean roots, which would have greatly contributed to soil erosion.
You can buy Impossible Burger at your local grocery store and online. There are instructions on the 12 oz. package on how to cook it and their website has a lot of great looking recipes if you are looking for something other than a burger. It requires a bit of chefiness to cook it best, but so do a lot of foods like squash and eggplant. The main idea is to get a good sear on it for any recipe and whatever you do don’t steam it. One of my favorite recipes to use it in is Polish Halupki otherwise known as stuffed cabbage rolls.
In the foodie community, there is a debate over who makes the better vegan burger Impossible Foods or Beyond Foods. it is almost the Coke vs. Pepsi scenario of the alternative protein world. I am firmly within the Impossible Foods camp for the burger because I want my vegan burger to emulate the real ground beef experience heme and all, but I do think that the Beyond Foods Brats are amazing too.
Ingredient List: Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate