Beyond Meat – Beyond Burger

Happy Friday!

So today was TBDV’s first time tucking into a Beyond Burger by Beyond Meat :

For those not familiar with it, Beyond Meat is a project that, 7 years in the making, aims to provide a plant based protein as at least a partial replacement for animal based protein. In doing so, the thinking is that it will place less of a burden on this crowded planet’s limited resources. Production of a gram of plant based protein needs less water and land than that of a protein based gram, and additionally causes far fewer adverse environmental issues. Sounds like a plan!

Now, TBDV’s quite the fan of veggie burgers, so was rightly quite looking forward to trying this. The one concern was that, although plant based and vegan, these products are aimed more at our carnivorous friends as a healthier alternative to beef. Beyond Meat aims to get close to the texture and flavour of a “traditional” burger, which actually ends up putting quite a few vegetarians off – TBDV has often been told that “if i wanted something that tasted like meat, i would eat meat.”

Anyway, on to the burger, which was fairly simple – cheese (sadly a processed cheese slice), lettuce and the burger patty on a basic sesame seed burger bun. The patty itself was quite small compared to the bun, so looked a little lost in there!

The texture of the patty was quite firm, had a bit of bite to it – being a vegetarian, TBDV can’ tell you if it’s close to the texture of a beef patty. Flavour was fairly mild, with a bit of smokiness to it, which is presumably how they achieve a “meaty” flavour. It was quite a dense patty, and probably heavier than a regular veggie patty would be. Again, this could be part of the plan as a substitute to animal based products, but TBDV was pretty full by the end of it, and still is 2 hours later.

Unfortunately, something else has also lasted for a couple of hours after the meal – a very oily, fatty aftertaste. It is doubtful if the preparation of the burger was the reason for this, as the patty was quite dry, so perhaps it was the ingredients. Having a look at the Beyond Meat website reveals that a few different vegetable oils are used in the production of Beyond Burgers (Canola, Coconut and Sunflower oils), and total fat and saturated fat vales are quite high(31% and 25% respectively). Could it be this? Or is this how one feels after consuming a beef burger? Thoughts? Comments below please.

While a little disappointed with the burger, TBDV will definitely give it another chance – Beyond Meat is trying to do good things for people and the planet, and this should be celebrated and encouraged. So, while not crazy about today’s meal, judgement will be reserved until a little more research is carried out.

Have a great weekend!