With an increased number of documentaries discussing the benefits of a plant based diet to us and to the planet, there’s been a significant rise in individuals switching to vegetarian, or even vegan diets. However, meat eaters still find it difficult to let go of the seemingly irresistible proteins that dominate so many of their diets, and there is also a cultural aspect that prevents some people from cutting meat out of their diets.. Impossible Meat hopes to make this difficult transition easier. Made primarily from products of soy, it is supposed to replicate the taste of meat but not use as many resources as meat needs to be produced.
The production of meat has been stressed repeatedly by documentaries to be harmful to the human body such as The Game Changers - which involved many high performing athletes - but this claim is still up in the air and, in my opinion, heavily dependent on the individual - there is no one-diet-fits-all solution. What’s alarming, though, is the amount of resources needed to produce it, the space, and animals required. A while back in my Science class, I watched a video that described the resources needed to make a kilogram of beef, and was shocked to know how large the number was. Not to mention the harm done to animals - the cramped, unhygienic conditions they must endure and the ingredients they are fed in order to output the meat. Antibiotics and growth hormones are being ingested by livestock as well, and these do raise a few red flags in terms of health.
This is why the concept of Impossible Meat was such a welcome surprise - to know that the environmental impact could be so highly reduced by using soy to replicate the taste of meat, and therefore help the transition to a plant based diet was great. The carbon footprint required to produce an Impossible Burger was 89% less than making a normal beef burger. It also uses 87% less water and 96% less land. Recently, many developments have been made to work on the flavour profile of the Impossible Meat, so that it is as appealing to meat eaters as possible.
While the environmental impacts suggest that Impossible Meat is a much better alternative, nutrition-wise, one should not be fooled into thinking that it’s very healthy to consume. Impossible Foods are quite high in saturated fat - around 8% per 4 ounce serving. This means that if you’re looking for a switch to a plant-based diet for health reasons, it would be better not to use Impossible Meat as a way of doing so, and instead one should look for better alternatives..
Personally, as a vegetarian, after trying Impossible Meat, I’m not a big fan of what it tastes like, but many meat eaters I know think it tastes perfectly fine. It’s possible this could be because I’ve never tasted meat, but given that Impossible Meat strives to appeal to non-vegetarians and I’m not the target audience, it’s not a problem.
Currently, there are two companies, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, that are both competitors in the industry of meatless meat - and recently they have announced partnerships with several fast food chains and burger joints such as KFC and Burger King, in an effort to promote their products. This suggests that Impossible Meat could soon be accessible in popular food chains we enjoy eating at, and that it might soon have a massive global environmental impact.
While at first Impossible Meat may seem like a disappointing attempt at replicating meat, developments in the industry continue to be made regularly. In the future, hopefully as a collective, we will continue to move towards more sustainable diets. In my opinion, even cutting down consumption of meat as opposed to completely turning vegetarian is a step in the right direction, in ensuring the longevity of our planet.
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